Her Own Place Read Free Page B

safe.
    Mae Lee saved almost every penny she earned. The few pieces of clothing she bought were all black, just in case. Over and over the radio told about the soldiers killed in the war. If anything should happen to Jeff, she believed she would wear black mourning clothes for as long as she lived.
    One day in midsummer Mae Lee had time off from work. Her daddy had finished the final plowing for all his crops and didn’t need her help. She went over to visit her friend Ella-belle. As they sat chatting out on the porch, a car drove up.It was painted olive drab, the army color. Mae Lee got up to leave, but Ellabelle begged her to stay. “You never know what they might be up to,” she whispered.
    They watched the two men start up the narrow path to the little house. One of them carried a briefcase.
    â€œEllabelle Ellis?”
    â€œYes, sir, that’s me.” Ellabelle stood up.
    The officer spoke in soft tones, his face drawn with traces of sadness, yet official and stern. “We have a telegram for you,” he said.
    Ellabelle started shaking her head as he read, “We regret to inform you that your husband, Will Leroy Ellis, a rifleman in the Forty-fourth Infantry Division, has been killed in action.”
    The officers helped Ellabelle inside her house after she slumped to the floor. Mae Lee watched, speechless and helpless. How many messages had they delivered like that one? If her own husband realized how much she needed to hear from him to be assured he was safe, then surely he would write.
    After Ellabelle received her husband’s GI insurance check from the army, she and her parents moved away. As much as Mae Lee hated to see them go, the thoughts of the house they left, and the farmland the Grangers might be persuaded to sell along with it, helped ease the loneliness.
    Late one Saturday night in the spring of 1945, Mae Lee and her parents took the money she had saved and spread it out on the kitchen table to count. Mae Lee’s daddy broke into a joyous laugh. “My baby girl has a few thousand dollars here.I’m going to see Mr. Granger about that land and empty house on the hill first thing Monday morning. There is way more than twenty acres there.”
    Mae Lee was anxious and worried. “Maybe he might not even want to sell it.”
    â€œOh, he’ll let us buy it, since it’s near to the land he sold your mama years ago. He probably won’t even ask too much for it. Only about ten acres or so right alongside the road is decent farmland. Most of the ground all along Catfish Creek is bottomland, too wet for cotton, but, oh Lord, it’ll grow sugarcane and late corn.”
    Sam Hudson pulled a cotton drawstring tobacco pouch from his pocket and emptied its contents on the table. Mae Lee stared at the pile of carefully folded money. “It’s your share of the cotton crop, honey. Without your help the grass would have eaten it up.” Her mama added a small wad of crumpled bills. “Since I didn’t help this year, I’m giving you the share your daddy gave me,” she said. “Now you and your husband will have a little farm to start out with.”
    The morning the papers were to be signed, Mae Lee was up early. When she got to the kitchen she was surprised to see that her daddy wasn’t dressed and ready to go with her to buy the property. He was in his work clothes sitting at the table and drinking coffee.
    â€œI guess you wouldn’t want to wear your Sunday suit on a weekday, Daddy, but it seems like you would at least wear a white shirt and necktie and the clean, creased overalls Mama starched and ironed,” his daughter said. She glanced nervouslyat the clock. “Oh,” she said, “we have plenty of time. I got ready early, I was afraid I’d be late. It’s over an hour before nine o’clock.”
    Her daddy made some makeshift excuse that the gout was settling in on his big toe again, and he needed to