Ellie’s Valentine Ellie’s ValentineONE DAY IN FEBRUARY THERE CAME A SNOW INTO THE mountains that was so big even the old ones couldn’t remember any storm ever outdoing it.
It began secretly during the night, and when Ellie’s mother called them all out of bed the next morning and they got a look outside, the first thing the girls wondered was if school would be called off.
They turned on their radio to listen for news of the county schools. But the radio announcer said that, as far as he knew, all the schools were open. The county superintendent had not called.
Ellie kicked the bottom of the refrigerator. But her sisters squealed with delight.
Okey said, “Well, praise the Lord. I couldn’t have stood staying cooped up with six women in this house.” Then he went outside to check on Bullet.
Ellie slowly pulled on her clothes. The real reason she didn’t want to go to school was not the staying at home. She didn’t want to go because it was Valentine’s Day, and she couldn’t bear it if no boy gave her a special valentine. She had already considered being sick for the day, but the thought of staying around Okey and her mother and their squawking had changed her mind.
She knew why her sisters were so happy to be going to school. They all had boyfriends and they knew something special was waiting for them.
Nothing was waiting for Ellie but disgrace.
The snowplows had been through during the night, so the only real trouble they had walking to the bus stop was getting out of their yard. Huge drifts lay alongside the road, and the trees suffered under heavy sleeves of snow. It was still dark, for the sun hadn’t risen yet, but the snow served as some illumination. The girls tramped out to the stop.
Their bus stop was one of the few that had a shelter. Just a wooden building with three walls and no front, but it kept the wind off on bitter mornings.
This morning, though, the snow had been shoved by the plow right up to the shelter and partly into it. About four feet high. Enough to discourage anybody with cold feet and legs from trying to dig through.
“Oh, no!” cried Eunice. She had taken an especially long time to arrange her hair at home. Standing in the road, waiting for the bus in the wet snow and wind, would ruin her, even with the scarf she was wearing.
“My hair!” she cried.
The other girls, less concerned than Eunice about hair matters, ignored her.
Eventually more riders showed up. Judy and Joseph White. C. E. and Cathy Connor. Sonny Mills.
The bus was going to be late. They had already figured that out. So they all hopped and jumped and danced and whistled and whooped and crowed and giggled and shivered and moaned in the road. Waiting for County Bus 53.
And just when they were beginning to give up, just when Ellie was starting to take hope that she could avoid this year’s Valentine’s Day, the wide thick headlights of the bus came over the top of the half-moon hill and everyone (except her) cheered and stamped, then finally climbed on. She was last.
The driver, Mr. Danner, nodded to each of them. He wasn’t usually friendly. Just picked them up and dropped them off. Did his job. Sometimes, though, he’d blow the horn a few times and wait in the road a minute if someone was missing from a bus stop. He’d wait to see if the late one would come puffing over the hill. Or if the rider lived next to the road, Mr. Danner would look toward the front window of the house for a sign of whether someone was coming or not.
Some bus drivers didn’t bother to honk or to wait. Ellie knew that, so she decided she liked Mr. Danner.
The bus lumbered along the snowy road on its way toward the elementary school to drop off Ellie and the kids through eighth grade before it headed on out to Monroe County High School with the rest. Ellie sat alone. She looked out the window and silently cursed Valentine’s Day and boys and school and her sisters and all that made her plain miserable.
The next stop was at Willie Peters’ house. All six kids were at that stop, hopping and blowing. At each stop it looked like almost everybody was making it to school, even the ones who had to walk down off the mountains.
When they came to Blue Jay Six Hill, Ellie wished in her heart the bus might not make it. Might just slide all the way down the hill and back the way it had come. But even Blue Jay Six Hill let her down, and they kept going.
Ellie could just see what would happen at school. They’d make some stupid little valentine to give to their parents or Someone Special the way they always did. Then the boys would sneak around and slide their valentines under some girl’s desk top. And Ellie would clean out her desk at the end of the day and come up empty-handed.
She decided she’d make a valentine for Bullet. Let him chew it up good when she got home.
The bus began slowing down for a stop. Ellie looked out the window to see who was waiting at this one, then she realized there was no bus stop on this stretch of the road. Everybody else did, too.
“What’s going on?”
Mr. Danner let the bus idle a few seconds, then shifted, pulled the emergency brake and shut off the engine.
The loud heater stopped blowing and the sudden silence scared them all.
“It’s a tree!” someone in front shouted.
Ellie jumped up to get a look with everyone else. Sure enough, it was a tree. A big tree, an old tree, a tree too tired to carry all the snow. And it had cracked and fallen across the road, waiting for County Bus 53 to find it.
Hallelujah, Ellie thought.
Mr. Danner climbed off and stood outside, speculating.
Finally he climbed back on.
“Well, kids,” he said, “looks like we gotta hike.”
“Hike?”
“No other way to get around it. Can’t back up on this mountain, that’s for sure. And that tree’s not going anywhere. We’ll have to walk to the Meadors’ on up the road.”
Everybody started talking, giggling, full of excitement. Except, of course, the high-school girls, like Eunice, whose plans were falling to ruin.
Ellie couldn’t believe her luck.
“Okay now, button up. Gloves on, you little ones. You big ones, too, for that matter. Leave your books and lunches on the bus. We’ll get ’em later.”
Mr. Danner led the way out the door. And all twenty-eight of them followed. The kindergartners circled around the bus driver, holding each other’s hands, and the group started walking.
A little boy fell at once. Mr. Danner picked him up and muttered something about slick cowboy boots.
Laughter and talk echoed from them into the woods. Ellie was thrilled. Not only did it look like she was going to avoid humiliation at school—she was actually having a good time. A real adventure in the life of Ellie Farley. Wait until Okey heard about hiking in the dark morning, stranded, hungry (she’d stretch it a little), searching for shelter.
He’d be impressed.
After about ten minutes of walking, though, some of the little ones started asking exactly how far it was to the Meadors’. Even the big ones didn’t know for sure if it was just around the next curve, or the next, or the next …
Then, after about fifteen minutes of hard walking on that icy road in the snow and wind with no house in sight, the laughter and the talk got thinner. After about twenty minutes, it stopped. And Ellie was breathing hard, her throat was feeling cold deep down inside, and her eyes were watering up.
Someone in the group of kindergartners sobbed. That’s all they needed, all the little ones. They started sniffling, one by one, and before anybody was ready for it, they were wailing.
Ellie decided disgrace, shame and humiliation were all better than what the hike was turning into.
Mr. Danner tried to give the small ones hugs and words of encouragement, but there were eight of them and only one of him.
“My feet hurt,” one boy cried, tears streaming warm down his cold, red face.
Everyone waited to see what Mr. Danner would do.
“Okay, Bobby,” he answered, “If your feet hurt, let me give you a lift.”
To Ellie’s amazement, he lifted the child onto his shoulders.
“Now, let’s try again, kids. Just a little further on.” He smiled at them, patted Bobby’s legs and went on.
But another little one started crying. And, to everyone’s surprise, one of the high-school boys caught up with her and lifted her into his arms.
It made Ellie almost wish she were five years old.
And as they all struggled along, the smaller ones grew so cold and tired that eventually, one by one, they were each picked up by someone larger.
Everyone was silent. Ellie was sad. And so cold. Worst morning of her life.
Those who were carrying the smaller children struggled not to slip and fall, but some fell anyway. And the two would go down together. Some of the small ones could laugh it off and start all over. But others cried.
Still, somehow, amid the falls, and the bruises, the throats sore from the wind, and the throbbing, aching fingers—somehow in spite of all this, they made that last turn and saw the Meador house up ahead.
Shouts went up. Ellie whooped like her daddy. They whistled and jumped up and down and hugged each other.
They had made it.
The planks of the Meador porch echoed with the stamping of tired feet, then the wooden door opened wide. The warmth of a home eased the coldness from each face as the twenty-eight passengers plus one bus driver dragged inside.
“Oh, you poor children!” Mrs. Meador said as she moved to each one, framing their cheeks with her plump hands. “God love your bones!”
She and her husband and her son James, who had long before given up on the bus and trudged back home, helped pull off scarfs and mittens and coats and boots. When he came to Ellie, James seemed shy but pleased to have her in his house. He had never quite gotten over the thrill of her Christmas cookies.
“Whew!” Ellie said. “Talk about cold!” James took her things to be laid out to dry, and she huddled on the big braided rug in front of the fireplace with everyone else.
Eunice was feeling her damp, straggly hair, a little pout on her face.
“Shoot, Eun,” Ellie said. “Don’t worry about it. I bet when Keith Evans finds out you didn’t make it to school, he’ll hike himself all the way to our house.”
Eunice just pouted harder, so Ellie ignored her.
The Meadors were giving out cups of sugary warm tea, and as the kids thawed, they got noisier.
Even Ellie began to feel exuberant again. She had escaped Valentine’s Day. And she and all the rest had accomplished something brave and wonderful. And, for this morning, she deeply loved Mr. Danner.
James came with a cup of tea for her and one for himself and squeezed in to sit beside her.
“Some valentine, huh?” he commented.
Ellie sputtered and splashed some of the tea on her pants.
“You can say that again!”
“You hungry?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“Hungry?”
“Well … sure. I guess,” she answered.
“Come on then.”
She got up and followed him through the living room, up the stairs to the second floor and into a bedroom.
“This your room?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” He started rummaging through a bureau drawer.
The room had pictures of airplanes covering every wall. Ellie had never seen so many pictures of airplanes.
“You like planes?” she asked.
“Uh-huh.” He shut the drawer and started digging into another one.
“I’ve never seen so many planes,” she said, walking all around the room and looking at some of them up close.
She turned to look at James. And in his hand was a wide, flat box that looked like it might hold handkerchiefs.
He walked over to her and opened the lid. Inside were a Christmas bell, painted red and white, and a stocking, painted pink and yellow with blue trim.
Ellie looked at him.
“You saved these two cookies since Christmas?”
James grinned. “Yep.”
Ellie shook her head in disbelief.
“Want one?” he asked.
Ellie grinned.
“They’re not rotten?”
“Heck, no. This room’s so cold most of the time, they could probably keep till June.”
Ellie chose the stocking. She bit into it. It was good. A little tough, but good.
“Why’d you save them?”
James shrugged his shoulders and looked shyly away.
“Just liked ’em, that’s all. Wanted to make them last.”
Ellie sat down on the rug with him and finished her cookie. They drank their tea and talked about airplanes and war and dogs and the hike Ellie had just made.
At home later that night, it occurred to Ellie that God couldn’t have made a more perfect Valentine’s Day.