Stella by Starlight Page 7

  “Maybe,” Papa said, leaning on the ax. “But that woodpile over there is now home to mice and bugs and snakes. And it’s just waitin’ to keep us warm. Everything’s got its place and time. You gotta look at the big picture, girl.”

  Stella felt a little befuddled. “Seems like I can never find the big picture, Papa.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, grown-ups often ain’t got the slightest idea what they’re doing either!” her father said, putting his arm around her shoulders. “We just figure it out one day at a time. C’mon, let’s get ready for supper.”

  At dinner her parents were oddly quiet, and Stella could tell that tensions were swelling. As soon as he finished his apple pie, Papa grabbed his newspapers, sat down in his favorite chair, and began reading intently.

  Jojo headed out to the front yard with the dog, a couple of horseshoes in hand. The familiar ping of steel against steel soon echoed back to the silent house. A look from her mother let Stella know she needed to disappear for a bit as well, and she was glad to do so.

  She made for the back door, but spun around and quickly grabbed the notebook and a pencil from under her pillow, glancing briefly at a faded story about the cotton crop on the wall. She sat on the stoop, listening to the voices of her parents rising and falling like stormy winds. Their disagreements were so rare that the world felt a little tilted. But how to write that down and explain it? She had no clue. How do the people who write the newspaper articles find the right words to print?

  Stella opened her notebook reluctantly. She thought about Papa’s tree cutting, and the trees from the forest that had stood there probably for centuries. Her thoughts skittered between eagles that learned to fly, and men who were scared to jump off that stump, and Moses who said, “Let my people go.” She leaned over and wrote just one word. Trees.

  She wrote a few sentences. Scribbled them out. Wrote one more. Bit her pencil. Wrote three more—scratched out two. Dust becomes words. Hey, that was not so bad. Scrawled out a whole paragraph. Erased half of the next one. What was left was not so bad at all, she decided.

  The sun grew golden, then rusty as it slipped slowly toward the horizon. Then, out of the blue, a gaggle of silvery geese erupted from the reeds at the pond’s edge, honking and swirling in circular disorder. Stella went instantly alert. What had them all riled up? A fox? It wasn’t more of those men, was it? Then she heard a crackling of underbrush—or was it just the random movement of the fallen leaves? There was no way to be sure, but Stella decided not to take any chances. She hurried back into her house, pulled the back door shut, and locked it.

  19

  Trees

  TREES

  At the lumber mill they chop up trees that end up getting turned into furniture and houses.

  Pine trees.

  Walnut trees.

  Oak and hickory.

  Willow is my favorite.

  There must be dozens of different kinds of trees in the woods in the back of our house. Each kind is different—some with fat leaves, some with leaves that bloom, some with spikes or needles.

  I wonder what kind of tree I would need if I wanted to build a boat. Or what tree would be best for a bow and an arrow. And how do you figure that out?

  How do you know which trees have fruit that is good for you and which fruit will pioson poison you? I would hate to be the first person to try.

  At the mill, Papa says they take the sawdust and turn that into paper. Those big old trees become books and notebooks and newspapers.

  Dust becomes words. I like that.

  20

  The Cow with No Head

  Two nights later Stella woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of Jojo screaming. “Not again!” she cried, scrambling out of bed.

  “Help!” Jojo shouted, flinging the back door open, racing into the house. “Help!”

  Mama, her hair wrapped in paper-bag curlers, and Papa, grabbing his shotgun from above the mantel, reached Jojo just as Stella did.

  Jojo clutched the doorknob, breathing hard. He looked terrified.

  “What is it, boy?” his father asked. “Did you see the Klan again?”

  “No. Worse,” Jojo answered breathlessly.

  “Worse? What could be—?” Stella started to ask.

  “Is somebody hurt?” Mama interrupted, dropping to her knees in front of him.

  “No, Mama. It’s nothing like that.”

  “So why in heaven’s name are you screaming in the middle of the night, waking everybody up?” Papa asked, his voice a blend of fury and fear.

  Jojo looked at them, his face serious. “I got up to tee-tee again—”

  “You’re gonna have to stop going to the outhouse at night! Use the chamber pot!” Stella exclaimed, cutting him off.

  “Stella, let the boy talk,” her father admonished.

  “. . . and I saw a cow with no head!” Jojo buried his head into his mother’s flannel nightgown.

  “What are you talking about?” his father asked. “There’s no such thing!”

  “It’s in the back, mooing like a cow, even wearin’ a bell like a cow, but it ain’t got no head! You gotta believe me!”

  “Jojo, I think you’re dreaming—how can a cow moo without a head?” Stella asked.

  “I am not making this up,” Jojo insisted.

  Mr. Mills brushed the boy out of the way and headed outside.

  “See?” Jojo said, pointing.

  Cloud cover made the night moonless, and the dark felt thick. “Mwooo,” a cow bellowed. Stella could hear the clanking of its bell and the sound of it bumping into things. It seemed confused.

  “You see?” Jojo insisted, standing tucked behind Stella.

  Stella peered into the darkness, and yes, she could clearly see the shape of a cow, and yes, it seemed to have no head!

  Their father, though, solved the whole mystery in a second. He approached the frightened animal. “Sh-sh-sh, now. It’s gonna be all right,” he murmured. He grabbed the rope around the cow’s neck and led it closer to the house. “It’s the Winstons’ cow,” he explained to Jojo, sounding half-exasperated, half-amused.

  Stella laughed out loud. “It’s not headless—it’s a white cow with a black head, you little featherbrain!”

  “You’ve seen this cow next door a million times, Jojo,” Mama said, starting to laugh herself.

  “But it did look like it had no head,” Jojo insisted.

  “In the darkness, I suppose it did,” his mother agreed, small bursts of laughter escaping from her lips.

  “I’m sorry I woke everybody up again,” Jojo said, now sounding miserable. “But I was really scared.”

  “With Klan folks burning crosses in the middle of the night, we don’t need frights over cows, Jojo, you hear?” Papa scolded. “You holler when there’s real danger. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut!” Although his voice was stern, Stella could see that even he was trying to keep his face from breaking into a smile.

  As Jojo shifted from one foot to the other, Papa told him, “You’ll be taking this cow back to its own barn before daylight. They will be missing her, and she’ll be needin’ a milkin’.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jojo said.

  “Can’t get a lick of sleep around here,” their father groused as they all trooped back into the house. But he put his arm around his wife, and Stella could hear them murmuring with amusement as they climbed back to the loft.

  Stella motioned for Jojo to come sit beside her at the table. “Chin up, Jojo. We needed something to make us laugh around here.”

  “I feel kinda stupid,” Jojo admitted. “But I was soo scared!”

  “Don’t feel bad. Lotsa stuff scares me, too.”

  “Like what? You never act like you’re afraid of nothin’.”

  “Snakes. Bears. Worms in apples. Toenail clippings. Floods. I could tell you dozens of things.”

  “Really?”

  “Trust me. The older you get, the scarier the world gets to be.”

  “That
’s s’posed to make me feel better?”

  “No, that’s s’posed to make you understand the real deal.” She gave him a big hug. “And that,” she said, “is to let you know I will be there for you. No matter what.”

  “You scared of getting beat at checkers?” he asked slyly.

  “Not a chance, youngun! Even though it’s the middle of the night, I’ll still roast you. Get ready to suffer!”

  So instead of going back to bed, Jojo ran to get the checkerboard.

  21

  Papa’s Standing Stone

  The next morning, as Stella was washing up out at the pump, her father joined her, a strange look on his face.

  “What’s wrong, Papa?” she asked warily.

  “Nothing. Just—you’re not going to school today.”

  Stella froze, water dripping from her face. “Why not?”

  “I’m fixin’ to register to vote, and I want you to be there,” her father said gruffly.

  “Me?”

  “You’re my oldest child, you got smarts enough to be somethin’ special like a teacher or a doctor one day.” Her father paused and cleared his throat. “I need you to be my standing stone, to be my strength this day.”

  Papa’s standing stone! Stella felt mighty nervous, but excited at the same time. And missing a day of school? Who wouldn’t jump at the chance? She dressed quickly, then brushed and braided her hair extra tight.

  Her mother gave her a piece of warm biscuit and a hug before they left. “Stones don’t cry, child. Remember that,” was all she said.

  Stella rarely had the chance to go anywhere alone with her father, and now she was on her way to Spindale—just the two of them. It would probably be a forty-minute ride on the wagon. If they had a horse, it would be quicker—the mule was slow. But as Papa always said, riding with old Rudie was better than walking!

  Her father was quiet for the first few miles, and Stella did not disturb his pensive mood. Finally he said, “You know, Stella, when I was eleven, I had to quit school. Grandaddy needed me to work in the fields.”

  “I think about that, Papa, and it makes me feel”—she paused, glancing up at him—“kinda sad. You know, school is sometimes, well, not so easy for me, but I’d hate to be told I couldn’t go.”

  Her father shook the reins to hurry Rudie along. “I understand, Stella girl.”

  “How’d you get so smart if you didn’t go to school?” Stella asked.

  “Well,” Papa said, “not goin’ didn’t stop me from learnin’. The teacher brought books by my house every week, and I read every last one of them when we quit workin’ for the day. I read by firelight. I used to study by starlight, too, just like you do.”

  “And I thought it was my big secret!” Stella said, covering her head with her arms and laughing.

  “You think I ain’t aware of every creak and squeak in that house? That I don’t know every single second what every member of my family is doing?” He fixed her with a look. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck, girl! But here’s the thing, Stella,” her father continued, “I don’t want you out there at night anymore. Too dangerous.”

  “Yes, Papa. Mama already told me.”

  He gave one of her stubby pigtails a pull. “Sometimes even children can be targeted. I pray that times get better for your young ones. And for theirs.”

  At this, Stella couldn’t suppress a snicker.

  “I don’t see nothin’ funny about what I just said!”

  “I was just thinking about me having children. Or being a grandma!” She giggled. “Think I’ll be fat and have gray hair?”

  “I sure hope so,” her father said, laughing himself. After a few miles he asked Stella, “So, what do you have to write about so badly that you be sneakin’ around my house at all hours of the night?”

  “I go out there to practice, Papa.”

  “Practice? For what?”

  Stella looked away from him and stared at the thick forest of pines that framed the road like whispering dark-green walls.

  “I don’t write so good,” she admitted. “I can never get the words to sound like I want them to. So I come outside when I can be all alone, and I write stuff that nobody sees.”

  Her father picked an apple out of the lunch pail Mama had fixed for them. He took a big bite and chewed it before answering. The only sounds were the clomp of the mule’s feet and the angry fussing of a pair of squirrels high in a limb above them.

  Finally he said, “Bad writers don’t practice, Stella. It’s the good ones who care enough to try, who worry about getting the words just right. You are probably better than you think.”

  Stella shook her head, doubtful.

  “You know how Tony Hawkins sneaks out every chance he gets to run on the track over at the white school?” Papa said.

  Stella looked up, surprised. “You know about that, too?”

  “The whole neighborhood does,” Papa replied, looking right at her. “We keep an eye out for our own. Young Anthony practices because running is in his heart. He runs at night to get better, to improve, to feel the wind on his face.”

  Stella had never thought about it quite like that. She frowned and tried to find the right words. “But, Papa, you said it yourself, it’s in his heart. I’m just trying not be the worst kid at writing in Mrs. Grayson’s class.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself, child,” her father said gently.

  She turned her head to find the woodpecker that was making that determined rat-a-tat. “You read newspapers all the time, Papa.”

  “Yeah. So do you.”

  “Well, somebody had to write all those articles. That’s the kind of writing that maybe I might not be so bad at. Stories about people in Bumblebee. Things I find interesting, like birds or snow. Events like Spoon Man coming. Sometimes just what I think about stuff,” Stella told him. “Things that are real.”

  “Like on Mama’s newpaper walls,” her father said, “That’s important.”

  Stella thrilled at his words. He understood!

  Again the silence rode with them for a spell.

  “I used to like to write,” her father admitted after a bit.

  “Really?” Stella asked, genuinely surprised. “Can you show me some of it?”

  “It’s gone. My father thought boys writing was a waste of time, especially what he called girly stuff like poetry, so he tossed it all in the fireplace one day. I saved a couple of pieces in my head, is all.”

  “Oh.” Stella wasn’t sure what else to say, but thinking about her father’s words being burned, destroyed, made her stomach queasy. “So you remember some of it?” she asked hesitantly.

  “Maybe.” But then he said nothing more.

  “Please?” Stella whispered at last. She waited. The sun warmed her shoulders. Her father shifted in his seat and gave Rudie’s rein a gentle slap to move him along, then finally said, “My grandmama Maudie died sudden-like. I was twelve. She had six children and five grandchildren, but I was the only one who called her Granny. Everyone else called her Big Ma. I wrote this the day after we buried her.” He cleared his throat. “Lord, I ain’t said this out loud in many a year.

  “I remember my granny’s home cookin’,

  She’d hum, and she’d mix, and she’d stir.

  She could make buttered bones taste delicious,

  If that’s all the fixin’s there were.

  I remember my granny’s lap-naptimes,

  Where memories wrapped in her arms.

  She would sing of old pain and lost glory,

  Of the long-ago days on the farms.

  I remember my granny’s old washtub;

  It was battered and made out of tin.

  Hot suds and toy boats into battle,

  Then nighttime and dreams could begin.

  I remember my granny’s soft blankets,

  On a large, squeaky, four-poster bed.

  The faint smell of mothballs and cedar,

  And her warm breathing close to my head.”
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br />   Then he called out to Rudie to get along now, and Stella kept her eyes on the trees standing sentinel as they passed. She was wise enough to say nothing.

  22

  Their Declaration of Independence

  As they got closer to town, the trees became more spread out, the birdsong stopped, and the road got busier with wagons and even a couple of automobiles.

  Stella broke the pleasant silence between them. “So, Papa, why are you going to register today? The pastor talked about being scared. Aren’t you?”

  Her father looked up at the sky—clouds were rolling in from the west. “Of course I’m a little scared. But I’m doing this for my family, for you and your brother. I gotta show that I am somebody—no one else is gonna do that for me.”

  Stella reached over and placed her small hand on top of Papa’s gnarled fingers. She’d never felt so proud.

  He nodded his head slightly, then clicked at the mule to move along.

  It was startling to Stella how busy a small city could be—the cars, the buildings, the people acting like they had important things to do. She wondered what it would be like to live in such a bustling place.

  They pulled up in front of a building with a large window in front. BOARD OF ELECTIONS was neatly painted on the glass in white lettering. Under that Stella read, REGISTER TO VOTE HERE.

  Pastor Patton and Mr. Spencer were already there, wagons cleaned, waiting. Mr. Spencer wore a pair of stiffly starched and ironed overalls—probably pretty uncomfortable. The preacher was dressed in a fresh white dress shirt and Sunday slacks. He even wore a tie. “I don’t know that anyone else from the congregation is going to join us, men,” the pastor said in a low voice. He looked at Mr. Spencer. “Are your children taken care of, Hobart?”

  “Yes, sir. My wife is what the Cherokee call Earth Mother. The children are fine. We sent all but the little ones to school today.”

  “And you, Jonah? Is your family behind you on this?”

  Stella’s father hesitated. “Georgia supports me, but she was a mite trembly this morning. I brought Stella, though.” He squeezed her shoulders affectionately. “I don’t want to just tell her about bravery—I want to show her what it looks like.”