Heaven (Casteel 1)

Animals we had aplenty when you counted the stray cats and dogs who came to give us hundreds of kittens and puppies. Why, our dirt yard was full of wandering animals, and anything else that could stand the clutter and noise of living with Casteels--the scum of the hills.

In what we called our bedroom was one big brass bed with a saggy old stained mattress over coiled springs that squeaked and squealed whenever there was activity on that bed. Sometimes what went on in there was embarrassingly close and loud; the curtain did little to muffle sound.

In town and in school they called us hill scum, hill filth, and scumbags. Hillbillies was the nicest thing they ever called us. Of all the folks in the mountain shacks, there wasn't one family more despised than ours, the Casteels, the worst of the lot. Despised not only by valley folk but by our own kind, for some reason I never understood. But . . . we were the family with five Casteel sons in prison for major and minor crimes. No wonder Gra

nny cried at night; all her sons had been so disappointing. She had only her youngest left, Pa, and if he gave her joy I never knew of it. On him she'd placed all her expectations, waiting for that wonderful someday when he proved to the world that Casteels were not the worst scum of the hills.

Now, I've heard tell, though it's hard to believe, that there are kids in the world who hate school, but Tom and I couldn't wait for Mondays to roll around, just so we could escape the confines of our small mountain cabin with its smelly, cramped two rooms, its far walk to the stinking old outhouse.

Our school was made of red brick and sat smack in the heart of Winnerrow, the nearest valley village, set deep in the Willies. We walked seven miles to and seven miles fro as if they were nothing, always with Tom close at my side, Fanny tagging along behind, meaner than ten vipers, with Pa's black eyes and Pa's own temper. She was pretty as a picture, but mad at the world because her family was so "stinking rotten poor," as Fanny succinctly put it.

". . . an we don't live in a pretty painted house like they do in Winnerrow, where they got real bathrooms," Fanny shrilled, always complaining about things the rest of us accepted lest we be miserable. "Inside bathrooms--kin ya imagine? Heard tell some houses got two, THREE--each with hot an cold runnin water, kin ya believe such as that?"

"Kin believe most anythin bout Winnerrow," answered Tom, skipping a pebble over the river water that was our bathing hole in the summers. Without that river running we'd have been much dirtier than we were. The river and its little ponds, pools, and freshwater springs made life better in a thousand ways, making up some for all that would have been intolerable but for cool, tasty spring water, and a swimming hole as good as any city pool.

"Heaven, ya ain't listenin!" yelled Fanny, who had to have center stage all of the time. "An what's more, they got kitchen sinks in Winnerrow. Double sinks! Central heating . . . Tom, what's central heating?"

"Fanny, we got t'same thin in Ole Smokey that sets clean smack in t'middle of our cabin."

"Tom," I said, "I don't think that's really what central heating means."

"As fer asI'm concerned, that's exactly what I want it t'mean."

If I seldom agreed with Fanny about anything else, I did agree that it would be paradise unlimited to live in a painted house with four or five rooms, to have all the hot and cold water at one's will just by turning on a faucet--and a toilet that flushed.

Oh, gosh, to think of central heating, double sinks, and flushing toilets made me realize just how poor we really were. I didn't like to think about it, to feel sorry for myself, to be inundated with worries about Keith and Our Jane. Now, if Fanny would only wash her clothes, that would help a little. But Fanny never would do anything, not even sweep the front porch, though she was pretty crazy about sweeping the dirt yard free of leaves. Because it was a fun thing to do, was my sour reasoning. Out there she could watch Tom playing ball with his buddies, while Sarah and I did the real work, and Granny did the talking.

Granny had good reasons for not working as hard as Sarah. Granny had her own problems getting up once she was down, and getting down once she was up. The time it took for her to get from here to there seemed an eternity as she held on to what furniture we had. There just wasn't enough furniture to take Granny everywhere she wanted to go easily.

Sarah taught me when I was old enough, and Granny was too feeble to help (and Fanny flatly refused to do anything even when she was three, four, or five), how to diaper babies, how to feed them, give them baths in a small metal washtub. Sarah taught me a thousand things. By the time I was eight I knew how to make biscuits, merit the lard for the gravy, add the flour with water before I blended it into the hot grease. She taught me how to clean windows and scrub floors and use the washboard to force dirt out of filthy clothes. She also taught him to do as much as he could to help me, even if other boys did call him a sissy for doing "women's work." If Tom had not loved me so much, he might have objected more.

A week came when Pa was home every night. Sarah was happy as a bluebird, humming under her breath and shyly glancing at Pa often, as if he'd come courting and wasn't just a husband tired of running moonshine. Maybe somewhere out on a lonely highway a Federal revenue man was waiting for Luke Casteel, ready to pitch him into jail along with his brothers.

Out in the yard I scrubbed away on dirty clothes, as usual, while Fanny skipped rope and Pa pitched the ball for Tom to swing at with his one and only plaything, a ballbat left over from Pa's childhood. Keith and Our Jane hung around me, wanting to hang up the washed clothes--neither one could reach the rope lines.

"Fanny, why don't you help Heavenly?" yelled Tom, throwing me a worried glance.

"Don't want to!" was Fanny's answer.

"Pa, why don't you make Fanny help

Heavenly?"

Pa hurled the ball so hard it almost hit Tom, who took a wild swing and, off balance, fell to the ground. "Don't ever pay attention to women's work," said Pa with a gruff laugh. He turned toward the house, in time to hear Sarah bellow our evening meal was ready: "Come an git it!"

Painfully Granny rose from her porch rocker. Grandpa struggled to rise from his. "Gettin old is worse than I thought it would be," groaned Granny once she was on her feet and trying to make it to the table before all the food was gone. Our Jane ran to her to be led by the hand, for Granny could do that if not much else. She groaned again. "Makes me think that dyin ain't so bad after all."

"Stop saying that!" stormed Pa. "I'm home to enjoy myself, not to hear talk about death and dying!" And in no time at all, almost before Granny and Grandpa were comfortable in their chairs at the table, he got up, finished with the meal that had taken Sarah hours to prepare, and out into the yard he went, jumping into his pickup truck to head to God knows where.

Sarah, wearing a dress she'd ripped apart, then sewn back together in a different fashion, with new sleeves and pockets added from her bag of scrap fabrics, stood in the doorway staring out, softly crying. Her freshly washed hair scented with the last of her lilac water shone rich and red in the moonlight, and all for nothing when those girls in Shirley's Place wore real French perfume, and real makeup, not just the rice powder that Sarah used to take the shine from her nose.

I determined I was not going to be another Sarah--or another angel found in Atlanta. Not me. Not ever me.

two School And Church

. THE COCK-A-DOODLE-DO OF OUR SOLITARY ROOSTER WITH his harem of thirty hens woke us all. The sun was only a hazy rim of rose in the eastern sky. With the crow of the cock came the mumbling of Ma waking up, of Granny and Grandpa turning over, of Our Jane beginning to wail because her tummy always ached in the mornings. Fanny sat up and rubbed at her eyes. "Ain't gonna go t'school t'day," she informed grouchily.

Keith sprang immediately to his feet and ran to fetch Our Jane a cold biscuit she could nibble on to calm those hunger pains that hurt her more than they hurt any of the rest of us. Placated, she sat on her floor pallet and nibbled on her biscuit, her pretty eyes watching each one of us hopefully for the milk she'd soon be crying for.