Southern Winds A’ Changing

By Elizabeth Carroll Foster

It is 1932, and racial prejudice is common in Deer Point, Arkansas, where the lives of two womena white school teacher and an African American sharecropperare destined to become forever entwined. As Allise DeWitt gives birth to her first child, her husband, Quent, rapes eighteen-year-old African American Maizee Colson on their cotton farm. Fearing that Quent will terrorize her forever, Maizees parents take her to Texas, where, nine months later, she gives birth to a son whom she names Nathaniel.

As Allise and Quent settle into life as new parents, she cannot shake the feeling that something is wedging its way between them. Financial troubles brought on by the Great Depression plague Quent, and he is forced to send his farmhands packing. Driven by the need to help and to do the right thing, Allise heads up a church project to donate clothing and other items to the sharecroppers. Years later, Quent is killed while fighting in World War ll, and Allise finds happiness in a second marriage to Dro McClure. Allises charitable journey continues, however, leading her through peril and prejudice and eventually bringing her to uncover a shocking truth that will change her life forever.

In this historical novel, an independent Quaker school marm attempts to overcome racial inequity in her small community, inextricably intertwining her life with an unlikely friend who proves that peace is attainable even in the darkest of times.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491701089

Elizabeth Carroll Foster

Elizabeth Carroll Foster is an Arkansas native. As a journalist, she worked as a feature writer and editor for southern Maryland newspapers and as a freelancer for regional magazines. She is also the author of Follow Me and Musings, Mutterings, and Aw Shucks, as well as several other books. Elizabeth currently resides in Arkansas.

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Copyright © 2013 Elizabeth Carroll Foster.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-0107-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-0109-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-0108-9 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 8/14/2013

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-One

Chapter Sixty-Two

Chapter Sixty-Three

Chapter Sixty-Four

Chapter Sixty-Five

In memory of my high-school English teacher, the late Miss Marjorie Walker

It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

—Edmund Burke

And the rose like a nymph to the bath addressed,

Which unveiled the depth of her glowing breast,

Till, fold after fold, to the fainting air

The soul of her beauty and love lay bare

—Percy Bysshe Shelley

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all those who earned my gratitude. They are too many to name, including family members who nudged me along. My late husband, John, allowed time and showed patience. My daughter-in-law, Karen Jones Foster, read and commented on an early draft.

Southern Maryland Wordsmiths Jane Deborah Vincent and Audrey Hassanein read parts of an early draft.

My endearing friend Jan Stoorza read part of an early draft and encouraged me.

The late Marjorie Walker, my high-school English teacher, read chapter after chapter and encouraged me with comments like, This is the kind of book I like to read.

Hot Springs Village Writers rooted for me to get this book in print. Some had a special hand in the final draft: John Achor, Pug Jones, Fred Boling, Margaret Morrell, John Tailby, Bill White, Madelyn Young, Gene Heath, Linda Hamon, and Judy Carroll. They had the courage to point out mistakes and parts that did not work.

Nancy Rosenfeld, Nina Catanese, and Beth Skony did the best they could for me.

Last but not least, my friend Barbara Chaplik did a final proof.

Chapter One

1932

A llise DeWitt might give birth to their first child anytime. Her husband Quentin, in his farm work pants, long-sleeved shirt, and high-topped shoes, looked ready to step out the door. The many acres of the DeWitt farm spread along the eastern edge of the Chalu River some seven miles from Deer Point, the southern Arkansas town where the DeWitts lived.

Allise’s uppermost concern rested in her misshapen body. She gave no thought to her bed-tangled reddish hair. Her dark hazel eyes pled with her husband. Please hurry home, Quent, she said. This could be the day.

He kissed her cheek. Cotton picking gets underway today. I’ll do my best to finish early. Quent slapped a straw hat over side-parted light brown hair combed into slick perfection and rushed out the door.

Allise leaned against the kitchen counter. Tousled strands of hair fell about her pale face. Twisting her wide wedding band, she listened to the old farm truck rumble down the back alley with Quent’s younger brother, Sam, at the wheel. Sam didn’t resemble Quent in the slightest. He took after their father, stocky and earthy.

Her tall, handsome husband had grown strained under his farm responsibilities—so strained she now saw few traces of the fun-loving beau who had courted her some three years ago. Well, that memorable summer and beautiful Christmas wedding in Pennsylvania are behind us.

Quent’s blue flannel robe hung loosely over Allise’s expanded girth. She thought of eating for the baby’s sake, but the sight of food scraps on her husband’s plate brought on a feeling of nausea. She trudged upstairs to the bedroom. Catching a glimpse in the mirror of her tired eyes and the rumpled curls framing her milk-white face, she straightened the mussed hair with her fingers and sank onto the chaise lounge.

She lay there for several hours, fearing the unknown, before the first cramping pain began. She trudged back downstairs to phone Dr. Walls.

The doctor came as soon as he could leave his office. Cramps, he said, were an early stage of delivery. I’ll examine you later, Allie. Get in bed and rest up for your labor. With her settled, he took the overstuffed chair near the window. His presence—spectacles perched midway down his nose and a neatly trimmed gray mustache—comforted Allise. He picked up a book, positioned it on his rotund belly, and started to read.

Glancing at him, Allise thought he must have sat like this with many patients over the years. What would Deer Point do without him?

By sunset on the DeWitt farm, one cotton sack remained to be weighed. All the black tenant hands walked toward their farmhouses—all but one, eighteen-year-old Maizee Colson, the daughter of Jonas and Rebekah. She was their eldest, the pretty daughter with the dark almond-shaped eyes.

Maizee was last in line to have her sack weighed, and Quent took his time at the scales. Then he grabbed her arm, and holding her back, he peered around the weighing shed door. Convinced they were alone, he shoved her to the back of the shed. Pull those clothes off, girl, and get down there.

A human mass heaved and grunted over Maizee. Each hard thrust into her slight body dropped Quentin DeWitt’s cold sweat onto her dark skin. Searing pain shot through her sunbaked arms, which he held pinned against the floor. Nothing like this had ever happened to her. She lay in paralyzed submission, tears oozing from eyes set on a dim corner of the ceiling. Maizee wanted to cling there in the cool, elusive place, apart from the scourge being inflicted upon her.

Quent gave one last guttural groan and rolled onto dirty coarse cotton sacks that only minutes before had been emptied of the day’s pickings. His heavy breathing cut into a thick silence. Sensing his vulnerability at that moment, Maizee wondered what she should do.

Suddenly, Quent stood, and she thought of blood. Wondering if it would gush down her legs when she stood up, she glimpsed his white flesh disappearing inside a trouser leg. Maizee imagined her fingers reaching out to claw it. Stain his white with his own blood. Stain my brown fingers with his blood.

He looked down at her nude form with cold, steel-blue eyes and sneered. Get up, girl! You ain’t hurt. Go on home. Without a backward glance, Quent pushed the sagging door and stepped out into the mid-September evening, heated yet from a blistering Arkansas summer.

Maizee lay in the darkness and listened to voices drift across the evening stillness. Gawd damn it, I’m starved! Allie may be having a baby, and you taking on wenches. Mista Quent had roused his brother, Mista Sam, whom she had seen dozing in the truck parked beside the shed.

Let’s go, Sam. I’m hungry too. Mista Quent sounded more like he was giving in than issuing one of his usual sharp-edged orders.

Maizee heard metal slam against metal as the rickety old truck bumped down the rutted dirt lane to the main road. When she could no longer hear it, she knew the men were on the highway headed for Deer Point, seven wagon-long miles due east.

With no sense of time and alone in the shed, she felt out of her body, not wanting to be a part of it. Then, remembering, she felt between her thighs for blood. Satisfied, she pulled an empty sack reeking of musty cotton over her nakedness and rolled onto her side. With knees drawn to her chest, she lay motionless. Thoughts exploded like charged wires touching each other inside her head.

In seconds, she came to her knees and wailed, Nigga! Whimpering, she pounded the dirt-strewn floor with her fists. Then, as suddenly as whimper and pounding began, they ceased. Maizee’s clenched fists relaxed into callused hands incapable of harming anyone. She reached for her white bloomers and pulled them on. Her flour-sack dress lay crumpled nearby. Pulling it over her head, she stood and tugged it down her body before tying a sweat-stained red bandana about her short plaits.

Then, with the screech of a wild animal, her anger boiled over again. Poised like a mad dog ready to attack, she snatched up a long, empty sack, wadded one end, and spun it round and round. The shed filled with frenzied motion. Hoes and weights leaning against the walls, tools hanging from nails—all crashed to the floor, settling about her. Her breath came in harsh gasps, and her legs buckled. She sagged to the floor, limp and spent.

For some time, Maizee sat amid the rubble. Then, pushing to her feet again, she walked out into the night. Trudging across the field in darkness, she wondered how long it had been since everyone left the weighing shed. Momma! She gonna be mad! She be mad when she knows. What I gonna tell her? Maizee tried to hurry along, but her body was past taking commands. Her mind dredged up an ugly word she was forbidden to use. She was not dumb about the thing that had happened to her. Momma and Daddy cain’t do nothing. Just have to put up with white folks.

For most of her day, Allise had lain on her back, eyes closed. A dull ache wrapped around her torso. Opening her eyes, she saw the doctor dozing. A book lay across his belly, rising and falling with each breath. His small round specs sat askew on his broad nose. He looks exhausted. Was he up all night tending sick folk?

She tried to move without waking him, but he woke, moved to the window, and pulled a watch from his vest pocket. It’s two o’clock. I must examine you. Allise winced. Probes of her body, even by the kindly old doctor, felt like a violation.

He pulled down the sheet, and she curled into a fetal position and muttered about needing her mother. She tried to pull Philadelphia’s teeming streets, its chugging trolleys and ringing church bells, into a pool of focused thought, but it was beyond her. Rubbing her backside, she groaned. The doctor rose from his chair and wedged a pillow behind her. Pressing into the soft support, she rolled tired eyes up at him. I lost my teaching position because I was pregnant. Did you know that, Dr. Walls?

Her eyes met his gaze. I didn’t, Allie, but it doesn’t surprise me.

Allise pushed back tears. Fresh out of college, I came south to be the best teacher I could be. Oh, where is Quent? she shouted, and then added under her breath, Oh, where’s my patience?

Dr. Walls ignored her comments. Time passed slowly. The phone rang. He hobbled downstairs to answer it and in a few minutes was back, breathing hard and holding his watch. It’s four o’clock, Allie. Seems a long time, but first babies take the longest. He took her hand. I must run to the office and dress a wound. Be back soon. First let’s see how you’re doing.

I want water. My mouth is dry.

You can’t have water, dear. He folded back the sheet. It’s going to be a while.

She watched him walk out, gray fedora and worn leather medical bag in hand. Please hurry.

He nodded over his shoulder, and she felt abandoned. Like the day Quent had walked out after her outburst. Big as a hippo and feeling ugly, she wanted to blame her tirade on being pregnant. She had ranted at her husband that day about losing her job and being an outsider in Deer Point. We’re never invited to your friends’ homes. It’s as if I have the plague since they learned I’m a Quaker.

Oh, Allie—

My name is Allise! she had screamed. Everyone calls me ‘Allie.’ I hate it. You’re addressing someone that’s not me. At that point, Quent had walked out of the house.

I needed him to listen, and he walked away. I need him now. Where is he? Alone and scared, her discomfort became more acute. Oh, God! she whispered. Please come home, Quent.

Maizee opened the back door of the shotgun tenant house. A bullet sent straight through the front door would exit out the back door. She swept through the kitchen past her mother and younger sisters. Rebekah glanced up from a dishpan of steamy water on the wood-burning cookstove. You late! Where you been, girl? Lookey, ain’t no reason to go off sulking in there. Ain’t nobody feeling sorry for you. Ever’body here be slaving in that cotton patch same’s you, and you loafing off so somebody else has to do your work.

Sweat streamed down Rebekah’s round face. Maizee heard hard-drawn breaths escaping her mother’s heavy frame as she shifted on the squeaky wood floor. Fire in the kitchen stove died slowly, like the heat under the tin roof tempered all day by the late-summer sun. The few raised glass windows in the house allowed a small escape for the heat.

Her mother’s words trailed through the curtained doorway between kitchen and bedroom. Maizee sat on the bed, chin cupped in her hands. She imagined Dessie May’s five-year-old face puckering at their mother’s harsh tone. Nine-year-old Josephine—known as Li’l Joke—cleared supper from the red oilcloth that covered the table. A pang of guilt swept through Maizee, for clearing the table and drying dishes were her tasks.

Rebekah and her sisters still wore their field-worn, printed flour sack-dresses and grubby white bandanas knotted at their napes. White folks saying my black plaits is pigtails. Maizee jerked off her red bandana, wadded it, and wiped her scalp. Holding the headpiece as if it were repulsive, she flung the wad against the wall behind the bed frame.

From the kitchen, her mother’s words reverberated over the clatter of dishes and throughout the three-room house. Listening to Rebekah’s frustration, Maizee felt the same bone tiredness all her family endured. Small-framed like her daddy, Jonas, she didn’t tire quickly. She had his sharp features, slender build, and medium height but not so much the look of milk drops in his bloodline.

Daddy don’t stumble much, but when he does, he’s the first to laugh at hisself. She had a vision of Jonas leaning against a porch post, his work-hardened hands draping limply between raised knees. Does he have enough laughs left in him to bear what’s happened to me?

Cass and Dalt, her younger brothers, rested against the weathered porch wall. Maizee knew this evening ritual of cooling off before bedtime on summer nights.

While no one paid any attention to scolding in the kitchen, Maizee also knew the whole family depended on her mother’s get-up-and-go to prod them through each day. Her momma had the kitchen in order and kindling piled beneath the stove for cooking a predawn breakfast when she heard Rebekah urge Li’l Joke and Dessie onto the porch. Jonas, I don’t know what’s wrong with Maizee, but I sho aim to find out. Returning to the middle room where Maizee sat, Rebekah plopped down on the bed. What’s going on? You ain’t got some silly little old boy hanging round that cotton shed, have you?

Nome. The room was dark, and her mother couldn’t see her tears. Maizee hoped she couldn’t hear the quiver in her voice.

Listen to me, Maizee. You know you cain’t be coming in here late like you done tonight, shirking your work. Her tone softened. Stuffs gotta be done, chile. Li’l Joke and Dessie still gotta bathe off fore we can go to bed.

I know, Momma. A shiver ran along her spine as she thought of what her daddy might try to do to Mista Quent. Why daddy would … A black man trying to kill a white man. She shoved the consequences from her mind. I cain’t tell ’em.

I declare I don’t know how we ever gonna make it in these old cotton fields. Rebekah leaned forward on heavy arms. Chubby hands rested on her knees, pulling her dress taut as a tent over a high, round belly. All us is tired—just so tired. She sighed, pushed up from the bedside, and waddled back toward the porch.

After what seemed an eternity, Allise heard the doctor’s returning footsteps on the stairs. He deposited hat and bag on the lounge, and she cried in a raspy whisper, Water! Please, Dr. Walls, just a sip.

You can’t have water, Allie. He asked about a clean washcloth, found one, and wet it under the bathroom faucet.

She sucked on it and quieted, but before long her moans became a constant plaint. Suddenly, her knees came up with a sharp pain, and she cried out, Dear God, is this day never going to end?

The doctor took the watch from his vest fob. It’s near six. He stroked her hair. "It will end, Allie. Always does. He lifted the sheet. Won’t be long. Pulling the sheet back over her, he said, The baby’s in command now."

Baby’s in command, she mocked. Do something! Why isn’t Quent here?

Shh. He smoothed her tangled hair and patted her lips with the damp cloth. When she quieted, he sat with watch in one hand, book in the other, and dozed till another loud cry roused him. He grabbed for the falling watch, and the book thudded on the floor. At the bedside, he held up his watch. Past seven. It’s coming now. Shushing her, he waited.

Allise admired his gentle face. Do you know I’m a Quaker? A Friend?

The doctor nodded. Don’t push if you have the urge. She reached out to him, and he patted her hand.

The last nine months had been the longest of her life, and now her baby would be born any time. Deer Point women had said any decent pregnant woman would stay home out of public view. Heedless of their dictates, Allise had wandered around town, visiting such places as Henmann’s Bakery for a sweet roll and King’s Drugstore to check the perfume counter. Strange men gawked at her, and women sent questioning looks her way.

Now, licking full, parched lips, Allise imagined the judgments behind those looks. Her mind wandered. She and Quent had laughed at the silliest things during their courtship. He didn’t laugh that day—the time I lost my temper. He just walked out. Quent walks away from unpleasantness. She massaged her hard belly. I need him. He would be here if he knew the baby—

Sweat beaded Allise’s forehead. A muscle squeezed, pushing the baby toward the birth canal, and with her back to the doctor, she shouted, Quent! Dr. Walls touched her shoulder. Thinking the doctor was her husband, Allise clutched his arm and moaned, Quent. Turning, she saw it was Dr. Walls.

Gasping on an ebbing pain, Allise groaned into the next contraction and tried to squirm into another position. Oh, dear God! Why isn’t he here? Then she heard a rumble in the back alley. Quent’s shouts trailed into her languid consciousness, and she released a weak sigh. Heavy footsteps crossed the porch into the kitchen, the foyer, and up the stairs. She followed them, and her concerns eroded like sand in lapping waves.

Quent burst into the room, crept up behind the doctor, and whispered, Is the baby coming, Doc? How’s Allie?

Dr. Walls came off the chair. Raising an eyebrow, he asked, Where in the name of heaven have you been? Your place was here beside Allie.

Without answering the doctor, he walked around him and stood at the end of the bed. Allise wanted Quent’s eyes to meet hers, but she watched her husband’s stunned gaze focus on the doctor. She took in his appearance. He looked disheveled. Hair, normally parted and combed back to each side, fell across a furrowed brow. Does he feel any emotion about becoming the father of our child? She lifted a hand toward him. Then another contraction forced a warm gush between her thighs. Oh, I’m wet!

Hold on, Dr. Walls said. The baby’s coming. When I tell you, push hard.

Her entire body felt sweaty. The overhead fan beat the air, but the late-summer heat had nowhere to go. Quent walked to her bedside and pushed back strands of damp hair pasted to her face. Forceful pains brought hoarse gasps. Clamping his arm as he mopped her with the cloth, she screamed, Where were you?

Push, Allie. Push again. She pushed with all her might, and suddenly the pain was gone. The doctor held the newborn by his ankles and gave him a whack on the bottom. The surprised infant, having emerged from a safe, warm place, cried out.

It’s a fine boy, Allie. Dr. Walls wiped the infant with a towel and placed him in the curve of her arm.

She whispered, I love you, Dr. Walls.

I know, dear. Most new mothers do. Beneath the gray mustache, he smiled at her. Quent did not seem to have a smile to return as he bent to kiss her. The doctor put the baby in the cradle and helped Quent remove bedding. Then he sat down to fill out a birth certificate.

Allise watched her husband leaf through the DeWitt Bible to the births page, where he wrote, Peter Weston DeWitt, Friday, September 17, 1932, 9:30 p.m.

Exhausted, she had one final thought before fading into sleep. If he loved me, he would have …

In a wakeful state, Maizee lay in bed beside her sisters in the room they shared with her parents. What if Mista Quent tries to take me agin? Some time passed. She heard Rebekah rise from bed and slip through the front room to the porch. Moments later, Maizee sat on the stoop beside her mother. Night stillness stretched between them. Then, Momma … Momma, something—

What? I’m tired. Maizee, you better not tell me some little old boy done got you with chile. I’ll be so mad. Me and your daddy liable to kill him.

Maizee shuddered. What I’m gonna do? Sure enough, Daddy would try to kill Mista Quent. Cain’t tell her.

There on the porch, she and Rebekah slapped at mosquitoes, making sharp, popping sounds in the night. Usually she did not think much about the weather, but the typhoid-carrying insects made Maizee wish for an early fall, a time when the frogs on Moon Lake stopped croaking.

Rebekah spread her legs and flapped her gown between them to create a little air. Her daughter rested her chin on arms folded across her knees. Momma, the heat be making me sick. Sick ever’ day. She didn’t like to lie, but meeting Mista Quent would be worse.

Chile, you know you gotta be in that cotton field tomorrow. Rebekah stood, and Maizee followed her back to bed. Lying on the lumpy mattress beside her sisters, she filled with dread. Fear jerked her body. What’s gonna happen to me?

Chapter Two

A round dawn, the baby’s cry woke Allise. She opened her eyes and yawned. Quent pulled on a pair of cuffed khaki trousers, and she teased, Good morning, Daddy.

He smiled and lifted their son from the cradle. Clutching the baby to his chest as though he were a piece of fragile china, Quent placed Peter in her arm and bent to kiss her on the cheek. He finished dressing in a white shirt and stood rolling up his sleeves. At her chest of drawers, he took out a fresh white gown and bed jacket and laid them on the bed. Then he went for a basin of warm water, soap, and a washcloth before going downstairs to make breakfast.

The baby slept, and Allise was freshly bathed in the satin bed jacket when her husband placed a breakfast tray on her lap and sat on the bedside. Um. Who said you couldn’t cook, love? She smacked and admired his smile, which showed even white teeth.

He laughed. Oh, I’m not a cook. He explained that Sam did all the cooking after their mama died. Allise bolted down the last bite of scrambled eggs and toast, and he set the tray aside. Quent picked up the sleeping baby and slid back against the pillows.

Gazing up at him, she let the sheer pleasure of being loved engulf her.

Quent looked down into her face. You’re radiant this morning, honey. Do all Yankee women have your soft light skin? His finger traced her cheek, and he pulled her into the circle of his free arm.

His compliment made her happy, though she doubted she could have a glow after her recent ordeal and lack of sleep. Pushing back the light blanket to reveal a crop of fuzzy blond hair, Allise admired the tiny pink face of their baby. She curled his small fingers around hers. Isn’t he beautiful? She glanced up at her husband. I hope he has your blue eyes. Peter Weston DeWitt, you will be fine looking like your handsome father.

You think so? Quent’s eyes didn’t meet hers, but he appeared chagrined.

Allise wanted to hold the tender moment forever, but more than that, she wanted to see her husband’s joy in fatherhood. Hardly knowing how to approach him, she worked up the courage. Are you happy with—

Course I’m happy. He hadn’t allowed her question, and she couldn’t see his eyes to tell if happiness filled them. I better do the dishes. Quent struggled from the bed with the sleeping infant and placed him in the cradle. Then he took the breakfast tray downstairs.

Alone again, Allise thought of how she had met Quent on the Pixley Hotel porch after she arrived in Deer Point to teach school. I fell for his devilish ways. Our six-month courtship didn’t prepare me for the turn he’s taken. Something bothers him. Something is wrong.

She heard the rattling of dishes in the sink and thought of their lives together. Her husband’s recent up-and-down moods left her insecure. There were more downs than ups. Are our fun times lost now that our family numbers three? Are we crossing a line between past happiness and what might be in the future? At age twenty-three, she was a mother and needed assurance that Quent would share their new responsibility. She wanted past, present, and future to fuse into something she could count on. Suddenly, the unknown road through parenthood overwhelmed her. Strange, the desire to be a mother and the fear of what it entails. Does Quent fear it, too?

He appeared in the doorway and said he was going to the post office. Allise grumbled about being confined. Yeah, he said, but Doc Walls mentioned seven days in bed, and I’m here to see that you obey his orders.

Allise heard the front entrance close, and soon her mind skipped back three years to a June day. Her job was set as an English teacher at Deer Point High School when she left Philadelphia on a long train ride to Arkansas. She had stepped down from the rail car into the Southern town and spotted a small black man leaning on a depot dolly beside the tracks. He removed a black derby, held it over his chest, and mopped his brow with a crumpled, red-printed bandana. White teeth gleamed in his dark face. I’m Tate, ma’am. Calls me Old Tate round here. He pointed uphill. If you going to the Pixley, I can help with them suitcases.

Allise followed behind his slow, determined gait. Holding her yellow straw hat in place, she gazed in storefronts along Hemple Street, squinted through hardware and drugstore windows, and stopped to admire two bank buildings, one of neoclassical architecture. I shall never forget that sweet, yeasty aroma. The smell of fresh baked bread from Henmann’s Bakery reminded her she had not eaten since the train arrived in St. Louis. She muttered something about being hungry, and Old Tate let the dolly rest on the sidewalk.

He pulled a packet from a canvas bag slung over his shoulder and offered it. She unfolded the paraffined paper and wolfed down a barbeque sandwich while listening to him tell of cooking over an open pit in his backyard. Old Tate said he made hot tamales and wrapped them in corn shucks to hawk to hungry passengers. Then he started on uphill to the Pixley Hotel, and she followed.

Allise remembered standing before the two-storied structure, taking measure. Like magazine photographs she had seen, it fit her notion of stateliness and Southern gentility. L-shaped, the hotel faced a full block along Hemple, and its wing stretched down Third Street for half a block. Columned verandas wrapped around both wings upstairs and down. Rocking chairs lined both porches, and swings hung at each end of the front lower porch. Black shutters dressed floor-to-ceiling windows, and huge willow oaks between sidewalk and street provided shade on the building.

She thought the hotel’s white clapboard appeared in good repair. No grungy place, the Pixley. Across the street, the two-towered brick courthouse and a detached jail took up an entire city block. Large oaks shaded the government square. She was reminded that day of the historic part of Philadelphia.

Lying there in bed, she recalled Old Tate’s amused look as she took in her surroundings. He had said the hotel was built thirty years ago and once was a busy place. Old Tate’s soft mellow drawl enchanted her. His kindness made me feel safe that day. She thought of the community’s regard for him, and how most everyone depended on his skills.

Hearing noise downstairs, she knew Quent had returned from the post office. He didn’t come upstairs, and Allise returned to that summer before school opened.

She had acquainted herself with the small Arkansas town by walking the streets. Past the courthouse on Third Street, she stopped at the corner of Pine. Across the street was a sign in black-on-white lettering. She read aloud, Newtown Church, Founded 1898. Crossing Third, she passed the post office, vacant lots, and law offices on the way back to the Pixley.

Allise remembered exploring another day, beginning at First Street, where train rails traced the southern border and divided White Town from the wooded part of Colored Town. She had walked north past business blocks into the residential area and followed it to a point where houses edged up against woodlands. I must have walked four miles that summer day, but I found the bell-towered Methodist church, the high school where I would teach, and Colored Town.

Allise visualized White Town. It fanned out on three sides from the six-block business square. On the west, it abutted a block-wide vacancy separating it from the main section of Colored Town. Smiling, she recalled writing to her family shortly after arriving in Deer Point, "The men are chivalrous, and I have fallen in love with the South." I was here little more than a year when I wrote another letter. She had written that people were friendly in public, but she didn’t get invitations to their homes. They draw a line. I will never be a Deer Pointer, because I wasn’t born here. Papa, you would call that provincialism.

Sighing now, Allise thought of her pleasure in having Quent home for a whole week. She glanced at her baby sleeping in his cradle. Your daddy will go back to the farm soon. You will be my joy, my darling child.

Around noon, Quent came into the bedroom with a tray. A hamburger and French fries filled a plate, and a napkin and the mail lay beside it. He stretched out on the bed near her. I thought you’d like that. He pointed at her lunch and picked up the mail. It will taste better than what I can make. Her husband ripped open envelopes and added, No letters of interest today.

As he read, she remembered watching from behind her upstairs window and admiring the tall, good-looking man walking from the post office each day. Soon after she arrived in Deer Point, he had strolled to the hotel porch where she sat in the swing. She touched his arm. Darling, do you remember the day we met? She turned a coy smile up to him. Quent gave her a quizzical glance, and disregarding it, she said in a saucy manner, You deliberately dropped your mail that day. You did! Trying to distract me—

Why you little snip! He feigned surprise. You saw me coming, didn’t you?

She giggled like a schoolgirl and hummed, By the light of the silvery moon. Do you remember leaning against the banister and whistling? Tipped your hat and said, ‘Miss Weston, we should spend some time together.’ Her teasing mock accent brought him up against the pillows with a look of amusement. I had already determined to meet Mr. Handsome, she whispered. That day just cinched it. She leaned back. Your ways were simply captivating, Mr. DeWitt."

Quent reached for her. Pulling her close, he guided her hand to his swelling need. You set a trap for me, did you? He fell into her playfulness. And all this time I’ve thought I caught you. I want you, Allie. He tried to make a move on her.

She felt guilty for arousing him. Darling, we can’t. We’ll wake the baby.

I know. He pulled back, laid the mail aside, and rose from the bed.

Despite guilt, happiness shrouded Allise like a warm blanket. I wanted that day to never end. We were so awkward. Familiarity made their laughter easier now.

Ah, Allie. He looked down at her. You’re still pretty. I’m glad you stopped having your hair bobbed, he said, rumpling it.

She squeezed his arm and reminded him that Sam said Southern women let their men think they were in control. Quent did not respond, and she felt uneasy with the near-grin on his face.

Her husband’s week at home ended, and Allise found that nursing her baby allowed time for reminiscing. Today, she held Peter and thought of the day she and Quent had sat in the swing on the Pixley porch. He took the hat from his lap, stood, and asked, Will you go to church with me on Sunday?

I’m a Quaker, Quent. Seeing his puzzled look, she had said, You know—a Friend.

Oh! I don’t know anything about them, but can’t be too different from us. I’ll see you Sunday at ten thirty.

She felt pretty walking into Newtown Church on his arm, wearing her yellow straw hat with daisy trim and white dotted Swiss dress with puffy sleeves. Quent looked ready to explode from pride. After the service, he introduced her to his friends.

Later, they laughed about youngsters turning in the pews to gaze at them that day. Adult eyebrows had risen, followed by whispering behind hands. Choir members had exchanged sly looks that seemed to imply their favorite son was about to be snared. All the while, Brother Rigdon had stared down from the altar.

Quent’s season of wooing took them through the last heat of that long sweet summer. They breezed about town with the top down on his little Ford roadster. One evening, they endured sweaty odors swirled about by high ceiling fans in the Rialto Theater while seeing Broadway Melody. Afterward, they drove out into the countryside.

As Peter drew nourishment from her breast, Allise imagined the car’s headlights on that long-ago night pitching streams of light into the deep woods. Wind flapped a narrow white ribbon holding her short hair. She was nestled in Quent’s arm, thinking of how handsome he was in a double-breasted pinstripe, when the clank, clank, clank of a wooden bridge roused her. She asked, Where are we?

He threw back his head, laughing in that way she found thrilling. Willow Creek Honky Tonk is ahead on the left. Pulling onto a grassy area shared with parked cars and horse-drawn wagons, he pointed to a dim light in two windows of a raw-sided building back in the tall pine trees.

Pushing loose strands of hair under the ribbon, she sat forward, peering at the dance hall. Brother Rigdon said this place is a den of iniquity. He said Mason jars of whiskey are brought here from stills. My papa would not like knowing where I am.

She grinned now at the remembrance, but Quent had laughed at her then. Forget Brother Rigdon. Forget your papa’s fuming. Let’s go dancing, Allie.

He called me ‘Allie’ that night. I didn’t like it, but I didn’t object. Dropping the thought, she went on to a happier memory. Happy thoughts were important now when she was beginning to have doubts.

That night at the honky tonk, she had played with folly, casting thoughts of Papa to the wind. Swept off her feet, she wanted nothing more than to share her life with Quent. Before they knew she was a Friend, their courtship had flowered with the town’s encouragement. Soon, her Yankee ways drew disparaging looks, and she overheard the whispers of a clustered group on the sidewalk after church. They admitted to knowing little about Quakers, yet they questioned her faith. They still do. If it isn’t my religion, it’s my Yankee talk.

Five months after their encounter on the Pixley veranda, Allise wrote to her family about their engagement. At Christmas break from school, Sam accompanied them East to be Quent’s best man in their wedding.

The baby released her nipple. She smiled at his milky lips and thought the townsfolk now thought Quent had made the wrong choice.

Chapter Three

R ising with Saturday’s sun, Maizee dreaded facing the day. She pulled on the dress she had worn yesterday and parted the curtain to the kitchen. Mixing up a corn pone, she thought of Miz Allie sitting in the car beside the field. That distant view was the only knowledge she had of Mista Quent’s wife. She poured the bread mix into a cast-iron skillet, already heated on the stovetop, and shoved it in the oven.

Her mother hustled Jonas, Dalt, Cass, and Li’l Joke out the door and yelled, We’ll come on in a few minutes. The screen door banged, and Rebekah turned back to the kitchen. She swished about as