Whistler's Hollow Read online

  “She has,” Uncle Dallas said seriously, before heaping more flapjacks onto my plate. I ate until I figured one more bite and my buttons would pop through the air like Uncle Dallas’s flapjacks.

  “That’s it,” Aunt Esther said after we’d all eaten our fill. She pointed to Uncle Dallas. “It’s time for all the crazy old men to leave the kitchen.”

  Uncle Dallas shook his head. “I’ll clean up. I don’t want you to work too hard.”

  Aunt Esther waved him away like a queen to a royal servant. “Be gone, crazy man. Lillie Mae will help me.”

  I started clearing the plates to the sink. Before Uncle Dallas left, he lifted a big pot of water from the stove and poured it into a dishpan.

  “Know any good songs?” Aunt Esther asked.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Do you know any songs to sing?” she asked again, chipping soap into the big dish of hot water.

  I shrugged and looked down at my hands. Mama and Daddy had sung lots of songs before the war, but it seemed like so long ago. Aunt Esther touched my shoulder with a gentle hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess you haven’t had a lot to sing about lately.”

  I shrugged again, not knowing exactly how to answer. “I knew your papa,” Aunt Esther said, “but I never got to Louisville to meet your mama. Would you mind letting me see a picture?”

  “I… I wouldn’t mind,” I told her truthfully, “but I don’t have one.”

  “That’s too bad. I guess your mama never got around to having her picture made.”

  “No, she did. My aunt Helen has several of them. She has all my mama’s things,” I explained.

  “You mean you didn’t get any of your mama’s belongings?” Aunt Esther asked.

  I gulped and shook my head. I wasn’t about to say anything about the bluebird I’d hidden behind the starched curtains in my bedroom. I didn’t want to have to give it back to Aunt Helen. I busied myself putting the dishes into the dishpan, trying not to let Aunt Esther see my guilty face.

  Aunt Helen was Mama’s only sister. I figured that Mama’s things rightfully went to her, but I sure would have liked to have had at least one picture of Mama and Daddy. I remembered the one of them that had sat on a table beside my baby picture. The wooden frame was painted to look like gold. Mama’s hair was done up in a twist and she had on a silky dress that she’d borrowed from a lady in our apartment building. Daddy looked spiffy in his tan doughboy uniform with the brass buttons. That picture was taken at the going-away party Melissa K. Reynolds’s parents had given before Daddy left for the war. I think the Reynolds had hoped that sending my daddy off in style might bring their own son good luck, but that was before the Reynolds had gotten their telegram.

  Aunt Esther’s mouth set in a straight line that I took to mean trouble.

  “I think I need to write me a letter,” she said. “Get me a sharp pencil and paper from that drawer.”

  Aunt Esther sat for quite a while writing a letter while I finished the dishes. She didn’t tell me what it said, but I hoped she was telling Aunt Helen how helpful I was with washing the dishes.

  After I’d wiped everything that could be wiped, I went upstairs and put my three extra sets of panties and socks into the bureau. I went ahead and put my other dress in the second drawer, even though the dress was too small. Maybe I could make an apron out of the skirt someday I remembered when Mama had sewed the dress. It’d been winter and I’d made soup to keep us warm. Mama had sewed all afternoon as the soup had simmered. Papa had been out somewhere.

  I put my sweater on against the chill before walking down the steps into the kitchen. Aunt Esther was resting her head on the table, so instead of disturbing her I went out into the backyard.

  I walked around a chicken coop, an outhouse, and a barn. They looked a lot like Old Man Henessy’s back home. Old Man Henessy was a farmer friend of Daddy’s. In the front of Uncle Dallas’s house there were half a dozen rosebushes with blooms still withering and leaves scattered around the yard. I figured this would be a good time for me to earn my keep. I found a rake in the barn and started gathering up all the leaves. Soon I had a big pile, but didn’t know what to do with them. It would be a shame for a puff of wind to ruin all my hard work. I was thinking about it when a voice came from the road.

  “Ghosts live there, you know.”

  I jumped a mile. I turned around and looked at a boy about my age, every bit as skinny as me only quite a bit taller. “Hello,” I said.

  He pointed to the attic and repeated, “Ghosts live there, you know.”

  I gulped and stared at the dark attic window. I didn’t know what to say to the boy, but it didn’t matter. He turned to leave, calling over his shoulder, “You’re crazy to live in that old haunted house.”

  4

  School

  “Let’s go,” Uncle Dallas said from behind me.

  “Go where?” I asked, wondering if Uncle Dallas had heard the strange boy.

  Uncle Dallas slapped his straw hat on his white head. “Why, to school, of course. Isn’t that what girls your age do?”

  “Sure,” I said. I loved school at home. There I read wonderful books, saw my friends, and listened to Mrs. Comer’s stories. I wanted my new school to be like that.

  Uncle Dallas and I bumped along in the wagon down the dusty road. We passed farmhouses that I hadn’t even seen in the dark last night. Uncle Dallas had his violin case on the wagon bed, and he whistled. It seemed strange for him to be carrying a case to school, but I didn’t dwell on it. My mind worried about my new school. Would the girls like me? Would the boys be nice? Would I be smart enough?

  Uncle Dallas stopped whistling and pointed straight ahead. “There she is—Paggett School.”

  My old school had been two stories high and made of brick. A small wooden building made up Paggett School. Girls and boys ran around outside, kicking a ball. None of them looked at me. “Don’t worry,” Uncle Dallas said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Aren’t you coming in?” I asked, not wanting him to leave.

  Uncle Dallas shook his head and grinned. “I haven’t been to school yet and I don’t plan on starting today. You go on now.”

  I gulped. Uncle Dallas must have felt my fear because he gave me a hug and a little pat on the back. “See you for lunch. You just walk down this road to home.”

  I walked straight through all those boys and girls, and up a small set of steps. Inside there was only one room. A man looked up over his reading glasses at me. “Yes?” he said impatiently.

  “I, I’m Lillie Mae Worth…. I’m a new student,” I whispered.

  The man slapped his pencil down on the desk. “Haven’t I got enough already?”

  I didn’t know what to say, but I don’t think the teacher would have listened anyway. He pointed to a desk at the back of the room. As soon as I took my seat, he rang a big hand-bell on his desk. Boys and girls of all sizes and ages appeared through the door. They stared at me like I was a rat in a church pew. The new teacher didn’t waste any time.

  “Open your readers to page nineteen,” he said. I didn’t have a reader, so I just sat there while the other students read silently. I wanted to ask the teacher for one, but I was too scared. He didn’t seem like the helping kind. No one offered to share any books the entire morning, and the teacher never bothered to give me one.

  By the time I walked home for lunch, I was ready to cry. Not one boy or girl had even talked to me. I might as well have been the dust on the bookshelves.

  “Welcome home,” Aunt Esther said with asmile as I came in the kitchen door at noon. I’m embarrassed to say that I started bawling right then and there.

  “Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” Aunt Esther asked, gathering me up in her arms.

  I couldn’t say anything, I just cried. Aunt Esther sat me on her lap and smoothed my hair. “It’s all right,” she whispered. “You go ahead and cry You’ve had too much to deal with lately. First, your papa dying and now your mama….”

  I ju
mped off her lap and yelled, “My daddy isn’t dead!”

  “But…” Aunt Esther said softly.

  “He isn’t dead!” I shouted. Then, because I didn’t know what else to do, I ran out the door.

  I walked back to the school feeling a hundred years old. I felt miserable for talking to Aunt Esther that way After all, she’d been nothing but kind to me. But I couldn’t let her say that Daddy was dead. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. I took a deep breath and blew it out long and slow. That helped a little, although my belly grumbled from hunger. If I’d been smart, I’d have grabbed some of the lunch that Aunt Esther had made for me.

  The school yard was deserted. Only one girl sat under a tree, eating from a lunch bucket. I went around to the side of the school and sat alone in the dust.

  I thought about Mama and Daddy and how long it’d been since we’d all been together. Even before Daddy had left for the war, he’d been too busy to do things. He’d always had something he’d had to do. But there had been a time when we’d gone on picnics, walked to the movies and dances together. All that was before the war, of course. The war had ruined everything.

  When I walked up the steps after the lunch bell sounded, someone talked to me. I wished they hadn’t. “Hey, crazy girl!” a kid yelled.

  I whirled around to look into the blue eyes of the skinny boy I’d seen at Whistler’s Hollow that morning. I tried to be nice. “Hello,” I said, raising my hand in greeting. “I’m Lillie Mae Worth. I’m new.”

  “You don’t look new. And you couldn’t get me to stay at Whistler’s Hollow for a dollar. Don’t you know it’s haunted?” A crowd of kids gathered around and stared at me.

  “Why do you keep saying that?” I asked, my face turning red.

  The boy shrugged. “That’s what everybody says. Hey, maybe you don’t mind because you are a ghost.”

  “You take that back!” I shouted. “That’s a lie.”

  A blonde girl spoke up. “Paul, why don’t you leave her alone?”

  Paul ignored the girl. “Maybe Lillie Mae’s just a ghost in faded old clothes. Don’t dead people get new clothes every hundred years or so?”

  “Why are you saying such lies?” I asked him. “Take it back.”

  Paul pushed me in the shoulder. “Ghost,” he said.

  I don’t know why, but for some reason I pushed him back. I’d never fought before. Maybe it was everything that was happening to me lately, but I couldn’t stand him talking to me like that in front of everyone. When he pushed again, I pushed back and soon we were in a full-fledged scuffle.

  Our teacher made us stop. He glared at us from the top of the stairs. “Inside right now!”

  “Now you’ve done it,” Paul complained.

  And that is how I got a spanking on my first day of school in Henderson, Kentucky. Paul got one too and, judging from the look Paul gave me afterward, things weren’t going to get any better at Paggett School.

  By the time I walked back to Whistler’s Hollow, I felt as if my heart had been stomped to bits. I kicked at a rock in the road and longed for home—for my old school and friends. Melissa K. Reynolds had probably found someone else to walk to school with by now. I’d never have any friends here.

  The only thing besides my pride (and my bottom) that had suffered from my scrapping with Paul was my dress. There was a good-sized rip in the sleeve. It wouldn’t take much mending to fix it. I could do it easy if I could find some thread. Mama had taught me to sew when I was six. My dress was already faded, but now it was ripped and stained from rolling in the dirt with Paul. I hoped I could fix the rip and wash out the dirt stains before anyone at Whistler’s Hollow saw them. What would Uncle Dallas and Aunt Esther think of me?

  Of course, my bottom hurt a lot. The teacher must have given lots of spankings, because he was quite good at it. I figured I’d have trouble sitting for days. I just hoped that Paul got whipped harder than me.

  “Ow!” Something hit me in the shoulder.

  “Ow!” A rock smacked me in the leg. Paul was throwing rocks at me. One whizzed by my ear. I didn’t stop to yell. I ran.

  I ran until I thought my lungs would burst. I stopped and panted. Paul hadn’t followed. At least, I didn’t think so. I picked up five good throwing stones just in case.

  Why was he doing this to me?

  5

  Mending

  When I finally trudged into Whistler’s Hollow, the house was empty The only sound was the mantel clock in the parlor. Tick. Tick. Tick. “Hello?” I said faintly, more than a little relieved that no one could see my torn, dirty dress.

  I found a needle and thread in a sewing basket. In my room I fixed my ripped sleeve as best I could. My only other dress was tight, but at least it was clean. I washed my newly mended dress in the dishpan in the kitchen before laying it out to dry on a bush behind the barn. I hoped it would dry before anyone noticed it. I didn’t want to lie about what had happened, but I didn’t want to talk about it either.

  After that I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wished I had a good book to read. Maybe Aunt Esther had some—maybe she even had a school-book I could use. I walked around the wallpapered parlor checking for books, and stopped at the fireplace. Several old photos and tintypes sat in wood frames on the mantel. One looked like Aunt Esther and Uncle Dallas on their wedding day. Some pictures were of people I’d never seen before. I wondered if I was related to any of them. I picked up one dusty frame that showed a young boy and his parents. My grandparents had died before I was born, but I knew that young boy. It was my father.

  I’ll bet I stared at that picture for half an hour. Tears welled up in my eyes and things got blurry. “Oh, Daddy,” I whispered, “please come home. I need you. You’re all I have now.” Daddy had been gone for so long, sometimes it was hard to remember things about him. The picture brought it all back. I touched the photograph where a cowlick made his hair stick up on one side. His smile was still the same, at least the same as the last time I’d seen him.

  He’d leaned out the window of the train and waved along with hundreds of other soldiers. Mama and I had waved back until his train had left the station. That’s when Mama had grabbed my hand. She had tears running down her cheeks. It’d been the first time she’d said, “I guess it’s just you and me.” But it wasn’t the last time. Now I guessed it would be Daddy saying that, whenever he got home. I didn’t know what was taking him so long. After all, the war had been over for a year. Mama never would tell me when he was coming home. Maybe he was wounded in a hospital somewhere, getting better and missing me like I was missing him. Maybe he was on a special secret mission that put him in great danger. I didn’t like to think about what was wrong, so I hugged his picture to my chest.

  After that I got busy and dusted the photographs with a rag I found in the kitchen. I was trying to whistle softly when Aunt Esther came in the room. I didn’t realize she was there until she tapped me on the shoulder. “Oh,” I cried. “You startled me.”

  “Lillie Mae, I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you came in from school,” Aunt Esther said. “I was taking a nap.”

  It seemed strange for a grown woman to be taking a nap in the middle of the day, unless she was sick. “Are you ill?” I asked.

  Aunt Esther smiled. “Just old,” she said. “It’s awful when your bones are older than your spirit.”

  I wiped my father’s picture frame one more time and Aunt Esther clapped her hands. “Why, I’d plumb forgotten that I had that picture of Bobby. Why don’t you keep that?”

  “Do you mean it?” I asked.

  Aunt Esther nodded. “Of course. You should have a picture of your daddy.”

  I lowered my eyes, remembering how mean I’d been to her at lunchtime. “I’m so sorry for the way I talked before,” I said softly.

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “A little shouting is good for the soul. Now run along and put that in your room.”

  “Thank you.” I held the picture to my chest and headed toward the steps.
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  “Wait just a minute, young lady,” Aunt Esther stopped me. “Let me see that dress.”

  I gulped. Aunt Esther had figured out what had happened. She knew I’d been in a fight and ripped my dress. What would she do to me?

  “This dress looks awful small for you, honey,” Aunt Esther said, turning up my skirt to check the hem. I knew for a fact that Mama had let the hem out twice.

  “Do you have another one?” Aunt Esther asked, and I nodded.

  “That one you had on this morning?” she asked, and I nodded again.

  Aunt Esther tapped her chin. “Mmmm, we ought to be able to help you out.”

  “How are the lovely Worth ladies this afternoon?” Uncle Dallas said as he came into the room. He mopped his brow with a big kerchief and sat down in the wooden rocker.

  “We were just talking about getting Lillie Mae some new clothes,” Aunt Esther said. “I know! We’ll go up in the attic. There’s a trunk up there with lots of my old dresses. I bet there’s one in there we can fix over for you.”

  Uncle Dallas stood up. “No need for you to go into the attic,” he said. “I’ll bring the trunk down and you two can go through it together.”

  Aunt Esther clapped her hands. “Thank you, Dallas. This will be so much fun!”

  True to his word, a few minutes later Uncle Dallas set the dusty trunk in the parlor and left us to it. Aunt Esther started digging through the trunk right away. “I saved these for my daughter,” she said.

  This seemed like a good time to ask what I’d been wondering. “Do you have children?”

  “No, I’m sorry to say we never had any of our own,” Aunt Esther said softly “It’s not that we didn’t want any, mind you. I would have loved a whole houseful of noisy young’uns. It just never happened. But I’m glad I saved these. I think some might just fit you.”

  “It’s sure nice of you,” I told her.

  “Look at this one, Lillie Mae. Isn’t it a honey?” Aunt Esther pulled out of the trunk the most beautiful dress I’d ever seen. The white, shimmery material glowed when it moved. “I wore this when I was not much older than you. It was for a cotillion.”