When she was in first grade, she had been the worst reader in the whole class. It had taken her longer than anyone else to figure out the connection between words in her head and the charts of both printed and cursive versions of the ABCs on the wall. Reading and writing had come slowly to Stella, in spite of her mother’s wallpaper. Mrs. Grayson, so patient, had let Stella work at her own pace, but still she’d struggled with putting it all together. Even now, for sure, she’d never be the class spelling bee champion like Carolyn.
So instead of beginning her essay, Stella busied herself with getting ready to get ready. She had a system—pencils on the left, notebook on the right, books in the middle. She liked everything neat and lined up so the edges matched.
Not that any of that mattered, she thought glumly. A neat desk couldn’t disguise the inside of her notebook, which was a jumble of half-finished work, scratch-outs, and mess-ups. Arithmetic wasn’t so bad—numbers lined up in an order that made sense to her. But writing, oh Lordy.
It wasn’t that she didn’t have strong opinions on lots of things. She sure did! But putting them on paper just wasn’t her piece of cake. Or pie. Or pancakes with molasses, which she dearly loved. Writing was more like trying to chew an unripe apple—bitter and hard and not worth the effort. Worse—she even had a couple of bad grades in that notebook that she’d hidden from her parents, which she knew was dumb. Eventually her mama and Mrs. Grayson would get to talking at church, and her life would be over.
And it wasn’t that her mind wasn’t spinning with ideas—images of flames, of those stamping horses, wore sharp in her memory. It was getting them straight in her notebook. . . .
Mrs. Grayson gave her a questioning look, clearly noting Stella had yet to put one word to paper. So Stella finally picked up a pencil. She scratched out words. Started again. Erased half of it with her almost-nub-like gum eraser. Started again. Stopped.
Shoulders slumped, she stared back out the window. A breeze blew a few curled and ruddy leaves from the apple tree. Stella figured sticking those leaves back on the branches would be easier than trying to move the stuff in her head to the empty blue lines in her notebook.
9
Wise Men
I have not no idea where bethlaham Bethelehem is. I guess the wise men must of been pretty wise to find it.
When the baby Jesus was born, there was a brite bright light in the sky. It was a good star, the prechure preacher says. The kings and the wise men followd foulled chased it.
Last night me and Jojo saw a fire that lit up the dark. It was a not good very bad sign. Scary. No angles angels showed up in the sky, and nobody sang any pretty carols.
The only wise men I saw were in my mama’s kitchen.
Stella could think of nothing more to say. She frowned. She started to raise her hand to ask for help, but Mrs. Grayson was busy with the third graders, who seemed to be having no trouble at all with their writing projects.
Dunce! She ripped the page out of her notebook, balled it up, and put her head down on her desk.
When Mrs. Grayson stopped by to check on Stella with a gentle hand on her shoulder, Stella mumbled something about a stomachache, and the teacher left her alone the rest of the afternoon.
Stella never finished her assignment.
10
Treasures in a Cigar Box
“I must give this paper an F, Stella,” Mrs. Grayson told Stella sadly at the end of the day, catching her as she was walking out the schoolhouse door. “It’s incomplete. It’s got potential, but you gave up. Perhaps I should stop by your house with a plate of gingersnaps and have a chat with your mama.”
“Oh, please don’t do that,” Stella begged in alarm. “I’ll finish it tonight and bring it in tomorrow. I promise.”
“I know the writing part can be a challenge for you, Stella,” Mrs. Grayson said. “You read well. You think well. All you need to do is make the leap to putting it down on paper. And actually, the little that you wrote here is pretty good. But,” she added sternly, “you can do better.”
Wishing a hole big enough to swallow her would appear in the floor, Stella couldn’t look at the teacher. “Yes, M’am,” she mumbled.
“Try this, Stella.” Mrs. Grayson pulled her pocketbook from the bottom desk drawer. “Write about yourself. You are the expert on you. I shall expect a finished paper in the morning, or I may be joining ya’ll for supper tomorrow. Understood? Now get on home before your mama starts to wondering why Jojo got there first.”
Stella nodded, thanked the teacher, then hurried down the road. And thankfully, her mother was busy with the vegetable garden, so she didn’t notice Stella slipping in a little later than usual.
Stella raced through her chores, making sure the carrots were sliced perfectly, the potatoes peeled thinly, and the table cleaned and shined for dinner. She felt jumpy—anxious for the night, hopeful that no fiery disturbances would mar the darkness this time, and worried that her mother would find out she’d gotten in trouble at school.
Hours later, after dinner, after Jojo’s good-night book, Stella was still worried—it was taking everyone far too long to fall asleep! Stella waited and waited. The blaze in the fireplace had died down to embers, only whispers and ashen shadows remaining of the roaring fire of a few hours ago. Jojo lay on his cot close to the hearth, with Dusty curled beside him. At last, Father started snoring loudly with gasps and grunts between—when Stella teased him about it each morning, however, he’d swear that he never made a noise.
And finally, slowly, ever so slowly, Stella tiptoed across the floor, carefully avoiding the floorboard that she knew would creak. Nobody stirred. The dog raised his head briefly but went back to sleep.
Stella grabbed Papa’s work jacket from the nail by the door. The door itself did not squeak when she opened it. She’d thought ahead—after dinner she had oiled the hinge with a dab of lard. Now she smiled as she pressed the door shut and inhaled the crispness of the night air. But still wary, she stood still. She listened. Silence. She waited. Nothing.
The night sky was an inky blue-black blanket strewn with thousands of crystal-bright stars. A half-moon added even more light. When she was satisfied that all was well, she sat on the second step and reached under the third, searching deeper and deeper until her fingers found what she was searching for. She pulled out the school notebook that she’d stuffed under there after school, as well as a package wrapped in a piece of worn leather. Inhaling the rich animal smell of it, she unwrapped it slowly. There lay Stella’s treasure—an old cigar box.
She lifted the lid, the scent of tobacco wafting out, and sifted through the items inside—dozens of yellowing and curled newspaper articles she’d torn from Papa’s discarded newspapers, from news stories not pasted on the wall. She’d started collecting them after a school assignment last year.
• There was one about a lady named Amelia Earhart. She flies all by herself in a small plane across the ocean.
• Another one about two men named Laurel and Hardy, who are famous for being a funny comedy team.
• And more: Amos and Andy are famous for being funny also, but they are played by white men who pretend to be Negro. The colored newspaper explains this part.
• A man named Hitler from Germany has lots of soldiers following him. He calls them storm troopers.
• Someone kidnaps the baby of a man named Charles Lindbergh. The baby dies.
• Lots of people have no jobs because of something called the Depression. A man named Roosevelt promises to fix that if he is elected president.
Stella also collected local stories.
• Miss Erma Thorndike wins first place in the Miss Corn Cob contest.
• Clifford Eubanks gets arrested for being drunk on a Sunday.
• Dinah Lee Dixon grows the biggest pumpkin in the county—it weighs thirty-three pounds, seven ounces.
The world, she had found, was so much bigger than Bumblebee. And so much more exciting.
Stella set the clippings
aside and began flipping through a couple of pages of the notebook from school, frowning. She just couldn’t seem to get it right, this writing thing. She did most of her homework with Jojo at the kitchen table. But she practiced her writing at night—she didn’t want her family to know how she messed up. Mama and Papa, of course, expected her to bring home good grades in every subject. Ugh.
Finally Stella opened the notebook to a fresh page. Taking an idea from her father’s newspaper that morning, she wrote just one word on that page—TRUTH. The whole rest of the page was an ocean of white. Double ugh. She chewed on the pencil. She made curlicues on each letter of TRUTH. Then she made a decision. If she was gonna really write with honesty, she ought to start, like Mrs. Grayson said, with herself. She gripped the pencil so tight, it made a mark on her middle finger.
It took five tries to get it right. Five balled-up sheets of paper. Five pages of anger and mess-ups and erasures. When she finished, she rubbed her eyes, sleep begging to creep in.
She read it over one last time, not really satisfied, but it was the truth. Even if it still had some scratch-outs.
11
TRUTH
My name is Stella and I am me.
My name is Estelle and I am somebody.
My name is Estelle Mills, and I am not nobody. Mrs. Grayson would say that’s a dubble double negative. Well, I’m here to say I’m not no negative. I am me, and that’s a fact.
I like to be called Stella because it reminds me of stars, and I like the night. Mama tells me I was born at midnite midnight during a full moon. Maybe that is why.
I am left-handed—the only student in the whole school who is.
My family reminds me of good things to drink.
Mama is hot chocolate.
Papa is black coffee.
Jojo is sweet tea.
Me, I’m the color of rum. Mama cooks with it sometimes.
I’ve got thick black hair, and bushy caterpillar-looking eyebrows. When I look in the mirror, I don’t see pretty. I just see me.
Besides, sometimes things that look pretty, like secret fire in the darkness, are really pretty ugly.
12
Spoon Man’s Coming!
Saturday morning bloomed bright like, hmm, Stella tried to think of a description her teacher would like. A sky full of daylilies! That wasn’t so bad, Stella thought. She had turned the paper in to Mrs. Grayson yesterday, who had grunted with approval and given her a grade of C. Stella, relieved, wondered if there would still be a conversation between her teacher and her mother. Mrs. Grayson did not say, and Stella for sure didn’t ask.
So that afternoon, when Mama told Stella to get Papa’s hammer and a few nails and fix some porch planks that had worked loose, she’d jumped at the chance to be helpful, just in case. “Ouch!” she cried out, putting her thumb in her mouth for the second time that day. Holding the nail was easy. Banging it into the wood was a little trickier.
Bap! Bap! Bap! She finally had a rhythm going, enjoying the sun on her back, when Jojo looked up from slapping whitewash on the front fence. “Lookie, Stella!” he cried out all of a sudden, happily. “Spoon Man’s coming!”
Stella dropped the hammer, swung open the front door, and hollered, “Hey, Mama! The Spoon Man—he’s coming up the road, Mama! Come outside quick!”
Her mother rushed out to the porch, a bandanna on her head, a scrub brush in her hand, and a grudging smile on her face. “Well-a, well-a. Lordy be.”
“Can we look? Please, Mama? Can we look at what he’s got?”
“Of course, honeygirl.” Her mother dried her hands on her apron. “I might even take a gander at his goods myself.” Jojo and Stella raced ahead of her.
“What you bring me, Spoon Man?” Jojo demanded, meeting the visitor before he even pulled into the yard. “You got candy?” Dusty sniffed suspiciously at the mule pulling the wagon.
Spoon Man, whose real name was Terence Oglethorpe, was a large, almond-brown man, almost as wide as the wagon itself, his belly ballooning over his belt. His shirt, made of what might have been a feed sack, was covered by a huge yellow vest decorated with red tulips. His trousers sported multiple patches of various colors and materials, and his purple velveteen jacket had buttons made from—were those spools of thread? When he greeted them with a tip of his straw hat with the shimmering blue feather, his huge smile revealed only occasional teeth. Stella could only gape.
Spoon Man traveled all over North Carolina, plying curios and cookware, tools and trinkets—and news. Thirsty for information about friends and family and folks from all around, everyone loved Spoon Man’s visits—sometimes he even carried mail and packages, saving folks the cost of stamps.
Climbing down ponderously from the wooden buckboard, he tossed Stella and Jojo each a piece of molasses taffy.
“Where you been, Spoon Man?” Stella asked, unwrapping the candy. “I’d give anything to travel round like you do. I bet you have all kinds of adventures.”
Spoon Man leaned back and stretched. “If you think bumping my backside on this hard seat all day long is an adventure, you better rethink, girl.”
Stella barely heard him—she’d already moved to the rear of his wagon, standing on tippy-toes to better eye the treasures that he kept back there.
“Tell your mama I got a purty little bracelet made of purple glass that I been savin’ just for you, Stella,” Spoon Man called out. “Only ten cents.”
Stella whirled around to her mother, who’d just caught up. “Can I, Mama? Can I have it, please? Oh please, Mama. I’ll do all my chores for a month without complaining even once.”
“You’ll do that anyway,” her mother replied wryly. She turned to Spoon Man. “How you doin’, Mr. Oglethorpe? It’s been a couple of months since you made it to these parts.”
“Oh, I be fine, Miz Mills. Been here and there and everywhere. And I got forty-leven things to show you!”
“That many, you say?”
He made a clumsy bow, hat in hand. “Yours is the first house in Bumblebee that I have the honor to stop at. I brung you some fabric, a bit of thread, a new set of spoons, and a full set of fixin’ tools for your husband.”
“Now, you know money’s tight, Mr. Oglethorpe,” Mama said, tapping her foot, putting on her stern face.
“You ain’t alone, M’am. Times is rough all around. This here Depression is downright depressin’!” He gave a hoot and slapped his thigh at his own joke.
Mama looked him up and down. Despite his wide girth, his cheeks looked hollow. “You hungry?” she asked.
“I ain’t had a good meal since I left Raleigh,” Spoon Man admitted. “Even my mule is saggin’.”
“I tell you what,” Mama said. “I’ll send the children round to the neighbors. If everybody brings a little bit of food, why, we’ll all have a great supper, you can tell us about your travels, and you might could even sell a couple trinkets while you’re at it.”
“Well, thank you, M’am!” Spoon Man said, tipping his hat to her again. “I’d be mighty obliged.”
“Stella, Jojo, run go tell everybody to bring a little potluck if they can. Tell ’em to bring the younguns, bring the old folks. We gonna have stories and feastin’ tonight! Lordy! It’s what we all need right now.”
Stella and Jojo didn’t have to be told twice. They darted down the road, and by the time they got back, the mule had been fed and tied to a tree near the barn, Spoon Man was sitting on their front porch, and, by the magnolia, Dr. Hawkins was helping Papa lay planks of wood across four tree stumps. Mama threw a bedsheet over the whole thing, and like magic, it had become a supper table! Then Papa added logs to the fire pit, readying it for a toasty blaze.
Spoon Man, Stella noticed, simply sat there and watched the activity around him, sipping from a cup of sweet tea, nibbling Mama’s sugar cookies, and burping occasionally. The man was a burper, that was for sure. But Stella knew his turn was coming—he was saving his energy for the storytelling. Nobody in town could hold a candle to the Spoon Ma
n when it came to unfolding a tale.
Neighbors started arriving, armed with logs for the fire pit as well as food. “Jojo, run get some kindlin’ from the woodpile and stack it here,” Papa told him. “And be mindful of snakes, boy. They like to sleep up under them logs. You wake ’em up, they ain’t gonna be happy!”
Jojo, with Dusty at his heels, was back in a blink with a handful of twigs.
Papa took them, saying, “More, boy. We need lots. Bigger pieces. Take your time,” and sent Jojo off again. He took a seat beside Spoon Man. Jojo and the dog disappeared once more.
How much kindling did Papa need? Stella wondered. Ah! She figured it out—Papa was keeping Jojo out of everyone’s way for a little while, because he was fixing to say something to Spoon Man he didn’t want Jojo to hear. She quietly lowered herself to the middle step and pretended to pick a splinter from the bottom of her foot.
Spoon Man wasted no time getting to the point. “So, I hear tell y’all got some Klan worries here in Bumblebee.”
Stella’s father’s eyebrows arched. “I reckon that kind of news travels fast.”
Spoon Man leaned forward. “Even a one-legged rumor gets around after a while,” he said with a chuckle. “And this one was wearin’ speed skates!”
“What you been hearin’?” Stella’s father asked.
Stella watched out of the corner of her eye as Spoon Man chomped down on his third cookie and covered his mouth to stifle another burp. “Well, everywhere I go, folks is hungry. Crops failin.’ Cows comin’ up dry. Bosses ain’t payin’. The way I see it, people be lookin’ for change, for something to believe in.”
Dr. Hawkins came up and poured himself some tea from the enamel pitcher Mama had placed on a fruit crate, then joined Papa and Spoon Man. “Well, we all know about the election comin’ up next month,” he said. “Everybody says Franklin Delano Roosevelt is gonna be in the White House.”