Chapter 11

The Plan

Dear Daddy,

Two men came to school last week and gave away seeds. So I’ve got seeds, and I’ve got a plan. I picked pumpkin seeds, and a girl in my class handed me two more packets. I’m going to grow lots and lots of pumpkins and sell them. People will want to make pumpkin pies and jack-o’-lanterns with them. I’ll use the money to buy a bicycle. Grandma says it takes gumption to follow through on a plan like that, and she said she had faith in me to do it. Johnny said he had faith in me to grow lots and lots of plants, but most people called the kind of plants I’ll grow “weeds.”

Mr. Wilson sold the red bicycle at his store, but he’s trying to find another one like it. If he does, he’s going to paint it red. Red is my favorite color and the perfect color for a bicycle.

Mom took me to work with her for a little while today. She made apple trees. Honest. The apple trees Farmer Smith plants in his orchard don’t grow from seeds. Mom pieces the tree together like Grandma pieces a quilt. Mom cuts off a bud, and then she cuts a slit in the bark of the tree. She presses the bud into the slit and wraps tape around the bud to hold it there, good and tight. It’s called “grafting” an apple tree. Mom says the buds will grow and make Macintosh apples.

The orchard has a shed with a stove in the back corner, like the one at my old school. The pot-bellied stove has a big, round middle like Santa’s belly. The belly holds the wood and coal where the fire burns. I’ll take you to the shed when you come home and show you how to graft a bud onto an apple tree. I hope I won’t have to wait too long.

We listen to the wireless every night. I listen for news about you.

I love you,

Gracie Girl

P.S. Look at the picture of Spot I drew for you. See how big he is. Spot said WOOF WOOF. In dog talk, that means, “Hurry home.”

One Saturday morning in May, Grandma’s neighbor, Mr. Wick, brought his mule Moonglow over to plow the field behind Grandma’s house.

Spot ran over to Moonglow. I had never seen anything like it. That mule and my sweet mutt were nose to nose, sniffing. Spot wagged his tail, and Moonglow twitched his ears.

“I never did care much for a mutt,” Mr. Wick said as he watched those two. “I declare, Moonglow seems right taken with Spot.”

Mr. Wick was right. Those two were friends in the making. It made me so happy to see that while I was busy making friends at school and adjusting to our new life, Spot was doing the same.

Mom walked over and said, “I’m going to have a separate place plowed for your pumpkins, Grace Ann. Pumpkin vines spread, so I don’t want them with the other vegetables.”

A separate garden was fine with me, so long as I had a place to grow the big orange jack-o’-lanterns.

“What about a place for my carrots?” Johnny asked.

“You can plant your carrot seeds near the tomatoes,” Grandma answered. “While Mr. Wick plows, you two need to make a scarecrow to keep the birds away.”

“We could hang Grace on a fence post. With that face of hers, she could scare off a whole flock of birds,” Johnny smartmouthed. “We wouldn’t need a scarecrow.”

“Oh, yeah?” I answered. “Somebody might not think you’re so funny. That somebody might be me.” I leaped toward Johnny. He bounded across the field and out onto the path we walked to school.

I chased Johnny with Spot at my heels, but I didn’t really try to catch him. All that joking around reminded me of Daddy. He laughed when Johnny and I joked and pretended to fuss.

I walked back over to where Grandma stood, sorting seeds for planting. I told her how much I missed having Daddy home and that I wished he was here to help plant the seeds.

“We all miss your daddy, my sweet child.” Grandma poured bean seeds in one cup and cucumber seeds in another. “But remember, we have to be strong. Have gumption.” I heard a little catch in her voice. As she jerked her face away from mine, I caught a glimmer of a tear, or maybe it was the sunlight glistening in her eyes.

Mom and Grandma tackled cucumber hills and rows for planting beans and corn as I hoofed it over to the toolshed where Grandma kept her garden supplies. Rummaging around, I found an old pair of overalls, faded and torn in more places than I could count. Grandpa wore them before he passed on. I searched some more and found an old shirt with half the back ripped out. “Perfect clothes for a scarecrow,” I told Spot.”

Spot yapped. In dog talk, that meant he agreed.

Johnny found an old worn-out basket for a head and a wooden box for a body. I hung the basket high on the fence post and the box on a nail a few inches below it. Next came the hard part: tugging the clothes around the box—first the shirt, then the pants.

Johnny ran back to Grandma’s tool shed and found a smashed straw hat with the biggest part of the brim gone. He climbed the fence and tied the hat to the basket.

I stuffed old leftover corn stalks from last year’s garden in the shirtsleeves and pant legs. Then I stood back to eye our work.

“Perfect,” I announced.

Spot yapped again in approval.

“That’s a fine piece of labor there, Gracie Girl, Johnny,” Grandma said. “I never thought I’d see your grandpa’s old work clothes put to use again, but it does my heart good to see them out here. It’s kind of like having him back with us.” Grandma smiled and grabbed a cup of corn to plant.

“Grace Ann,” Mom called, “you can plant your pumpkins now.” She pointed to an area at the side of Grandma’s house where Mr. Wick and Moonglow had plowed.

I spent the afternoon tossing rocks out of the plowed ground. Johnny was a big help, running around pretending to be a fire engine. He stayed a safe distance from me but close enough to whisper, “Scarecrow” every time I looked his way.

Johnny kept jumping around, wanting to plant his carrot seeds and just plain being a pest. Finally, I’d had enough of his foolishness. “Johnny, did you know that rabbits set their mouths for sweet, ripe carrots?” I asked him.

“They can have your pumpkins, Scarecrow,” he said with a giggle.

“You know about rabbit dreams, don’t you?” I asked. I figured if my tall tales were good enough for Vickie, they were good enough for Johnny, too.

Johnny shook his head. “No.”

“If you dream about a rabbit eating carrots,” I told him, “the dream will happen. It’s true. Last year, Janie dreamed that rabbits ate her carrots, and sure enough, they did. About a week later, Carolyn had the same dream. Guess who had no carrots?”

Johnny looked at me.

“If you keep bothering me,” I said, “I’ll probably dream about rabbits and your carrots. I can see my dream already and the crunch, crunch, crunch of carrot-chomping bunnies.”

Johnny wore a look of pure fear.

I spouted off, “Yep, too bad about your carrots. Rabbits leave all other vegetables alone.”

That brother of mine didn’t look too happy with the news. Served him right for calling me “Scarecrow” and making a pest of himself, but he settled down and played with a toy truck.

I used the hoe to build big hills of dirt, and then I flattened the tops of each. I dropped six seeds, spaced way apart, onto each hill. I used my finger to poke the seeds down under the dirt. Mr. Wick left some of Moonglow’s dried-up manure to use as a fertilizer. I pulled on Grandma’s garden gloves, mixed some loose soil with the dried mule pies and sprinkled the stuff on top of the planted seeds. For good luck, I crossed my fingers and tapped each hill.

I trudged into Grandma’s kitchen, tired but excited. I couldn’t wait for little green pumpkin plants to push up through the dirt.

After supper, we listened to the wireless. Walter Winchell talked about Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wife, planting a victory garden at the White House.

“Grandma, I want my own victory garden,” I said. “I think Daddy would like that.”

Grandma smiled and said, “I’m sure he would. I’ll get Mr. Wick and Moonglow back early tomorrow morning.”

I didn’t want a victory garden like mom and Grandma had. I wanted something special, something different, and I knew exactly how to do it.