A Season of Dreams Read online

  Violet tried to throw off her gloom as evening drew on. Helen was working on her dress for the dance, and Anne was reading aloud to Clinton. Logan sat in a chair reading his Bible after a hard day in the field.

  “It’s time for Amos ’n’ Andy, Pa.”

  “Well, I don’t know—the battery’s about run down. I hate to use it up. Might want to hear the news.”

  “Well, I’d rather hear Amos ’n’ Andy than the news anytime. Let’s hear it, Pa—please?” Violet pleaded.

  Logan grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Might as well use it up, I guess. Amos said he would send a new battery down in a week or two.”

  He walked over to the table and turned on the battery-powered radio, wondering what it would be like to have a house with electricity. Just plug a radio in—wouldn’t that be something! The battery was always running down at the most inconvenient times, but soon Violet and Logan and the others were listening to the most popular program on radio, the work of two white men, Freeman F. Gosden and Charles J. Correll, portraying their idea of an African-American dialect. The program had taken the country by storm, so that one could hardly walk a block in an American town at that hour without hearing, “I’se regusted” and “That’s the proposition” issuing from window after window. Violet and Logan laughed at the antics of Andy Brown and the Kingfish, and finally, as the music issued the sign-off, the battery gave its last gasp of energy and the voices trailed off.

  Shutting off the switch, Violet sighed. “Well, I guess that’s it till we get a new battery. They’re so funny, aren’t they?”

  “They sure are!” Logan agreed, then lifted his head. He had extraordinary hearing and said, “I hear a team coming.”

  “It must be Ray!” Violet cried. She put the dress down on the chair and ran to the front door followed by Logan. “It’s him!” she cried.

  The two stood on the front porch and watched as the team pulled the wagon down the dirt road, a pillar of dust behind it dissipated by the slight breeze that the night was bringing on. Something about the manner of the thing disturbed Logan. He saw that Ray was slumped on the seat, and he murmured under his breath, “Something’s wrong, Daughter!”

  Violet had noted the dejected slouch of her brother and a jolt of fear ran through her. “Yes. I hope it’s not bad news.”

  They waited on the porch until Ray stepped down from the wagon. He tossed the lines down with a disgusted gesture. There was something in the way he walked that told them he was angry, and when he got close enough they saw that his features were twisted with bitterness.

  “What’s the matter, Ray?” Violet called out. She ran down the steps and took his arm quickly. “Something wrong?”

  “Yes, there’s something wrong!” His voice was thick, unlike his usual tone. He stared at Logan and said, “Do you know what I got for Cleo?”

  Logan shifted his weight. All prices were down and he had been fearful that Ray would be disappointed. “Well, I don’t expect you got as much as she was worth.”

  “As much as she was worth—” Jamming his hand into his pocket, he rummaged around, then brought it out. “That’s what I got! That hog weighed nearly four hundred pounds. After shipping and yard expenses, this is what they gave me—ninety-eight cents!”

  “Oh, Ray!” Knowing how much hope Ray had put into this venture, Violet was shocked. She put her arm around him to comfort him, but he was so angry that he pushed her aside and stepped back.

  “That’s what I got for her!” He gritted his teeth. “Ninety-eight cents! And I had to take it because we don’t have any feed for her. Ninety-eight cents and I took it!” Suddenly, with a rash gesture, he threw the coins against the house. They hit the side and rattled, then fell to the porch, some of them falling between the cracks.

  Logan bit his lip, not knowing what to say. The depression had hit all the Stuarts hard. Even his brother Amos, who was a successful writer in Chicago, was feeling the pinch. His older brother Owen was an evangelist, and he had felt the pinch more than any. Collections had gone down to practically nothing. Logan thought of Lylah, his sister who was an actress and who had gone into the business of making movies. His last letter from her had lacked the cheer that her letters usually had. The whole family’s going down the drain, he thought grimly. “Well, don’t fret, Ray. We’ll make out somehow.”

  Giving Logan the hardest glance he’d ever given his stepfather, Ray turned and walked away mumbling, “I’ll go unhitch the team.”

  Violet came to stand beside her stepfather. “It’s hurting him real bad, isn’t it, Pa!”

  “He was counting on it big.” Logan sighed and said, “Wish I had the money to give him. He sure wanted to take Amy a present for the dance.”

  But Ray did not attend the dance. He refused to go, and the air was thick with his discontent that night. Violet went along with her sister, but neither of them had a good time. They saw Amy McFarland squired by Tyrone Seaton, and Helen shook her head. “He’s not near as handsome as Ray.”

  “No, but his people have money though.” There was anxiety in Violet’s tone as she said, “I’m worried about Ray. This might make him real bitter.”

  The two went home from the dance, and Helen went to bed at once. Violet went out to sit on the porch with Ray. Carefully she said nothing about Amy.

  Ray, however, turned to her and asked, “I suppose Tyrone took care of Amy for me?”

  “Well, they did dance together some.”

  “I bet they did.”

  Stillness fell over the farm. The only audible sound was that of a bullfrog croaking down at the pond. Overhead the sky was black with millions of stars scattered across it. Ray sat silently for so long that Violet wondered if he would ever speak. Finally he did, and she was shocked.

  “I’m leaving the farm.”

  “What! Why, you can’t do that, Ray!”

  “I’m leaving, Violet. I’ve had enough of this grubbing for nothing!”

  “But the radio and the newspaper say it’s no better anywhere else.”

  “It’s got to be better than this!” The bitterness in Ray’s voice was clear and sharp and harsh. It disturbed her deeply, so deeply that she couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally, he said more gently, “I didn’t mean to be so rough. It’s just—I get so tired of all this!”

  Violet was shaken by his announcement. “You’ll change your mind after a while. You can’t leave your home.”

  She was mistaken, however, and three days later, Ray stood in the yard saying good-bye to the family. He had argued it out with Logan, but no words had been able to change his mind. Now, he bade them all good-bye and said, “I’ll try to get a job and send some money back, Pa.”

  “Don’t worry about that. You just take care of yourself, Son.”

  Ray turned and hugged Violet almost fiercely, hurting her. He whispered in her ear, “Don’t worry about me—I’ll be all right. You just take care of yourself, Sister—and the family.”

  And then he was gone, walking down the road a sturdy figure, but somehow pathetic as he carried the thin cardboard suitcase with all his possessions in it. They watched until he disappeared down the road to Fort Smith.

  “What’ll he do, Pa?”

  “Reckon he’ll hop one of those freights and go up north. But it won’t be any better there.”

  Violet looked at her stepfather, noticing that his lips were pinched and his eyes were pulled down tight. There was a sadness in him, and he reached over and pulled his wife closer. She was crying as he led her back inside the house.

  Violet did not go in. Clinton came over and he was crying too. “Why did he have to leave? Why’d Ray have to go, Violet?”

  “I guess he just couldn’t stand it any longer, Clint.” Then she tried to shake herself free from the gloom, knowing that she would be hard put to keep Clinton from grieving, because he idolized his brother. “Come on—we’ll go down to the bank and fish some.”

  In November, winter had come like a wolf-lean spect
er that lurked up in the hills of the Ozarks. Logan’s cotton crop had come to little. It had been burned out by the blistering sun so that they ginned less than half of what he’d hoped for. Nothing had been said, but everything grew tighter around the Stuart farm. There were no trips to town now, and food became scarcer. They’d put up vegetables from the garden and knew well that their store had to last them until the next harvesttime.

  Ordinarily, Ray would have helped at hog killing time but he was gone, and Violet had said that morning, “I’ll help you slaughter the hogs, Pa.”

  “No, you don’t have to do that. I know how it grieves you.”

  “I don’t mind. It’ll be all right,” Violet said, her lips drawn tightly together.

  After breakfast they moved out to the hog lot. Already Logan had decided that the signs were right. He’d never read Caesar, Virgil, or even Robert Browning, but he had read Greer’s Farmer’s Almanac and, as his father had done, killed hogs by the signs.

  Somehow, as Violet drew close to the lot where the hogs were kept, there was a feeling of sacrificial preparation. Logan was bundled up in several layers of clothes, as was she, against the cold November wind. The well windlass rattled constantly as they drew water from the depths and carried it to the lot. Logan sharpened the knife on a grindstone, then advanced into the hog lot. He carried a huge mallet in his hand and said, “You don’t have to watch this part, Violet.”

  Violet turned away as he struck each of the two hogs a sharp blow. As soon as they had been stunned, she knew, he cut their throats. She had watched this once. Logan had struck their throats until the great vessels severed and a gurgling, gushing fountain of blood had sent its stream into the cold air. The animals had died quickly, but she could never again stand to watch it. Soon he said, “Now it’s all right.” She came to help as he attached the legs to a singletree, a plow line thrown over a thick chinaberry limb. The body was hoisted up and scalding water that they had prepared over an open fire was thrown over the carcass to soften the outer skin. Logan was very good at it, and soon the animal was completely clean. It hung glistening in the early morning sun, its belly bulging obesely.

  Helen, making several trips with pans, tubs, and buckets, came down to help. The first hog was opened with careful strokes of the knife and the entrails were put into a waiting tub. Each end of the intestinal tract was tied off with a string, and the full tubs were carried to Violet and Helen, where they could wash the intestines, producing chitlins. They hard-boiled these for hours, sometimes dipping them into batter, frying them, and then eating them. Everything moved rapidly. The livers went into one pan, the heart, spleen, and pancreas into another, and the kidneys were separated from the backbone and discarded—no one liked them. Finally, the skull was opened with an ax and the brains were carefully extracted from their secret nest of bone. Logan liked them boiled and scrambled with eggs, served with grits and fresh sausage, although Violet could not abide them.

  They continued until the lean meat was diced, to be ground with salt, red pepper, and sage into sausage. Then the hog was halved down the backbone and butchered into standard cuts. The hams and shoulders were reserved for curing along with the middlings. Fat was stripped off in great wads and sheets and cut into squares.

  This was the one part that Violet didn’t mind. She put the fat in washpots and boiled it down until pure white lard was rendered. It left a residue of brown cracklings, which was used to season the corn bread she loved.

  They had just finished butchering the second hog and were washing up when Clinton said, “There comes Mr. Johnson.”

  This was an event to the family. Twice a week, Harold Johnson came by, delivering mail to the rural routes. They were always hopeful for a catalog from Montgomery Ward or even a circular. And often there was mail from the family.

  “Well, Harold, come on and have a bite of fresh corn bread.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Harold said. He was a tall, thin individual who had lost all of his teeth so that his face looked to be shoved together like a dried apple. He had cheerful blue eyes, however, and he served as a newspaper for those who could not afford one. Shoving corn bread into his mouth and washing it down with buttermilk, he kept them amused.

  “They’ve got a new thing called min’ature golf up in Fort Smith.”

  “Min’ature golf? What’s that?”

  “Oh, feller name of Hiram Seeker took some vacant lots of his and made a kind of little bitty golf course. Charges people a nickel to go around them nine holes.”

  “I’m surprised people have money to throw away on such foolishness,” Anne Stuart sniffed. “They’d spend it better on food.”

  “Well, I guess rich people always look for ways to throw their cash away,” Harold said. When he was finished, he searched through his bag and said, “New catalog here.” He shoved the Montgomery Ward catalog out and Anne and Helen began looking at it at once.

  There were a few letters and finally Harold said, “Well, got one more here.”

  Something about the tone of his voice caught Logan’s attention. “What is it, Harold?” he inquired quietly.

  “A postcard,” Harold said. He ducked his head and fished through his bag and pulled it out. “It’s about Ray.”

  They all understood that Harold felt it was his right to read postcards. He would never in the world open a letter, but he often said that if people didn’t want things read they oughtn’t put them on postcards.

  “Ain’t very good news. Well, I gotta be going.” He got up and left as if he didn’t want to be present for the reading of the card.

  “What is it, Pa?” Violet asked when Logan stared at it too long.

  “It’s from a woman in Rockford, Illinois,” he said quietly. “Ray’s been staying with her. He got hurt and now he’s pretty bad sick.”

  A silence fell across the room—Rockford, Illinois—it might as well have been on the moon!

  “We’ve got to help him, Pa!”

  “Help him—how?” Never was Logan Stuart more incensed at those who had brought on the depression as now. He longed to do something! Finally he said heavily, “I should write to Christie, I guess, or maybe Amos. Maybe they can spare a few dollars that we could send to him.” After a pensive pause he added, “No, I’m too proud . . .”

  Violet saw the pain in her stepfather’s face. She slipped over to him and said quietly, “Don’t fret about it, Pa. We’ll do something.”

  The next morning when Logan arose, he was surprised that there was no breakfast prepared and said to himself, It’s not like Violet to sleep late. She always gets up when the owls are hooting. He thought also that she was worried about Ray and maybe didn’t sleep much last night.

  Just then his eyes fell on a piece of paper lying on the table. It was half-covered by a jar of chowchow and he pulled it out quickly. It said: “Pa, I’m going to help Ray. I’m taking my savings. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right. I’ll write you when I get there.”

  A streak of fear ran through Logan. He knew the dangers for anyone out on the road and for a girl of sixteen—it frightened him. He stood there holding the note and his hand trembled. She had left sometime during the night. He bowed his head and whispered, “Oh, God—take care of Violet.”

  ON THE ROAD

  The small, worn suitcase contained all that Violet thought wise to carry, but light as it was the handle cut across her palm as she trudged along the frozen road. It was the third day since she’d left home, and already she felt a sense of despair creeping up on her. The sharp, bitter wind whipped across her face and she shivered as it cut through the thin coat she wore. It had belonged to Ray at one time, but he had outgrown it, and she had inherited it.

  Carefully she left the road and stepped over to a grove of trees where the wind did not whistle quite so keenly. Sitting down, she removed a package from her pocket, opened it, and leaning against a tree, hungrily devoured the sandwich—and wished that there were two or three more just like it. She had stopped at a store
and had bought four slices of bologna and a loaf of bread the day before. Now this was the last of it and she knew she would have to stop again. Settling down on her heels, she rummaged through the other pocket of the red-and-black checkered mackinaw and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a map of the United States, not in great detail, but it was all that she had. She had asked about Rockford, Illinois, in Fort Smith and had found out that it was north of Chicago. Running her eyes along the map, she thought, It’s a long way to go—but I’ve got to get there.

  Replacing the map, she stood to her feet, blew on her hands, and pulled on the mittens, grateful she’d brought them. As she trudged along, doubts assailed her and she wondered again if she’d done the right thing. She was a thoughtful young woman and—as her stepfather had said—close to being stubborn. It showed in the slightly pugnacious tilt of her chin, the firm line of her mouth, and the clear light in her large, dark blue eyes.

  Far over to her left, a train whistle blew. She stopped to watch as it gathered speed and passed by. If I had train fare, I bet that train would take me right to Rockford. She saw men perched in the boxcars and others, certainly shivering, on the top, and the thought came to her, Maybe I could hitch a ride! But she dismissed that and continued trudging along the road.

  The first day of her journey had gotten her to Fort Smith because two farmers had given her rides in their wagons. One of them she knew slightly, but she had not told him her story, although he was curious enough. Arriving in Fort Smith, she had gone at once to the train station and questioned the ticket agent. When he had quoted the price of a ticket, her heart sank because she only had twenty-seven dollars—money she had eked out in pennies and nickels over the past three years. She had sold eggs and worked for neighbors, and had been saving for a grand project such as going to college. But now it rested in her suitcase, except for three worn one-dollar bills that she kept in a small purse in her mackinaw pocket.