Free Judy's Journey by Lois Lenski Page B

idea to her. “We’re from Alabama. Where you-all from?”
    â€œWindy Ridge up in the mountains of Tennessee,” said the woman.

    Judy left the Holloways and wandered off over the dump. She found a bent aluminum sauce-pan without a hole in it, then she saw a book and picked it up. Some of the pages were torn and soiled from rain, but it had pictures in it. She tucked it under her arm. She joined Joe Bob who had found several pieces of rusty corrugated tin. He was limping and Judy noticed he had blood below one knee.
    â€œDid you hurt yourself?” she asked.
    â€œSlipped and fell on some broken bottles,” said Joe Bob. “Cut my leg but it don’t hurt.”
    Ike asked the children to pay, but when they couldn’t produce any money, he said crossly, “Take it then.”
    They dragged the tin home and Mister Mulligan admired it very much. From the junk piled up behind his little bird-box house, he produced some loose boards. He and Joe Bob set to work to make the goat shed.
    Judy filled the battered sauce-pan with water and gave it to Missy to drink. Then she sat down to look at the book she had found. It was an old-fashioned Geography. On the front cover, beneath a picture of Christopher Columbus’ three ships, she read the words: A NEW WORLD LIES BEFORE US. Judy studied these words and thought about what they meant. When you are on the go all the time, how true it is — a new world always before you .
    She opened the book. It had colored maps and small engravings in black and white. One picture showed a steamboat loaded with bales of cotton and another, a field of sugar cane. Then there was a picture of two little colored boys, chewing cane stalks, just like Porky and Arlie back in Alabama. At the top of the page it said: The Southern States. Why, it’s all about our country ! said Judy to herself.
    â€œHey, sugarpie, what’s that you got?” Papa came out of the tent carrying the foot piece of the iron bed.
    â€œA book,” said Judy. “I found it on the dump.”
    Papa laughed. “Want to go to town with me?”
    â€œCan I have a quarter to buy feed for Missy?” asked Judy.
    â€œHoney, look.” Papa turned his pockets inside out, so she could see they were empty.
    Papa had found some field work with a small grower several miles from town. But the money he made had to be used for food for the family, and the work hadn’t lasted long. “But I’ll get you some money,” Papa said. “You come along to town.”
    Papa put the head and foot pieces of the bed inside the jalopy and went back for the springs. Mama helped him lift them up on top of the car.
    â€œGoodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Harmon, coming out to watch. “You folks pullin’ out without tellin’ me?”
    â€œNo ma’m,” said Mama, then she paused.
    â€œWell, you’re not down to rock bottom yet,” said Mrs. Harmon. “Nobody else on the canal has got a sewin’-machine and a Brussels carpet.”
    â€œMy Grandma Wyatt lived in a house ,” bragged Judy.
    â€œWith Brussels carpet on the floor,” added Papa. “Calla’s folks had things nice. Why, that carpet cost a dollar thirty-nine a yard.”
    â€œNo Jim,” Mama corrected him. “It was a dollar sixty-nine, and Pa bought sixteen yards of it. That little piece is all I got left. I’ll never part with it, nor with my sewin’-machine.”
    â€œDon’t blame you none,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I feel the same way about my rockin’-chair.”
    Mama looked at the bed on the jalopy and sighed. “I never thought I’d part with our iron bed——”
    â€œ What you going to do with our bed, Papa ?” cried Judy. Suddenly she realized what was happening.
    â€œOh, you’ll be glad it’s gone,” said Mrs. Harmon practically. “Nobody carries beds along. I bet there ain’t