"Thanks."
"How much paint is left?"
"None. It's all gone."
"How much do you need to paint the front?"
The front was not as long as the east or west side, but it had the added challenge of a porch, as did the rear. "I reckon four or five gallons," I said, as if I'd been house painting for decades.
"I don't want you to spend your money on paint," she said.
"It's my money. Y'all said I could spend it on whatever I wanted."
"True, but you shouldn't have to spend it on somethin' like this."
"I don't mind. I want to help."
"What about your jacket?"
I'd lost sleep worrying about my Cardinals jacket, but now it seemed unimportant. Plus, I'd been thinking about another way to get one. "Maybe Santa Claus'll bring one."
She smiled and said, "Maybe so. Let's have lunch."
Just after Pappy thanked the Lord for the food, saying nothing about the weather or the crops, my father grimly announced that the backwaters had begun trickling across the main field road into the back forty acres. This development was absorbed with little comment. We were numb to bad news.
The Mexicans gathered around the truck and waited for Pappy. They each had a small sack with their belongings, the same items they'd arrived with six weeks earlier. I shook hands with each one and said goodbye. As always, I was anxious for another ride to town, even though this little trip was not a pleasant one.
"Luke, go help your mother in the garden," my father said as the Mexicans were loading up. Pappy was starting the engine.
"I thought I was goin' to town," I said.
"Don't make me repeat myself," he said sternly.
I watched them drive away, all nine of the Mexicans waving sadly as they looked at our house and farm for the last time. According to my father, they were headed to a large farm north of Blytheville, two hours away, where they would work for three or four weeks, weather permitting, and then go back to Mexico. My mother had inquired as to how they would be shipped home, by cattle truck or bus, but she did not press the issue. We had no control over those details, and they seemed much less important with floodwaters creeping through our fields.
Food was important, though: food for a long winter, one that would follow a bad crop, one in which everything we ate would come from the garden. There was nothing unusual about this, except that there wouldn't be a spare dime to buy anything but flour, sugar, and coffee. A good crop meant there was a little money tucked away under a mattress, a few bills rolled up and saved and sometimes used for luxuries like Coca-Cola's, ice cream, saltines, and white bread. A bad crop meant that if we didn't grow it, we didn't eat.
In the fall we gathered mustard greens, turnips, and peas, the late-producing vegetables that had been planted in May and June. There were a few tomatoes left, but not many.
The garden changed with each season, except for winter, when it was finally at rest, replenishing itself for the months to come.
Gran was in the kitchen boiling purple hull peas and canning them as fast as she could. My mother was in the garden waiting for me.
"I wanted to go to town," I said.
"Sorry, Luke. We have to hurry. Much more rain and the greens'll rot. And what if the water reaches the garden?"
"They gonna buy some paint?"
"I don't know."
"I wanted to go buy some more paint."
"Maybe tomorrow. Right now we have to get these turnips out of the ground." Her dress was pulled up to her knees.
She was barefoot with mud up to her ankles. I'd never seen my mother so dirty. I fell to the ground and attacked the turnips. Within minutes I was covered in mud from head to foot,
I pulled and picked vegetables for two hours, then cleaned them in the washtub on the back porch. Gran carried them into the kitchen, where they got cooked and packed away in quart jars.
The farm was quiet-no thunder or wind, no Spruills in the front or Mexicans out by the barn. We were alone again, just us Chandlers, left to battle the elements and to try to stay above water. I kept telling myself that life would be better when Ricky came home because I'd have someone to play with and talk to.
My mother hauled another basket of greens to the porch. She was tired and sweating, and she began cleaning herself with a rag and a bucket of water. She couldn't stand to be dirty, a trait she had been trying to pass along to me.
"Let's go to the barn," she said. I hadn't been in the loft in six weeks, since the Mexicans had arrived.
"Sure," I said, and we headed that way.
We spoke to Isabel, the milk cow, then climbed the ladder to the hayloft. My mother had worked hard to prepare a clean place for the Mexicans to live. She had spent the winter collecting old blankets and pillows for them to sleep on. She had taken a fan, one that for years had found good use on the front porch, and placed it in the loft. She had coerced my father into running an electrical line from the house to the barn.
"They're humans, regardless of what some people around here think," I'd heard her say more than once.
The loft was as clean and neat as the day they'd arrived. The pillows and blankets were stacked near the fan. The floor had been swept. Not a piece of trash or litter could be found. She was quite proud of the Mexicans. She had treated them with respect, and they had returned the favor.
We shoved open the loft door, the same one Luis had stuck his head through when Hank was bombing the Mexicans with rocks and dirt clods, and we sat on the ledge with our feet hanging down. Thirty feet up, we had the best view of any place on our farm. The tree line far to the west was the St. Francis, and straight ahead, across our back field, was the water from Siler's Creek.
In places the water was almost to the tops of the cotton stalks. From this view we could much better appreciate the advancing flood. We could see it between the perfect rows running directly toward the barn, and we could see it over the main field road, seeping into the back forty.
If the St. Francis River left its banks, our house would be in danger.
"I guess we're done pickin'," I said.
"Sure looks like it," she said, just a little sad.
"Why does our land flood so quick?"
"Because it's low and close to the river. It's not very good land, Luke, never will be. That's one reason we're leavin' here. There's not much of a future."
"Where we goin'?"
"North. That's where the jobs are."
"How long - "
"Not long. We'll stay until we can save some money. Your father'll work in the Buick plant with Jimmy Dale. They're payin' three dollars an hour. We'll make do, tough it out, you'll be in a school up there, a good school."
"I don't want to go to a new school."
"It'll be fun, Luke. They have big, nice schools up North."
It didn't sound like fun. My friends were in Black Oak. Other than Jimmy Dale and Stacy, I didn't know a soul up North. My mother put her hand on my knee and rubbed it, as if this would make me feel better.
"Change is always difficult, Luke, but it can also be excitin'. Think of it as an adventure. You wanna play baseball for the Cardinals, don't you?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Well, you'll have to leave home and go up North, live in a new house, make new friends, go to a new church. That'll be fun, won't it?"
"I guess so."
Our bare feet were dangling, gently swinging back and forth. The sun was behind a cloud, and a breeze shifted into our faces. The trees along the edge of our field were changing colors to yellow and crimson, and leaves were falling.