Free Julia's Hope by Leisha Kelly Page A

of the place. Nobody’d told me of it in such awhile.
    “The house ain’t gone down too bad, has it?”
    “No, ma’am. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
    “What about the barn? And the chicken house?”
    She was lookin’ at me, pretty surprised by now. “Well, I guess everything needs work, but they’re still usable, I think.”
    “They weren’t none too good when I was out there last,” I told her. “Been awhile since we could keep the place up, even before Willard died.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    I just gave her a nod. “How old is your children?”
    “Ten and five.”
    “I had a boy once. He died in the war, some years ago now. That’s his picture over there.” I pointed over to Warren’s handsome picture on m’ bureau top.
    She looked at it and then brung her eyes back to m’ quilt. “George Hammond said to tell you hello.”
    “I was wonderin’ how you knowed to look me up.” I stared down at her tremblin’ fingers, considerin’ what it’d be like to have no home, like this woman claimed. For me, there’d always been the farm, since marryin’ Willard with m’ mama’s consent at the age of fourteen. It made me feel bad, knowin’ this woman was desperate and I was just keeping her waitin’.
    “You say your husband’s outa work?”
    “Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Wortham answered real soft. “But he’s a good worker when he gets the chance. We could fix for you, do whatever you want on the place—”
    “You come askin’ permission to stay?” I leaned back in m’ rocker and eyed her good.
    “Yes, uh . . . yes, ma’am. If it would be all right . . . at least until—”
    “Till I sell it, you mean. Or till I die and it gets sold out from under ya.”
    “No, ma’am,” Mrs. Wortham protested with a stricken look. “Just so long as you still felt all right about it, I mean, if it’s all right at all. I was thinking you might want to go back there yourself.”
    I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry on that. So I shook out the quilt an’ reached for her hand. “Let me tell you somethin’, child! I can’t go home, much as I’d like to! I get spells with m’ heart that put me to bed, and m’ old leg won’t hardly hold me no more, ’specially for stairs, even when I got m’ two canes. I ain’t no good without the other one.”
    She looked at me, all surprised. She didn’t know the half of what I was talkin’ about.
    And without thinking no more on it, I lifted the quilt off my lap and showed her the cherry-colored afghan that was underneath. I seen her eyes notice my left shoe and that there weren’t another one on the right side.
    “That’s the main thing that keeps me away,” I told her. “If it weren’t for that, I mighta been all right out to home awhile longer.” Always such a pitiful sight to see, my one old leg stickin’ out from my dress like that. In five years, there still weren’t nobody could get used to it, least of all m’self.
    “Had fever in it,” I explained. “Got so sore infected, they thought I’d die. Had to take it off, right below the knee there. I ain’t been good since, far as the farm goes, though I tried for awhile.”
    Mrs. Wortham was quiet, just looking at me.
    “Oh, I know,” I told her. “There ain’t nothin’ to be done nor said. But you can see why I can’t manage the place. Can’t hardly do nothin’ no more.”
    “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Graham.”
    “Well, it ain’t your fault, child. The good Lord, he has these things decided, you know. He’ll tell me about it, one of these days.”
    “You’re a very brave woman.”
    “Oh, now that ain’t nothing more than just livin’. We all do ’bout the same as far as that goes. If I coulda kep’ m’ good leg up, I mighta been all right, but I fell in ’27, and my hip’s not been so good since then.” I reached for the quilt and pulled it back to m’ lap. “Be glad you’re young. Be glad your kids is young too. They can take the hard times better’n us older folks