Reluctant Warriors (19 page)

She had worked in the drugstore waiting on people at the lunch counter. Though a
hard worker and pleasant enough, folks said she was closemouthed, and they could
see the unsettled look on her face that came from leaving a comfortable home at eighteen.

According to what Dr. Karnes told Mama in later years, Mrs. Carhart's parents, to
whom she returned, thought she had run off with her high school sweetheart. They
never knew of the child. Even in later life, though he said it pained her, she never
revealed her secret, never attempted to see her son. She married in her town, Cedar
Rapids, forty miles away, and raised a family. She was a good person and loving mother,
but her son never saw her again.

Several days before our soon-to-be-brother came to live with us, his mother had gone
to Minister Whitlow and completely broken down. “I just can't go on!” she had wailed.

Mrs. Whitlow, who I recall very well had led the chorus of gossips, was a woman poorly
equipped to handle problems. Instead of attempting to calm the distraught young woman,
she had left the room to get her husband. The sixty-five-year-old minister appeared
but was capable of no more comfort than his wife. He uttered a few platitudes and
had the mother kneel and pray.

With her little child in shock on the couch watching his mother fall apart, the girl
could stand it no longer. She rose, crying and almost panicky, and said: “I–I can't
keep my little boy. I can't do this anymore! I will die unless I see my mama again!
I know you will take care of him. I'll come back soon.”

She had hugged the boy tightly, kissed him, run out the door to a waiting taxi, and
left town.

The old couple had done their best. But in truth, they had no idea how to care for
a child. I remember how they had always seemed awkward around children. Mama guessed
that they had pushed various foods in front of him that he had never had before.
In the shock of seeing his mother so upset and then leave him, he ate almost nothing
for three days.

Without anyone saying anything mean to him, Tommy Carhart must have always felt a
lack of fitting in, always felt his mother's shame as keenly as she did, even though
he had no idea of the reason. While his mother worked, an elderly woman who lived
in the same house where his mother rented a room had cared for him. He had rarely
played with other children. He was withdrawn from almost everything around him.

As he walked in the door holding Mrs. Whitlow's hand on this cold winter's evening,
without a coat but wearing three shirts, he had no smile on his face. Even seeing
us children failed to bring him out. In fact, he only smiled at the sight of a toy
his mother had given him, a little stuffed deer that was to be the only gift he was
ever to have from her.

Mama picked him up immediately, which wasn't easy for her. Grandmother turned and
left the room without looking at the boy. She called over her shoulder: “Another
one to care for! That's all I need!”

Mama pressed the almost lifeless boy to her breast. There was something about him,
and in an instant she thought of it.

“Children, this is Tommy. He looks like your daddy!”

We all left the table and gathered around to see.

“Yes, Mama,” I said, “he does look like Papa.”

Of course, Toby and Danny could barely recall seeing Papa and didn't know what they
were looking for.

“Yes, Danny, he looks like Papa, doesn't he?”

“Well, he is a lot younger.”

I looked at him closely.

Without thinking, I said something that was to be sort of prophetic, “Mama, he has
ruddy cheeks,” I decided.

“Baby, that's because he's so cold.”

Danny and Toby looked at each other.

“Toby, maybe he would like a biscuit.”

“Yes, I'll give him one of my biscuits.”

With the boys greeting him warmly, the little boy had crossed the first hurdle in
being accepted into his new family!

Mrs. Whitlow made a few cursory remarks. She seemed greatly relieved as she hurried
out the door. The Chevrolet, sounding as though the clutch was almost gone, roared
and headed off down the long drive, turning south on the gravel road toward town.

As we turned back toward the new boy, Mama brought him to the table full of food
and sat him in her chair. He sat looking down with no expression at all. But soon
the food caught his eye. There were bread, biscuits, blackberry preserves Grandmother
had canned, a roast, a little ham left, milk, a pitcher of water, and corn in a big
blue bowl with flowers that Mama loved. She poured a large glass of milk and put
it in front of him.

He must have known that he had come to a good place. Almost faint from lack of food,
he took the milk in both hands and drank, a little dribble edging down the side of
his mouth. My sweet little brothers came and offered food from their plates.

“Here, this is good, eat this.”

He ate for a long time, trying everything on the table. It brought tears to his new
mother's eyes, so that she had to turn away. I know my mother's
thoughts because
she said them at every supper we ever sat down to, even after we were grown: “All-Knowing
God, thank you for bringing these children into our lives.”

Her greatest love was caring for children. Ten would not have been too many for her!

In a few minutes, Grandmother came back in the room. She wanted to inspect the “little
intruder.” We all awaited the usual caustic remarks.

But her reaction was to change the lives of everyone in the room, most especially
hers and the new boy's. She took one look at him, this innocent and fragile boy who
had never been loved as a child needs to be loved. A milk moustache on his upper
lip, he looked toward her as she came in through the swinging door from the parlor
holding laundry in her arms. Their eyes met, and she froze, dropping her carefully
folded bed sheets onto the floor.

“Oh! Oh, my!”
she said. “It's little Harry!
It's Harry!”

She sank to her knees in shock, her arms reaching out. The startled boy thought he
had done something wrong. He slowly nodded toward her, attempting to speak.

The four years of heartbreak after Grandfather died and the frustration of more than
thirty-five years of farm life ended for my petite and still pretty Grandmother.
All of the times she had cursed God for taking her husband from her, all of the times
she had lamented that her dear Harry had left her, came to an end. The boy with his
black hair and small features held magic for her. I think it was the silhouette that
she had looked to see in every child she had ever looked upon.

“Oh! Oh!”
she said. “Thanks to God for this boy! Thanks to God for this boy!”

She got to her feet and walked toward the frightened boy, her arms outstretched.
He had a piece of white bread in his hand and he never let it go. She scooped him
up, bread and all, and went into the parlor to the old rocker, talking to him in
a sweet voice.

“Oh, you are my sweet boy. You'll see. You have a place
here
now. This is your new
family. This is
your
house now. This is your place. You'll see. You'll see. You will
be my boy!”

All of the problems of these two hurting persons, who had never seen each other before,
melted away. In time the boy, called “Rudd” by all of us, adjusted to farm life.
Nurtured in the rocker every night by his “Mimmi,” he soon learned his numbers and
to read. His stutter disappeared, and he was well-prepared two and a half years later
for first grade. No one ever questioned his belonging after that night. But his cheeks
always were to remain red!

The change was just as drastic for Grandmother. She became capable of love again,
and not just for the new boy. Her years of deflating and burdening sarcasm, which
had lengthened every day and made life almost unbearable at times, ended that cold
night. She took on a loving role for all of us children, and when Papa came back
he found a fully functioning family in which he could make his recovery from the
war.

Billy got up and went into the kitchen. It was almost 4 p.m. and she thought she
would have to start dinner fairly soon. But in a few minutes her husband, Joe, called
and said he would bring something home in an hour or so. A small glass of red wine
in hand, she sat down and decided to try to finish her story. The light was still
full outside, and, as she looked passed the famous grove of trees, she imagined a
man on a tractor going back and forth on one of the fields.

Mr. Riser came to live with us at about that time. He was a wonderful man. It seems
not that long ago when one frigid winter evening, there was a knock on the door as
we were putting dinner on the table.

I went to the door. A man was standing there, covered with snow.

I went to get Mama. She opened the door, and the man looked up and spoke. “Missus,
I am very hungry. Could I have something to eat?”

He shivered as he spoke, and his voice shook too. I suppose it is hard to imagine
in this day and age, but Mama never turned away a hungry person, and I think that
was true of most people.

“Certainly, sir, you come right in.”

He staggered in, seeming none too steady. Mama took him over by the stove. He remained
there a long time, covered in a blanket she threw over him.

When he seemed a little thawed out, Mama spoke to him. “Would you like to wash up?
Supper is about ready. You may wash up here at the sink.”

When he was finished, she ushered him to the table.

“Please, sir, sit at the head of the table. Children, now move your chairs around
a little. We have a guest.”

“I thank you, missus.”

He slumped down and drank the steaming hot chicory coffee Mama put in front of him.
I remember the gloves he wore, without material on the fingers. He was unshaven.
He ate as we passed food to him, and ate more, asking if it was all right. Even at
eight years old, I could tell a freezing and starving man when I saw one. It would
have surprised us all if someone had told us that this unkempt man with his dirty
clothes would have a wonderful impact on all of our lives.

After staring at him curiously while he ate, Danny and Toby began asking him questions.

“Do you know—” Toby tried to ask.

“No, let me ask him,” Danny jumped in.

“No, I'm first! Do you know the Precident? Precident Rosyvelt lives in Washington,
D, ah, D.”

While he did not look like the sort of man who knew anyone important, all of us perked
up just in case. Thawed out by this time, he sat back a little and puzzled over the
question very carefully as though it were the deepest he had ever considered.

“Well, children, no, I have not met any presidents, but I have known many an interesting
person. I've known generals, an Indian chief once; I've met Henry Ford and Douglas
Fairbanks and the cowboy star Colonel Tim McCoy, a grand man. And many others.”

“Have you ever swum, ah, swam the ocean?” asked Toby.

“Nope, don't know how to swim. But I went twice on an ocean liner across the great
big ocean!”

All of our faces lit up!

“Wow,” said Danny. “I'll bet it was big. Bigger than our farm?”

“Oh yes, children. It was even bigger than Iowa!”

“Bigger?” Toby said, surprised. “Was it bigger than the whole world?”

“It was big, children, and sometimes had waves taller than this house!”

That seemed to exhaust the man's remaining energy. He slumped down, and Mama intervened,
interrupting several anxious questioners.

“Now babies, Mr. ah . . .”

“Riser, missus, Jacob Riser.”

“Mr. Riser is tired and needs his rest. Sir, if you go up the stairs to the second
floor, you will see the stair to the attic. You will find what you need up there,
quilts and the like. The last occupant was my Grandfather a long time ago, so it
will be nice to have someone stay there.”