Farrie patted the white turtleneck top stretched across her stomach. “I can wear this with the red skirt over there, can’t I, Scarlett?” she pleaded. “We wouldn’t be taking too much.”
Scarlett knew it wasn’t a matter of taking too many of the church’s clothes; it was simply that the top didn’t fit. When the boxes had arrived Farrie had hopped like a small skinny bird from one to another, trying on everything. To judge from what the Methodist church had sent they hadn’t expected someone her size. She was small for a nine-year-old. The minister’s daughter, Judy Heamstead, had gone back out to the car for another load of donated clothing.
“Come over here,” Scarlett told her. “Let’s try on something else.” She caught Farrie’s arm before she could scuttle away, grabbed the white knit top and pulled it over her head, leaving her little sister in nothing but her ragged underpants.
Ordinarily yanking Farrie’s clothes off like that would have brought on a fit of outraged screeching, but this time she hardly noticed. Farrie was living in another world, so happy, so charged up about everything that Scarlett knew it couldn’t last. She tossed the turtleneck into the pile of clothing that was rapidly becoming a small mountain on the Grissoms’ dining room floor.
Scarlett hadn’t mentioned Devil Anse’s visit to Farrie but it weighed on her mind. Ever since their grandpa had showed up on the Grissoms’ front porch wanting to get in, Scarlett had been unsure of how long they could really stay at the sheriff’s house. Farrie might be convinced that the big tough sheriff could handle anything, but she wasn’t so sure.
On the other hand, she told herself, Devil Anse might have come just to talk. If he’d come to take them away it could have been a whole lot different.
Still, she’d been jumpy as a cat all day long, thinking Devil Anse would come back at any minute. Or telephone. But nothing had happened.
“Oh, Scarlett, lookahere!” Farrie stepped into a pair of green corduroy overalls, hauling them up by the straps. The too-large pants almost swallowed her.
Scarlett sat back on her heels. The overalls had been made for somebody’s fat little kid, younger than her sister; there was even a duck embroidered on the bib.
“You’re supposed to wear a shirt with that,” she said. “You can’t go around with your bare shoulders and arms sticking out. Not in this weather.”
From the look on her little sister’s face nothing she could say would spoil her mood. They were surrounded by boxes from the church mixed with the Christmas decorations the sheriff’s mother had left behind. Farrie had gone from one clothing box to the other like a whirlwind. Some of the clothes, Scarlett had to admit, were nice. Some looked almost brand-new.
“What’s that?” With a cry, Farrie bent over a cardboard box to drag out a dress. When she held it up they could see it was a gown in a peach rayon satin, old, not in good condition. The sweetheart neckline was raveled and the taffeta flowers that decorated the skirt were so flattened that it was hard to tell at first what they were.
Scarlett frowned. “You don’t need that. It looks like something yore grandma would wear.”
Farrie pulled the dress over her head. The back gaped open where there were buttons she could not reach, and the squashed roses hung limply. As did the puffed sleeves. “Did you ever know my grandma?” She found a wide-brimmed straw hat with matching peach satin flowers and a huge bow in front with a rhinestone pin.
Farrie jammed it down over her ears. When she turned, arms held out, the ridiculous hat teetering, Scarlett had to smile.
“No, I never saw her.” Scarlett had always wondered about the woman who’d been foolhardy enough to marry Devil Anse, but their grandma had died long ago and now no one ever spoke of her. “You better take that thing off. I don’t know what it’s supposed to be, probably somebody’s old bridesmaid’s dress.”
Farrie came to stand in front of her. “What’s a bridesmaid’s dress?”
“You know what it is, we’ve seen ’em on TV.” She cupped one of the fabric roses in her hand. It must have been pretty once: the inside was just like a real flower with little imitation white and green stalks. “Rich people have big weddings where all the bride’s girlfriends dress up to be in the church with her when she gets married.”
Farrie flopped down on the floor beside her. “Oh Scarlett, you could have that, a big wedding with bridesmaids and all, if you married the sheriff.” She stroked a small hand down Scarlett’s sleeve coaxingly. “You’re so pretty, you’d make the best-looking bride.”
Scarlett pulled Farrie’s hand away. “I thought I told you to stop talking like that.” Scarlett was wearing a black cotton shirt that Judy Heamstead had cinched with a leather belt with a big brass buckle, and a pair of tight but becoming jeans she’d found in the clothing boxes. The minister’s daughter and Farrie hadn’t stopped talking about how good she looked.
“Go help yourself to more clothes,” Farrie urged. “There’s lots left. Look at all the things I found.”
Scarlett shook her head. She wasn’t going to go hog-wild. Jeans and a couple of shirts and sweaters were enough. She didn’t want to say it in front of Farrie, but she’d never liked wearing other people’s clothes. Everyone had their dream; for Farrie, it was to live in a big house with a bed with a ruffled tester, and have a real family. For Scarlett, who had worn used clothing most of her life, it was to have her own clothes. Just a few. But all new.
Judy Heamstead came in carrying two cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. “Here,” she said, trying to see over them, “I hope these have got some shoes. These are sure heavy enough.”
Seeing no place to put them, Judy opened her arms and let the boxes drop to the floor. The minister’s daughter was seventeen and wore jeans with a huge oversized red sweater, a down jacket, and cowboy boots.
“Are you going to wear that?” She stared at Farrie openly. “My cousin Ina was a flower girl in that for my mamma’s wedding years ago. The hat, too.”
“A flower girl?” Farrie’s eyes were big. “In a real wedding?”
“Take it off,” Scarlett told her. Weddings were not a good subject. There was no need to encourage her sister. She got to her knees and pulled the boxes to her. “What I need for Farrie is a warm coat. What’s in these?”
“I hope it’s shoes.” Judy sat down on the floor beside them. “You need shoes. You can’t keep on those rubber sandals, it’s too cold.”
The minister’s daughter stopped, her cheeks reddening. The reasons why the two Scraggs girls were at the sheriff’s house were, her mother had warned, none of Judy’s business. But since she’d brought in the boxes from the church, Judy had been dying to find out. “If these boxes don’t have any shoes in them maybe we can find some of Sheila’s old ones upstairs.”
Scarlett was silent for a moment. “Do you know them? The sheriff? And his family here?”
The other girl nodded. “My mother and Alicia Grissom went to school together.” She looked around the big room. “Mamma remembers when the first sheriff gave Buck’s mother this house. It used to be in Mrs. Grissom’s family but they ran out of money and lost it years ago. It was almost falling down. Hey, will you look here?” She seized something and held it up. “No wonder the box was so heavy! I thought there were shoes in it.”
“Books.” Scarlett picked one up, curious. “A cookbook?”
“It’s stuff left over from the last rummage sale,” Judy murmured. “Goodness, haven’t you ever seen a cookbook?”
“No,” Scarlett said. “We’re Scraggses.” Farrie lifted her head, listening. “If you don’t know by now I better tell you. My little sister’n I are running away to Atlanta.”
The look on Judy Heamstead’s face was indescribable. “You’re running away?”
Farrie opened her mouth to say something but Scarlett gave her a quick look. “There’s nothing here in this town for us. Not for Scraggses.”
“Oh, don’t say that.” Poor Judy looked nonplussed. “I’m sure there’s -”
“Never mind, we’re used to it, Farrie and me. That’s why we’re going to Atlanta. Can I” – Scarlett reached into the box again – “have some of these books?” She held one up. “‘Five Hundred of the World’s Best Potato Recipes.’ Can you learn to cook if you read it in a book?”
“Oh yes, that’s what they’re for. I don’t really know what else is in there, people donated them.” Judy’s face was still crimson. “I don’t like to cook much, myself.”
“I love to cook. I just never saw any books that showed you how.” Scarlett inspected a volume entitled How to Have Fun with Your Wok, and put it back. But she set aside an ancient copy of The Fanny Farmer Boston Cookbook, and Prize-Winning Cakes and Other Desserts from Better Homes and Gardens. “They got a real nice kitchen here,” she said thoughtfully. “I saw it last night.”
Judy jumped up with an expression of relief.
“Would you like to see the rest of the house? There’s a tower room that’s really neat. When my brothers and I used to visit Mrs. Grissom she let us play in it and make believe we were beautiful princesses waiting for a knight to come rescue us. Well, actually, the boys wanted it to be World War Two and we were being attacked by Nazis.”
“A tower?” Farrie said eagerly.
Scarlett frowned. “We better not.”
Farrie was already on her feet. The two girls started for the hall, Judy explaining to Farrie about the original Blankenship house that had stood there, and the Union cavalry raid that had swept down out of Chattanooga in 1863 and into the Nancyville valley.
“The Yankees burned the front part of the house,” she was saying enthusiastically. “So when the war was over Mr. Blankenship opened the cotton mill and made a lot of money and had the house rebuilt the way you see it now. That’s when the front porch was put on, and the tower.”
Upstairs, Judy threw open the door to their room.
“This was Sheila’s.” She gestured as though they hadn’t already slept there. “Don’t you just love that bed? I always wanted one like it. Sheila’s daddy the old sheriff gave it to her on her twelfth birthday.” She turned and started down the hall again. “Mrs. Blankenship used to sew a lot when Sheila went away to college. She used the tower for a sewing room. It has the neatest window where you can look down the side of the mountain and see all of Nancyville.”
They came to the end of the hall up the stairs and the door to the tower room. Judy tried the doorknob. “Oh drat, it’s locked.” Her face fell, disappointed. “I guess we’ll have to wait and get the key from Buck.”
“No we won’t.” Farrie bent to press her eye against the keyhole. “It’s just a ole-fashioned spring lock, no tumblers or nothing like that. I need a pin.” She straightened up and took off the big hat.
“We don’t need to do that,” Scarlett said quickly.
“Good golly, can she really do it?” Judy’s eyes had grown rounder. “Open a locked door?”
“Well,” Farrie said, “for a lock with tumblers I need a little knife.” She had taken the rhinestone pin off the front of the wedding hat. “But a pin will do for this old spring lock. I can hot-wire cars, too.” She bent to the door, the opened pin in her hand. “I can open the door on a ninety-three Coupe de Ville and get inside in no time. I got a uncle, Lyndon Baines Scraggs, who showed me how to do car locks. But I’m way faster now than he is.”
At that moment the door clicked and swung open. Farrie stepped back, grinning. “See? I told you it wasn’t no big thing.”
The Victorian turret room was cold. Storage boxes were stacked against the walls and a dressmaker’s dummy stood by the window. Scarlett shied at it. “What’s that?”
“I guess that’s Sheila’s dress form,” Judy told her. “Sheila’s mother sewed for her all the time she was in college. Sheila always had the prettiest clothes! She was Homecoming Queen, and Rush Week Queen, and Harvest Ball Queen – Mrs. Grissom was always making her some kind of evening dress, Sheila never wore the same one twice.”
Scarlett stood in front of the dummy, fascinated. Here, in this house, people not only learned to cook out of books but they sewed, too. And according to Judy never wore the same clothes twice.
“C’mon,” Judy said, brushing past her, “let’s open the window.”
They threw up the sash and a blast of frigid air rushed in. Scarlett crowded into the bay. They hung out over the sill, the shingles of the roof just below.
“Look!” Farrie cried.
The Grissoms’ house stood on the western side of Makim’s Mountain overlooking the Nancyville valley. The mountainside fell away sharply. Faint snow drifted in the bitter air, frosting the oaks and pine trees and the roofs of houses farther down. In spite of the snowfall they could still see the town, the spires of churches, the trees on the courthouse lawn.
“That’s where they’re going to have the living Christmas tree,” Judy said, pointing. “My mom and dad have been working on it for two weeks, getting people to volunteer.”
“Living Christmas tree?” Farrie’s breath was like smoke in the cold air. She hung into space and Scarlett took a firm grip on the back of the peach satin dress.
“Used to be the Living Christmas Pageant,” Judy explained. “One year I was a shepherd, and you freeze to death not moving at all while people drive by in their cars. We used to have a contest every year for the Best Baby Jesus, but babies could only stay out fifteen minutes at a time unless it was pretty warm at Christmas like it was last year. When Jason Ellison won his mother wanted to use an electric blanket but Susan Huddleston, the county welfare worker, said that fifteen minutes was still the limit.”
Scarlett knew who Susan Huddleston was. “What happened to the Baby Jesus this year?”
“He got eliminated.” Judy shrugged. “The government said we were breaking the law holding a religious spectacle on county property. So this year we have to have something non – nonspectaclarian.”
Judy thought it over, frowning. “Anyway, Mr. Ravenwood, who teaches the high school chorus, said we could have a Living Christmas Tree.” She leaned out to point. “Down there next to the courthouse in all those trees. If you look real hard you can just see where they’re building it.”
“I can’t see anything.” Farrie followed the pointing finger. “What is it?”
“I just told you, the Living Christmas Tree. It’s a big wooden thing shaped like a Christmas tree. And when you look at the back of it there’s steps and places for people to stand on. We haven’t had a rehearsal yet but Mr. Ravenwood says that you stand on your part of the steps and you’re holding candles in both hands. That’s the living Christmas tree part. People are supposed to be living Christmas tree decorations.”
Farrie made a sound of sheer awe.
“And you sing,” Judy added, “Christmas carols. The whole tree is singing and people drive by and see that.”
Scarlett looked at her. “Singing?”
“It’s a sort of Christmas concert. There are a lot of people that are still mad about the Best Baby Jesus contest, though.” Her face brightened as she pulled back inside. “You’re going to stay here with the sheriff until after Christmas, aren’t you?”
Scarlett hesitated, aware that Farrie was looking at her pleadingly. “Well,” she said slowly, “unless something changes.”
“Oh, I don’t think anything’s going to change, according to what my mother said. That means you can volunteer for the Living Christmas Tree. All you need to do is stand there and sing.” Judy Heamstead saw the look on Scarlett’s face. “You can sing, can’t you?”
Scarlett was trying to think of something to say.
“Yeah,” she said finally. She was feeling like she was throwing away the last chance they had, and helpless to do anything about it. “Farrie can sure sing.”