Passing through Perfect (Wyattsville #3)(29)

After Benjamin watched the second field of corn wither and die for lack of water, he was weary of farming. If Delia had picked that moment to ask about moving north he might have packed up and gone, but she never again mentioned it.

When the money he’d set aside ran out, Benjamin drove into Bakerstown and began rapping on the back doors of white folks asking if they had handyman work that needed to be done.

Emma Burnett was the first to say yes. She was certain a raccoon had gotten into her attic and was willing to pay a dollar if Benjamin could chase the critter out and repair any damage that was done. Even though it was poor pay for such a task, Benjamin did it and collected the dollar.

Day after day he continued to knock on doors and ask for work, and in time he became known as a dependable worker. Emma told Susie Watkins that Benjamin would be a good man to trim the apple trees in her yard. Then Susie, pleased with what he’d done, began to spread the word. Before the end of summer Benjamin had work enough to fill his days.

He left the farm before sunrise and returned after dark, but the money he made was enough to keep food on the table and pay for the things they needed. Each week he set a small amount aside thinking that next year he’d try planting another crop.

With Benjamin gone all day, Delia’s days were long and weighted with emptiness. Although she’d sit for hours on end talking with Daddy Church, she grew restless. On a Saturday when Otis remained in bed because his leg was bothering him something fierce, she sat on the porch with a glass of lukewarm coffee and looked across the flat land. Without the fields of corn fluttering in the breeze it was nothing but brown dirt for as far as she could see. Delia pulled out the bottle of red nail polish Benjamin had brought from town and painted her toes, but once that was done there was nothing else to look forward to.

She called out for Isaac who was off playing with a dog that at one time belonged to the Burns family.

“Yeah, Mama,” he answered and came from behind the house.

“Ain’t you tired of playing with that ole dog?” she laughed.

Isaac tossed a yellow ball across the yard, and the dog went after it. “Well, there ain’t nothing else to do.”

Delia smiled. “What if we was to go visit Luella Jackson and her boy, Jerome?”

“That’d be real good,” he answered, “except Daddy took the car, and we got no way to get there.”

“Ain’t we got feet?”

“Yeah, but that’s a far ways for walking.”

“It’s far,” Delia said. “Too far for Daddy Church maybe, but not too far for you and me.”

“Really?”

Delia smiled. “Really.”

She darted inside and told Otis they were going down the road to visit neighbors.

“We’ll be a while,” she said. “You gonna be okay while we’re gone?”

Otis nodded. “I’ll be jest fine. Go have yourself some fun.”





The Jackson house was more than five miles away, but with a fair bit of eagerness and a snappy step they were there before lunchtime. Delia had taken a liking to Luella, and her having a boy Isaac’s age made it doubly nice. While the boys played the women sat on the porch sipping sweet tea and trading stories. Like Benjamin, Will Jackson went off to work each day and like Delia, Luella enjoyed having someone to talk to.

When it got close to four o’clock and Delia said she had to be going, Luella begged her to come again.

She did.





It got to be a regular thing. Delia and Isaac would walk the five miles to the Jackson house at least once a week, and on occasion as often as three times. They also began visiting the other neighbors, the ones who’d been guests at the barbeque. Twice they arrived at a house where they’d expected to find the yard filled with youngsters and instead found the place abandoned. At the Barker house the door was unlocked, but inside there was nothing except a three-legged chair and a broken broom.

That day Delia sat on the step of what was once the Barker porch and cried.

“Lord God,” she moaned, “have you no mercy?”

The walk home was long and sad. Delia had been fond of Cissy Barker, and it was heartbreaking to think the family could be without a place to call home. She snuggled Isaac close to her and told him how lucky he was to have a daddy like Benjamin.

“Your daddy works real hard so we can stay in our house and have a good place to live,” she said, and the funny thing was she meant it. Two years back when things were good, Delia believed the world outside Grinder’s Corner offered untold opportunities. Now with work scarce and times hard, she feared the outside world could be worse yet. Any thoughts she’d had of moving were gone.





In the early days Benjamin believed he’d go back to farming, but with long work hours and traveling back and forth to Bakerstown the weeks turned into months and the months became seasons that disappeared in the blink of an eye. In early March he spoke of putting in summer corn, and when that planting season passed he thought of winter cabbages or parsnips. Before long one year became two and everyone settled into the way of life that was, so he sold the tractor.

“It needs work,” he reasoned, but the truth was Benjamin had lost the image of the farm he’d once planned.

He could no longer close his eyes and imagine fields of corn stretching out for as far as the eye could see. Now when he closed his eyes he saw fences that needed painting, trees that needed trimming, and gate hinges waiting to be replaced. It seemed an odd coincidence that at a time when Delia no longer argued for leaving the farm, Benjamin no longer cared about staying.