Blue Read Free

effort. I wanted to do it on account of them overalls.
    I showed Ida and Ellie how to drop a seed every couple of inches, and I told Bobby to push a little dirt overtop of them.
    “But Daddy said I should play ever’ day,” argued Bobby.
    That boy was smack good at getting out of work. When his brown eyes filled up with tears I usually give in to him. But today I seen how he was covered with dirt on all sides from rolling in the garden with Pete. So I said, “You played your share for this day. Now, get to work.”
    He covered a few seeds, but next thing I knew, he wasspinning himself dizzy on the tire swing and trying to walk. “Look,” he said. “I’m drunk.”
    Then Ellie and Ida wanted their turns on the swing. They wouldn’t none of them listen to me when I hollered for them to get back to work.
    I finally give up and took a break in the johnny house. While I was in there I thought about the letter we had got from Daddy that week. I had read it so many times I knew it by heart.
    Dear family,
    How’s everything on the home front? I hope you children are helping Momma. Whatever she tells you to do, I want you to listen. No complaining! We all have to do our part to win this war. You do your part there and I do my part here.
    Of course I can’t tell you anything about where I am or what mission we’re working on. But it ain’t nothing like home—I can tell you that much. If I was home, I’d be checking the garden every morning to see if the peas had sprouted. Here, there ain’t a green leaf in sight. Nothing but bare trees and snow. It’s miserable cold.
    If you get a chance, please send cigarettes. Right now I can get them from the army. But I don’t know how long it will last.
    Myrtle, I pray for you and the children every day. I’ll be home before you know it.
    All my love,
    Daddy
    I prayed for Daddy every night when I went to bed. I prayed he would come home alive and I would do him proudwhile he was gone. But to tell the truth—helping Momma with all the work Daddy always done … well, it was a lot more than I knew how to do sometimes.
    While I sat in the outhouse, I heard Daddy talking in my head. He was saying, “If Roosevelt could get himself elected president, then you can handle anything life throws your way.”
    Well, I didn’t think it was right for me to have to play Daddy to them kids, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. So I thought about what Daddy would do and I knew he would make a game out of working.
    I went outside and hollered at them young’uns, “First one in the garden gets to pick the bedtime story.”
    You should’ve seen them racing to the garden when I said that.
    By the time Junior was done tilling, the garden was the same size as Daddy always made it—big enough to set our house inside. The peas took up only a small part. I still had to plant a whole bunch of stuff. The hardest part would be keeping them young’uns working.
    But Daddy was counting on me. I decided that if I had to, I’d work them kids till we all dropped.

3
Wisteria Mansion
    April 1944
    Me and Peggy Sue laid on the soft pine-needle floor of Wisteria Mansion, ignoring my sisters. They’d been in the back yard calling my name for fifteen minutes. But I wasn’t about to answer them. This was one place we could go to get away from the girls and Bobby. So Peggy and me agreed a long time ago not to show it to anyone unless we asked each other first.
    Wisteria Mansion was where we always run to when we wanted to feel better. Right now was one of those times.
    Peggy’s eyes was red from crying. “I can’t believe Lottie Scronce’s other boy was killed,” she said.
    Lottie is a woman who goes to our church. All the children love her because she keeps candy in her pocketbook and hands it out every Sunday.
    I turned over on my back and sucked in the sweet smell of wisteria, trying to chase away the bad feeling in my tummy. “Two boys in one family lost to the war,” I said. “It don’t seem fair.