Belle of Alabama

By Wynnette McFaddin Fraser

In the Chattahoochie Valley of Alabama, 1900, Belle McLaren, age 13, is the oldest of three orphans who are being separated by their relatives. Belle is a bit angry with God for the deaths of their parents, and for being torn from siblings she promised her dying father to care for. Before being sent to an orphanage, Belles Uncle Denny provides a pleasant home for her on his farm. She excels in school and dreams of college, which her uncle has promised to finance. Then he marries the Widow Fetner, who has her own plans for use of Belles college funds. How will independent Belle face up to this new turn of events?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 23, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453581223

Wynnette McFaddin Fraser

Wynnette Fraser is a retired social worker and widow whose earlier Mirror Mountain Adventure series for 8-12-year-olds was published by Chariot Publishing Co. in the 1980’s. She lives in Darlington, S. C. with her dog, Elly, and is the mother of three adult children, grandmother of four, and great-grandmother of three. She enjoys music and sings in the church choir, along with participating in other church events. Belle’s story is a work of fiction, based on the growing-up days of Wynnette’s own mother.

Book preview

Chapter One

Autumn 1900

Papa had been buried a week when our McLaren kinfolks held a meeting at the homeplace.

It’s to decide where you children will live, Uncle Luke told us. He was Papa’s youngest brother and the only one at McLaren Place who acted like children should be heard as well as seen.

I thought we were going to live right here at McLaren Place, I said. I promised Papa I’d take care of Jed and Gussie like always. Which seemed only right, since I was thirteen and the oldest of the three of us.

Well, I’m twelve and I can take care of myself, Jed hurried to put in. Just Gussie needs looking after. Me and Belle can handle that just fine.

Uncle Luke smiled at five-year-old Gussie, who was nodding her curly head in approval. Then he turned his glance back to Jed. I know you can, but the family wants to do what’s best for each of you. That’s why they need to talk it over.

But I saw worry in Uncle Luke’s blue eyes, and for the first time the terrifying thought of the three of us not growing up together became a tight ball in my head that sank to my tummy, fully wound.

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On the afternoon of the meeting, Aunt Kate ordered us to stay in our own room upstairs. However, since no adults were likely to climb the steep stairs to check on us, there seemed to be no good reason to obey her. Quietly, we crept across the hall to the room Papa had died in.

Beneath the fourposter bed, I located the tiny crack in the floor which lined up with another slightly larger one in the ceiling of the parlor below. We couldn’t see much, but our ears could pick up what was said. Knowing voices and where each one usually sat helped us picture them as they talked.

Grandma Lucy would be sitting in a tattered winged chair near the fireplace, her tired old shoulders wrapped carefully in a faded pink shawl.

Aunt Kate, her sharp chin lifted above the high neck of a spotless white shirt with leg-of-mutton sleeves, sat tall and prim in a highback straight chair next to Grandma. The rest of our spinster aunt’s attire never varied: a pin-straight black skirt that reached to her pointed-toe slippers.

Once I asked Maum Sally why Aunt Kate never married. We children were in the kitchen-house drinking cups of turnip liquor drawn from a huge pot that simmered on the big wood stove.

She didn’t answer right away, but I knew by the slit-eyed look she gave me as she clamped down the pot lid, Maum Sally had heard my question.

Just drink up that pot likker, Belle, she said. You don’t need to go lifting lids that’s best left shut. With that, she tromped out of the door and crossed the boardwalk that spanned the gap between the kitchen and the main house—a boardwalk that could be chopped down in a hurry to save the house should the kitchen ever catch on fire.

I turned to her daughter-in-law, Eve, who was scrubbing the iron skillet. What’s that mean? I asked.

Eve leaned close to my ear. Don’t say I say so, but the story be that Miz Kate’s best friend stole her man away even before he got himself killed in the war.

Oh, I sighed. The war had been over for thirty-five years, but you wouldn’t think so. Any question I asked anyone other than Uncle Luke was answered like it had just happened.

That was especially so when Aunt Kate was the one to answer. Her voice would take on a pathetic tone that brought to my mind the mournful Nevermore quoted by Poe’s raven.

Your Grandpa McLaren was killed by Sherman’s men when that wretched bunch burned Atlanta, she would remind us. The Yankees burned homes all over the country. They didn’t burn McLaren Place, but they might as well have. What pigs, chickens and food crops the gluttons couldn’t eat, they ruint. Then they talked most of the slaves into running off with them. Only Big Jake’s family stayed, may the Lord bless them awwl-ways! We almost starved that year. Her sigh was heavily burdened.

War talk had to be pulled out of Uncle Luke. I was just a little biddie boy then, he told us. After it was over, the farm couldn’t support all of us. That was when your Papa and Uncle Evan took their wives to homestead in Texas. Times were really bad for the farmers here in the Chattahoochie Valley.

Well, I don’t think Alabama could have been worse than the piney woods was for us, I said. All of Mama’s babies were stillborn till I came along. Then she lost another between Jed and Gussie. But after Gussie was born, Mama just kept getting sicker till she died. Now Papa’s gone, too. I sighed and grew silent, not wanting to sound like Aunt Kate.

Doesn’t seem fair, does it? said Uncle Luke, who listened more than he talked. Sometimes he read the Bible to us and prayed for God to comfort us and fill us up with His love and the power of His spirit.

All of that sounded good enough, but I couldn’t understand then why God would take our Mama and Papa away when we needed them so much. You might say I was a bit put out with the Almighty, but Uncle Luke went right on praying Please, Lord, bless these younguns and fill them up with your love and the power of your spirit! He seemed so sure his prayers would be answered, I kept my doubts to myself.

Uncle Luke was a lot like Papa, who taught Jed and me to read and write. Since coming to live at McLaren Place, we had read Treasure Island to each other in the hayloft where Uncle Luke kept an old trunkful of books. Book-learning can’t be stolen from you, he told us, so don’t let anybody stop you from getting all the education you can. Jed and I vowed we never would. We loved Uncle Luke, and goodness knows we needed something to look forward to that we could hold on to.

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We couldn’t see them now, but we knew Uncle Evan and Aunt Carrie were sharing the blue velvet sofa which was the nicest piece of old furniture in the parlor. Papa’s brother and his wife had come all the way from Texas for Papa’s funeral, but left their four snippy daughters at home, for which I was glad.

All of those girls had names from the Bible, but none of them fit. Ruth was lazy, Naomi was sneaky, Esther was ugly and Mary was not only ugly, but downright mean. Whenever we went to their house, they never allowed us to be first for games. Because it’s our house, we were told. Then, when they came to our house, their excuse for being first was we’re your company. They fought with each other like cats and dogs, but you might say we came out ahead one glorious time.

It was on a day when Mama was too sick to get out of bed, and Aunt Carrie came to our house to help out, bringing the girls along to make our lives miserable.

Some neighbor had given us a mean old rooster we called Goliath, and he chased anybody that was the least bit scared of him, which we were not. That was because Papa had cut his spurs. Goliath didn’t know he couldn’t do us any damage after that, and kept on acting high and mighty. The first time he flew at Esther, all four cousins hi-tailed it into the house, and refused to go outside again. We had the whole yard to ourselves till they went back home. Neither Jed nor I bothered to tell them Goliath was harmless. Not ever.

I was just ever so glad those girls weren’t around now. They would, just for spite, find a way to keep us from eavesdropping on this meeting.

We lay close together on the cold floor under the fourposter. Grandma Lucy’s cloverleaf quilt shut out daylight and closed us in under there with the clean smell of lye soap that lingered from Eva’s thorough scrub-up after Papa died. Then Jed sighed and I caught my nose.

Told you not to eat them green onions today, I scolded. You just had to go chomping on them anyway, didn’t you?"

I don’t have to do all you say, Belle, he came back.

No, but Papa told me to take care of you and Gussie. It wouldn’t hurt you to mind me once in a while.

I mind you, Belle, piped Gussie. Her soft curls brushed my neck as she stroked my ponytail, a sure sign she might fall asleep as I had hoped.

Yes, you’re a sweet girl, Gussie, I said.

Almost sweet as my breath, said Jed with a chuckle as he deliberately blew out a generous puff of putrid air.

I yanked at a strand of his hair and pushed his head away from my face. "You keep your mouth shut so we can breathe under here and hear what’s said down there." I told him.

All I hear is Preacher Tucker praying. Reckon he’s gone thank the Lord for that bump you put on his bald head, Belle.

Hush. Silently, I prayed the bump had gone down by now. Lord knows, I wouldn’t have deliberately thrown an ear of corn at a preacher, I murmured.

We had been helping Uncle Luke unload a wagon of dry corn when Preacher Tucker ambled up to talk to him. Of course Uncle Luke couldn’t listen and work at the same time, which left just Jed, little Gussie and me to lug the corn from the wagon to the bin inside the barn. The crook of my own arm was almost full when Uncle Evan hollered from the back steps that they were ready to start the meeting.

It was clear to me that if we children were going to hear what was said about us, we had to figure a faster way to finish our chore.

A window stood open over the bin. My brother and I were both known to have pretty good aim, so we made sure Gussie was safely out of the way, and wound up to hurl the corn through the window.

There was just one little problem. Preacher Tucker had stopped between the wagon and the window, stretching his long neck back and forth like a turkey as he talked non-stop to Uncle Luke. The more he talked, the further his neck stretched.

Preacher, would you please move forward a teeny bit? I asked in the nicest way I knew, but to no avail. He didn’t know I was in the world at that moment.

Uncle Luke smiled at me and backed up, forcing the preacher to step toward him, leaving the back of his head mere inches out of our throwing path. Another warning seemed to be called for.

I’m gone throw this corn, I yelled, then let go.

WATCH OUT, BELLE! But Uncle Luke’s warning was a second too late. In a chunk of a minute, the preacher suddenly reared back to emphasize some point.

WHAM. The next think I knew, Preacher Tucker was rubbing his head and looking to heaven like a dizzy chicken.

I slapped both hands over my mouth, then caught my cheeks and said I was sorry, which I almost was. Y-You all right? I stammered, taking care to show appropriate concern for the Lord’s anointed. I dared not exchange a look with Jed.

The preacher rubbed his head, then worked his stunned face into a fairly decent smile. J-just fine, Belle. My wife would say it served me right for talking when I should be listening. You got a strong arm there, girl! I don’t think I’d care to go to bat with you on the mound.

When we saw him laughing, all of us joined in, which would have been the end of it, except for Uncle Evan, who had been watching from the back steps.

Before we knew what was happening, Papa’s older brother sifted red dirt as his long legs cleared the distance to the barn in short order. Ignoring our good humor, he headed straight for me and laid an iron grasp on my arm.

BELLE McLAREN, you’re nothing but trouble. Just take your brother and sister straight to your room and see that not one of you comes out till you’re called.

I don’t think Uncle Evan had the slightest idea that he had made it easier for us to get upstairs and into Papa’s room without being noticed.

In the semi-darkness under the fourposter, my arm still burned where his hard fingers had grabbed it. Please, God, don’t let Uncle Evan take us back to Texas, I prayed, feeling obliged to give the Lord another chance to do right by us. Maybe He would let us all stay at McLaren Place. I’d settle for that. I loved Grandma Lucy and Uncle Luke. Aunt Kate had persnickety ways, but she wasn’t unkind enough to leave blue fingerprints on my arm.

Down in the parlor, Uncle Evan was telling his own version of the barn incident, no matter how hard Preacher Tucker tried to shush him.

It just bears to prove how rambunctious Belle is, said Aunt Kate. When she’s around, you can’t do a thing with the other two.

Now, Kate, said Grandma Lucy, Belle’s had it hard trying to be a mother to Jed and Gussie.

Hardheaded’s more like it, put in Uncle Evan. That girl is wild as the piney woods she came from and a pain to manage. She’s about ruint Jedediah, but never mind. I can straighten him out fast so’s he’ll be a big help on my farm. We just want the boy. We got four girls, and that’s enough.

More’n enough, I muttered, but no appreciative snicker came from Jed. His shoulders had gone stiff.

I put an arm around his skinny shoulders and didn’t bother to turn my nose away from his shivering onion breath. It was certainly true that Jed had his own mind, but he was far from being ruint, and somebody ought to say so.

Uncle Luke spoke. "Actually, Evan, I hoped we could