Billy Creekmore Page 5

  “But, sir,” pleaded the man, “I’m telling you, sir, as I look on him now, I know he is my wife’s one and only nephew. If only she were here beside me, you could see for yourself. And if the likeness is not enough for you, sir, could you please find it in your heart to let go the matter of a baptism record or birth certificate? All we want is to offer the boy a home.”

  All of a sudden, Peggy stepped forward. She was heaving with crying, tears streaming down her face. “Why don’t any of you ask Billy what he wants? Surely his voice counts for something.”

  Mr. Beadle was too shocked by her insolence to say anything. He stood there with his mouth open, glaring at all of us. I took advantage of his silence to say my piece, my head tingling as if I was making up the biggest lie I could, only this time it was the truth.

  “Please, Mr. Beadle, I want to go live with my uncle.”

  Mr. Beadle fumed with anger. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a little gold magnifying glass. He held it up to one eye and looked over the letter here and there, what for exactly I couldn’t say. I imagined he was double-checking the part that mentioned his wife’s cousin, the healing woman, for surely that was something he couldn’t ignore. The letter must have looked sound enough, for he gave it back with nothing more than a sigh. Paper was paper, and he wasn’t up to fighting it, especially since he spent so much time lying about things like birth certificates and letters. So, he had to let me go with the man I came to call my uncle Jim.

  Well, I was near bursting with questions, such as if he knew where my father might be, and what my mother was like, but things got all in a rush and I had to be patient. Uncle Jim waited in the kitchen with Peggy while I gathered my belongings and said good-bye to my friends. I had been delivered from the glassworks, by an uncle I never knew I had. Inside I tossed between soaring happiness and feeling stunned by the strangeness of it all. It was easy enough to get my things since I had packed them all in the flour sack days before, but it was harder than I thought to say good-bye. I never thought I’d have to do it, since my plan was to sneak away while everyone was sleeping.

  “So, off you go, eh, Billy? Will you ever think of us?” asked Walter Barnes. I could hear the jealousy in his voice, and I knew it warn’t any kind of question I could answer without making him even angrier than he already was.

  “Of course I will. I’ll even write you from time to time.”

  “Sure you will,” said Walter with a smirk. He didn’t believe me, and I felt guilty knowing that I probably wouldn’t write Walter, or anyone except maybe Peggy and Rufus.

  “I’ll write you,” said Rufus. “You know how good I am at writin’.” His face was so earnest and shiny, it made my heart sad. “Write me soon as you can with your address so I can write you back.”

  “I will,” I said to him, turning away before he could see my eyes tearing up.

  I carried my tin box and my bundle of clothes and met up with my uncle. Peggy’s voice was happy and bright for she learned he was from Wales, which is just across the sea from where she was born. She smiled and shook his hand again, telling him that she loved me like her own little brother.

  “Be a good boy and mind your uncle. I can tell he’s a kind man. Where’s your home, sir? How far do you and Billy have to go?”

  “We live in Holly Glen, miss, twenty miles southeast of Charleston. Not so very far, but the mountains here in West Virginia make every journey a long one. We’ll take the train there, for it’s too far and rugged for our old mule to travel.”

  “The train! How exciting for you, Billy! What a glorious thing! Oh, be happy, Billy, for you’re with family now and there’s an adventure before you as well!” And with that she scooped me up for one last hug in her great arms. She cried a little, and I did, too, for I knew that Peggy was always and forever my true friend, the likes of which I might never find again.

  And so I turned my back on Guardian Angels Home for Boys, walking the same way I had planned for my escape, only now I was leaving with an uncle I didn’t know I had, and with a home waiting for me in a faraway town. Bare branches reached across the narrow road to each other. The ragged Cheat River tumbled below without a threat to be heard. It was the first time I remember feeling steady in the world, even though I was walking with a man I barely knew to a faraway place I didn’t know. The woods seemed to be whispering good-bye to me. “Good-bye,” I said back to ‘em, and if Uncle Jim thought it was strange, he didn’t say so.

  Part Two

  CHAPTER TEN

  MY UNCLE JIM

  AND I

  GET TO KNOW EACH OTHER

  as We Travel

  to

  HOLLY GLEN

  There warn’t no need to hurry, since Uncle Jim was slow for an adult on account of his bad foot. It had been near crushed in a mine cave-in years ago. “But it doesn’t slow me down in the mines, and I can still shovel ten tons of coal a day, as good as any man and better than most. Now take me hand, lad, since we’re coming up to the town and the streets are crowded. I couldn’t bear to lose you.”

  If there was a bigger city in the world, I couldn’t imagine it. Albright was busy with folks out shopping and taking a meal. The store windows was filled with all sorts of things like sleds and folded dungarees, galvanized pails and a whole set of brushes for clothes and hair and who knows what else. We made our way to the train station at the far end of town. We sat on the benches near the tracks, and he offered me a sandwich from his lunch pail.

  “It’s a ham sandwich with a bit of cheese,” he said, “made by your own aunt Agnes for you.” He opened a bottle of cider to share with me.

  I near ate it whole since I was hungry enough to faint. I was getting used to his musical way of talking. It was almost like Peggy’s, but softer in the way he said his r’s and more lilting.

  “Did you know my pa?” The question must have surprised him, for he didn’t answer right away.

  “No, lad, but your aunt did.”

  “Why’d he write you I was stillborn?”

  Uncle Jim shook his head. “I can’t speculate, lad, and I don’t want to pass judgment on another man.”

  “Did you know my mother?”

  “Yes, lad, a kind woman she was. Not as strong-willed as your aunt Agnes, nor as practical. More disposed to fancy, I’d say, always seeing the good in the world.”

  We ate the rest of our lunch in silence. I didn’t know what else to say, so I was quiet. Uncle Jim gave me a piece of apple pie that Aunt Agnes had baked special for me. I licked the crumbs off my fingers, wondering if I’d always eat so good from now on. I hadn’t had pie in a long time. A few people waited with us. Some had suitcases, some had nothing more than a bindle and a sack. Before too long the train came, screeching to a stop with great puffs of steam spreading over the platform.

  “Settle in by the window, Billy. Soon the mountains will be rugged and beautiful, and you’ll enjoy the view. We won’t be getting to Holly Glen until tomorrow morning, for we have a long wait at Charleston. But don’t worry. Once we’re there, we won’t have to walk far like we did today, for all us miners live along the tracks.”

  Soon enough the train pulled out of the station, and the town of Albright was swallowed in the distance. The rhythm of the tracks made me drowsy, and I drifted to sleep, glad to be warm in the train and not on the road trying to find shelter.

  I can’t say much ‘bout Charleston or its train station. I was sound asleep when we got there. Uncle Jim steered me to a different platform to wait for the train to Holly Glen. We sat on the bench, and he let me sleep against him till the train came. “But I want to see the station,” I said, even though I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Uncle Jim hushed me, saying it’s best to get my rest and not to worry none. There’d be other chances to see Charleston and the station.

  “I’ll take you to the circus when it comes to town,” he said. “A grand circus it will be. You’ll see the station then, and the town, too.”

  The circus! In my mind I heard
Peggy talking about the trick riders. I fell back asleep dreaming of them galloping around the big top.

  Dawn came and so did our train. I was wide awake by then. I pressed my forehead against the window, trying to look into the houses of the mountain towns that hugged the tracks. We stopped or slowed for each little camp we passed, letting passengers on or off, or just taking a pause at the depot. Most were mining camps, said Uncle Jim, named after the owner’s wife, like Holly Glen, which Mr. Newgate named after his wife. The coal company owned all the buildings we saw, as well as the land beyond the mountains. It was the same in Wales, he said.

  “I went to work in the colliery alongside my father when I was eight. I moved here to West Virginia when I was twenty, for the mine was near empty by then. Mr. Newgate sent a man to our village, promising free transport to America, and a good wage to anyone willing to work in his mine. And so I came to Holly Glen, where I met your aunt Agnes, who ran the boardinghouse where I first lived, cooking and doing laundry for us miners.”

  He turned his hands over for me to see the coal dust that filled the lines of his palms and stained his fingertips. It couldn’t ever be washed away, no matter how long and hard he scrubbed. Some of the dust was from Wales and some from here. “And some is from the hands of me own father from when he first helped me learn to walk, I’m sure.”

  “Will I work with you in the mines? Like you did with your pa?” I asked.

  “Not for a while, lad, although there’s boys as young as you working as trappers or spraggers. But they’re from the big families with five children or more. Or else the father’s been killed or injured, so they need the money a boy can make to pay rent and buy food. But it’s dangerous work, Billy, not fit for a young boy unless the family is desperate. There’s those that are, but not your aunt and me, thank Heaven.”

  “But I’d like to work in the mines,” I said.

  “Thank you, Billy, but my wages pay for what we need. Besides, I have a plan for you. I’d rather have you work as a mule driver. Why, eventually, when you’re near twenty, and if you’re good, you’ll make more money than a miner. All in all, it’s a better job, one that you can take with you out of the mine if you wish.”

  “How do I learn to do that?”

  “You’ll have to work our mule, Coppers, learn to take him around the town with a wagon. It’s harder than it sounds, for a mule has a mind of its own. Until then, your aunt will be pleased to have you around the house. There’s plenty to be done at home. Tell me now, did you have much education at the orphanage?”

  I described our lessons with Mrs. Beadle, how my friend Rufus took to them just fine in spite of how boring they was, but how I just couldn’t keep my mind still enough for anything to sink in. “Mostly it was Bible stories, copyin’ and recitin’ things we memorized from the chalkboard. I’m pretty dreadful at it, Uncle Jim, so I don’t mind workin’ with you in the mines.”

  “No, lad. Mining is harsh work. I’ve seen too many boys brought out crippled or dead. Best to stay in school for as long as you can, for the miners that can read survive the work better. They’re less likely to turn to drink for ease from the hardships of their work. Give me a nice fire and a book by Mr. Charles Dickens instead of whisky,” he said. “Drink can ruin a man’s character and make him beat his wife and children. I’ve seen it in Wales and West Virginia both.”

  As we crossed a great steel bridge that traversed another river, a light snow began to fall. It clung to the trees but melted fast on hitting the tracks. At last we came to Holly Glen. Rows of wooden houses, their front doors facing the tracks, layered up the mountainside. Each chimney puffed a black curlicue of smoke, and a crowd of children stood in the middle of a dirt road, waving at the train. Behind them wandered two black and white cows. Far off, at the other side of the depot on its own street, was a grand house painted white with a porch running the length of it. Uncle Jim said the supervisor lived there.

  He pointed out the window to one of the small cabins. “There’s your new home, Billy! And look, there’s your aunt waving to you from our porch! That’s the way of her, Billy, already wanting to welcome you. A kind woman she is. She’ll be walking to the depot now, I’m sure, for she can’t wait to see you and hold you in her arms.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I MEET

  MY AUNT AGNES,

  Learn a Bit

  About My New Home,

  and

  MAKE A FRIEND

  I looked to see a woman in a long skirt with a dark shawl over her head waving at the train. I waved back, even though I figured she couldn’t see me. The train slowed past the houses into the depot, and I got my first look at the Newgate Coal Company. A few low, dark buildings hung along the edge of the mountain, with great wooden chutes running down to the enormous tipple and processing plant. These was the tallest buildings I’d ever seen, and they was gloomy black with coal dust. A separate track split off to run under the tipple, and a mound of spilt coal was built up on one side. A little girl was climbing it, and she was black all over with soot. Even the tips of her hair was black.

  “Take off your cap, lad,” said Uncle Jim as we stepped to the platform, “for that’s showing respect for a lady, and here comes your aunt Agnes.”

  I took off my cap as did my uncle to greet her. She bounded across the platform with long, fast strides, unafraid of slipping in the snow, one hand closing the shawl at her chin. She was nearly a foot taller than Uncle Jim, with a straight posture and rather hard features. Her clothes was perfectly neat and simple, as if frills of any sort might slow her down. She carried a gentleman’s gold watch.

  “Well, now, here you are!” She gave me a tight, short hug, then held me at arm’s length to get a good look at me. “Look at his eyes, Jim, just like May’s. How is he? Is he a good boy?”

  “Oh yes, Agnes, pleasant company he was on our long trip. Well mannered and eager to please.”

  “Isn’t that lovely, Jim? Oh, but he’s lanky, probably restless, too. It goes with long bones….”

  “Now don’t set too much in his shape, Agnes. You never know with boys. They go through many changes till they’re grown.”

  “Well, yes, right you may be…” For some reason I had disappointed her. Maybe she remembered how I killed her sister, or maybe she knew about my habit of spinning tales. I shifted my feet and turned my hat in my hands a few times.

  Aunt Agnes pulled out her watch, then snapped it shut. “We must be off,” she announced. “I want to warm you up by the fire before lunch. Otherwise the grippe might set in.”

  We left the depot, my aunt in the lead pulling me along by the hand, my uncle hobbling after us. By now the gray sky seemed to be splitting open with snow. It fell fast and thick, obscuring everything around me, covering the wooden sidewalks and the dirt road through town. We walked to the front row of houses and entered the one in the middle.

  Aunt Agnes sat me in a chair by the coal stove in the center of the room and wrapped me up in two shawls. She pulled out a tiny brown bottle of something or other from her doctoring bag and rubbed it into the back of my neck. “Here’s where the grippe sets in,” she said. “Once it’s in your throat you might as well go to bed, for sick you’ll be a week or more at least.”

  “Oh, but your aunt is good with medicines and poultices,” said Uncle Jim as I sat there all bundled up. “When folks can’t afford the doctor they send for her, for she won’t take money for her gift. She grows her own herbs, you know, and makes all her tinctures and syrups herself.”

  “Make him some tea, Jim, for we’ve got to warm up his insides, too.”

  “Yes, Agnes, here I go now, and aren’t you a lucky boy, Billy! Yes, you are, a lucky boy!”

  “I sure am,” I answered, not knowing what else I could say. But in general I agreed with him and felt that I had finally fallen into some good luck. We drank our tea, and only after I insisted that I was truly warm inside and out did they let me unwrap and get out of my seat.

  I wanted
desperately to poke around a bit, like any boy in a new place would, but I didn’t want to seem too restless or curious, for I didn’t want Aunt Agnes thinking poorly of me. So I tried sitting still without fidgeting, doing my best to be polite. They asked me questions about Guardian Angels, such as was I treated poorly or well, did I have many friends, and did they learn us a trade, and so on and so on. It was all pretty tiring, but eventually they let me up to look around. They showed me the straw mattress where I’d be sleeping, the privy in the back, and the water pump down the road. They introduced me to Trotwood, their milk cow, and Coppers, their mule, and the flock of chickens roosting in the coop.

  “I’m embarrassed to have you see the old barn,” said Uncle Jim. “It’s in awful need of repair.”

  I took a look and saw where some planks had rotted through and the gate hung crooked.

  “Maybe I could help you fix it up,” I said.

  “Certainly, lad. I can use an extra hand.”

  We had beef stew for lunch, as much as I could eat, and it was rich and delicious, with plenty of meat and parsnips, potatoes, and such. Then a mob of children knocked on the door. There was six of ‘em, all eager to meet me, having heard I was coming from far away to live with my aunt and uncle. All in all, they was even more ragged and scraggly than the boys at Guardian Angels. They pushed and shoved to get in the front when Aunt Agnes opened the door, but she quick took charge, making them quiet down and shake the snow off their boots before letting them inside.

  “This here is Billy Creekmore,” she said, “my sister’s son. He’ll have many stories to tell you about living in an orphanage and traveling a great ways to come live in Holly Glen. But for now, you may introduce yourselves, then be off, for I’m trying to spare him the grippe.”

  A girl in boys’ breeches asked me how old I was.

  “Near eleven,” I told her. “My birthday’s in December.”