Free Swan Place by Augusta Trobaugh Page A

Little Ellis and the house felt real natural for me. Felt just like something that had been that way for a long time. And it had, of course. But Aunt Bett called to check on us every hour or so, until around noon, when I told her I was getting ready to fix lunch and put the little ones down for their naps. Around two-thirty the phone rang again. It was Darlene.
    “Mama said for me to find out if you all are okay. She’s on the back porch trying to fix the belt on the washing machine.”
    “We’re fine, Darlene. And tell Aunt Bett our machine is working fine, if she wants to come over and use it.” So around three o’clock, Aunt Bett drove up and came in with a big basket of dirty clothes and a box of detergent on top.
    “Dove, I’ll have to use you all’s washer.” She went toward the back porch, but her eyes were darting this way and that, taking in the picture books spread out all over the couch and the Kool-Aid glasses on the coffee table, and the lunch dishes in the sink. While she was loading clothes into the washer, I stacked the books, pushed Little Ellis’s yellow truck behind the couch, took the Kool-Aid glasses into the kitchen, and started washing up the lunch dishes. Aunt Bett came into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and started counting Roy-Ellis’s bottles of beer.
    “We can bring the clothes down to you, soon as they’re done,” I offered, trying to keep her from getting all riled up about Roy-Ellis’s beer.
    “No, honey. Thanks. I’ll wait on them.” Then, “What are you all having for supper?” she asked, and I could tell that she was trying to make her voice sound cheerful instead of worried. I thought for a moment. “I was thinking about hot dogs and beans.”
    “Well, when you heat the hot dogs, make sure you use a back unit on the stove, so there won’t be any chance of Molly or Little Ellis pulling that hot water down on themselves.”
    “Yes’m.”
    “Now if you’ll get me your canned beans, I’ll show you how to fix them up a little bit.” I got the cans and opened them. Aunt Bett emptied them into a bowl and then she added some mustard and ketchup and brown sugar. She stirred it all together and gave me a spoon to taste it.
    “Oh, that’s better than just plain beans.”
    “Now what you do is this,” she went on. “Empty these seasoned beans into a baking dish and put some raw bacon slices on top and bake it until the bacon’s done.”
    “Yes’m.
    “You’ll learn, little by little, and one of these days you’ll be a good cook,” she pronounced.
    “Like you,” I said, and she blushed.
    By the time Aunt Bett took her basket of clean clothes home to hang on her own clothesline, she had helped me to make a cottage cheese and canned peaches salad and a chocolate sauce out of cocoa powder, sugar, and canned milk for putting on ice cream for dessert. The next week, Aunt Bett got a new belt for her washing machine, and Roy-Ellis put it on for her on Sunday afternoon, so she didn’t have to carry her laundry down to our house. But she took me to the grocery store with her every week and taught me lots of things, like how to give Molly and Little Ellis slices of apple with peanut butter on them, instead of so many cookies; how to mix dry milk half-and-half with real milk so that it tasted just fine and was cheaper; and how to find day-old bread at a better price than fresh.
    At school, Michelle stayed away from me and even though everything was fixed, where Michelle was concerned, I kept on spending every lunch time in Miss Madison’s room. I loved doing that so much that I almost hated for school to be over. But I made up my mind that I was going to get me some notebooks and keep on writing about my mama.
    So I guess we spent the rest of that springtime and the first few days of summer doing what Aunt Bett said we would have to do—just carrying on the best we could, just doing what had to be done and not thinking much about it. Roy-Ellis worked lots of