The Wonder of Charlie Anne Read online

  “Why do you have to make a to-do about absolutely everything, Charlie Anne?”

  I tell her how I fell off my swing, and before I can get ahold of my tongue, I tell her that the new Mrs. Jolly got here and how I met her and everything. I leave Phoebe out of it.

  “That so?” says Mirabel, taking the cloth and dabbing my knee, and I cry out. Then she tells me I should have thought about doing my chores instead of swinging and that now I have to go to bed without any supper. I tell her I can’t do that because I didn’t have any lunch. I should have thought about that before I ran off, she says.

  Then she puts the vinegar away and slides the biscuits into the oven and tells me I’ll have plenty more chores tomorrow to make up for the ones I didn’t do today. I catch Ivy making faces at me, and then I walk up to the attic and lie down on my bed and listen to my bed humming that happy tune, trying to make me feel better. I tell my belly that after it had so many doughnuts, it cannot be as hungry as it thinks it is.

  CHAPTER

  12

  “Go get the long-handle shovel from the barn,” Mirabel tells me while I am plowing through my second bowl of oatmeal. “I want you to muck under the privy.”

  “Oh, that’s Papa’s job,” I tell her, reaching for more strawberries to pile on top.

  Ivy looks up, all interested. She hasn’t been eating her oatmeal at all, just pushing it around the bottom of her bowl. I give her my stop-playing-with-your-food look and she gives me her mind-your-own-business look. “Didn’t Papa say that was your job now, Charlie Anne?”

  “No, Ivy, he did not.” I drop my spoon so fast I make a little chip in the bowl. “I do not clean the privy. Papa does that job.”

  “Don’t Papa me, Charlie Anne.” Mirabel reaches for the bowl to look at the chip. “I want you to clean under the privy, and while you’re doing that, I want you to think about how you ran off yesterday. I was just about to check the river to see if you were drowned.”

  “I will not. I will not do a job like that.” I glare at her.

  “You will,” says Mirabel. “And you’ll do it now. Or else.”

  She runs her finger over the chip and then drops the bowl into the dishpan in the sink. Next thing I know, she is sucking the blood off her finger and reaching for the vinegar jug. Birdie asks if I would like a lick of her lemon drop so I won’t smell the bad smells in the privy. She pulls her sliver of candy from her pocket and hands it to me.

  “You keep it, Birdie.” Then I stand up and walk out of the house and let the door slam behind me. If the compost bucket were on the porch, I would kick it, just like Papa.

  Belle and Anna May are lying under the butternut tree, feeling all sorry that I keep getting yelled at by Mirabel. Cows are tender-hearted like that if you don’t let them get all caught up in the brier patch.

  The long-handle shovel is inside the barn door, hanging next to all the other shovels and the saws, mallets and ax. Peter hangs all the tools in order, shortest to tallest. I wonder why he doesn’t have to do the clean-the-privy job. How come I have to do girl chores in the house, plus the worst job on the whole farm? I grab the shovel and tell Olympia and Minnie and Bea to follow me.

  Anna May wants to know what the dickens I am doing, wheeling the wheelbarrow and the shovel out to the privy on such a hot day, when maybe I would rather come lie under the shade of the butternut tree beside the two of them.

  Humph, I say, propping up the little wooden trapdoor on the back of the privy. Then I reach way down inside with my shovel and dig through the slop for a minute and pull a shovelful up, trying not to spill any on the ground because I would be sure to step in it. The holes in the bottom of Thomas’s old boots are bigger than ever, and I forgot to put new cardboard inside.

  I try and hold my breath the whole time I am digging. Then I step away from the privy and take many gulps of air. Already Anna May and Belle are up on their feet, wondering what that terrible smell is. I tell them, do not blame me, blame Mirabel.

  I am also keeping watch for wasps. They live under the shingles on the privy and on the inside of the door and near the spot where we keep the old Sears catalog.

  It takes me a long, long time to fill the wheelbarrow, partly because the job is so hard and partly because Olympia and Minnie and Bea keep trying to get down there.

  My head gets all dizzy from holding my breath so much, and I smack the side of the privy with my full shovel, dropping a load of muck on the ground and sending a swarm of wasps into the air.

  Oh, no, says Anna May.

  Oh, no, says Belle.

  I rush out of the way, stepping in the muck, and then I have to go rest for a while with Anna May and Belle, at least until things calm down with the wasps. I tell them how the privy smell is the worst smell on the farm. Cow manure and horse manure and pig manure and even chicken manure are small potatoes compared to the smell that comes from a privy.

  “Ghastly,” I say.

  Terrible, says Anna May.

  The worst, Belle agrees.

  Pretty soon Mirabel comes out on the porch and sees me resting next to Anna May and Belle. She puts her hands on her hips and turns her face into one big frown.

  I don’t want to go to bed hungry again, so I hurry and push the wheelbarrow off to the woods. I think the stink is getting into my cuts and making them hurt even worse.

  Ivy is sitting out on the fence pulling a daisy apart, petal by petal, and throwing them at me. “What’s that terrrrrrible smell, Charlie Anne? Oh, it’s yooouuuuuu!”

  I make a beeline for her, waving my shovel, chasing her all the way up through the yard and straight through the blankets hanging on the line, and when she gets all tangled up and falls down, pulling the clean blankets with her, I hurry up and go back to the privy before Mirabel thinks it’s all my fault.

  Anna May and Belle are looking at me like maybe I should not have done that, like I’m really going to get the what-for now, and that’s when I hear someone squealing over at Old Mr. Jolly’s house. I prop my shovel against the privy and walk down past the blackberries and the barn and the grapevines and the stone wall, and the whole time I am noticing how everything still smells like I am standing in muck. I sniff under my arms and along the inside of my elbows, and when I look up, that’s when I see it is Phoebe who is screeching, Phoebe who is soaring through the sky on a swing like I have never seen before.

  I watch without breathing as she pulls the swing into the barn and then comes shooting out, fast as a bullet, screaming the whole way. She sticks her legs straight out in front of her and sweeps one arm way out to the side and bends over backward, as if she’s about to back-flip. She sees me and I wave to her and my feet start telling me they just about cannot stand the wait anymore. Don’t worry about Mirabel one bit, they tell me, and what’s taking so long, anyway, and hurry up.

  “Want to try?” she asks when I get across the road, and I nod yes, yes, I surely do.

  “I’ll show you how to do it,” and she soars back into the barn. Then she makes me stand and watch her for about a hundred minutes to see how fine the swing is and how good she is at swinging, and how to swing just like she does.

  Then she waves for me to come into the barn so I can see how she climbs up to the loft (I know all about haylofts) and how she jumps onto the sitting board (I know all about jumping up like that) and how she takes off and soars out of the barn. Then she comes back and lands on a special platform that Old Mr. Jolly must have built for her.

  “See? That’s how you do it.”

  I hurry up the ladder. “I know how to swing,” I tell her.

  “Well, I want you to watch one more time.” She laughs and jumps on the swing again and flies outside.

  A frown as big as Mirabel’s forms on my face. Then Phoebe is back. “Did you watch?”

  “Phoebe,” I say, my voice a little hard from the weight of my frown, “I know how to swing.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” she says, handing me the rope.

  I grab it, and jus
t the weight of it feels good in my hands.

  “That’s right,” says Phoebe, stepping close to help. “Yes, that’s good. Now hold on here—”

  “Will you stop it?” I can’t help myself. “I KNOW HOW TO RIDE ON A …”

  I stop because Phoebe is holding her nose. “What’s that awful smell, Charlie Anne?”

  “Oh,” I say, backing down a little, remembering the privy and my boots with the holes in the bottom and how I stepped in the muck lots of times. And then Phoebe is saying, “You can’t go on my swing smelling like that, Charlie Anne,” and I am backing up, backing down, rushing down that ladder, and the last thing I see is Phoebe with her face all puckered up.

  “I don’t want to ride on her stupid swing anyway,” I tell Anna May and Belle as I rush across the road, my eyes already filling with tears.

  Their eyes fill with cow-sorrow. They tell me they wouldn’t want to ride on Phoebe’s swing, either.

  Mirabel shoos me right back outside. “Don’t come in here until you’ve gotten rid of every bit of that smell.” She hands me soap and tells me to go for a swim in the river. “And bring Birdie.”

  We take off our clothes and jump in the cold water, watching the whole time for the oldest Thatcher boy because sometimes he spies on us.

  While we are swimming, I tell Birdie about Phoebe’s new swing and about how it can go higher than I’ve ever seen a swing go before.

  “Do you think she can see Mama in heaven when she swings so high?” asks Birdie, who is floating on her back as I scrub her hair.

  “Probably,” I say, and the thought of that, that Phoebe has a swing so high she can probably see our mama, makes me feel worse than anything.

  CHAPTER

  13

  Mirabel tells me I can make up for my bad behavior by making a vinegar pie to welcome our new neighbor like the good Lord intended.

  “I will take the pie over and give it to Mrs. Jolly,” Mirabel is telling me, “and you can go, too, Charlie Anne, if you make it especially good, with a high fluted crust and brown sugar sprinkled on top.”

  Mirabel is hanging sheets on the line. She is making me hand her clothespins and watch how she spreads the sheets out just right so they don’t dry with wrinkles.

  Mirabel flaps a sheet in front of her. “It’s very important because no one wants to sleep in a mussed bed.” I look over at Belle and Anna May. They could care less about sheets. I roll my eyes.

  I measure out the flour and the salt and mix the lard in with a fork until everything looks like little peas. I add enough water until it balls up like a good crust should, then sprinkle flour on the table and roll the whole thing out so it fits the pan.

  I am wondering all about Rosalyn and what did she want to come live with Old Mr. Jolly for, when he can’t take care of a cow as fine as Belle, and about Phoebe, and how I don’t want to see her at all after she clothes-pinned her nose. But I do wonder what happened to her mama, and why does she want to be a maid, anyway. She must hate chores as much as I do. Mostly, I would like some more of those doughnuts.

  While the pie is baking, I pull a bucket of water from the well and give my dress a scrubbing right there beside the porch. The water is so cold that my fingers want to know what I am doing, but I keep rubbing my dress with Mirabel’s no-children-allowed special lavender soap until the stains start disappearing. Then I wring it out as best I can and put it back on, sniffing myself one more time, just to make sure.

  “What’s the matter with it?” Old Mr. Jolly is saying when we are standing up on his porch, just about to knock.

  “It’s a little, well, plain. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “It’s suited me fine all these years, Rosalyn.”

  “Well, I think just a little paint would brighten it up. Maybe some yellow.”

  “I don’t have money for paint, Rosalyn.”

  “You know I have a little.”

  Old Mr. Jolly lets out a long sigh, which we can hear clear as cowbells. “I’m a proud man, Rosalyn. I don’t want to be using your money.”

  “Pride isn’t going to get me new paint, now, is it?”

  We hear grumbling and Old Mr. Jolly’s low voice: “Do what you want, Rosalyn.” Then the porch door flies open and nearly hits us. He frowns when he sees us, and he hurries straight to the barn. I wonder if he has a think-about-it chair out there, right beside Phoebe’s beautiful new swing.

  “Yoo-hoo,” says Mirabel. “Yoo-hoo.”

  This brings Rosalyn and Phoebe right out. “Charlie Anne, I was just wondering about all those cuts of yours,” Rosalyn says. “How are you?”

  “She’s fine, just fine,” says Mirabel, looking at Rosalyn’s trousers, which are yellow as sunflowers, and then at Phoebe’s, which are lavender. Phoebe smiles, but Mirabel ignores her and turns to Rosalyn.

  “Charlie Anne told me we had a new neighbor and I wanted to have a proper introduction,” she says. “I’m Mirabel, the cousin of this child’s mother, rest her soul.” She holds the pie out to Rosalyn.

  “Why, it’s beautiful, such a stunning pie!” Rosalyn takes it and puts it on the table and we all go over and look at it for a minute, even Phoebe. I am wondering if Mirabel will tell Rosalyn that I am the one who made the pie, but she does not.

  I wonder if Phoebe will let me ride on the swing when we are done looking at the pie. I give myself a little extra sniff to be sure I still smell okay. I think maybe Phoebe notices. I tell my face it better not turn all red. Then I move closer to Mirabel.

  “Yes,” she is saying, looking at the pie. “I came right after the funeral. It was just about a year ago now. I took one look at the condition of those children, and that was that. I’ve been here ever since. My cousin Sylvie was just the sweetest thing, but she left the children not knowing much about the way the world works. Especially this one here.”

  Rosalyn has already raised an eyebrow. I am backing away from Mirabel. Rosalyn looks at me and smiles. “She looks quite fine to me.”

  “Yes, it’s manners and acting like a proper young lady and all those things that country children who don’t go to school have so much trouble with. And chores. They all have a great deal of trouble getting anything done.”

  Rosalyn is raising her other eyebrow. “Did you say no school?”

  “Yes, ever since that teacher left for California, we’ve been without. And she wasn’t here for a year, and there were years between this one and the last. We’ve had trouble finding teachers who are willing to come this far out.”

  “Is that so?” Rosalyn is looking over at Phoebe and smiling just the tiniest bit.

  Mirabel nods toward Phoebe and looks back at Rosalyn. “Nice you brought a maid and all.” Mirabel is looking at Phoebe’s trousers. “None of us can afford help up here. Times are too tough. We do what we can, though.”

  Phoebe looks at Rosalyn, and then I see Phoebe stiffen up like she has an old ironing board down the back of her shirt. A big long shadow passes over Rosalyn’s face.

  Rosalyn must have brought a whole shipload of books, because there are stacks of them everywhere. Old Mr. Jolly should get busy right away building bookshelves, just as soon as he does something about that brier patch. I am counting all the books while I wait for Rosalyn’s shadow to pass.

  Mirabel is looking around for a place to sit, but Rosalyn does not tell her to please sit and take a weight off your feet the way folks usually do around here. So we just stand feeling all uncomfortable. This gets Mirabel’s mouth running again.

  “The Ellis family had colored help once a while back,” Mirabel is telling Rosalyn. “They didn’t last, though. Soon as times started getting hard, the help up and left, off to Ohio so I hear, and no one has heard a stitch from them since.” Mirabel does not even take a breath. My ears start burning, they are feeling so uncomfortable being here with Mirabel.

  “Phoebe is not my maid,” Rosalyn says finally.

  Mirabel looks all confused. “No?”

  “No,” says Rosalyn, putting her ar
m around Phoebe.

  Mirabel is turning red. “Well, what is she, then? She’s colored.”

  “Aah,” says Rosalyn, glancing down at Phoebe and squeezing her again. “I hadn’t noticed.” Then she walks over to the table, picks up the pie, carries it back and puts it in Mirabel’s hands.

  CHAPTER

  14

  Mirabel marches me home so fast I can hear her leather shoes snapping.

  “I don’t want you over there again,” she says from about five steps ahead. “I certainly don’t want you near that colored girl.”

  She stomps up the porch steps and puts the pie on the kitchen table and tells all of us that she is going to sit right down right now and write another letter to Eleanor and how if any of us know what is good for us, we will get out and hoe all those potatoes before she counts ten. “Here, take this pie with you.”

  “We do not need Aunt Eleanor,” I tell her, taking the pie, and she does not even bother to look up because she is already sitting down writing. “YOU ARE NOT RAISING US,” I tell her.

  That gets Mirabel to look at me. “Charlie Anne, it’s like you don’t listen to a thing I’ve been trying to teach you.”

  Birdie comes over and takes my hand and tries to pull me away. She does not like yelling. But I have some things to say.

  “We do not need you,” I tell Mirabel.

  I decide I need to drop the pie all over her clean floor and that is what I do. While she’s screaming her head off, I grab Birdie’s hand and shoo everyone out the door.

  “You’ve really done it this time, Charlie Anne,” says Ivy.

  When we are out hoeing, Becky Ellis walks up by the edge of our fence. I tell her to come and help rather than just standing there looking all stupid at us.

  “Charlie Anne, you are rotten to the core.” Then she throws the apple she is eating and it lands at my feet.

  “Charlie Anne, we are getting the electric as soon as those wires go up, and you’re not!” she yells. “That’s right, Charlie Anne. My mother says only some families are getting lights, and you are not one of them. You and the Morrells are too poor to have electric. You’ll be using kerosene your whole life.”