listen to you.”
Elsa laughed. “No one has ever listened to me.”
“They will. We need someone like you.”
Elsa’s smile faded. He was serious. “What good is a strike if you lose your job? I have children to feed.”
“Loreda is a firebrand. She would love—”
“She needs to be in school. Education is what will give her a better life, not joining the Communists.” Elsa got slowly to her feet. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m not brave enough to help you. And please, please, keep your people away from my daughter.”
Jack rose. She could see the disappointment in his eyes. “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Of course. Fear is smart until…” He headed for the door, paused as he reached for the knob.
“Until what?”
He looked back at her. “Until you realize you’re afraid of the wrong thing.”
* * *
THAT NIGHT, WHILE THE children slept, Elsa got her journal out of the box that had been in the truck. She turned through the pages. The children had been right that writing helped. Words jumped out at her: rain, baby in a lavender blanket, no work, waiting for cotton, the demoralizing rain. Tonight, later, she would write about her constant fear, how it strangled her all the time and the constant effort it took not to show it to her children. Writing about it would remind her that they had survived. As bad as the flood had been, they were still here.
Although this journal meant the world to her, now it was the only paper they had. She ripped a sheet out and wrote a letter to Tony and Rose.
Dear Tony and Rose:
We have an address!
We are—at last—out of our tent and into a home with real walls and a floor. The children are enrolled in a school that is a stone’s throw away from our own front door. We feel so blessed. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that a flood destroyed our tent and most of our belongings. Imagine that, a flood. I know you’d love a little of that water to come your way.
Lord, I miss home so much sometimes I can hardly breathe.
How is the farm? The town? You both?
Please write to us soon.
Love,
Elsa, Loreda, and Ant
TWENTY-EIGHT
Last night, they’d eaten a meal that almost filled their bellies and which had been cooked on an electric hot plate inside a cabin with four walls and a roof overhead and a floor to stand upon. After supper, they’d climbed into real beds on real mattresses that weren’t on the floor. Loreda had slept deeply, with her little brother tucked in close, and awakened the next morning refreshed.
After breakfast, they each dressed in the new garments and shoes they’d gotten from the Salvation Army and stepped outside into a bright sunlit day.
The Welty camp was situated on a few acres tucked in between cotton fields. Although the camp hadn’t flooded, evidence of too much rain was everywhere. The grass had been stomped into mud, but Loreda could see it would be a green pasture under better conditions. Now many of the trees, scattered randomly throughout the camp, were broken-limbed by the storm. Ditches full of muddy water ran here and there. Ten cabins and about fifty tents created a makeshift town in the center of the camp. Between the cabins and the first of the tents, Loreda saw a long building that was the laundry, and four restrooms—two for women and two for men—each of which had long lines of people waiting their turn. Most important, there were two faucets at each entrance. Clean water. No more hauling water from the ditch, boiling and straining it before each use.
At the company store, more people waited in line, mostly women, standing with their arms crossed, children close by. A hand-painted sign pointed the way to the school.
“What if I said we’d start tomorrow?” Loreda said glumly.
“I’d say you were just bumping gums,” Mom said. “I’m going to do laundry and get some food and you’re going to school. End of story. Start walking.”
Ant giggled. “Mom wins.”
Mom led the way toward a pair of tents positioned at the far end of the camp in a grove of spindly trees. She paused beside the largest of the tents, which had a wooden sign posted out front: LITTLE KIDS SCHOOL.
The tent next door read: BIG KIDS SCHOOL.
“I reckon I’m big,” Ant said.
Mom said, “I don’t think so,” and eased Ant toward the Little Kids tent.
Loreda moved fast.
The last thing she wanted was to be walked into her classroom