Halley Read online

  Halley

  Faye Gibbons

  NEWSOUTH BOOKS

  Montgomery

  Also by Faye Gibbons

  Fiction:

  Some Glad Morning (1982)

  Mighty Close to Heaven (1985)

  King Shoes and Clown Pockets (1989)

  Night in the Barn (1995)

  Mountain Wedding (1996)

  Hook Moon Night (1997)

  Emma Jo’s Song (2001)

  Full Steam Ahead (2002)

  The Day the Picture Man Came (2003)

  Nonfiction:

  Breaking New Ground (1993)

  Hernando Desoto: In Search of Gold and Glory (2003)

  Horace King: Bridges to Freedom (2003)

  NewSouth Books

  105 S. Court Street

  Montgomery, AL 36104

  Copyright © 2014 by Faye Gibbons. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

  ISBN: 978-1-58838-290-0

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-328-9

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933020

  Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

  To my daughters-in-law, Laurie and Aca

  and to my grandchildren:

  Matthew, Sarah, Caleb, Isaac, Samuel, and Jacob

  Contents

  1 - Selling Out

  2 - Moving

  3 - The Calvins

  4 - Dinner on the Ground

  5 - Picking Cotton

  6 - Tufting Spreads

  7 - Gid Makes a Decision

  8 - Letters

  9 - Garnetta Pays a Visit

  10 - A Loss

  11 - Gid’s Big News

  12 - Bootsie Comes to Dinner

  13 - Bud Gravitt’s Gift

  14 - A Trip to Belton

  15 - A Surprise

  16 - Bud Gravitt Returns

  17 - Christmas

  18 - Everything Changes

  19 - A Time to Choose

  20 - The Whipping

  21 - Called By Name

  22 - A New Beginning

  A Background Note

  1. Selling Out

  Halley Owenby sat on her porch and studied the garden, the barn, the pasture, the fields, and the Georgia mountains beyond. She had seen them daily for the fourteen years of her life, but it seemed that now, when she was about to lose everything, was the first time she’d really seen them.

  Her eyes dropped to the Bible on her lap. It was opened to the family register in the middle, the place marked by an old photograph of her father. Her own dark brown hair was so much like his. She had the same angular body and long legs, the same square chin and dark eyes. Grabbing up the photo, she stuck it far back in the Bible.

  Her six-year-old brother, Robbie, handed her a stub of a pencil. “You going to write it?” He leaned on the arm of Halley’s rocker and scratched his dog, Buck, with one bare foot.

  Halley didn’t want to write—didn’t want to put down in black and white that her father, Jim Owenby, had died. If only refusing to write it would make it untrue! But it wouldn’t. Nothing could bring him back. She straightened her shoulders. She’d always been the one in the family to face things squarely. Her father never did. Like President Roosevelt, Jim always acted as if there was no Depression or any other troubles that courage and hard work couldn’t overcome.

  Halley’s mother was just as bad in her own way. Raised by a hellfire-and-brimstone preacher, Kate spent most of her energy trying to get a religious experience like her father preached about. Losing four babies had pushed her further in this direction. Robbie wasn’t bent toward being practical, either. His head seemed always in the clouds. But he was only a little boy, Halley reminded herself.

  She forced herself to focus on the first entry in the family register—her parents’ marriage, fifteen years ago in 1921. The next page listed Halley’s birth, followed over the next six years by three babies who had each died within days of birth. Then there was Robbie, born in 1930. One more baby came after Robbie—a boy named Will.

  Finally, she came to the page headed “Deaths.” Taking a deep breath, Halley hurriedly wrote her father’s name below Baby Will’s. “Jim Manley Owenby died July 29, 1936,” she wrote, blinking back tears. Then she closed the book.

  Robbie looked toward the kitchen where adult conversation hummed, and then leaned close to ask, “Is Daddy in heaven?”

  “You know he is!” Halley said with more certainty than she felt. How many times she had asked herself this very question since the funeral on Wednesday! The mound of raw red dirt flashed before her and grief overtook her for several moments. She would never see her father again. Never see him attempting to tease Kate into a good mood. Never see him giving his last penny to help kinfolk or even a neighbor. Too late, she realized how much all those things meant to her. No matter what good things might happen in the future, she knew her father’s death had left a gap in her life that could never be filled.

  “Grandpa Franklin don’t think Daddy’s in heaven,” Robbie whispered. “He said so to Uncle Ralph yesterday.” Ralph was the oldest Franklin son. “Pa Franklin told Uncle Ralph that there was a good chance Daddy was in—in hell.”

  Halley was so furious she forgot caution. “How would he know? Pa Franklin doesn’t know everything. Even if he is a preacher, he might be the one going to hell. The Bible says not to judge.”

  Robbie wrinkled his forehead. “Pa Franklin said Daddy helping Claude and Clyde with their moonshining stuff was bad as making whiskey hisself, and if Daddy hadn’t been trying to help push their moonshine truck out of that ditch, then he wouldn’t have been run over and . . .”

  “Daddy helped people,” Halley said, “and that’s not bad, no matter what anybody says!”

  Their Grandfather Franklin leaned out of the doorway. “You getting mighty loud out here, girl!”

  He and Ma Franklin never called her or Robbie by their names, but only used “boy” or “girl.” Halley often wondered what her grandparents would have done about names if the other babies had lived. “Girl one” and “girl two,” maybe. “Boy three” and “boy four.”

  “Go nail up my Jesus sign out by the mailbox,” he said. When Pa Franklin wasn’t preaching, he delighted in painting signs like “Jesus saves” or “Repent!” He put them up everywhere—trees, fence posts, and abandoned buildings.

  “We’re out of nails,” Halley answered without regret. She was tired of his frequently misspelled signs.

  “Well, find some work to do.” Pa Franklin expected children to be quiet and busy.

  Robbie took out for the pasture with his dog, Buck. The family mules, Nip and Tuck, trotted to meet him. Robbie made pets of every animal on the farm, and he grieved over those slaughtered for food.

  “Keep the boy busy,” Pa Franklin told Halley, “and the both of you keep quiet. We got business to take care of in here.”

  And she knew what the business was. It was all her grandfather had talked about since the funeral. Halley put the Bible down on a bench and crept close to the kitchen door. Inside, the talk resumed. The insistent tone in the voices of the Franklins and the pleading note in Kate’s were clear.

  “Surely I can stay in my own home,” Kate was saying. It sounded like a child asking permission, instead of a grown woman’s statement of intention.

  “Mama,” Halley whispered. “You’ve got to stand up to them.”

  Ma Franklin spoke up. “People would talk, you living here all by yourself, with no man around.”r />
  “I wouldn’t be alone—I’d have my children.”

  Ma Franklin heaved a dismissive grunt. “Young’uns don’t count, and you know that well as I do. You have to think of your father. People won’t think as high of a preacher with a daughter living like a loose woman.”

  Halley rolled her eyes. Kate? A loose woman!

  Pa Franklin spoke again. “If Jim’s brothers hadn’t helped him out ever’ time he was in a tight, he couldn’t have worked this place. How’s a woman going to do it? Can you plow? Can you handle mules?”

  “I’m sure Claude and Clyde and their boys will help me.”

  Halley heard the quiver in her mother’s voice.

  “Yesterday after the funeral Claude mentioned giving me something on the doctor and funeral home charges,” Kate went on.

  Halley sucked in her breath and stepped inside. “And Uncle Clyde told me they would study how they could help.”

  “Girl, didn’t I tell you to stay outside?” said Pa Franklin.

  Halley retreated as far as the doorway and then stopped.

  “What Claude and Clyde are apt to give won’t be a drop in a bucket!” Pa Franklin said. “You run up all them doctor bills, and Jim died anyway. Then you just had to hire a funeral home to fix up the body and lay ’im out in a fancy box ’stead of letting someone right here in Alpha Springs do all that free.”

  “Pa, Jim always provided so generous for me and the young’uns. When he didn’t have money, he traded labor for my sewing machine, Robbie’s piano . . .”

  “And let’s don’t forget the fancy screen wire, while you’re at it!” said Pa Franklin. “And books to put big idees in your daughter’s head about getting an education, and a big new cook stove when the old one still worked fine. Jim Owenby knowed how to spend foolish, all right.”

  Ma Franklin spoke up meekly, “Well, now, the new cook stove is handy.”

  Pa Franklin glared. “Old Woman, you turning on me?”

  Ma Franklin submitted at once. “No, Webb.”

  Kate tried again. “Gid said he could come stay a while.”

  Gideon was the Franklins’ youngest son, and the only child left at home.

  Pa Franklin exploded. “And take away the only help your poor old mama and daddy have? What are you thinking?”

  Kate did not reply. They had fixed it so she could not win.

  “Ever now and then you got to have cash money. You can’t get out and tinker at this and that for cash like Jim done.”

  Halley longed to point out this admission that sometimes Jim Owenby had earned real money, but she let the moment pass and her grandfather began talking again.

  “Now, you might’ve knowed a little about how to do things around here if Jim hadn’t thought his wife was too good to dirty her hands. Jim Owenby throwed off on me that time when he come and found the Old Lady plowing. Well, I learned my wife to do ever’ job I done, and now you see the reason. The way things stand, you don’t know nothing about how to run this place.”

  Halley could bear it no longer. “I know how to work,” she said. “If Ma Franklin can plow, so can I. With Claude and Clyde helping, and maybe some hired help . . .”

  “Hired help!” said Pa Franklin. “My! Ain’t we rich! What you going to hire with? And this place ain’t paid off. The doctor ain’t paid. The hospital ain’t paid. The funeral home ain’t paid. You got money hid away we don’t know about?”

  Kate broke into sobs.

  Don’t cry, Halley thought. They’ll run right over you.

  Sure enough, Pa Franklin smelled victory. His voice took on a businesslike tone. “I already passed the word at the funeral yesterday that you’d be selling out.”

  Kate raised her head. “Without talking to me?”

  “No need for talk.”

  Well, that’s that, thought Halley. Once Pa Franklin decided how things would be, no argument was allowed. The only hope was Claude or Clyde. If one of them arrived soon with sure offers of help and money, Kate might stand up to her father.

  “Lum Albert said he’d buy your cows and your mules,” Pa Franklin continued, “and that grown boy of his’n wants whatever of your hogs we don’t take with us. Bud Gravitt says he’ll buy the house and land. He must make money from that store of his. Gravitt’s wife, Orrie, wants the sewing machine and the piano, if the price is right.”

  “Not the piano!” Halley exclaimed. “That’s Robbie’s. And I was hoping I could learn to play.”

  Pa Franklin snorted. “Hope in vain, girl! I heared you pound on that piano, and you ain’t got a lick of talent. Even if you did, a piano is a frill your mama can’t afford.”

  Halley turned to Kate. “Mama, don’t let him do this.”

  “You don’t get no say,” Pa Franklin said. “Have respect for your elders. Children are to be seen and not heard.”

  Desperate, Halley took her mother’s hands. “Mama, we just lost Daddy. We can’t give up everything else too.”

  Kate pulled her hands away and took a long shuddering breath. “Halley, we can’t count on help from nobody but Ma and Pa. Counting on what people might do is foolish. You can’t even count on what they say they’ll do. Everybody has to look after their own folks. We have to take what’s sure.”

  Kate turned to her father. “Well, you win. We’ll sell the place and go live with you. But I’m keeping my sewing machine.”

  “And the piano,” Halley said.

  For a moment Kate hesitated, but then she said, “I’m sorry, Halley. A piano can’t make our clothes or feed us.”

  “But Mama, Daddy always said music feeds the soul!”

  Pa Franklin grunted. “Any God-fearing Christian knows scripture is what feeds the soul. Doing the will of God feeds the soul!”

  Kate put an arm around Halley’s waist. “The piano goes. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Pa Franklin nodded. “Now you’re seeing reason.” He glanced toward the road where a car had just pulled into sight. “Here come some folks now.”

  “It’s Garnetta Miller!” yelled Robbie from the porch.

  Halley let out her breath in disappointment. She’d been hoping for Claude or Clyde.

  Pa Franklin was disappointed too, but his wife was downright riled. She had a hard time forgiving the woman who had been Pa Franklin’s first sweetheart many years before. Despite four marriages and three divorces over the years, Garnetta dressed, looked, and acted years younger than Ma Franklin.

  “What’s that woman doing here?” Ma Franklin demanded. “It was bad enough, her coming to the funeral, and her a Catholic. And I see she’s got on one of her flashy dresses. She goes rollicking all over the country in that car, like a man. And there she goes, hugging up the boy like he’s hers.”

  Sure enough, Garnetta and Robbie were embracing as if they were mother and son. The Franklins still had sour faces when Garnetta entered the kitchen. As soon as greetings were exchanged, Garnetta turned to Kate. “Have you thought about my invitation, to move in with me?”

  A look of surprise crossed Pa Franklin’s face. He recovered fast. “Thought about it and turning it down,” he said. “My daughter’s got kin.”

  “Blood kin,” Ma Franklin added.

  Kate said nothing, and after a moment, Garnetta said, “Well, at least let Robbie stay with me a month or two. I have a piano, and I can get him lessons. I’d bring him to see you once a week.”

  “No,” said Pa Franklin. “The boy’s place is with family.”

  Garnetta kept her eyes on Kate. “I can’t let him go,” Kate said at last. “But you’ll be welcome to come visit, over in Belton.”

  Ma Franklin let out a disgusted huff of air, but before she could speak, a truck came into sight. It was Bud Gravitt and his family. Halley couldn’t believe Orrie Gravitt would close up the store to come in person.

  Garnetta headed f
or the pasture with Robbie and Buck as soon as she greeted the new arrivals.

  Skinny Orrie Gravitt wore one of her church hats, which didn’t look too fitting with the apron that she wore in a vain attempt to hide the baby she was expecting. She was so skinny that her pregnant stomach looked like she’d swallowed a huge watermelon. Bud wore work overalls and a straw hat. The Gravitt boys were probably at home, working, but Annabel and her older sister, Lula May, sat in back. Like their mother, they were dressed in church clothes.

  “Me and Orrie thought we’d take a look at what all is up for sale,” Bud Gravitt said.

  Annabel Gravitt tugged at her mother’s arm. “Yonder comes the Woodalls.”

  With mixed feelings Halley saw her best friend, Dimple Woodall, in the wagon. It might be her last chance to see Dimple before moving, but she hated for her friend to see their things being pawed over and sold.

  “I’m speaking up for the piano first,” Orrie Gravitt said to Kate. “And I might want them rockers on the porch, if the price is right. It ain’t good for me to do all the standing I do.”

  Halley dropped down into the nearest rocker. “Daddy built these . . .”

  “Halley!” Kate said. “Get up and let the grown folks sit.” She turned back to Orrie Gravitt, who was now examining the washpot next to the porch. “We’ll be keeping the rockers and the wash pot.”

  Halley went to the far end of the porch.

  The Woodall wagon pulled to a stop and Dimple got out. She moved toward the end of the porch with an unfamiliar swinging gait. Her head was thrown back and her flat chest thrust out.

  “Did I remind you of Bootsie Hawkins just then?” Dimple whispered when she sat down.

  Halley shook her head. Bootsie had been the best-looking girl in Alpha Springs before she moved to Belton with her mother and sister a few months ago. “Neither of us is ever going to look like her,” Halley said.

  Dimple nodded cheerfully. “Either you got it or you ain’t, I reckon. But guess what? I just got word that Lollie Marchman, of all people, got married to Rabbit Burnett. And she ain’t even pretty. Runs too fat around the middle like her daddy, and she’s got them little squinchy eyes and her flat rear end looks like somebody done beat the daylights out of it with a board. But here she is, married, and you and me still looking.”