Leaf of Freedom

By Helen Hickok

"Leaf of Freedom" is the vibrant and inspirational story of Carol Emmons, a young, thoughtful, and sensitive Midwestern country girl. Against a backdrop of 1920's rural life, the reader will experience, along with Carol, her dreams, adventures, challenges, romance, and much more. Carol is an only child who lives with her mother and Civil War veteran grandfather on a small farm. Though her family is poor and of little formal education, Carol is rich in spirit and thought. Her colorful descriptions of her everyday life, anecdotes, and adventures are filled with right-on human insight. The reader will share many fun times and exiting adventures as Carol grows, chapter-by-chapter, from a little barefoot girl of 10 into an able young woman of 16. So too will the reader share her challenges, and a couple of heart-wrenching conflicts which Carol must face along her way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365061196

Book preview

Leaf of Freedom

LEAF OF FREEDOM

By

Helen Hickok

Copyright 2015 by Helen Hickok. All rights reserved

ISBN 978-0-557-70809-3

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents therein are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real events, places, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Photos (2 pages)

The Author as a Young Girl

The Author at 16

Editor’s Notes

This story is a signature piece of Helen Hickok’s literary legacy.

In keeping with the original manuscript, underlining is used in the story for emphasis of words and phrases.

Though some words in this story are dialectal or not in common usage today, most are understandable from their context. Otherwise, the reader may find them in the short glossary of quaint words which follows the story.

Forward

Born in the Midwest, I have lived in several states and have been secretary, teacher, wife, mother, and freelance writer.

During the past few years I have written children’s stories, articles, and fiction. At the present time I am specializing in writing in the educational field. I am interested in that underdog in the educational world, the vocational-technical student, and I am delighted that his skills are increasingly needed and valued. I am also doing research in methods of teaching college students who are failing in English.

I love the countless little people of the world whose lives and labors too often go unrecognized by society. To them I dedicate this novel.

And because I am grateful for my country childhood, I also want to dedicate this novel to all those who grew up in the country or who wish they had.

Helen Hickok

For those who had a country childhood

And for those who wish they had

These are the tokens for the passage back:

A blackbird’s song and a woodland leaf

Chapter 1

It was a perfect June day, with a strong, bright sun shining down on the Midwest countryside, and the sky so blue it hurt the eyes to look at it. Below, the morning heat baked the growing corn and grain crops, and the ripening pink clover fields simmered in a deep fragrance that drew hovering swarms of butterflies and bees.

Wild strawberries, too, were ripe in patches in the grass, and along the Clay County One Road, a barefoot girl in a speckled blue and white dress had wandered that morning, filling the bottom of her straw hat with the ripe juicy berries.

Now she came to the crossroads, which was as far as she was allowed to go without special permission. In a pleasant moment of awareness, she stood gazing around her as if she had never seen the place before, although during school time she turned these corners twice every day, night and morning. But, to Carol Emmons, there was always something a little exciting about the crossroads, especially since the New Thing had come.

On the southeast corner she saw a low, unpainted wooden building from which a clanging sound was coming. Old Mr. Hennessey was the blacksmith, and Gramp always took his horse to him to be shod, lingering to talk over old times and tell Mr. Hennessey about the Civil War, for Mr. Hennessey had been in the Union Army only a few weeks as a drummer boy, while Gramp was a cavalry veteran of three years. Of course there wasn’t much blacksmithing to do now, with tractors beginning to take the place of horses, but Mr. Hennessey’s son, Alec, worked on the ‘auto-mowl-bees’, as Gramp called them. It was a terribly interesting place, this garage-smithy, and Carol had always loved to hang around the door, watching the sparks fly and listening to the men talk crops and ‘swap lies’. But Mamma had told her now that she was past ten, she was too big to go there; some of the men might say bad things to her, or even play jokes on her, so she’d better not go there any more unless Gramp was with her.

Directly across from the smithy, on the southwest corner, was an abandoned store building, with a Red Man tobacco sign still in the window. Carol had often wished that this store would open again. When she had been very small, a man from the city had tried to run the store, but, Mamma said he’d gone broke trying to drive a grocery wagon, and he’d let too many folks run up bills, so nobody had dared to start a business there again. The building looked like something out of a ghost story, Carol thought, it was so gray and slanty and saggy, with a big locust tree growing up on the far side of it and sticking up over the roof. In the space between the store and the corner, there was a thicket of briery Rosebushes someone must have planted years ago. From this rose thicket, now a mass of pink bloom, the corners got its name of Rosebush.

The back door of the store had long ago been forced open, and all the children of the neighborhood had gone exploring there. Carol and her best friend, Louisa Stone, and Louise’s older brother Jim, had once gone up the rickety back stairs to the second floor. There were two big rooms, empty except for piles of old newspapers and pasteboard boxes, and the place had an unpleasant sour piercing smell, so, after a look from the front window down at the familiar but strangely-different countryside, the children soon left.

On the northwest corner stood the Rosebush Methodist Church, a narrow white wooden structure with three high arched painted windows and a steeple. Behind the church was an L-shaped unpainted carriage shed with boxes for twenty horses.

At the moment, Carol was standing on the northwest corner, gazing across the road at something which gave her the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. It had been created that spring, and she had at once adopted it as the tangible expression of certain inarticulate desires which rose both from her own life and from her reading of romance and adventure. The New Thing which she studied so earnestly was a great road map of Clay County, in which she lived.

The rutty, dusty little east-west road, down which Carol had wandered this morning, was the boundary between Clay and Meharry Counties; here at the intersection, the main north-south road jogged over a little, leaving space for The Map.

To the end of her life, Carol would always think of Clay County as being yellow in color, with black lines for roads, as she saw it represented here. The county was almost rectangular, shaped the way a child with a new pen would draw it, slurring off at the last corner a bit, so it was not quite perfect in shape.

In fact Miss Engle, Carol’s teacher, had seized upon The Map as a good drawing and geography exercise that spring, and had her students put in the sixteen townships and learn their names. Carol remembered that Miss Engle had said laughingly, Well, children, they may not be able to find us on the globe, but we’re really on The Map anyway!

Carol had been pleased, because when Mamma was tired and lonesome and cross, she’d say Oh, why did I ever get married and come up into this godforsaken out of the way place nobody ever heard of - out at the tail end of nowhere?

Mamma got awfully blue sometimes because she’d come from a lively neighborhood in the southern part of the state, and she’d had lots of friends and relatives around, and they were always having parties and dances. Here, it was all cold and Methodist, Mamma said. Oh, she’d never fit in here if she lived a hundred years!

Carol loved the names on The Map. The very topmost town was Blackbird. Now why would anyone call a town Blackbird? But Crystal Springs must be pretty, sparkling like glassware. Then, in the middle, was Winchester, the county seat, a very distinguished name. And, to the west of Winchester was a mess of little towns: Dixieville, Salamanca, Stonehaven, Wanita, Felicity, and Sunrise. And Clover Hill. Carol had once visited Clover Hill, and she remembered it as a lovely town with tall trees on both sides of the streets. And Sunrise was the town where the big Bargain Centre Store was located, and they were always getting sales bills from it in the mail.

Their own old town was Farmington five miles to the north and west of these corners. It didn’t even have a nice name, Carol thought scornfully.

But she had been saving the eastern part of The Map to the last: Here a small blot-shaped dab of bright blue indicated Silver Lake. Everybody had gone to Silver Lake to swim or fish - everyone except her. All the kids talked about it at school. Their older brothers and sisters drove to the summer dances at Shelby or Pine Village, near the lake. Ah, wonderful far-off places! Bright blue sparkly waters, and music, and dancing.

I’m going to see them sometime if I have to walk! Carol resolved fiercely. Still - thirty miles was a long way to walk.

She burned with resentment against Gramp. Everyone had a car nowadays, but he wouldn’t get one. They always had to ride to town in the buggy, and all along the road people were laughing at them. Other people went joy-riding on Sunday, even drove to Lake Michigan or Chicago. But not the Emmonses. Gramp said he was too old to take up a complicated thing like an auto-mowl-bee; he said he might buy one for Carol when she was grown up, but the horse and buggy was good enough for him; he was in no hurry to get places.

Gramp said he wouldn’t trust many women with an auto, and especially, he wouldn’t anybody as rattle-headed as Mamma. He didn’t understand why she couldn’t be contented, always wanting to move off the farm. He’d been all over the Yewnited States: through the South during the War of the Rebellion, and Out West afterwards, and even up to Canady, and he hadn’t found any place to beat this. He wanted to live out the rest of his days in peace on his own farm, if they’d only let him, and not keep him miserable with their nagging and complaining.

After Carol had studied The Map thoroughly she turned and went behind the sign to sit and eat her strawberries and ‘watch the world go by’ the corners. Sometimes interesting things turned up behind the sign- whiskey bottles and scraps of letters, and once a woman’s good new shoe. Sometimes queer things she didn’t know about that people flung out of cars as they raced by.

Now she went down on her knees and dug with her fingers around the rightmost post holding The Map to see if by any chance, her friend Louise had left a note there in reply to the one she had buried the day before. (That was the only trouble she ever got into in school - writing notes to Louise.) But Louise had not been there - her mother kept her too busy looking after her baby sister and two little brothers. Carol retrieved her note and folded it under her hat band to throw away later.

Sitting down on the grass she rested for a moment, noticing how warm the sunshine was on her bare head. Then she lifted her hat and smelled the strawberries. Oh, there was nothing in the world like the smell of ripe strawberries on a June morning. Holding each tiny berry by its stem, she sucked at it dreamily, and watched a red-winged blackbird flash toward the clover field; she loved the lilting melody of his singing that you could almost put words to.

It was summer-time and vacation and there was a kind of happy excitement in the air. On the main road cars kept rushing by, streaks of black, with people in them laughing and talking, even singing. Carol thought how lucky they were, going so fast, especially the ones heading north toward the lake.

But it was fun sitting here where people didn’t see you, and yet where you could see everybody who went by.

She watched old Mr. Hennessey come bouncing along from the north on a high lumber wagon, driving two big grey horses. According to his wife, Lyddy, Ed had never amounted to much: they’d have starved to death if they’d had to depend on his blacksmith shop! It had been her putting in the crops and doing the milking that had pulled them through. When he got up near the sign he spied her sitting there, and gave her one of his wonderful sweet smiles which were so surprising on his grey whiskery face. Too bad, Gramp used to say, that Ed had ever met up with Lyddy, he might have been quite a fella if he could have done what he wanted to. And Carol wondered what it was Mr. Hennessey would have liked to do.

Along came the milkman with a wagon-load of cans. And, after while, there lumbered into view that monster-like machine, the road grader, with Chad Hancock driving it. Chad was a tall, slim drink of water, as Gramp said, and he had a long nose and ears that stuck out, and a very agreeable Yankee way about him. Carol liked him, except that be did ask lots of questions, and she would rather do that herself. However, today he did not see her, and the machine went slowly by, pushing the gravel out to the sides, and leaving a sweep of stuttery-smooth surface behind.

Not many cars turned onto the dirt road, but finally one did. A small battered truck with two young men in it came from the south and drew to a stop opposite the road map.

They sat Looking at it for a moment, then Carol beard one of them say, Well, there’s our territory for this week.

It couldn’t be much worse than last said the other. What’re you stopping here for?

You may not have noticed it, the first voice drawled, I don’t suppose you would. But the tire we fixed last night is flat again.

There was the sound of the door opening. Carol got up and peaked around the corner of the sign at them. A big blond boy in blue shirt and jeans was taking some tools out of the back. He was the one who had been doing the driving.

Carol couldn’t take her eyes from the other boy, who was just getting out, He was tallish, and had dark wavy hair, with one lock hanging loose over his forehead, and a dark, discontented face, and he wore a beautiful white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up, and light ice-cream pants. Altogether he looked so elegant, the way he slouched about carelessly, with his hands in his pockets that Carol knew he must have come of a rich and luxurious family.

The dark boy lit a cigarette, and watched the driver get a tire out of the back and begin jacking up the front wheels.

So this, he yawned, is our ‘Earn-while-you-play’ vacation! Sell subscriptions, meet interesting people, see the world! All expenses paid and a substantial bonus besides! Bah! All we’ve picked up this morning is one subscription and one lousy rooster to get rid of. (Carol could see the rooster sticking a brown, inquiring head out of the crate in the back of the truck.) And today what? A few more chickens, a meal not fit for a pig, and kids and dogs crawling all over us. Fun, eh?

Oh shut up, Russ the other growled, or I’ll make you get your damned white pants dirty changing this tire yourself. We can make out all right on this if we do it right. I know guys that have. It’s a lot better'n working in a hot factory all summer like your Dad wanted, ain’t it?

I wonder.

Course it is the blond baggy one said, vigorously prying the tire from the rim. What you came along for is just to smile at the farmer’s wives and get 'em to sign up. But you can’t go on actin' so high and mighty and turn-up your nose. You’ll never sell anything that way.

God, I didn’t know some of these farm houses could be so dirty

Well, you know now, said the blond one bluntly. Folks are folks, even if they are dirty, and I guess there’s dirty folks in Chicago and New York and London and Paris - or wherever it is you want to go.  C'mon., do some work for a change! he ordered, tossing the air pump to his friend. Sulkily, Russ complied.

Oh - stop gripin' - folks give us most of our noon meals free - that saves us a lot. If we don’t get a good one today, I’ll buy us a big restaurant feed somewhere tonight. How’s that?

Man, that’ll cost you Russ said, pausing to smack his lips. I won’t settle for less than a nice thick sirloin

As they went on talking and making preparations to leave, Carol grew more and more nervous. The next house just over the hill in the direction they were headed was hers, and the boys would surely go there next. She’d have to go with them and keep them from coming in. After all the things they’d said about farm houses! Mamma and Gramp would keep them talking a long time before they bought anything, and then they’d probably ask them to stay for dinner, just as they did all the medicine men and peddlers who came along. And there wasn’t much food on hand, she knew, because they hadn’t been to town lately. She could hardly bear to think what that grand young man, Russ, would say about them. The other fellow would certainly have to take him out to a restaurant tonight. Well - she hated to do this, but she just had to -

So, suddenly, before she lost her nerve, she plunged out, and was in the road beside them before they saw her.

Hello, she said quietly to the big blond, whom she’d just heard called Bill.

Bill looked up, startled. Why - where did you drop from?

Carol smiled her best smile at him, and asked, Could I please ride along with you to the next house?

Well, well! A fairly attractive example of the local peasantry, Russ drawled, looking her over. Ten years might make something of that round freckled face and big brown braid, don’tcha think?

Shut up, and leave her alone!  Bill snapped. Sure you can ride with us, honey. You live in the next house, you say?

Carol nodded shyly, although she really didn’t feel so shy now. Bill liked her - the big kind bear - she could tell that. About the other one, she didn’t know exactly, he said such strange things. Did he really mean that she might be pretty some day?

But, sitting between them in the truck, with her elbows and knees touching theirs, Carol felt frightfully self-conscious as they rattled up the dusty hill. Oh, if she’d only worn shoes this morning. Her feet looked so naked and dirty. She was getting too old to go barefoot - she’d never, never do it again

How many families live on this road? Bill asked.

Just us on the left, and farther down, there’s Ullriches’, and then there isn’t anybody for quite a ways. More people live on the road west than this way.

Carol tried desperately to think of something more to say, but she couldn’t. Covertly she glanced at Russell’s white and noble forehead with the curl hanging down on it, and then she looked at his hands. The fingers were long and lean, the nails clean and well-cared for. Bill’s hands on the wheel were as big and as hairy as hams, and the nails were black and broken. She could feel the bodies on either side of her, warm and slightly sweating.

The truck dropped over the brow of the hill, and there was the orchard on the left, and beyond it, the house. It was made of gray field stones, off the farm, and Gramp had built it himself (as he never failed to tell strangers). It looked common and dismal, Carol thought, especially since the front porch didn’t have any roof, and the columns stood up in the air like old Roman ruins (the result of a spark from the kitchen chimney the winter before). There was an unpainted wooden addition on the side of the house, which was used as a woodshed.

To the east, a group of two cherry and two plum trees shaded a colony of small triangle-shaped chicken coops where Mamma’s young chicks and their mothers lived. Farther back, and away from the house was a small barn, once painted red, and behind it stood several smaller buildings, a long, low chicken house, a granary, a tool house, and a carriage shed, all unpainted.

Carol suddenly saw the place just as the boys would, and she suffered. It looked poor and seedy - just the kind of farm where they’d have to take chickens for subscriptions. Of course Mamma would take a subscription or two - she loved to read.

You can let me off here, at the mailbox, Carol said. I don’t think there’s anybody home.

But Bill said We’ll take you up to the door. And in he drove, bumpety-bump, over Gramp’s old home-made culvert and around through the chip-yard where Gramp chopped the stove-wood, and up to the door of the woodshed.

Gramp must have been watching, for he appeared in the door at once, waved his cane at them, and came toward the truck. Carol was a bit proud of him at that: he always wore a black suit, and he had a trim military look, with his white hair and his sharp white mustache, and his slight figure so straight.

Howdydo? he greeted them curiously as they got out.

How do you do, sir? Bill said. We met your - ah - daughter down the road, and she let us give her a lift home. May we speak to the lady of the house?

I s'pose so, Gramp said grumpily. He would have preferred to do any business there was without women around.

Come around to the front, he said, striking out smartly with his cane toward the porch. Gramp didn’t really need a cane, Carol knew, but he regarded it as a mark of distinction due the Older Generation,

Gramp led them up the front steps and rattled at the screen door, which was hooked. While they were waiting, he turned and announced, This is my granddaughter here. She’s ten, going on eleven, and her father’s dead, so I look after her and her Ma.

Before they had time to digest this information, Gramp took his turn.

"You boys not from around here, be you?

No. From Linden. About a hundred miles south and east of here, Bill answered.

Sellin' papers, ain’tcha? Gramp surmised.

Embarrassed at being so easily read, Bill grinned sheepishly, Well -uh - you might call it that. You see we’re trying to earn some money this summer so we can go back to college.

Yeah, somebody comes through here every summer sellin' magazines, Gramp said. He rattled the screen door again, and cried angrily, Maggie! Where are you? To himself he muttered, Like as not she’s out gaddin' around the neighborhood and never told me. Maggie!

Maggie! How Mamma hated to be called that. She was always insisting that her name was Margaret. She was a mature woman, not a child or a hired girl!

Pretty soon Carol heard her mother come running downstairs. Mamma usually came at a run. She was always afraid she might miss something.

Margaret Emmons was a small plump woman of about forty. Her best feature, she thought, was her forehead, and she tried to accentuate it and raise her height by wearing her sandy braids wound around her head. Her brows were dark and heavy, and she had green eyes, which always looked eager and interested. Even when there were no visitors, she flew about the house looking as if she had something entertaining on her mind.

I’m sorry, she gasped, unhooking the screen. It’s the cats and flies. I didn’t want them coming in, you see. Please come in and be seated.

As the boys were introducing themselves, Carol looked at the room, seeing it as the strangers would: it was large with a just-moved-in look. There was the cook-stove with a grey enamel tea kettle steaming away on it at one end, and a round oak table covered with a red checkered cloth, in the middle. Next to the back wall the work table was cluttered with milk pails and separator parts, and the kitchen cabinet was piled with plates and cups. On one side of the front door was a sideboard with a pile of papers and magazines on it. Several calendars hung haphazardly on the wall. The grey linoleum on the floor was so worn the pattern had almost disappeared. But at least it was clean, just mopped.

Bill sat down on the chair under the projecting wall telephone, and Russell put his brief case on the table, undid it, and began to speak, smiling directly at Mamma.

We’ve been talking to some of your neighbors - how soft and charming his voice was, thought Carol - and, they’ve all been interested in something we had to show them.

Carefully he drew out the magazines. First, he showed them the rural ones Household, Farmer’s Wife, Farm Journal, Pathfinders, Country Gentleman, Prairie Farmer, leafing through them to point out the various attractive features.

Mamma followed him with the greatest interest, asking many questions. Bill talked in a desultory manner with Gramp, and Carol watched them all.

When Russell had shown Mamma all the magazines, and she began to ask prices, he evaded her, gave her a shy, charming smile, as if they were quite alone, and began to speak of premiums. There was a handsome steamer - he showed her a picture of it, and promised to go out to the truck and get one in a few minutes - and a set of kitchen utensils, carving knives - oh, all manner of useful and beautiful gifts, if you took more than one magazine in a club offer, or subscribed for more than a year.

Mamma, who loved all the magazines, could hardly decide which she wanted most; she finally settled in favor of a red enamel coffee pot that came with three magazines for three years, and which they really needed, and Bill went out to the truck to get it.

When he returned with the beautiful red pot, Gramp said, just as Carol had known he would, It’s after eleven o’clock. Why don’t you fellas stay for dinner, and we’ll use the new pot?

Carol fixed her eyes on Bill, silently imploring him, willing him to refuse.

But Bill smiled at her reassuringly, misinterpreting her plea, and said, Why, thank you sir - if it won’t put you folks to any extra trouble. I’ve got a little work to do on the truck anyway.

Mamma said it wouldn’t be a bit of bother. They’d have what they were going to anyway, and they’d be glad of the company.

Then Gramp and the boys went outdoors to catch the chickens which would pay for the subscriptions, but Mamma caught Carol in the doorway, and told her to hustle down cellar and get a nice big chunk of salt pork, a pan of potatoes and a can of fruit.

To reach the cellar, one had to lift a trap door in the kitchen floor, near the pantry. Carol had always hated going down cellar even with her shoes on, but barefoot it was worse. The cellar was simply a dark hole under the house, and in spring, water always stood an inch or more on the earthen floor, and one had to leap from board to board. In the semi-darkness she would always miss a landing at least once, and get her feet wet, and feel the cold mud squishing up through her toes.

The pork barrel and the crates of potatoes were on a low platform of boards, up out of the wet. First, Carol fished up a chunk of pork, pressing her stomach over the edge of the barrel to reach to the bottom of the brine with the long fork always left out on top. Next she gingerly sorted the strong-smelling sprouty potatoes which, in the dim light, looked like the faces of wrinkled dwarfs with long white mustaches or beards. (O-ooh, how she hated the ooshy things in the spring of the year!) To save herself another trip, she grabbed a can of something - pears or peaches, she couldn’t tell which - from the dark fruit cupboard as she hurried along.

With her arms full she stumbled hastily up the steps and dropped her burden on the table. But she was too late to watch the boys catch the chickens, When she got outdoors she saw Bill and Mamma coming out of the hen house holding several squawking red hens by the legs, upside down.

Russell was sitting in the truck, looking bored, but he got out and opened the crate so that Bill could put the chickens in, after he had weighed them.

Their business finished, Mamma said she and Carol would go in and get dinner; but Carol lingered a moment to watch Bill put on coveralls and get out his tools. Gramp’s look at her said Scoot. Russell leaned against the truck and listened to Gramp talk. Carol could hear his mellow voice going on and on as she went into the house.

Let’s use the good dishes and put on a white tablecloth, she suggested to Mamma.

I told 'em I wouldn’t go to any bother - they’re getting the dinner free. They’ll just have to take what they get, Mamma said.

Oh, I know. But let’s have things nice Carol urged, thinking of how it might cost Bill, and how I told you so Russell would look. Not that it would do any good to tell Mamma about that - she’d just be stubborner than ever. It wasn’t any use to argue with Mamma, so Carol simply took off the red checkered cloth and replaced it with a white one with a blue border, while Mamma was in the pantry. Grandma Emmons willow ware dishes high up in the cupboard were probably too dusty to use without washing, so Carol gave that idea up.

But she could kill the flies, she thought, and began a vigorous campaign with the swatter. Because the screen doors didn’t quite fit, they always had flies, and every night it was Carol’s job to put out sticky paper and swat the flies snoozing on the ceiling.

Mamma did not object when she saw the clean white cloth on the table. If Carol wanted to go to all that trouble, well, all right. For herself, she didn’t believe in making a fuss over people; let 'em take her for what she was, as she did them. Rapidly she set the table, and Carol went behind her, softly straightening knives and forks, and evening the spaces between plates.

The pork was frying briskly in the spider and the big black iron kettle of potatoes was boiling. Coffee was beginning to perk in the new red pot.

I guess you can go out and tell the men to come in and wash, Mamma said, dishing out peaches from the can.

When Carol came out, Gramp was talking away, a steady stream, about the way he had built the house. Bill looked up from beneath the folded black hood, his face grimed with sweat and oil, and said he’d be ready in a minute. Russell, now straightening the boxes or premiums in the back or the truck, said nothing.

When they came into the kitchen, Gramp hospitably dipped warm water from the range reservoir and put it in the wash dish on the bench by the stove. Carol ran to get a fresh cake of soap and a clean wash towel.

Then Mamma was in a flurry getting everyone seated properly and Gramp started passing things, while Mamma poured the strong black coffee.

At once Bill had an admiring joke about the new coffee pot, and he took generous helpings of all the food offered. He was a good conversationalist and he answered all their questions fully. Mamma soon found out that Bill’s father owned a small hardware store in Linden, and that Russell’s taught mathematics in the high school. They lived next door to each other, and had been childhood playmates. Each had had two years at the state college, both taking engineering, although, Bill added, Russell didn’t much like it, and wanted to switch to liberal arts. Engineering had been his father’s choice.

Russell was making a meal from a slice of bread and a cup of coffee. Now that he had accomplished his mission, he was all through and ready to move on. Carol felt sorry for him; it was a poor meal, and she didn’t feel like eating it either. And she could hardly bear it when Mama and Gramp asked him so many questions. Couldn’t they see he didn’t feel like talking?

While they were eating the peaches, Mamma threw out the challenge Carol had been dreading.

I see by the paper today the Labor Board has decided to cut the railway man’s wages a few cents. Do you think they’ll strike? she asked Bill.

Unwarily he replied, I shouldn’t wonder.

Now she pinned him down. Do you really think the unions are doing the right thing - always striking for some reason? Now the farmers get their prices cut all the time, and they don’t strike. Did you ever hear of farmers striking? They work longer and harder than anybody else too.

Mamma had often told Carol that her father had said: The mark of an intelligent woman is that she reads the papers and knows what’s going on in the world. But Carol often wished that Mamma wouldn’t go out of her way to prove it.

Unfortunately, Bill had worked in a factory the summer before, and he undertook to explain the workers' viewpoint and make out a case for the unions. This was too much for Mamma; she immediately overwhelmed him with the substance of all the articles she had been reading for years. Bill blinked, and for the sake of peace, gave ground fast. Carol could have died of shame! Mamma and her awful old political arguments!

It was true that strangers usually didn’t understand that Margaret Emmons loved argument for excitement, the way a boy likes to tussle with another boy he hardly knows. If she seemed to change sides at times, she clung fast to certain principles, the basic one being the good of humanity. Carol had heard her mother take up, with great earnestness, the cause of the poor over-worked factory hands, especially those toiling their lives away (non-union) for Henry Ford, who was robbing them of their last ounce of strength!

Finally the boys rose from the table, and Bill thanked Mamma for her hospitality, while Russell stood by with a vague seconding smile.

But Mamma was not quite through with them. Will you be driving west now? she inquired eagerly.

We may later, yes, Bill said warily, while Russell gloomed and shifted from one foot to the other.

Then you must go to our relations, the Richardsons, about a mile west of here. They're well-to-do, and I’m sure you can sell them some subscriptions.

Besides, they’ve got a couple of good-lookin' girls, Gramp added with a wink.

Russell stopped being bored.

Oh yes, they’re the prettiest girls in the neighborhood, Mamma raved. You couldn’t find two nicer girls anywhere.

Carol writhed in shame. Mamma was always worrying about her cousins turning into old maids, just because Uncle Ben was so strict with them. Now, here she was, practically sicking these boys onto them.

Well, we’ll certainly stop there then, Bill said, edging his way toward the door.

Uh - would you mind if I rode along with you? Carol spoke up suddenly on impulse. (There was just a chance - ) I’d like to borrow some books to read, she explained.

Sure - glad to have you, Bill said gallantly, while Russell glared.

Mamma said cautiously, Let me phone and see if it’s convenient. And you’d have to change your dress, Carol.

Mamma liked everybody, but she didn’t quite trust anyone. She always told Carol that you never really know people or what they might do. In this case, she meant to play safe by making Carol’s coming known so that there would be no delays along the way.

Carol changed like lightning into her new plaid gingham and put on shoes and stockings while Mamma was trying to telephone.

Mamma came into the bedroom with a hairbrush. I couldn’t get them - either their line or ours was busy all the time. So I want you to call me as soon as you get there. The boys are waiting out in the truck.

Oh. Don’t worry about me, Carol said, dodging the strokes of the brush on top of her head. I’ll be all right. You found out all about them at dinner time.

I hope so, Mamma said dubiously. You’re all I’ve got - one little girl.

Oh gosh, Carol muttered, pulling away. I’ll be all right. She darted past her mother and ran outdoors.

Gramp stood by the truck, which Bill started when he saw Carol coming. They must have been talking about her because, as soon as they were on their way, Bill said I hear you’re a great reader - your grandfather says you always have your nose in a book.

Well, I’ve just started reading long books, Carol said modestly. My cousin Althea said she started before she was my age.

Just what do you read? Russell asked curiously.

The first one was ‘The Wide, Wide World’, and then they had a lot of Alger books, and I read them all. Right now I have ‘Girl of the Limberlost’, but I’m almost through with it, so I thought I’d get some more today.

Your relations must have quite a library, said Russell.

I’ve just been reading the old books they have downstairs, Carol said quickly, sensing the sarcasm in his voice. Althea - she’s my oldest cousin -keeps the new ones up in her room.

Up in her room! Russell echoed, looking at Bill. Hey! I wanna read a book too!

I doubt if she’d let you borrow them, Carol said. Most people don’t even know she has them. She sends away for them special. She says the people around here wouldn’t like them, and I’m too young to understand them. Althea’s awfully smart.

I bet she is Bill agreed, while Russell made a face.

They sped past the Corners, and Carol said, They’re two houses before you get there, the Cadeys’ and the Nortons’, but you wouldn’t sell anything there anyway, ‘  cause the Cadeys got too many kids, and the Nortons are awful stingy.

Yes, that’s what we run into all the time, Russell said, smiling at Bill maliciously. Too many kids, too many tight-wads - it’s a losing business.

Bill did not answer. Maybe he was holding himself back because she was there, Carol thought.

Look - you better start slowing down now, she cried excitedly, the next place will be the Richardsons’."

Chapter 2

Carol loved the first sight of the Richardsons’ place when she came driving up on it like this: there was something about the tall white house which always reminded her of a fine stately sailing ship in a picture. Trim, neat, dignified, behind an expanse