October 1, 1945
Monday morning Fran was up well before daylight to milk Bella and take care of the horses. Even Sarge looked sleepy as he trailed after her. Fran had awakened every hour after midnight, worried she might oversleep.
Just as Woody thought, Betty had no interest in seeing sorghum being made. “But if they offer you a jar, you take it. It’s delicious on a hot biscuit.”
Fran was surprised when Betty didn’t name over a dozen reasons Fran shouldn’t go. All she did was insist Fran wear her Frontier Nursing outfit of pants and vest along with the fetched tie.
“I’ll stand out like a sore thumb,” Fran said.
“Exactly.” Betty leveled unsmiling eyes on Fran. “That’s what you want. Even the roughest mountain men up here respect that outfit. That’s what lets us travel alone through these hills without the first worry anyone will bother us. But we have to dress so the home people recognize us as nurses.”
“I’ll be with the Locke family,” Fran said. “I hardly think I have anything to worry about with them.”
“Nothing but perhaps your own foolishness. I hear it was Ben Locke who brought you the dog.” Betty raised her eyebrows and gave Fran a disapproving look.
“It was, but I told you he was simply trying to find a home for Sarge.”
“Indeed that is what you said.” Betty waved her hand to dismiss any further argument from Fran. “You’re of age. Do whatever you want there. You wouldn’t listen to me anyway.”
“Giving somebody a dog doesn’t mean a thing. Dogs are traded or given away all the time.” It sounded like a good argument to Fran, even though she didn’t consider Sarge an ordinary gift.
“That’s certainly true. A dog on every porch. Sometimes a half dozen when there’s scant food for their children. If I stay in these mountains a hundred years, I will never understand these people.” Betty heaved a sigh. “But never mind that. I agree the Lockes are fine, upstanding people. I have no concerns about you going with them. Other than you getting too attached to that family. Maintaining a professional distance enables us to make decisions based on knowledge rather than emotions.”
“Yes, of course.” No way could Fran argue with that. A nurse-midwife needed a clear head and eyes undimmed by tears.
“Good that you keep that in mind.” Betty went on. “But the Lockes won’t be the only ones at this sorghum making. The Hoskins live in a different district where some of the people may not recognize you. So who knows what might happen if you didn’t have on your nurse outfit. A new woman in their midst. A new, attractive woman.”
“I can’t imagine anybody bothering me.”
“Then you don’t have much of an imagination.” Betty’s eyes narrowed on Fran. “I’ve lived here longer than you, and it takes no imagination at all to know someone will be passing around moonshine in mason jars before the day is through. A man drinks much of that, he can forget every shred of decency.”
So with the sun just up, Fran was on the porch in her nurse uniform when the truck bounced down the ruts that passed as a road and stopped by the yard gate. Ben leaned out the window. “Climb in.”
The cab was full with Becca and Granny Em. Woody, Mrs. Locke, and Sadie, in the bed of the truck, waved her toward them.
She turned to tell Sarge to stay, but Woody yelled, “Sarge can come too. We brung a rope to tie him if he gets to be a bother.”
Sadie spoke up. “They wouldn’t let me bring Buttons.” She made a sad face.
“She’s too little. She’d get trampled for certain,” Mrs. Locke said.
“And she had to stay home to keep Bruiser company.”
“Bruiser?” Fran laughed at the name. “You named that little pup Bruiser?”
“I named him for the future.” Woody jumped out of the truck and lowered the tailgate. “Just wait. He’ll be a bruiser.”
When Fran patted the truck bed, Sarge jumped in and then watched Fran scramble into the truck before he danced over to see Sadie.
“Nurse Dawson didn’t want to come?” Mrs. Locke asked.
“She thanks you for the invitation, but she decided to stay here in case someone needs something.”
“If they do, they’ll be needing it at the Hoskins stir-off. That’s where everybody will be.” Woody slammed the tailgate shut and clambered back into the truck.
“Hang on,” Ben called back to them as he shifted the truck into gear.
“You ever rode in the back of a truck before?” Woody asked.
“Just once.” Fran’s ride with Lurene Nolan down the mountain to the hospital wasn’t a good memory.
Now she wasn’t sure where to sit or stand. Mrs. Locke perched on a wheel well and held onto the sides of the truck bed. Sadie sat on a folded blanket in front of her. Woody took up a position behind the truck cab.
“You can stand here behind the cab as long as you’re ready to duck if tree limbs hang down over the road. Or sit on the other wheel well over there.” Woody pointed.
“Maybe I should try that.” Fran settled on the opposite wheel well from Mrs. Locke.
“It’s a bumpy ride but a mite faster than walking.” Mrs. Locke smiled over at Fran. “We would have let you ride up front, but considering Becca’s condition and Granny Em’s age, we give them the front.”
“That’s fine. This is fun.” And it was fun to feel the wind blowing her hair back from her face. Sarge stepped up beside her, leaned his head over the edge of the truck, and panted into the wind.
The sorghum making was well under way when they got there, with the field already crawling with people. Horses and mules were tied to trees near the clearing, and children and dogs ran helter-skelter everywhere.
After Ben parked the truck alongside some other vehicles, he came around to open the tailgate and help his mother and Sadie out of the truck. Woody had jumped out before the truck came to a complete stop and run into the middle of the crowd.
“That boy.” Mrs. Locke shook her head, but she was smiling. “Acts like I never taught him nothing.”
Fran sat down on the tailgate and scooted out of the truck bed before Ben could offer to lift her down the way he did Sadie and his mother. Best to keep that professional distance Betty talked about.
Not so easy to do with this family. Becca grabbed her in a hug. “I’m so glad you came. I’m figuring we might even have time for a song or two on the way home, or would if Ma would let me ride in the back. Granny Em’s not much for singing and Ben’s got to be the strong, silent type here lately. I remember he used to sing before he went off to the army.” She gave Ben a look. “I guess he’s forgot how.”
“I haven’t forgot anything. Around the house there’s not an inch of quiet time to squeeze in a note, what with you and Woody always jabbering.” Ben laughed.
Fran felt better just hearing him laugh, the same as she had that day out in the woods when he’d laughed after she told him to call her Sergeant.
Ben gave Becca a playful shove away from him. “Go on and hunt somebody else to pester.”
“But what about Nurse Howard? It’s not nice to just leave her standin’ here not knowin’ nobody.” Becca looked around. Her mother and Sadie had already walked away, carrying the food they’d brought to add to the lunch. Granny Em followed after them.
“I’ll be fine, Becca. Don’t let me put a damper on your day,” Fran said.
“I can show her around.” Ben looked over at Fran. “If you’re all right with that, Nurse.”
“I would like to see how sorghum is made.” Fran kept her smile easy in spite of the way her heart started hammering faster.
“Oh no. You sound like one of those weird people from the north wanting to learn our old-time ways.” Becca rolled her eyes.
“Becca.” Ben’s voice was sharp.
Fran just laughed. “I guess I am one of those weird people from the north.”
“That did sound awful, didn’t it?” Becca hunched her shoulders and made a face. “But I wasn’t meaning you, Nurse Howard. No denyin’ you’re from the north, but we’re turning you mountain.” The girl’s smile came back. “But trust me. Watching sorghum cook is like listening to water dripping in a bucket. Dull as all get-out.”
Somebody waved and yelled Becca’s name from across the way. Becca went up on her toes and waved back. “That’s Maxine. I haven’t seen her in forever.” She gave Fran a quick look. “Tell you what. You get bored watching green juice squeezings, hunt me up.”
She was off in a flash, leaving Fran alone with Ben. Fran was glad when Sarge pushed against her. She put her hand on the dog’s head. “Are you sure Sarge is going to be all right with all these other dogs?”
“I don’t know. Why don’t we ask him?” Ben squatted down in front of Sarge. “Are you going to stay with us and not get in any fights, Sarge?”
Fran twisted her lips to keep from smiling. “What’s he say?”
Ben stood up. “Couldn’t you hear him? He said he planned to stay right beside you. That’s his job.”
“He does it well.” Fran scratched behind Sarge’s ears. It was easier to look at the dog than into those dark blue eyes. “But what about this green juice Becca was talking about? I thought sorghum was brown.”
“You are a city girl.” Ben put his hand under her elbow. “Come on. It’s time you found out the secrets behind sorghum molasses.”
He pointed at a pile of green stalks next to what he called the sorghum press. Some of the stalks looked ten feet long.
“The cane grew over there.” He nodded toward a field where nothing was left but stubble and weeds. “The Hoskins have a good flat place here for their sorghum cane. Most of us have to do hillside farming.”
“I’ve seen that growing. You’ll laugh at me, but I thought it was some different kind of corn. I wondered why I never saw any ears.” Fran laughed at herself. “I should have asked somebody. What happened to the leaves?”
“They strip the leaves off before they cut the stalks. Faster to do that while the cane is standing, but you’d best wear long sleeves and gloves. Those leaves are rough on your skin. After they cut the cane, they let it weather a few days for the sugar to rise in the stalks. Then they haul it to the press to squeeze out the juice.”
Fran watched a couple of men feeding the long green stalks between two rollers. A boy about Woody’s age was leading a mule harnessed to a long pole attached to the press around in a circle. The mule had already worn a circular path in the grass.
“Best power for up here in the hills. A mule can keep going all day.” Ben watched the mule make a circle. “There were times I wished we had a mule with our army division. Of course, sometimes a mule can take the studs and be more trouble than help.”
“Take the studs?” Fran frowned a little. “What’s that mean?’
“I guess it’s mountain talk for being contrary. Refusing to do something.” Ben laughed. “Being mule stubborn.”
“Oh. That I understand.” Fran smiled and pointed at the green juice spilling out of a pipe at the bottom of the press into a bucket. “The squeezings?”
“Right.”
Smoke drifted over from the fire. “Then they cook it?” Fran moved to get a better look at a long tin trough-like pan full of the green liquid over a slow-burning fire. When Ben nodded, she asked, “How long?”
“It takes a while. One of the old-timers here will judge when it’s ready. Then they’ll pour it up into jars. A lot of stirring and skimming before that.”
Fran watched a woman skim green scum off the top with a large wooden paddle. Then she started stirring again. On the other side of the fire, a man worked the same kind of paddle through the green liquid. “It’s hard to think about that turning into the sorghum molasses I’ve seen.”
“It takes some doing to get it right. The same as with most things.”
People milled around them. Some stopped to clap Ben on the back and welcome him home. Then they’d nod at Fran. She knew some faces, but many were new to her. Fran was right about standing out in her frontier nurse trousers. Nearly all the women wore dresses. But it wasn’t a fashion show. It was a neighbor gathering, although a little courting was surely going on when she spotted Woody following Jeralene around.
The fact that Ben Locke was staying beside her was probably more the reason for the looks she was getting than her trousers. She thought she should tell him he didn’t have to play host to her, but she liked him beside her. That professional distance was getting harder and harder, but Ben looked healthy. It was unlikely he was going to be her patient. And it wasn’t as if he had any ideas of courting. She was Nurse Howard to him. Somebody brought-in.