A Seed From The Serpent

By Noel Goodwin Hubbard

Meet Jubilee Summers, a thirteen year old boy child prodigy. In Dew Valley, Alabama, the precocious thirteen year old musician fills the pews to overflowing in his father’s Pentecostal Church. Through a child’s vision and at a tender age, Jubilee begins to questions his father’s church, his own faith, and his identity. This journey of discovery takes the reader into a passionate deeply felt story of a guilt-ridden young man’s journey in the religious Deep South.

Through the Pentecostal Holiness church of hellfire, brimstone, and a myriad of scandal, Jubilee’s narration takes you into a powerful chronicle of mesmerizing and magnificent tales of cruelty and violence in the name of religion. At the onset of his teenage years, he wages a private war against physical and sexual abuse by a family member. When he can no longer endure the molestations, he and his young black friend Mud Dauber take dire steps to ensure the abuse never recurs. In a convincing portrayal of unimaginable truths, Jubilee draws his readers inside and tells of his encounters with the devil and his relentless adversaries.

A SEED FROM THE SERPENT explores a life of racism, deception and greed. It is ultimately a novel of an invincible spirit and the power of survival of a troubled and impoverished lad of the nineteen thirties and forties seeking acceptance. The story of Jubilee will live in your memory as we in the 21st Century continue his journey in our own minds.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noel Goodwin Hubbard
• Release date: Mar 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301881888

Noel Goodwin Hubbard

ABOUT THE AUTHOR NOEL GOODWIN HUBBARD After a stint in the US Navy, Noel returned to Alabama and traveled extensively in the Floral Industry. He retired from teaching in the Career Tech Department of Hoover High School and founded a library in Green Pond, Alabama where he was administrator until his retirement in 2005. He now resides in McCalla, Alabama. Retirement offered all the time Noel required to finish “Seed.” This is his first novel. [e-mail]

Book preview

A Seed From the Serpent

By Noel Goodwin Hubbard

Published by ScivBooks

Copyright 2013 Noel Goodwin Hubbard

Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

DEDICATION

To my precious Deb, and to my three Michaels, Melisa, and Avery.

I love you more each day. I cannot wait until tomorrow.

And, in memory of my wonderful mother Ella Gazelle

and my sisters Ann and Betty.

back to top

Table of Contents

About the Author

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Book One Title Page

Book One, Chapter 1

Book One, Chapter 2

Book One, Chapter 3

Book One, Chapter 4

Book One, Chapter 5

Book One, Chapter 6

Book One, Chapter 7

Book One, Chapter 8

Book One, Chapter 9

Book One, Chapter 10

Book One, Chapter 11

Book One, Chapter 12

Book One, Chapter 13

Book One, Chapter 14

Book One, Chapter 15

Book One, Chapter 16

Book One, Chapter 17

BookOne, Chapter 18

Book One, Chapter 19

Book One, Chapter 20

Book One, Chapter 21

Book Two Title Page

Book Two, Chapter 1

Book Two, Chapter 2

Book Two, Chapter 3

Book Two, Chapter 4

Book Two, Chapter 5

Book Two, Chapter 6

Book Two, Chapter 7

Book Two, Chapter 8

Book Two, Chapter 9

Book Two, Chapter 10

Book Two, Chapter 11

Book Two, Chapter 12

Book Two, Chapter 13

Book Two, Chapter 14

BOOK ONE

A SEED FROM THE SERPENT

by NOEL GOODWIN HUBBARD

Book One, Chapter 1

My Granny, Lou Ella Summers, a woman of remarkable intelligence, insisted on proper schooling. In her dimly lit room, she chose five words each evening for me to be ready to define. I must be prepared the moment I brought her evening meal to the second floor of Ivan's Manor. I borrowed a pair of her spectacles to read her dictionary.

Asa, my minister father, made it known that there was no money to purchase eyeglasses for me until harvest time.

Come and sit beside me, my grandson, Granny Lou Ella demanded. She scanned the pages of Roget’s Thesaurus and searched for words. You will never be any more powerful than your speech, the former schoolteacher reminded me regularly. Granny Lou Ella tutored me nightly and helped to increase my word power.

Emissary, my grandmother Lou Ella enunciated in her cultured voice as I entered her upstairs room with a tray of food and her three nightly medications.

Representative or ambassador, I answered as I placed within my grandmother’s reach, a meal of fresh, fried crappie right out of Solomon’s Creek.

Serendipity, she shouted, and smiled her warm grin.

The phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for.

Apropos, she enunciated.

With regard to, I answered in a voice that was proud, but overconfident.

Stupendous, she asked, sounding the word twice for me.

Amazing size or greatness, I shouted out.

"Only one more word for you today, my dear.

Manifold, she said as she sang out the final word.

I stammered, not remembering.

Manifold, she repeated patting my back.

Many of one kind combined, I said happily.

How wonderfully smart you are, my grandson, Granny Lou Ella bragged. Already, you have at your command an extraordinary vocabulary.

A long wisp of silver hair escaped from the perfect bun at the nape of my grandmother’s neck and fell to her petite shoulder. Any hint of disarray as regards to her tidy frame was immediately obvious. She was very near flawless.

There were times when my grandmother spent a great part of the night immersed in her books, within the soft glow of an oil lamp at her side. Often, two books lay open on her lap, and a multitude was strewn about the otherwise tidy room. The complete works of Shakespeare added an air of sophistication to her quiet domain. She epitomized intellect with her command of the English language. She read to me and talked about her books avidly, and as she did, her spectacles slipped from her small nose and intelligent eyes. I often found her reading from her Bible or her massive collection of classic novels stacked high on her ink-splattered desk and nightstand.

A poor person who speaks well is never poor for long, was my Granny Lou Ella’s relentless philosophy. At the young age of eleven, my verbal communication was laudable with all credit due to my grandmother. She spoke her pure English to me, and she was responsible for my success.

How many words have you for tomorrow? I questioned, as I sat leafing through the Thesaurus.

I have five difficult, new words for you, Jubilee, my Grand Lady said.

My grandmother noted my progress each evening with a certain amazement on her unblemished face. I must admit that I reverted to a less opulent collection of words, and spoke in a Dew Valley vernacular in the community when there was any chance that I might get the living hell pounded out of me for appearing uppity. Folks in Dew Valley were mostly backward and uneducated.

Mud Dauber, my black friend and the nephew of our housekeeper Purlie was insecure and a bit jealous of me. In Dew Valley, Mud, being Black, was not allowed to go to the all white school with me. I wished that he could, but that was the law.

Mud darted from our front porch and made a bee-line to the dinner table holding onto a sock stuffed with marbles. When I looked down into the foyer, I could see him in deep thought, listening intently to Granny Lou’s mentoring. I knew him to be plotting to impress us with his perceived astuteness. With elaborate patience, Mud stood near Asa with his head tilted up and his chest out as if he were just named runner-up in a state championship spelling bee. Asa managed a wry smile. Mud held a fifth grade reader in his hand.

Youse bees smart, Jubilee Summers, Mud piped up as I entered the room.

Iz guine uh bet youse all my reds, and two ov my greens dat youse wont be likely to makes a complete sentence wid four words I knows. Mud counted his reds on his fingers.

I’ll betcha two case quarters, I can, I spat back.

Let me tell you something, there had better be no one betting inside or outside this house, my father said frowning. He angrily slammed his dinner fork hard on the table. Asa ruled with a rod of iron. Nothing made my pious father angrier than laying a wager.

You’ll wish you hadn’t of, so make no mistake about that. Do I make myself clear? There was a prevailing, uneasy silence. Our amusement subsided for a moment.

Yes suh, Revrin’, sho does makes it clear to me, Mud chimed.

Tell me the four words you want me to use in a single sentence, and I will show you how I can make a fool of you, you birdbrain, I spouted.

Mud cleared his throat and cocked his head to one side. Well din, Mr. Smarty Pants, de four words be, defeat, deduct, defense and detail. Mud was in my face shouting, Give up, know-it-all smarty pants? Give up? Does you gives up, does you, Jubilee?

Mud’s sudden, secretive wisdom had gone to his head. He beamed a toothy grin. It be easy, and youse just be plain dumb if youse can’t figger it out, he shouted.

Well gracious me, Mr. Webster, we all await your sentence using defeat, deduct, defense and detail, Aunt Leona said, looking a bit doubtful. A grin emanated from Mud’s ebony face that suddenly became pompous.

Asa winked a couple of knowing winks at Purlie. He was amused by Mud’s antics.

You can’t even spell duck, you loon, Axle, my youngest brother screeched to Mud.

Mud thought a minute. The showoff cleared his throat, threw back his shoulders, lifted his voice high and roared as sharp as tacks, Defeet uh deduck went over defense befor’ detail! His ruse drew an explosion of laughter from our household and a loud burst of applause.

I be a lot gooder dan Jubilee Summers, Mud shouted proudly. His eyes twinkled as he grinned like a possum.

Asa leaned back in his chair collecting his wits. We were delighted that Mud had so successfully amazed us. He lingered for a moment looking at each of us waiting for praise, while patting his own back for his shrewdness. His dark eyes swelled with importance. He would be flaunting his cleverness until doomsday, and I was certain we’d never hear the end of it.

Mud, sullen eyed, big lipped, big eared, flared nosed and wooly headed, was as black as the ace of spades. He was so very black that often his skin appeared blue. Being so black elicited a stigma from blacks and whites alike, but Mud carried his blackness as if it was to him a badge of honor. Having been thrown together before we were old enough to speak, we were companions and best friends, with shared trust. He seemed white like me, generally, but I had to admit that I sometimes wanted to wring his neck. I, on occasion, thought of Mud as being a jerk, but never once had I used the insulting label heaped on him repeatedly by the loathsome Hardlow brothers, Clay and Hawk. My demeaning opinion of Mud was only during the times he made me good and mad. He could get under my skin awfully, but Mud could get just as annoyed with me.

You dumb white jackass, red-headed sodie crakuh; you ain't got de sense God gived to a Billy goat, he shot back when he was sufficiently outdone. Mud was bad to cuss when he was cold in the Spirit or backslid. Our alliance was a mysterious chemistry.

Mud sauntered around town from daylight until dark without a care in the world. He craved attention and his imagination ran rampant.

Aunt Leona was aghast to learn that Mud had caused chaos when he came upon a group of refined church women walking the woodsy lane, a narrow scenic path that Mrs. Lovejoy, the Presbyterian minister’s wife, had long established as the town’s dogwood trail. The sophisticated entourage of elegant ladies went strolling about the lane enthusiastically until they came upon Mud.

Don’t wants to sceer ye ladies none, Mud said, buts I warns you dat I jist seed ah eight foot, fanged coach whip snake wid a forked tongue dat chase me down dis same trail lessen a hour ago, and dat somnuvabitch stood up five feet on its tail. Mud startled the women something awful. He completely disrupted Mrs. Lovejoy’s distinguished gathering. The women broke up and fled in panic, refusing to continue their afternoon promenade.

Rupert Fondern, Mud’s lazy, good-for-nothing father, kicked him around and eventually threw him out of the house to fend for himself long before reaching his tenth birthday, but Mud remained unflappable. He lived on the streets for several days until his Uncle Luke found him breaking into Hook Freeman’s house, hungry and cold. That was when Luke, Purlie’s brother, and his wife Hannah took the troubled boy into their home.

Luke and Hannah were solid gold, and although they were Negro, they were the closest friends to my family.

Mud often joined me in panhandling for our church and mission. He mimicked the sounds of an oncoming train whistle as I burst out into song, strumming on my guitar and sitting where I could be seen on the highest step of Dominick’s General Store. Our church was desperate for money. Asa was adamant that I bring home enough cash to pay our monthly lien on our new building. We sang, with vibrato, an old gospel song This Train.

Choo, Choo, Choo, Choo, Mud mimed as I delivered the vibrating noise of a fast train on my cracked guitar and belted out the tune with fervor:

This train is bound for Glory, this train,

Ain't takin’ nothing but the righteous and the holy, this train

This train is bound for Glory, this train.

Get on board everybody, Get on board. Get on board!

I gawked out the corner of my eye seeing Asa leave for home.

With him out of sight, I sang a medley of honky-tonk ballads and devil’s music that seemed more appealing to people with money. Although I felt a tinge of remorse, several folks graciously dropped dollar bills rather than loose change into my mission cup. A group of cheerful folks danced sprightly in the middle of the street as I changed from gospel to play and croon, Shine on Harvest Moon. I always left the gathering with a full mission cup, when I chanced being caught playing what Asa had determined to be sinful music. He felt that anything but church hymns and songs of Zion were inherently evil. He lashed out and reprimanded me strongly once when he strolled up to Dominick’s store and came upon me entertaining with an old Cole Porter song, Don’t Fence Me In.

On several occasions, I came very near being caught.

Mud poked his bony elbow in my back when he glimpsed Asa’s arrival just as I was bellowing a favorite song I had learned from Jelly Roll Morton on the radio. The old fogey glared at me disapprovingly when he heard me playing and singing what he declared to be Hell’s hymns, the music of the lost and unsaved. Asa walked over angrily and slammed my guitar onto the floor publicly admonishing me.

The sinful music dominating your mind and soul, Jubilee Summers, is of the Devil. Your rebellious nature, boy, will send you headfirst into Hell, he said. It was true; I knew that the old, red-tailed devil was chasing after me.

That Asa busted my guitar didn’t get me upset with him. For reasons I cannot explain, I continued to love my father with undying devotion and I longed for his approval.

The crowd pressed closer and stared dumbfounded at Asa’s absurdness. The dancing couple came and dropped a goodly amount into my mission cup attached to the neck of my broken guitar. They requested that I sing, especially for them, their favorite song, My Blue Heaven.

Mud and I sang harmoniously without music. Several in the crowd stepped up and contributed to replace my guitar. One woman asked that her contribution goes to the church just in case old Holcomb Townley, a street evangelist, preaching hellfire from the other side of Dominick’s, was accurate about his end-of-time prediction.

Fall on your knees, sinners. The end of time is near, Holcomb Townley shouted, raising his Bible high above his head. It could happen tonight as you sleep. Be saved! Be saved sinners and backsliders, be saved. Few took the self-proclaimed prophet of God seriously.

Heed the word of the Lord, I commanded as I reached for my testament in my shirt pocket, and read a Scripture, hoping that the onlookers would perceive me as hallowed and legitimate. To be heard, I shouted over Holcomb’s end-of-time prophecy. We were once again penniless at home, the church and the mission. Asa was pressing me to find a gathering. I held the title of the county’s first troubadour, singing and playing music, and I was fortunate to panhandle sufficient money to buy food for my insolvent family and Asa’s impoverished church and mission.

————◆◆◆◆————

Lumbering was the life’s blood of our struggling community. Asa commented at the supper table that the mill was near closing, and if the mill did indeed shut down, we were in a world of trouble. Asa’s calling was the ministry, but to make ends meet, discounting my panhandling, he was forced to work full time.

The one spot that appeared prosperous and certain to catch a visitor’s eye entering Dew Valley, was the newly painted Hackman house, all scrubbed and clean. To the left of the Hackman residence atop a high hill, we lived in an imposing and spacious country house called Ivan’s Manor. Our house, tall and winsome, sat in full view of the town. The two-story white frame house that we could ill-afford to live in, overlooked the entire settlement. The splendid mansion was built by Ivan Bojan, a bigamist who deceitfully married my Granny Lou Ella. He had designed the large residence purposely to resemble a plantation estate, according to Aunt Leona.

The massive expanse of Ivan’s Manor gleamed white and jutted high above a mass of neatly trimmed shrubbery. Green ivy twisted about the high columns, and rocking chairs carrying the clean smell of fresh white paint lined our wide porch. Peach and apple trees adorned the property. Looking up from town as the trees came into full bloom; an observer could see our house resting on a cloud of pink and white blossoms. Wisteria entwined into the fruit trees and coiled its way brashly into the spreading sycamores. Magnificent blossoms dangled exquisitely from zigzagging vines at our front entrance. A superb, heady scent drifted inside our house from the fruit blossoms. The sweetness of wisteria offers to the nostrils a mighty good whiff of heaven, Asa declared, with his nose stuck in the air.

A dizzying incline started at the house of the seven Whiddle sisters and ended at our front gate. Bishop Haley, our dear friend and Purlie’s minister, took a running start and held the pedal to the floor of his old sedan to be able to climb the slick grade for his weekly visit. In the summer time, the fragrant trail was thick with many varieties and colors of flowers protruding from under our white picket fence.

The majestic dwelling overshadowed all of the houses in the community. It sat pristine and white on ten acres of timberland. Fortunately for Granny Lou Ella, Ivan Bojan left her a deed to the quaint Victorian mansion, but his despicable exploitation of our grandmother went unforgotten by those who knew and loved her.

The spacious house flaunted an uncommon, but eye-catching widow’s walk high above the second floor. Many were quick to mention that the high walkway at the crest seemed a bit out of keeping with its original style. Mud and I heard only sketches from Purlie about my Granny Lou Ella’s bigamist husband, but certainly enough that we disliked him with a vengeance. While plundering in the attic, Mud and I found a portrait of Ivan Bojan long relegated to the rummage. Mud suggested that we nail the portrait of the bearded philander to a rafter and throw darts at his nose to appease our hostilities for all that we knew about the rich man and his undesirable reputation. Mud, angry from the hurt he felt Granny Lou Ella had suffered, hurled a dart into the dishonorable man’s forehead.

My semi-invalid Granny Lou Ella and I shared the massive upstairs of our big house for all of my life, but I would grant that I could count on my hands and toes the times that I saw her outside the confines of her meticulously kept rooms. She rarely ventured downstairs. On the infrequent occasions that she did come to our living quarters, it was as if we were entertaining an uncomfortable visitor in our parlor. To my recollection, she came on one occasion to meet the visionary faith healer and again to sign a mortgage on our house when Asa needed to borrow money from Roscoe Green and Fender Hardlow. The men, in their insatiable greed, charged Asa exorbitant interest on the borrowed money. They were out to ruin us.

Granny Lou Ella nodded to acknowledge me from behind a book on the evenings that I swept briskly into her domain to bring food or firewood. She lived quite comfortably and fashionably in her prosperous days, but it was obvious that my grandmother’s wealth had dwindled severely after the death of her bigamist husband.

Asa guarded his mother’s privacy zealously. His rules concerning her were strictly adhered to, and I learned early in my life that she, for the most part, wished to remain alone and undisturbed.

My grandmother wanted my father to be proud and boastful of my accomplishments, but no matter how much I excelled under her tutelage, he remained uncomplimentary. I was desperate for his approval.

There was no deficit in the love I received from my Grand Lady. Writing pretty cards was a part of her uniqueness. Hanging from my doorknob were birthday and holiday cards that the elegant woman tied with pretty and colorful ribbons. She wrote inside her greeting on my last birthday celebration, To the world’s greatest and smartest Grandson. You are my sunshine after a rain, my flower in winter that blooms ever so magnificently in my desolate upstairs garden. With love, from the bottom of my heart, she wrote and signed, Your Granny Lou.

I cherished every note and card that I received from her and I kept them secured in my secret hiding place. My favorite was Granny Lou Ella’s quote of an unknown poet:

"God dropped a spark down into everyone,

And if we find and fan it to a blaze,

It’ll spring up and glow, like…like the sun."

I was ultimately aware that a relationship in writing, tutoring and an occasional extended visit with her, would be as much as I could expect from my reclusive grandmother, although she took great pleasure in my music and encouraged me to be my very best.

Frequently, I heard Granny Lou Ella crying out painfully in the night. I left my bed to press my ear against her door to listen. In her prayers, she asked God to let her die. Take me, Lord as I lay sleeping, she prayed. Granny Lou advised the faith healer, on his most recent visit to Dew Valley, to pray only for her pain to diminish slightly. I am far too old to ask God for a complete healing, she told the healer when he passed through town last year. I have a need for a bit of suffering to ensure that I remain humble.

I was never aware of a discontinuation of her pain, even though the healer came with regularity to heal and cure on his travels to the South. The healer and prophet of the Lord shouted prayers of restoration for Granny Lou Ella. He anointed her with fragrant oils.

Granny Lou Ella’s spacious, intriguing rooms were beautiful; with oversized and ornate furniture that Ivan Bojan shipped by boat from Europe once the large house was completed. A sweet smell of years gone by lingered within my grandmother's quaint apartment. The rooms, in my opinion, were wonderfully grand, but I saw that a great deal of the former opulence was now somewhat fainter in color. Her living quarters were in denial of our poverty. The rooms would have been befitting royalty, I concluded, as I ran my hands over brash carvings that adorned a polished mahogany canopied bed where the Grand Lady had slept since moving into Ivan’s Manor. A tall and equally stately chest in the room sat positioned near an even more massive oil painting of exotic birds and flowers, as it stretched from the floor to near the ceiling. A mahogany highboy stood tall between two draped windows, and a carved mantel shelf blended regally.

Our house contrasted significantly with the way we lived inside with Asa preaching at the Church of the Covenant, and barely scratching out enough money to make ends meet while working full-time at the sawmill.

Aunt Leona sewed together yards of bleached muslin that she draped over many pieces of Granny Lou Ella’s antique furniture, in an unused portion of the house. This effort was made to protect its fine quality from mold and mildew lurking in the damp and fireless rooms.

Asa was adamant that the fine furniture remain in good condition in case we were forced to sell again in the future. A dealer came regularly and purchased some of Granny Lou Ella’s furnishings. The dealer would have killed for Granny Lou’s valuable horsehair sofa.

Asa located an antiques merchant in Coaling who purchased several of Granny Lou Ella’s rarest pieces when we found ourselves at our lowest ebb and destitute. Ivan Bojan had purchased several pieces of the costly Eighteenth Century Chippendale furnishings before he married my grandmother.

Aunt Leona was certain that some of the rare accessories were Granny Lou’s wedding gifts from her self-important husband. The unscrupulous dealer knew good stuff when he saw it. He offered Asa only half the value of Granny Lou Ella’s fine pieces, and then he stood around for an hour or so dickering, in hopes of getting her treasured collection for less.

Granny Lou Ella was not aware at the end, as I visited with her, that Asa on occasion sold a truck load of the downstairs furniture to buy food and to pay our lien to Roscoe and Fender. Our problems seemed mountainous. Everything was going wrong.

My Grand Lady, consistently cold, sat with a lap robe of pink velvet that blended into her room prettily as she rested in a plush, burgundy brocade and hand-carved easy chair. Her many books were neatly stacked at her feet. She smiled and ran her hands over her current volume. She caressed its cover to her chest as if it were a priceless treasure. In books, my grandson, you are likely to find answers to a world of questions!

On rare occasions, Granny Lou Ella might set her books aside and encourage me to stay. Surprisingly, of late, she seemed in no hurry for me to leave. My grandmother was impossible to predict.

I have something important to say, and I want you to listen carefully, Jubilee. I am concerned that there may be someone bothering you. You must not allow the dreadful person to do you harm. I sat too embarrassed to respond. I was unaware that my grandmother was so insightful.

Please, never be too afraid to tell someone if you feel threatened, she insisted. Tell Salem, if you do not wish to go to your father.

How she could have known astounded me, although, I saw through the years that she observed a lot from her upstairs window.

I could only stare for a moment. Dark truths invaded my senses and I lied. No one is doing me harm, Grand Lady, fearing what would happen if I told. I then shyly manipulated the conversation. I couldn’t dodge the issue any longer.

Grand Lady, is the rumor of Ivan Bojan’s hidden treasures true? I asked brazenly, hoping that she would give some clue to its actual existence, but if the myth was real, Granny Lou Ella gave it no validity. She dismissed the subject at once. If she knew of the treasures, she wasn’t telling.

The aged stairs to the second floor of Ivan’s Manor were rickety, and creaked in protest as I climbed into the darkness carrying Granny Lou Ella her meals. The staircase reeked of camphor and liniment in the summertime. Aunt Leona’s new white lace curtains fluttered and sieved delicately the glow of a haunting moon that was visible through arched windows at the top of the stairwell. It appeared to touch the earth as it illuminated the broad expanse of the outdoors from my window, shining brightly into the swirling water of Solomon’s Creek. I lingered a moment to retrieve messages left tied to the doorknob for me outside of Granny Lou Ella’s secretive door. Wishing not to be disturbed, she often left her request for stamps and newspapers, or she might on occasion ask that Asa come up to visit her.

I grappled nightly with a silver tray bearing a pitcher of water, a dose of Epson Salts, and a bowl of dried prunes that I brought upstairs and left outside her door in case Granny Lou Ella was dozing, as she often was. Loose planks in the old hallway flooring creaked underneath my feet. The weight of the tray sometimes included several books sent by Asa. Granny Lou Ella devoured everything in print, whether or not she made use of the other offerings.

Reading a good book somewhat tempers my unrelenting pain, she said to me as she thrust a fable into my hands. She asked that I bring the book back to her and demanded a brief synopsis upon its return.

Granny Lou Ella graduated Judson College in Marion, Alabama, with degrees in English and history. She remained impassioned about my education, encouraging me to read, while passing as many as three or four books to me weekly, as I stoked the fire and cleaned her room. Her newest books that she received by mail, I noticed, were Ivanhoe, poem collections, plays of Robert Browning and a new Bible. Granny Lou Ella insisted on a written summary of her leather bound books that I carried to my room and read with great enthusiasm. I scanned the pages in haste to satisfy her demands for book reviews.

I was flabbergasted on the evening Granny Lou Ella asked that I remain in the hall near her open door for a moment. She walked lumbering to her writing desk, fumbled for a key and unlocked a bottom drawer. She reached in and retrieved a small bundle of tattered papers. She enclosed a handwritten note and folded the documents into a leather-bound portfolio. She asked that I go immediately and bring Prince Oliver, my older and mentally deficient brother, to her bedroom. Again, she stipulated that I wait for him outside her door. I dared not question Granny Lou concerning the contents of the packet she gave him, but I did as she instructed. She placed the portfolio in Prince Oliver’s large hands, brushed me aside and whispered instructions into his ear.

This affair is mine and Prince Oliver’s secret, private and confidential, she said smiling.

Prince returned downstairs casually, as if being summoned by our grandmother was an everyday occurrence. He clutched the papers protectively. We didn’t talk about the visit, and what Prince did with the documents remained a mystery, but after that, I hardly thought anything of it at all.

My visits with Granny Lou Ella ended with a familiar gesture of her hand discharging me. She was the most intelligent woman I had ever known, and she made my teacher, Miss Isaac, appear uneducated. Before her marriage to Ivan Bojan, she had taught grammar school in the nearby small town of Hebron. Having two school teachers in the house should have been an advantage to me, but somehow I felt pressured by Aunt Leona and Granny Lou Ella to attain perfection. My marks in school were never sufficiently laudable to appease either of them.

Granny Lou was usually the first to review my report card. She encouraged excellence, and set a splendid example for me, but after a humiliating confrontation with my teacher, I lost the drive to excel.

I knew Granny Lou Ella to be reliably current on world affairs.

Alone in her room for endless hours, she was content reading newspapers, her vast collection of books or huddled near the radio that remained tuned to a Del Rio, Texas, station. Daily news and religious programs were aired around the clock.

Sure wish you could be with us at our special Communion and foot washing service this Saturday night. Grand Lady.

Would be nice, my grandson. However, I will be there with you in spirit, my dear.

I became quite accustomed to hearing the gospel stations from her radio, and often she listened to the fireside chats from President Franklin Roosevelt. Granny Lou and I pushed our chairs near the radio.

Our president has renewed our hope for the future, Jubilee, Granny Lou Ella said, twisting the dial. I sat captivated as I heard our President’s comforting voice wafting through the crackling airwaves.

Our dear leader was handed a heavy weight to bear by the American people. In your prayers, Jubilee, pray that God will imbue our noble president with great wisdom. We are living in trying times. He has spoken reassuring words in many of his speeches reminding us the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, Granny Lou Ella said, with a sigh.

Mud had sat downstairs with Aunt Leona with his ears tuned; he listened attentively to President Roosevelt.

Mr. Roseafelt bees black folk’s president ain't he, Aunt Leona? Mud asked earnestly.

Indeed he is, my dear, Aunt Leona said sweetly.

Then, he bees my good president too, Mud replied beaming.

Residents of our small town seemed to be surviving the hard times spoken of by President Roosevelt. My family, for all of my life, had known hardly anything but bad luck. Although with Granny Lou Ella as our inspiration, we learned to exist with very little.

Asa asked for the money that I had earned from a week of seeing after my housebound shut-ins, Twila Sinyard and Bennie Wayne Smith.

Twila, confined to a wheelchair, paid me generously for cooking her meals, running errands and cleaning her house, and once I had cashed Bennie’s pension check, I took a sufficient amount of his money for my mission cup. It was an inopportune time for Asa to demand that I give him my earnings. Mud and I were saving frantically to go to the county fair.

During a long visit with Twila, my Grand Lady's dear friend, I learned of the extraordinary story of my grandmother and the despicable Ivan Bojan, a wealthy businessman from Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The evil man had traveled to the South on a hunting expedition at the turn of the century.

Jubilee, your grandmother was an attractive school teacher at the time she met the rich merchant, Twila said. All the single girls in Dew Valley gathered at Dominick’s to catch a glimpse of his handsome band of hunters and trappers who had stopped briefly in town on their route to Florida. I recall that Ivan Bojan was immediately taken with Lou Ella. Though he wrote to her weekly, she was quite surprised when the dashing man returned a year later, flaunting his charm and money. He wasted no time in asking Lou Ella to marry him.

Was my grandmother taken with him, also? I inquired.

Not so much at first, as I recall. Suitors flocked to Lou Ella. She caught the eye of every available man in the county. Lou Ella thought Ivan Bojan to be an arrogant, pompous upstart, and she was quite distrusting of him. He delighted in displaying his wealth, and it was soon apparent that he would be relentless in his pursuit of her. I remember that the two courted only briefly, and in less than a year, Lou Ella came to tell me she was engaged to be married.

Wasn’t my grandmother wary of him? He was a total stranger.

"For a while, perhaps, Jubilee, but Lou Ella was ready to marry, and it was eventually in her favor that she did. Once she accepted his proposal, the wedding was postponed several times to permit Ivan’s return to Eau Claire, where I’ve heard that he had amassed a fortune in the millinery business.

Ivan often made hurried trips out of Dew Valley to his headquarters in Wisconsin. Although Lou Ella finally trusted him, I had always been a bit suspect about his shenanigans. I feigned an insincere happiness when my best friend planned her wedding for the one weekend that Ivan was certain to be within traveling distance of Dew Valley.

Wasn’t everyone suspicious when he went away and didn’t tell anyone where he was going? I asked.

Oddly enough, he did not disclose any details of his business affairs or of how to reach him, and yes, many were distrusting. However, Ivan had begun building her a magnificent house. Would a man of questionable character have invested so much? The big house was completed and Lou Ella was expecting Asa at the end of their first year of marriage. However, when weeks turned into months during Ivan’s final trip to his headquarters in Wisconsin, each day of Ivan’s absence became more stressful for Lou Ella. The townsfolk gossiped and guessed at what had happened to him. Much about the man was a mingled mystery. Your grandmother gave birth to your father without her husband’s presence. The poor dear barely survived.

What eventually happened, Twila?

A year and a half later, Lou Ella was called to her door before daybreak. Her unannounced visitor had come by rented cab in the midst of a winter blizzard to find her. It was cold; the ground had not thawed since November. The woman arrived unexpectedly, only two days before Christmas. The real Mrs. Bojan had a distressing message that she was compelled to share with Lou Ella, who unknowingly had married her bigamist husband. She also was obligated to inform Lou Ella of Ivan’s shameless philandering and his unfortunate death. He was killed in a hunting accident in North Dakota, she said sadly to Lou Ella. The grieving widow and Lou Ella were not the only wives of Ivan Bojan. The loathsome and insensitive bigamist had wed three other women, with four more children bearing his name in Memphis, Lexington, and New Orleans. I went to Lou Ella immediately. She was tormented. She was an upstanding Christian girl, Jubilee, and she considered that she had given birth to a son out of wedlock. To her mind, Ivan Bojan was no more than an adulterer and a flamboyant philanderer. Shattered, she took to her bed, and to no one’s surprise, she gave your father her maiden name rather than the name of the egotistical Ivan Bojan.

I’ve never once heard her utter his name, I said to Twila.

To my knowledge, she never has, Twila replied.

In my youth and on many occasions, I have known my mother to slip from her bedroom and ascend the stairs to the tall widow's walk, where she scanned the horizons, hoping to find Ivan returning to her, Asa said.

It is my contention that she had always expected him to come back one day. Sometimes, I had the feeling that she thought the whole thing to be a horrible dream, Twila remembered.

Did she ever hear from the other woman again? I asked.

Both women were terribly exploited, but through mutual pains, they developed an enduring friendship, Twila said.

Mrs. Bojan was especially considerate of Asa. She hired an attorney to file a deed allowing the big house and land to officially become his and Lou Ella’s. Your grandmother would have found herself penniless without her assistance. The two of them kept up a correspondence until the day a letter arrived, announcing Mrs. Bojan’s death. The grand house, the house you live in, Jubilee, became ‘Ivan’s Manor’ to the townsfolk. As her best friend, it was apparent to me that your grandmother Lou Ella never recovered from Ivan Bojan’s deception.

————◆◆◆◆————

Purlie tugged me to the doorjamb, placed me at last year’s notch, and swore aloud that I had grown a foot since last summer. My growth was most noticeable by my big hands and feet. I disliked letting Purlie measure my height. It was her good excuse to start letting out the hem in my breeches. She always sewed my cuffs too long. In no time you’ll grows to fit ‘em, she said, but I walked on my extended pant legs for a whole year. Mud had grown thicker, but he was much shorter than I; his head barely reached my shoulder.

The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, Asa surmised at the family dinner table about the possibility of the mill closing. Our livelihood faced an uncertain future.

I would be most grateful to the Lord, if He did not take it away right before I get a new pair of shoes, I said.

You must learn to face hardships, boy, Asa said coldly. Later in the evening, Purlie sat me down, traced my skinny feet onto scrap paper and then she cut cardboard to their exact size.

Cardboard will helps prevent your feets from getting’ all soakin’ wet on your way to school, she declared while slipping the corrugated paper into my shoddy old shoes. It was not at all unlike Purlie to be ready to lend a hand, but her generous effort did not stop my holey shoes from hydrating. I pulled the wet cardboard out of my soggy shoes and left them under the potbellied stove to dry in Miss Isaac’s classroom.

Kalee Hunter, the cutest girl in our school, took great pleasure in humiliating me, once she discovered the wet cardboard from my battered brogans drying under the stove. The intimidating girl with brassy hair and piercing blue eyes rushed to the front of the room. She held up my dripping shoes.

Hey everybody, these smelly things belongs to Jubilee Summers. Kalee pressed two fingers to her pug nose which was thick with an inch of pancake makeup.

I held my temper, thinking that one day I would show them all. Especially hateful were the vicious, well-off kids who enjoyed teasing me because we were poor.

Purlie was first to divulge to me that Ivan Bojan, my wealthy philandering grandfather, had hidden gold and money before his demise, and by damn, I was determined that it would be mine. Sooner or later, I would discover his obscure treasures. My great wish was to rub my wealth in the chalky faces of Kalee Hunter and Ivy Mae Tingle and watch them grovel.

My kid brother, Ralston, three years younger than I and not as big as a minute, came home with enough cash to buy his own shoes. He had toted drinking water to a chain gang working on the railroad, arriving home dirty and greasy. To Aunt Leona’s dismay, the prisoners gave him the nickname Axle. Dirty and grimy from his escapades, he looked as if he had been baptized in axle grease. They paid him to bring drinking water from the big spring in Honest Hank’s Hollow. The silly nickname stuck like a spoon to a jar of Golden Eagle soppin’ syrup.

Purlie ruined a handmade wallet that an inmate had given to Axle. She let it get into the wash unintentionally. Axle pitched a fit and called Purlie a bitch to her face. I could have busted his lip for his impertinence to Purlie. I was waiting for the day that someone would bring the insolent imp down a notch or two.

That boy was born wid the Devil in him, Purlie said in all seriousness. Axle could be scary; he had a wicked aura about him.

Asa preached scary sermons about folks possessed by the Devil. I often witnessed an unquestionable look of evil in my younger brother’s fiendish countenance, something unearthly in his haunting eyes. Salem Schneider, Asa’s deacon and close friend, saw it too.

Axle was defiant and disrespectful to the respected deacon.

The boy is from the underworld. I’d bet he wouldn’t bleed a drop of red blood if he were slashed with a knife, Salem said.

Dew Valley was an out-of-the-way community that Mud and I claimed as totally ours. Just as I was about to come into my teen years, my life began to change. An endless turn of fateful events unfolded, and my happiest times soon faded.

Early in the year 1939, I was only nine years old and had not experienced the imperfections of the limitless world around us. To me, no other way of life existed outside of our familiar realm, the orderly and quiescent environments of the Pentecostal Holiness Church of the Covenant and in our Christian home.

We lived simply with honor and pride instilled by Aunt Leona, who had married our father after my mother’s death when I was at a very young age. Asa had avowed that he would not marry again, as Purlie was eager to tell those trying to find him a wife. Everyone in his congregation seemed to know of someone perfect and eligible. It was ultimately apparent that Asa was unsuited for bachelorhood. Within months, he and Aunt Leona were married in Asa’s temporary church in an informal ceremony.

I hardly knew what was about to occur on the day of Asa’s wedding to my dear mother’s sister. Confused and sensitive, I watched the nuptials with the mistaken idea that because Aunt Leona and my father appeared happy, it meant that Asa had disregarded my mother’s memory altogether.

My mentally handicapped brother Prince Oliver moved close to me during the ceremony. He sensed that our household was about to change significantly and it did. From the beginning, it seemed as if Aunt Leona had always lived in Ivan’s Manor. Her move into our house made our lives considerably better.

My earliest memories are of Asa’s Christian mission home adjacent to our church. It was, at all times, inundated with wanderers who arrived in town jobless and with no place to stay. Asa rarely had a vacant bed or food for the additional ten or more who came each week knocking at the mission door and begging to come inside. It devastated my father to turn away hungry and dejected drifters, though their needs burdened the already strained finances of our church. He hoped that the ministry of the mission might make the rigors of life a little more bearable for the many transients.

Asa’s voice held an implication of urgency when asking me to help defer our debts by entertaining at the busy entrance to Dominick’s general store. Folks congregated to shoot the breeze or to trade at the only store in a twenty-mile radius, and what I did was no less than begging. My panhandling was an embarrassment to my older brother, Traff, but he did not find it demeaning to borrow money from my mission cup. He often forgot to pay the money back, and Mud was not hesitant in expressing his disapproval. Might as well jist cram de damn money up a wildcat’s ass and holler, ‘Git!’ he bristled. Youse ain't ever gonna see a cent ov it agin!

I began experimenting with various musical instruments at a very young age. The piano was my mainstay, and it was the simplest instrument for me to conquer. The very first time I sat down at our pump organ at home I played Rock of Ages, flawlessly. My Aunt Leona peeked around the door astonished. Our household can now claim a musical genius. Music will command your future, Jubilee, she said. She began to sing beautifully to my accompaniment with a transcendent voice; however, she insisted that it was I who was blessed with a God given talent.

Music had, for all of my life, affected me. I found my very own awesome world on the first day I picked up a guitar and strummed a church hymn as effortlessly as I had played piano. I dreamed of a faithful and devoted service to my father, and to his sanctified church.

Deep within me remained an uneasy feeling that my life was about to undergo some indefinite transformations.

Asa’s request for me to go out to solicit money where there was any kind of assembly suited me fine. As I grew and matured, it was obvious to me that Aunt Leona and Granny Lou Ella were of the opinion that Asa expected almost too much from me. Although, playing music and singing to garner needed funds for our church and his floundering mission, I did not consider an imposition; I was delighted to show off my talent.

My ambition to sing on stage and on the radio was recently commended by Mr. Floyd Finnigan, who, when traveling through town, dropped folding money and several coins into my mission cup as I sang on the steps of Dominick’s.

Young man, you are a most talented singer and musician, he said pleasantly, and then he, to my honest surprise, invited me to come up to Nashville to make a record. I like your music. A name like Jubilee and your natural flair would be immediately marketable, especially with your love for gospel tunes. That head of red hair can’t hurt either when you perform on stage. Oh, by the way, how many instruments do you play?

A heap ov ‘em, sir.

We are looking high and low for a talented young country singer, and you, my boy, would fit the bill just fine.

I pondered for a moment. I want moren' anythang to go, I said in my best country twang. I confess, sir, I ain't finished my schoolin’ yet. I ain't quite old enough to leave home and I ain't finished growing up. I’d hafta talk to my papa about it.

I had attained, in my limited years, an extraordinary level of achievement in music and voice. I offered Mr. Finnigan a signed, black and white glossy picture of me holding my guitar against a large background of the Bible open to the Ten Commandments as proof of my local celebrity in and around Bibb County.

I would be happy to arrange an appearance on the Grand Ole Opry. The likable man flattered me terribly with his stream of compliments.

Why, thanks, Mister Finnigan; I’d be much obliged, sir, I said swollen with conceit.

After a thoughtful interval, I began to feel important. I would like that a lot, I replied.

I am quite serious. I can promise a contract that will make you very rich, he remarked, patting my back.

Later that evening, I returned home to face Asa’s strong disapproval when I mentioned that I had been offered an opportunity to record my music in Nashville. I explained it all to him, but he spoiled it for me. You disappoint me with your selfish ambitions and foolish dreams, Jubilee Summers. What is wrong with you? Do you care nothing for God and His church? He remarked with condemnation.

With all due respect, sir, I see now that you will never in my lifetime allow me to seek my calling, because you are in need of my profitable talents. You will never agree for me to leave the church in pursuit of a career, and that makes me unhappy! It was my first time to confront my father and he was livid and shaken that I struck back.

That’s enough of you. Go and never return, for all I care. Face the wrath of God. It is obvious that you are irredeemable, and besides, I suspect that you will forever be an encumbrance to my ministry! When I think of what I have sired, I ask God for forgiveness. A muscle twitched in Asa’s cheek.

I had never felt so insecure and downtrodden. I truly had not seriously considered leaving. The more I thought about it, I decided that perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to Nashville with the man, even with Asa’s consent. I loved applause, but my heart would burst wide open if I had to part from Purlie, Prince and Aunt Leona for any length of time. Purlie was the eternal worrywart, and Aunt Leona couldn’t have done without me for very long.

Asa reiterated that the rollicking, sinning music I loved was nothing but a tool of the Devil. Before I ran from the house, he took the man’s name and his address from my hand and tossed the note into the fire, ensuring that I would never engage in any correspondence with the stranger.

In time, I became somewhat indulgent of Asa’s reaction and refused to be discouraged. I worked at accepting his rejection of me. I knew him to be heavily burdened and made excuses for him. I had not honestly considered leaving. Bad news of the world’s troubles blared over our radio. In my heart, I hoped that his refusal to permit me to go to Nashville was because he loved and needed me. As time passed, however, I learned that Asa had cast me aside with finality. Desperate for his love and support, I went to my father to make amends.

Let’s you and me go fishing at the pier on Solomon’s Creek today, I suggested happily. I’ll dig a can of worms!

I have no need for such frivolous pastimes, he said. I don’t want you near me. Leave and make yourself scarce. I can barely endure the sight of you, he said.

Asa had become cruel and had stopped caring. Nothing I could do would reinstate the love I imagined he once had for me. I sensed there was something about me that he could not endure. His denial of my musical career only sharpened my determination. I plotted to recapture the relationship with him that I once knew. I dreamed that I would awaken one morning, walk downstairs, and discover that his love for me had been rekindled.

I was not the only Dew Valley resident with a troubled spirit. Many of our neighbors were becoming uncertain and fearful as war loomed heavily over Europe. Folks were yet reeling from the lingering depression and were not confident in our government or our economy. Many essentials we enjoyed were about to be rationed. To our bewilderment, peculiar coins called tokens surfaced. What a nuisance! However, without the novel exchange issued by the government, we would be unable to purchase particular items essential to the war effort.

My big brother, Trafford Ledden Summers, whose name I shortened to Traff, informed us that our ration book, tokens, and used metal toothpaste tubes would be required when making various purchases at Dominick’s. He was adamant that we must remember to hold on to those dreaded tokens that were so easily lost in our big house.

Itinerants continued to arrive in Dew Valley by rail and were too many to count. Asa was forced to turn the hardiest of them away from the mission. The oppressed men slept in boxcars near Toolie’s Tavern and underneath shoddy tarpapered shacks and tents in Honest Hank’s Hollow.

Sheriff Fender Hardlow arrested the most cunning tramp for picking pockets at Dominick’s. A week later, I caught the same crafty Devil about to lift my mission cup. Bald on top with long stands of scraggly hair falling to his shoulders and a tuft of beard at his weatherworn face, the sly vagabond then took Salem Schneider’s wallet containing a hundred dollars before any of us could blink an eye.

Damn de thievin’ bastard, Mud shouted, as he tackled the filcher, knocking him backwards. He fell to the floor, turning over Norm Dominick’s rain barrel. Mud sat on the nimble thief, grinning proudly until the sheriff arrived.

A host of homeless but fun loving drifters rushed to the road to tease their ousted comrade. A trio of the more spirited men tipped frayed and shabby hats in the direction of the petty thief as Sheriff Fender marched the waggish, bright-eyed swindler at gunpoint to his ticketless passage out of town. The six o’clock mail train trudged west toward Meridian, hauling the wily, thieving hobo to an unknown destination. A dense fog nipped at the dawdling red caboose as the daring and mischievous tramp leaned out a window to blow Fender a hasty raspberry.

The displaced men asked simply for food and a long rest. Two newly arriving sunburned and leathery hobos sat contentedly on our porch savoring the smell of pork frying while waiting for a handout. Purlie had recently pointed out to me a strange mark on our fence post that she insisted had been scrawled by a previous transient. This sign indicated to an influx of homeless drifters that they had been well treated at our house.

Asa did not permit us to turn anyone away, lest we were entertaining angels unaware.

Foxes go into their dens, birds to their nest, but the poor itinerant men have nowhere to call home, Asa said desolately to Aunt Leona.

On the coldest night of what I hoped to be the last of a freezing winter, Asa’s handyman, Luke, when delivering oil to the mission, found a vagrant outside, frozen to death. He might have been spared, had I not stolen the money from my mission cup, I thought, ashamed.

Luke went in haste to get Salem. He and Salem picked up the man like a piece of dry wood. Asa quickly organized a burial service for the forsaken transient before noon the next day.

Just as the morning haze was dying away, a line of freight trains arrived, bringing more freeloaders and deadbeats. Asa counted eleven more mouths to feed and the mission was at its capacity. My father seemed more weary and despondent than he had ever been. Although he no longer cared, he had serious expectations of me. He needed cash and he wanted me out of town. He insisted that I go several miles up the road, near Roupe’s Landing, to panhandle at the mining commissary near the old Red Mountain ore mines. Asa determined that I would likely solicit a considerable amount more money from miners than from the impoverished saw-millers.

I sensed that it was getting harder and harder to appease my father’s exacting demands. He depended on me to bring home a goodly amount of cash and was insistent that I spend more hours panhandling. Much of my mission money, for the entire month, had been squandered to buy tobacco for the devilish Hardlow brothers. The heathers threatened to cause me bodily harm if I failed to deliver. I hoped that the Army would take them, but Traff’s opinion was that the military wouldn’t have them.

An awful lot of my panhandlin’ money was lost to the Gypsy thieves living in tents in Hank’s Hollow. I soon knew that I had bought a bill of goods. The gold rings and bracelets that I purchased from the Gypsies for resale turned green on my customer’s arms and fingers. Everyone demanded a refund. I then took a temporary job staking Salem’s tomato plants, but I soon discovered that he paid little to me and his migrant laborers.

Purlie had worked for a number of years in our house. She had previously stayed with us for as many days a week as Asa was able to pay her, but I wished, at that time, she could always be available to me. She often came on the days she knew for certain there would be no compensation. Before Asa married Aunt Leona, Purlie provided great help in caring for our family. She was particularly proficient in seeing after my mentally incompetent brother, Prince Oliver, and our disabled Granny Lou Ella.

Asa was unable to cope with four rambunctious boys after our mother’s death until Purlie came to work full time. Asa offered her meals and a paltry wage to be paid when his crops were in. He needed a steady cook who could also look after us when he was away preaching.

I recall seeing Purlie the first time she came to our house. She's surely a vocal and proud woman, I concluded at once. She walked in haughtily, raised a stubborn chin, and from that very first day, she dominated our household. The instant I laid my eyes on the loud, Negro woman in our doorway, I knew she