The Witches Of Denmark Read Free

history… interesting history at that,” said Dad. It appeared he noticed my fixation with the old man parading back and forth like a proud peacock.
    “We had plenty of interesting history back home,” I told him, glumly.
    “This might be home for awhile, son,” he advised, this time not bothering to look at me in the rearview mirror. Instead, he appeared anxious for the light to change and for the slowpoke in front of us to get out of the way, so my father could turn right onto a narrow two lane street taking us away from the blip of downtown. “You should try to make the best of it.”
    He’s really in a hurry to get someplace…. The new house?
    “Yeah, well we’ll have to see about that,” I said, pleased when my comment drew a glance from him.
    “Give it time…. Who knows? You might like it here,” said Mom, craning her neck toward me. “And, if you don’t, well, you might get your wish for us to try something else out west. Just depends.”
    “On what?” Alisia stifled a laugh. “On the guy over there wearing the sandwich board that says ‘White Rights’?”
    She pointed to the old white guy who had stopped to shout at passing motorists, more like an angry rooster now. It seemed that everyone within striking distance either ignored him or got out of his way. Even the blacks ignored him, as if they had seen his tired routine for so long his racial hatred had become invisible.
    “Oh,” said our father, pausing to watch the man for a moment, before turning onto the road that would take us away from the spectacle. “I guess not everyone has moved past Jim Crow.”
    “No, not everyone…. But, we knew things would be a little different than up north,” said Mom. “And the people we met while purchasing the house were quite nice. I liked their smiles.”
    I couldn’t help snickering. “Are you serious? You decided to move us out of the hometown we grew up in because you liked these people’s smiles?”
    A middle-aged African-American man crossed the road ahead of us, jaywalking. Dad politely waited for him to cross, and the man shuffled slowly, delivering a hard stare at the Escalade and its passengers.
    “Good thing that guy’s not a wand carrier, huh?”
    “Yes, Bas, it is indeed fortunate,” Dad replied, glancing in the mirror again. He let out a slight chuckle. “Actually, that guy’s expression is similar to your typical Chicagoan, if you think about it. I’m sure you’ll find plenty of others like him down here, too…. But, as for the comment to your mom, what have you got against warm and friendly people?”
    “Nothing, Just thought it was funny, is all.”
    We were on the way down Woodard Street, which kind of reminded me of parts of Wheaton and other suburbs like Elmhurst. Lots of ‘four square’ and ‘craftsman’ homes on either side. Although, just like in many Chicago neighborhoods, one could easily detect an imaginary line that separated the ‘haves’ on the one side of the street from the less-fortunate residents on the other. In this case, the homes on the south side were in much worse shape than those on the north side of Woodard.
    “We met a couple of families in the neighborhood who moved here from Wisconsin, to get away from the cold. They seemed nice, too,” said Mom.
    “Anyway, why don’t you kids check out the homes up this way?” Dad had just turned right, onto a narrower street called Chaffin’s Bend. “You might see a thing or two that’ll catch your eye.”
    Although signs remained of a nearby ‘hood’ lurking just a few blocks away, the trip up to the top of what Dad called ‘Depot Hill’ was more like a trip through deeper layers of Denmark’s storied history. Of course, none of us fully understood the area’s significance to the city at the time, other than the fact we came upon several grand Victorian homes that mom called ‘painted ladies’ based on pink, purple, and green color schemes from the post-Civil War reconstruction