THOMAS WOKE UP EARLY and dressed quickly. He paused long enough to think: Good luck, Pesty! Next, he put her out of his mind while he made sure his papa was still confident about everything, that Great-grandmother was ready. He guessed that was his part of the plan to do. Papa sure didn’t give me a lot to work out in perfect timing, he thought.
He was right about what Pesty would be doing. She and Macky were up first, while it was dark out. Next, her daddy was up, and her older brothers, Wilbur, Russell, and River Ross. Her mama might stay awake all night. Or she might sleep and wake up a million times. Or like these days, she would wake up peacefully and want to get dressed to go walking. Pesty had a time with her. Today she would need to keep her mama quiet for more than an hour. She’d told Mr. Small she could do it. Mr. Thomas had heard her say so.
Pesty awoke at ten minutes past six. Not bad, she thought. The house was cold. She blew her breath; it was like white mist on the air. Wonder how many breaths it take to warm this room? She got up and got dressed. Shivering, she put on boots that were the warmest shoes she had. Remember boots for Mama. And her coat, too. Keep her good and warm.
In the kitchen she started the fire in the big old cookstove. She washed up in the cold water pumped into the sink from the well and dried her face and hands. By that time there was a roaring fire in the stove. She put the water kettle on to boil. When the flames settled down, she added pieces of wood and soft coal from the bucket next to the stove. Now I wash my hands again! She always did that when she lit the fire.
She put peanut butter and jelly on the toast, boiled eggs and instant coffee. She had it all on a tray when Macky came in. “Morning. Mama hungry this morning,” she told him, forcing herself to smile.
“What you been doing?” he asked her. It was his chance to talk to her with no one else around. “You stay over there at that house all the time. What have you been up to?”
She couldn’t get over how fast he’d got on her trail. “I was over to Mr. Pluto’s, too, yesterday,” she said pleasantly. “And Mr. Thomas and me play with the little guys some, over his house. They go to school, too. We hang out with Great Mother Jeffers. She a lot of fun, and we took her to Mr. Pluto’s.” All the time she spoke, she was moving out of the kitchen, away from him. Macky stood there, rocking on his heels. Looking angry and defeated, he watched her go.
Pesty ran into her daddy. He was looking in on Mattie. He had closed the door, so Pesty knocked. River Lewis Darrow opened the door. “Morning, Daddy,” she said as softly as she could. He blocked her view, and she couldn’t see if her mama was awake.
River Lewis eyed her and stepped to one side so she could pass through with the tray. He nodded curtly, but he did not speak to her. It made her feel bad, never to have her daddy say hardly a word to her.
Mattie was sitting up in bed. River Lewis went back to sit down in the chair. Pesty remembered that Great Mother Jeffers had sat just there.
Mama seem not to mind Great Mother, Pesty thought. She looking pleasant this morning, too. “Morning, Mama,” she said. “How you feeling today?”
Mattie laughed suddenly. “I bent my back down the road,” she said happily. “I squirreled the tree and gave a hoot.”
Pesty sighed. “Okay, Mama, I got some food for you and me. Eggs and toast—how ’bout that?”
“I treed a squirrel, that was my dream,” Mattie said. “But going down the road backward—I don’t know.”
Pesty grinned, delighted. When her mama could figure out her own words, she was doing better than ever.
Pesty took part of the food and put it on the night table. Then she took the tray and handed it over to her daddy.
River put the cup of coffee in Mattie’s hand. “Now take a good, long drink,” he said. “This room is coolish. I’ll bring in a heater if you want.”
“No, thank you,” Mattie said. Her voice sounded less disconnected this morning, thought Pesty. She’s doing better, but it won’t last.
Pesty ate some of the food. River Lewis and Mattie chatted after a fashion, as Mattie ate her breakfast. So did Pesty and her mama chat. But River and Pesty had few words spoken between them. She hoped he would talk to her. All the time she was careful not to mention any of the Smalls.
Her older brothers came in to speak for a moment to their mother. Big, bungling men. The room seemed crowded with them in it. They shuffled their feet back and forth. They said they would see her later, and they went out. Macky came in, joined his father and Pesty around the bed.
“Morning, Mama. Daddy,” he said.
“Ah, Macky,” his mama answered.
River Lewis said nothing. It wasn’t a minute before he got up and walked out of the room. Some of Mattie’s pleasant mood went with him. She frowned at Macky. Then she seemed to forget there was any change or that River Lewis had gone, had ignored his youngest son for one more day.
Mattie patted the coverlet, and Macky came over to sit down.
“It’s chilly today, Mama,” he said. He put his head down on her pillow next to her, with his face facing away from her. She reached around and held his head in the crook of her arm.
Macky always was her favorite, Pesty thought, watching. She didn’t mind that. He was her mama’s own last child. She was her mama’s own first and last orphan girl. Each has a place. I never got in the way of any child’s place.
“I’m going to stay with you, Mama,” Macky said. “Stay here the whole day.”
“No!” Pesty hollered inside. Often Macky said he would stay the whole day. You know he’s not staying, she thought. Don’t let anything go wrong. What time it is? Is it time? Couldn’t be more than seven o’clock. Time left, but I got to get her up and going.
Mattie Darrow had been watching Pesty over Macky’s head. She cradled her youngest son. Big old boy, Pesty thought.
Macky had his eyes closed and did not see Pesty’s expression. But Mattie did. She stared at her orphan child, whom she kept safe in her house and hoped never to send along the underground road.
“Mama, didn’t you say you wanted some wild meat?” Pesty said. “Didn’t you, Mama?” She dared give her mama a clue that wouldn’t hurt anything, to say something that would help get rid of Macky. Her mama did love wild meat so.
“Squirrel? Squirrel?” her mama murmured.
Macky lifted his head. “Mama, you want me to hunt you squirrel? Haven’t had some squirrel in a long kind of time,” he said. “Been eating too much house meat anyhow.” Meat bought in the stores was called house meat.
“Cut it up and parboil it. Squirrel,” Mattie said into Macky’s hair.
“You got to shoot him first,” he said. “Then you ring his hind legs at his feet. You have to cut around that tail base. Put him on his back.”
“Put your foot on his tail,” Mattie said, and cackled loudly.
“Grab him by his back legs,” Pesty added.
Macky gave her a dirty look. “This between my mama and me,” he said.
“Soak him,” Mattie said. “We always soak him.”
“Who, we?” Macky asked. But she was silent on the subject.
“She means when she was a girl,” Pesty said.
“How you know she means that?”
“I always know what she means,” Pesty said. “She’s my mama, too.”
“No, she’s not.” He had his eyes closed again.
Mattie’s chin rested in his hair. She stared at Pesty.
Pesty felt sick at heart. Things change, she thought, and swallowed away the lump in her throat.
“I got to go,” Macky said to Mattie. He got up.
“Bushy tail,” Mattie said, smiling. She shielded her eyes, as if looking into the sun.
“I’ll get you maybe some squirrel,” he said. “I’ll go see what I can find in the woods today. You want this?” He held up the toast she hadn’t touched. She took it, took two bites, gave it back to him. He wolfed it down, going out the door.
Nobody saying goodbye, Pesty thought. She felt so bad today. Living in this house with nobody to talk to most of the time. Now Macky didn’t want her around.
Her papa drank his coffee in the kitchen. So did her older brothers. Macky waited in his room. When they were gone, he went in and had some milk and cookies. He got his gun from the high gun shelf in the pantry. And he left.
Everybody hates me, Pesty thought. She stood just inside her mama’s bedroom at the doorway, looking out. She saw everybody leave. Then she closed the door and turned the skeleton key in the lock.
“Mama, get your clothes on! We got to get going in the tunnel.”
Mattie Darrow was out of bed, suddenly rushing, tearing up the room.
“Mama, shhhh. Slow down! Here. Sit. I’ll get your clothes and your coat, and your boots, too. You want to go to the bathroom? Okay, Mama. And you wish to wash up, too. I’ll comb your hair when you are finished. It was seven-fifteen when Daddy left. Now it’s some later, so please, Mama, hurry! Oh, it’s going to be a big day, I bet!”
It was just after eight when Mattie and Pesty swung around into the bedroom upstairs in the house of Dies Drear. Thomas and Mr. Small and Great-grandmother Jeffers were there waiting. “We’ll go downstairs to the kitchen,” Great-grandmother said, after greeting Pesty and her mama. She took Mattie Darrow ever so gently by her arm. Mattie made no resistance.
They all went downstairs. Pesty hung back with Mr. Small and Thomas.
“They all of them are out the house,” she told them.
“Can you get them on time?” asked Mr. Small.
“Sure. They’re just out doing chores.”
“Macky, too?” asked Thomas.
“No. He’s hunting. Squirrel, ’cause Mama wants it. But I can get him.”
“It would be good if you did,” Mr. Small said. “But get your father and the others. You know what to do. I’m counting on you.”
“I know it,” she murmured. She smiled shyly at Thomas.
He smiled back at her. “It’s going to come out great,” Thomas said.
“I know it,” she said. But she was thinking: Am I right to do this?
They stood at the bottom of the stairs. “Mama won’t be any trouble, long as Great Mother Jeffers is there,” she told Mr. Small. “She likes Great Mother Jeffers. She likes Thomas, too.” She and Thomas grinned at each other. “Have the little fellows gone off to school yet?”
“Not yet,” said Thomas.
“Well, she’ll sure like seeing them best of all.”
“Pesty, I want you to know that we all think you are just wonderful,” Mr. Small told her.
“You do?” she said.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “You are smart and very brave, and we thank you now for everything. I promise you, everything is going to work out, you’ll see.” But he hated seeing the sadness in her eyes.
“I’m going then,” she said.
“We’ll see you in a short while,” he said. “Remember, the timing is everything. Don’t tell before nine o’clock. Then get them moving.”
“I know,” she said. “See you.” And she left, wanting only to be in the Drear kitchen, where it was warm and smelled so good. She went out the door and jumped off the front porch. She started her trot home.