Granny Godfroy Makes Spaghetti
by Kathy Warnes
(The first chapter of my book called, "Granny Godfroy Grows Up."
Letter to Papa, Somewhere on a Freight Train Heading West
Dear Papa,
You got to come and get me. Freddy can stay here with Granny Godfroy if he wants to, but you got to come and get me! She has purple hair!
Your daughter,
Francine Amalie Antoinette LeBlanc
P.S. This is what happened our first night at Granny Godfroy’s. Mama had already left to take care of that rich family on Grosse Pointe. She isn’t coming back until next Friday.
……………………………………………………………………
Me and Freddy sat at Granny Godfroy’s round, splintery wooden table. We looked at each other and Freddy lifted his eyebrow at me, like he always does when he’s saying, “sei la vie, oh well, things could get worse.” They are already as bad as they can get. Me and Freddy had to move out of our nice house in Detroit where I had my own bedroom and doll bed. We had to move to this place called Ecorse. It’s a bunch of wooden houses along the Detroit River. Granny lives in one of those little houses, right next to a marsh. Something called the Depression came to America and it took everybody’s money away. Mama had to go work for a rich family in Grosse Pointe way down the River in the other direction. She can only come home on weekends and Freddy and me have to live with Granny Godfroy.
“Who is Granny Godfroy?” I hollered at her when she told us.
“She’s my Mama, like I’m your Mama.”
“Then why haven’t we ever visited her?”
“Because she and my Papa didn’t want me to marry your Papa,” Mama said sadly. “And perhaps they were right. Your Papa did leave us to take the train west when Freddy was a baby and you were just three.”
I could remember a few things about being three, like singing Frere Jacques. The only thing I remembered about Papa was the way he burped after he drank his tea. I looked through our tiny wooden house on Godfrey Street in Detroit. That wasn’t hard to do. We lived in what Mama called a shotgun house. You could stand by the kitchen door and look straight through it.
Now all I saw was a bare lonely house with a single scrap of paper huddled in a corner of the parlor. I hugged my doll Pierre up tight against my heart. The parlor furniture was all gone. Mama said she had gotten $60.00 for our horsehair couch and chairs. Mama’s bedroom didn’t have any furniture in it, either, just a pile of blankets where Mama had slept for the past two nights. A wooden table and chairs still stood in our kitchen. Mama said that she agreed to leave the table and chairs there for the new owners. Me and Freddy slept in the other bedroom. We had divided it down the middle with an imaginary line like the equator. My side of the line was empty. Freddy’s had clothes and tinker toys scattered around it.
“Freddy, you have to come and clean your side of the bedroom,” I shouted.
Mama came up behind me. “He’s over at Jacob’s saying goodbye, Francine. He’ll do it later. Did you say goodbye to Mary?”
I tossed my head and hugged Pierre harder. “I said goodbye to her in school. I won’t miss her. I’ll make new friends in Ecorse.”
“You’ll miss her and it’s wise to keep old friends,” Mama said smiling at me and touching my cheek ligh “Mama, why do we have to move?”
“Because, Francine, Mr. and Mrs. Benton moved from Detroit to Grosse Pointe and they asked me to move with them. They pay me too good of a wage for me not to go.”
“Why can’t we just stay here in our own house?”
“Because I can’t come home on the train every night and take it back every morning. I have to stay at the Bentons all week and you and Freddy can’t stay here alone.”
“We could manage, Mama. I can cook and clean and look after Freddy.”
“Francine, you two fight like cats and birds.”
“Mama, I promise we won’t fight if you let us stay home.”
Mama patted my shoulder. “Granny Godfroy offered to let you and Freddy live with her all week and go to school in Ecorse. It’s for the best Francine, and you’ll get used to it.”
“I never will,” I said, sobbing and holding Pierre.
Granny picked us up at our house in Detroit. Mama had sold our furniture at a moving sale. I sold my doll bed for a quarter, but I kept my doll Pierre. Pierre is a girl, but I named her after my grandfather Pierre. Grandpere Pierre came to Ecorse when the Indians still lived there. The Indians liked him so much that they gave him a farm by the River and he built a house on it. That’s where Granny Godfroy lives now. Mama got on the train to go to her job in Grosse Pointe. Granny kissed her and said, “I will see you on the weekend, dear Madeleine. Don’t worry about the children. I’ll take good care of them just like I took good care of you. “Come children, it’s time to go,” she said
I looked around, but I didn’t see a horse and buggy and I didn’t see a car.
“Are we going to walk to Ecorse?” Freddy asked her.
“Mon dieu, no,” Granny said, her purple hair quivering in the breeze. It igzagged around her head like blades of grass, with one tuft sticking up right in the center of her head. “We’re going to take the River.”
“How can we take the river?” I asked.
Freddy snickered. “Do we have to give it back?”
I glared at him, but he stuck out his tongue at me. Granny hitched her thumbs under her overall straps and pulled them up off the ground. Papa, did I tell you that she wears blue denim overalls and red and white checked shirts? Mama wears dresses and she has brown hair that wraps itself around her head
“Come along, chere, I’ll show you,” Granny Godfroy said. She took my hand, but I let go of her hand right away. She had dirt under her fingernails and she was holding a fishhook.
“I’m sorry, Francine. I forgot I went fishing before I came to pick up you and Freddy. Wait ‘til you see the fish I caught for supper.”
I wanted to wait, but Granny and Freddy wouldn’t let me. They dragged me down to the dock by the river. Someone had abandoned a rickety boat there. A tiny cabin jutted into the air like Freddy sticking out his tongue. The cabin had a crooked window with bed sheet curtains covering it. A rail curved around the deck like a snake and every other shingle on the cabin roof was missing.
“What an awful boat,” I said, hugging Pierre tighter.
“Thank you. This is the Frere Jacques. Come aboard,” Granny told me.
“Wow!” Freddy the traitor said. He down the dock, up the gangplank and got on that Frere Jacques. Granny and I went more slowly. “How do you make it run?” I asked her.
Granny moved her arms like Popeye the sailor. “You make it run with muscle power,” she said.
“Whose muscle?” I asked her suspiciously.
“Well, usually mine, but I thought maybe you and Freddy might like to help me row back to Ecorse.”
Freddy grabbed the oars and started working them. We went in circles for a few minutes before Granny finally stopped him and showed him how to pull the oars together so that we could get away from the dock and head down the river toward Ecorse. “Don’t row so hard,” I told Freddy. “You’re getting Pierre’s dress all wet.”
Freddy answered me by flipping a batch of water on me with an oar. I stood up ready to tackle him, but Granny reached over and firmly sat me down. “Sit down, Francine, before you tip us over,” she said. “We must practice your swimming tomorrow.”
"I already know how to swim. Mary’s father took us to the lake and taught us.” “You can teach me, Granny,” Freddy said. “I want to swim all of the way across the River.”
She smiled at us both. “Practice makes perfect,” she said. “We’ll have swimming practice every day until you can race the sturgeon and win.”
I wanted to know what a sturgeon was but I wouldn’t ask her. I just sat holding Pierre and wishing the trip would be over. I wanted Papa to come and rescue me. I wanted Mama.
Her voice broke into my wishes. “Come, Francine, it’s your turn to row.”
Instead of telling her that I had never rowed a boat before, I took the oars and put Pierre on my lap. I leaned forward and pulled at the oars. Pierre fell off my lap and the muscles in my shoulders pulled.
“Good start,” Granny said. “Keep pulling but make sure you keep the oars in the water. If you take them out you row choppy and uneven and you splash.”
I got a splinter in my finger and blisters on my hands before we reached Granny’s farm, but I rowed better than Freddy did. After Granny tied the boat up to her dock, I thought I saw her smiling at me, but I looked down at the splinter in my finger and hugged Pierre. I wanted to go home.
“This will be your home for as long as you want it to be,” Granny told us as she led us along a dirt path through the marsh. “Filled this in myself,” she said. “Took me a year or so, but I did it so visitors would have easy walking.” Next, we climbed a hill with grass and white birch trees growing on it, and then we came to a garden full of vegetables. Freddy ran ahead and picked a ripe, red tomato and some snap beans. He crunched on one and held out a tomato and some beans to me
“Take a bite,” he said. “They’re good.”
I pushed them out of his hand. “Nothing here is as good as home,” I shouted.
Granny looked thoughtful, but she didn’t yell at me. She pointed up ahead where some apple and pear trees grew next to a log cabin.
“Does Pierre like pears?” she asked. “There are some delicious ripe pears growing on those pear trees.”
I hurried to the pear trees. Granny had been telling me the truth. The pears smelled and tasted as good as chocolate ice cream or tootsie rolls, my favorite candy. I stopped long enough from eating two of them to ask Pierre if she wanted a bite, but she took so long to answer I couldn’t wait. I ate those pears.
While I munched on pears, Granny took us to the other side of the cabin where there was a fenced in square. Weird noises came from inside the square. I could near them over the sounds of me munching pears. “Harold, be quiet!” Granny shouted.
My words ran away from me again around bites of pear. “Who is Harold?” I asked Granny.
“Harold is my pet pig. He likes to make a lot of noise, but he’s gentle as a lamb,” Granny said. “And much smarter.”
I wrinkled my nose as we walked by Harold’s pen. “And much smellier too,” I said.
“Nobody’s perfect,” Granny told us as she opened the door of the cabin. “Enter in peace,” she said. Harold followed us, so I didn’t enter in peace. I entered looked around
I made Freddy go first, but I went in, because there was no room to run away and Pierre was hungry since she hadn’t gotten any of the pears. Granny showed us our rooms. Freddy’s was upstairs in the loft. He had to climb a ladder to get up there, but his bed slats were covered with a fluffy featherbed, feather pillows and three patchwork quilts. A wooden wardrobe stood in the corner. “Open the wardrobe,” Granny said.
Freddy ran over and opened the wardrobe. He pulled out a fishing pole. “Wow, Granny. Are we going fishing?”
“As often as we can,” Granny said. “I’ll teach you how to trap muskrat, too.”
She had Freddy, but she didn’t have me, not even when we climbed back down the ladder and she opened a store bought door and took us into a room with a doll bed in the corner. “I built that bed especially for Pierre. Why don’t you settle Pierre in her bed,” Granny asked me.
I hugged Pierre close to my heart. “She’s not ready for bed. She hasn’t had her supper, yet,” I said.
“Well, let’s have supper,” Granny said, leading us into the kitchen. A maple table and chair sat by the window close to the stove. Behind the stove lay a square of cloth, as large as one of Mama’s table cloths. On it laid some smaller squares, like place mats. I pointed to it. “What’s that?” I asked Granny.
“That’s Harold’s table and place mat.”
“In the kitchen?” I asked.
“He’s cleaner than a lot of people,” Granny said. “What are you cooking for supper?” Freddy asked.
“I’m cooking some fish and potatoes.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t like fish,” I said, kicking Freddy.
Freddy didn’t say anything for a minute. I kicked him again. “I don’t like fish either,” he said.
“Then I’ll cook you some muskrat,” Granny said.
“I never had muskrat,” Freddy said. “What does it taste like?”
“I don’t like muskrat,” I said.
“Sit down. We’ll talk turkey,” Granny Godfroy said.
“I don’t like turkey either,” I told her, although it’s my favorite.
Granny pointed out a chair. “Sit down,” she said firmly.
Me and Freddy sat at Granny Godfroy’s round, splintery wooden table. Freddy raised his eyebrows like question marks. I knew that meant he was wondering about something, maybe about this living with Granny idea. Granny stood at the wood burning kitchen stove, twirling her iron skillet. “What should I cook in this skillet for supper?” she asked.
“We could have chocolate mouse,” I said, remembering a picture from Mama’s magazines.
“I don’t have any chocolate mice, just plain brown ones, “ Granny said.
“We could have black licorice,” Freddy said.
“What would you like for supper then?” Granny asked.
I looked at Granny’s spiky purple hair and overalls and checked shirt. I closed my eyes and went through my list of favorite foods.. I chose the one that I thought Granny wouldn’t know about. “Spaghetti,” I said.
Granny smiled. “Spaghetti it is,” she said. “Come and help me.”
Granny filled a large kettle with water and put it on the stove. Granny stood still for a minute and scratched her chin. “What’s spaghetti and how do you make it?”
“Mama boils water for spaghetti in one pan and then she makes sauce in another,” I said. I pointed to some tomatoes in a basket by the sink. “You make sauce out of tomatoes and spices and sugar and vinegar.”
“I see,” Granny said. She threw three tomatoes into the pot of water on the stove. Granny rummaged in the cupboard and took out a bag of sugar and a bottle of vinegar. She threw them into the pot. Then she went inside the pantry and came back carrying a jar of pickles. She handed the jar to Freddy. “Open these please,” she said.
Freddy grunted and groaned, but he couldn’t get that jar of pickles open.
“Give it to me,” I said. “Pierre and me will open it.”
With one twist, we opened the jar.
Granny took it from me and dumped the entire jar of pickles in the spaghetti sauce pan on the stove. “Why did you name your doll Pierre?” she asked me.
“Mama said that her Papa’s name was Pierre. I had named her Louis, after Papa, but Mama looked like she would cry every time I talked to my doll, so I changed her name to Pierre.”
“That was a thoughtful thing to do,” Granny Godfroy said, dumping four whole tomatoes into the sauce.
“Granny, you have to peel the tomatoes first,” Freddy said. “Mama always peels the tomatoes first.”
“You aren’t supposed to put the bag and bottle in the pot. You have to measure out the sugar and vinegar,” I told her.
“Too much bother,” Granny said, fishing out the bag and the bottle. “Cooking them together saves time and bother.”
Granny Godfroy handed me three platters. “Here are your plates.” She handed Freddy three soup ladles. “Here are your knives and forks. Now set the table children, while I finish the spaghetti.”
“You don’t have any spaghetti,” Freddy said.
“I’ll make some,” Granny said. “What does it look like?”
“Spaghetti looks like worms,” Freddy said.
Granny mixed some flour and water and salt and eggs. With her rolling pin she rolled out the noodles so skinny that they looked like worms. Granny twirled a spaghetti worm around her finger. “Like this?” she asked.
“Something like that, “ Freddy said. “Only just a little bit skinnier.”
“Show me,” Granny said.
Freddy showed her.
Granny smiled. “Now you show me how you like your spaghetti noodles, Francine.”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t like spaghetti,” I said.
“Let me cook it. You might change your mind,” Granny said.
Granny stirred and stirred. A tomato-sugar-vinegar smell floated around the room. The spaghetti and sauce cooked inside the pot so energetically that the pot danced back and forth on the stove. Granny danced around stirring it. “Alouette, gentile Alouette,” she sang in time to the pot dancing. That traitor Freddy danced and sang with her. I sat at the table, sniffing the air. The spaghetti smelled good, but I had watched Granny make it, so I wasn’t eating any of it.
The pot finally stopped dancing and Granny ladled spaghetti onto the platters. We sat down at the table. Freddy took a ladle bite of his spaghetti. Most of it dribbled down his chin. “Francine, it’s good. Try it!” he shouted.
“Mama always tells you not to shout at the table,” I said.
“This is Granny’s table,” Freddy said. “Look at her.” I stared at Granny. Granny had caught a clump of spaghetti in her ladle spoon and was slurping it into her mouth, noodle by noodle.
“Wow Granny! How did you do that?” Freddy asked her.
“It’s all in the pucker,” Granny said. “Watch me carefully.”
Freddy watched her. “Hooray!” he shouted. “Granny, you’re the best spaghetti puckerer I ever saw. You’re even better than Jake.”
Encouraged, Granny put some spaghetti on Harold’s plate and he slurped right along with her, making a horrible sucking noise. I buried my face in Pierre’s dress. The noise stopped so I looked to see why. Harold had tried to slurp three pieces of spaghetti all at once and they had wound around his nose and mouth and chin so tightly that he couldn’t open his mouth. Laughing, Granny rescued him and the noise started up again. I wish Granny hadn’t rescued him.
“Francine, aren’t you going to finish your spaghetti?” Granny asked me.
I looked down at Pierre and smoothed her dress. “Pierre’s tired. She’ s ready to go to bed,” I told Granny.
We went to Freddy’s room first. I sat in the chair in the corner and watched Granny turn down his bed and take out a pair of striped pajamas from the wardrobe. After Freddy washed in the water pitcher and ran back downstairs and outside to the outhouse and back up the ladder to the loft, he dove into that bed like it was a bed of black licorice that he loved so much. Granny tucked him in and then she settled back in the chair, cracked her knuckles, ran her fingers through her purple hair and said, “Now for the bedtime story. I’ll tell you a story about Harold when he was young.”
“How long have you had Harold?” Freddy asked her. He looked so comfortable leaning back against those snow white pillows with the patchwork quilts tucked up to his chin. I wanted to pull them off him. I would have done it too, if Granny had gone downstairs.
“I’ve had Harold for a twenty years. Pigs live a long time if you take good care of them,” Granny said. “And I had Harold’s father Herman as a pet before him. Do you want to hear a story about Harold’s father Herman?”
“Can I go to my room?” I asked.
“Come along, Francine.” Granny Godfroy picked up a kerosene lamp and climbed back down the loft ladder and I followed her. Looking down at the top of her head made me feel like I was lost in a meadow of purple grass.
Granny led me to door behind the kitchen stove. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a tiny room. I blinked. The room was painted a bright pink, the kind of pink you see in a sunrise. Even the curtains at the windows were pink. A pink patchwork quilt was spread over the bed. Granny lifted up the quilt. Underneath it was a pink feather bed and the pillows were also pink. “Took me a lot of dying Granny said, but you were worth it, Francine. I started working on it as soon as I found out you were coming to stay with me. She pulled open the door of the wooden wardrobe that stood in the corner. She threw me a flannel nightgown, pink of course, and a pink bathrobe. “Quick, put these on and we’ll go back up into Freddy’s room and finish the story,” she said.
Granny stood looking out the window while I put on my nightclothes. “The frogs are going on and on tonight,” she said. “We oughta go frog hunting tomorrow night.”
My stomach jumped like a frog at the thought, but to keep from answering Granny, I pulled on the night gown and robe.
Granny helped me tug the nightgown over my head. “Or we could knit in the parlor she said. Your Mama used to like to sit in the parlor with me and knit.”
I grabbed Pierre and stood in the middle of the braided rug beside the bed. “I want to go to my own home,” I said.
“I know you do, Francine,” Granny said gently. “But you’ll just have to use this home for awhile until your Mama can get you another home. Are you ready to go back to Freddy’s room so we can have a bedtime story?”
I headed back toward the loft ladder without answering her. This time I climbed in front of her so I wouldn’t have to feel like I was drowning in a sea of purple grass.
Freddy was sitting up in bed waiting for us. “Are you going to tell us a story about Harold?” Freddy said as soon as we came into his room.
“I’m going to tell you a story about Harold,” Granny said laughing. She sat on Freddy’s bed and patted to a spot beside her. “Do you and Pierre want to sit down, Francine?”
“No, we can stand here,” I said.
(Here is the rest of the story.
(The first chapter of my book called, "Granny Godfroy Grows Up."
Letter to Papa, Somewhere on a Freight Train Heading West
Dear Papa,
You got to come and get me. Freddy can stay here with Granny Godfroy if he wants to, but you got to come and get me! She has purple hair!
Your daughter,
Francine Amalie Antoinette LeBlanc
P.S. This is what happened our first night at Granny Godfroy’s. Mama had already left to take care of that rich family on Grosse Pointe. She isn’t coming back until next Friday.
……………………………………………………………………
Me and Freddy sat at Granny Godfroy’s round, splintery wooden table. We looked at each other and Freddy lifted his eyebrow at me, like he always does when he’s saying, “sei la vie, oh well, things could get worse.” They are already as bad as they can get. Me and Freddy had to move out of our nice house in Detroit where I had my own bedroom and doll bed. We had to move to this place called Ecorse. It’s a bunch of wooden houses along the Detroit River. Granny lives in one of those little houses, right next to a marsh. Something called the Depression came to America and it took everybody’s money away. Mama had to go work for a rich family in Grosse Pointe way down the River in the other direction. She can only come home on weekends and Freddy and me have to live with Granny Godfroy.
“Who is Granny Godfroy?” I hollered at her when she told us.
“She’s my Mama, like I’m your Mama.”
“Then why haven’t we ever visited her?”
“Because she and my Papa didn’t want me to marry your Papa,” Mama said sadly. “And perhaps they were right. Your Papa did leave us to take the train west when Freddy was a baby and you were just three.”
I could remember a few things about being three, like singing Frere Jacques. The only thing I remembered about Papa was the way he burped after he drank his tea. I looked through our tiny wooden house on Godfrey Street in Detroit. That wasn’t hard to do. We lived in what Mama called a shotgun house. You could stand by the kitchen door and look straight through it.
Now all I saw was a bare lonely house with a single scrap of paper huddled in a corner of the parlor. I hugged my doll Pierre up tight against my heart. The parlor furniture was all gone. Mama said she had gotten $60.00 for our horsehair couch and chairs. Mama’s bedroom didn’t have any furniture in it, either, just a pile of blankets where Mama had slept for the past two nights. A wooden table and chairs still stood in our kitchen. Mama said that she agreed to leave the table and chairs there for the new owners. Me and Freddy slept in the other bedroom. We had divided it down the middle with an imaginary line like the equator. My side of the line was empty. Freddy’s had clothes and tinker toys scattered around it.
“Freddy, you have to come and clean your side of the bedroom,” I shouted.
Mama came up behind me. “He’s over at Jacob’s saying goodbye, Francine. He’ll do it later. Did you say goodbye to Mary?”
I tossed my head and hugged Pierre harder. “I said goodbye to her in school. I won’t miss her. I’ll make new friends in Ecorse.”
“You’ll miss her and it’s wise to keep old friends,” Mama said smiling at me and touching my cheek ligh “Mama, why do we have to move?”
“Because, Francine, Mr. and Mrs. Benton moved from Detroit to Grosse Pointe and they asked me to move with them. They pay me too good of a wage for me not to go.”
“Why can’t we just stay here in our own house?”
“Because I can’t come home on the train every night and take it back every morning. I have to stay at the Bentons all week and you and Freddy can’t stay here alone.”
“We could manage, Mama. I can cook and clean and look after Freddy.”
“Francine, you two fight like cats and birds.”
“Mama, I promise we won’t fight if you let us stay home.”
Mama patted my shoulder. “Granny Godfroy offered to let you and Freddy live with her all week and go to school in Ecorse. It’s for the best Francine, and you’ll get used to it.”
“I never will,” I said, sobbing and holding Pierre.
Granny picked us up at our house in Detroit. Mama had sold our furniture at a moving sale. I sold my doll bed for a quarter, but I kept my doll Pierre. Pierre is a girl, but I named her after my grandfather Pierre. Grandpere Pierre came to Ecorse when the Indians still lived there. The Indians liked him so much that they gave him a farm by the River and he built a house on it. That’s where Granny Godfroy lives now. Mama got on the train to go to her job in Grosse Pointe. Granny kissed her and said, “I will see you on the weekend, dear Madeleine. Don’t worry about the children. I’ll take good care of them just like I took good care of you. “Come children, it’s time to go,” she said
I looked around, but I didn’t see a horse and buggy and I didn’t see a car.
“Are we going to walk to Ecorse?” Freddy asked her.
“Mon dieu, no,” Granny said, her purple hair quivering in the breeze. It igzagged around her head like blades of grass, with one tuft sticking up right in the center of her head. “We’re going to take the River.”
“How can we take the river?” I asked.
Freddy snickered. “Do we have to give it back?”
I glared at him, but he stuck out his tongue at me. Granny hitched her thumbs under her overall straps and pulled them up off the ground. Papa, did I tell you that she wears blue denim overalls and red and white checked shirts? Mama wears dresses and she has brown hair that wraps itself around her head
“Come along, chere, I’ll show you,” Granny Godfroy said. She took my hand, but I let go of her hand right away. She had dirt under her fingernails and she was holding a fishhook.
“I’m sorry, Francine. I forgot I went fishing before I came to pick up you and Freddy. Wait ‘til you see the fish I caught for supper.”
I wanted to wait, but Granny and Freddy wouldn’t let me. They dragged me down to the dock by the river. Someone had abandoned a rickety boat there. A tiny cabin jutted into the air like Freddy sticking out his tongue. The cabin had a crooked window with bed sheet curtains covering it. A rail curved around the deck like a snake and every other shingle on the cabin roof was missing.
“What an awful boat,” I said, hugging Pierre tighter.
“Thank you. This is the Frere Jacques. Come aboard,” Granny told me.
“Wow!” Freddy the traitor said. He down the dock, up the gangplank and got on that Frere Jacques. Granny and I went more slowly. “How do you make it run?” I asked her.
Granny moved her arms like Popeye the sailor. “You make it run with muscle power,” she said.
“Whose muscle?” I asked her suspiciously.
“Well, usually mine, but I thought maybe you and Freddy might like to help me row back to Ecorse.”
Freddy grabbed the oars and started working them. We went in circles for a few minutes before Granny finally stopped him and showed him how to pull the oars together so that we could get away from the dock and head down the river toward Ecorse. “Don’t row so hard,” I told Freddy. “You’re getting Pierre’s dress all wet.”
Freddy answered me by flipping a batch of water on me with an oar. I stood up ready to tackle him, but Granny reached over and firmly sat me down. “Sit down, Francine, before you tip us over,” she said. “We must practice your swimming tomorrow.”
"I already know how to swim. Mary’s father took us to the lake and taught us.” “You can teach me, Granny,” Freddy said. “I want to swim all of the way across the River.”
She smiled at us both. “Practice makes perfect,” she said. “We’ll have swimming practice every day until you can race the sturgeon and win.”
I wanted to know what a sturgeon was but I wouldn’t ask her. I just sat holding Pierre and wishing the trip would be over. I wanted Papa to come and rescue me. I wanted Mama.
Her voice broke into my wishes. “Come, Francine, it’s your turn to row.”
Instead of telling her that I had never rowed a boat before, I took the oars and put Pierre on my lap. I leaned forward and pulled at the oars. Pierre fell off my lap and the muscles in my shoulders pulled.
“Good start,” Granny said. “Keep pulling but make sure you keep the oars in the water. If you take them out you row choppy and uneven and you splash.”
I got a splinter in my finger and blisters on my hands before we reached Granny’s farm, but I rowed better than Freddy did. After Granny tied the boat up to her dock, I thought I saw her smiling at me, but I looked down at the splinter in my finger and hugged Pierre. I wanted to go home.
“This will be your home for as long as you want it to be,” Granny told us as she led us along a dirt path through the marsh. “Filled this in myself,” she said. “Took me a year or so, but I did it so visitors would have easy walking.” Next, we climbed a hill with grass and white birch trees growing on it, and then we came to a garden full of vegetables. Freddy ran ahead and picked a ripe, red tomato and some snap beans. He crunched on one and held out a tomato and some beans to me
“Take a bite,” he said. “They’re good.”
I pushed them out of his hand. “Nothing here is as good as home,” I shouted.
Granny looked thoughtful, but she didn’t yell at me. She pointed up ahead where some apple and pear trees grew next to a log cabin.
“Does Pierre like pears?” she asked. “There are some delicious ripe pears growing on those pear trees.”
I hurried to the pear trees. Granny had been telling me the truth. The pears smelled and tasted as good as chocolate ice cream or tootsie rolls, my favorite candy. I stopped long enough from eating two of them to ask Pierre if she wanted a bite, but she took so long to answer I couldn’t wait. I ate those pears.
While I munched on pears, Granny took us to the other side of the cabin where there was a fenced in square. Weird noises came from inside the square. I could near them over the sounds of me munching pears. “Harold, be quiet!” Granny shouted.
My words ran away from me again around bites of pear. “Who is Harold?” I asked Granny.
“Harold is my pet pig. He likes to make a lot of noise, but he’s gentle as a lamb,” Granny said. “And much smarter.”
I wrinkled my nose as we walked by Harold’s pen. “And much smellier too,” I said.
“Nobody’s perfect,” Granny told us as she opened the door of the cabin. “Enter in peace,” she said. Harold followed us, so I didn’t enter in peace. I entered looked around
I made Freddy go first, but I went in, because there was no room to run away and Pierre was hungry since she hadn’t gotten any of the pears. Granny showed us our rooms. Freddy’s was upstairs in the loft. He had to climb a ladder to get up there, but his bed slats were covered with a fluffy featherbed, feather pillows and three patchwork quilts. A wooden wardrobe stood in the corner. “Open the wardrobe,” Granny said.
Freddy ran over and opened the wardrobe. He pulled out a fishing pole. “Wow, Granny. Are we going fishing?”
“As often as we can,” Granny said. “I’ll teach you how to trap muskrat, too.”
She had Freddy, but she didn’t have me, not even when we climbed back down the ladder and she opened a store bought door and took us into a room with a doll bed in the corner. “I built that bed especially for Pierre. Why don’t you settle Pierre in her bed,” Granny asked me.
I hugged Pierre close to my heart. “She’s not ready for bed. She hasn’t had her supper, yet,” I said.
“Well, let’s have supper,” Granny said, leading us into the kitchen. A maple table and chair sat by the window close to the stove. Behind the stove lay a square of cloth, as large as one of Mama’s table cloths. On it laid some smaller squares, like place mats. I pointed to it. “What’s that?” I asked Granny.
“That’s Harold’s table and place mat.”
“In the kitchen?” I asked.
“He’s cleaner than a lot of people,” Granny said. “What are you cooking for supper?” Freddy asked.
“I’m cooking some fish and potatoes.”
I wrinkled my nose. “I don’t like fish,” I said, kicking Freddy.
Freddy didn’t say anything for a minute. I kicked him again. “I don’t like fish either,” he said.
“Then I’ll cook you some muskrat,” Granny said.
“I never had muskrat,” Freddy said. “What does it taste like?”
“I don’t like muskrat,” I said.
“Sit down. We’ll talk turkey,” Granny Godfroy said.
“I don’t like turkey either,” I told her, although it’s my favorite.
Granny pointed out a chair. “Sit down,” she said firmly.
Me and Freddy sat at Granny Godfroy’s round, splintery wooden table. Freddy raised his eyebrows like question marks. I knew that meant he was wondering about something, maybe about this living with Granny idea. Granny stood at the wood burning kitchen stove, twirling her iron skillet. “What should I cook in this skillet for supper?” she asked.
“We could have chocolate mouse,” I said, remembering a picture from Mama’s magazines.
“I don’t have any chocolate mice, just plain brown ones, “ Granny said.
“We could have black licorice,” Freddy said.
“What would you like for supper then?” Granny asked.
I looked at Granny’s spiky purple hair and overalls and checked shirt. I closed my eyes and went through my list of favorite foods.. I chose the one that I thought Granny wouldn’t know about. “Spaghetti,” I said.
Granny smiled. “Spaghetti it is,” she said. “Come and help me.”
Granny filled a large kettle with water and put it on the stove. Granny stood still for a minute and scratched her chin. “What’s spaghetti and how do you make it?”
“Mama boils water for spaghetti in one pan and then she makes sauce in another,” I said. I pointed to some tomatoes in a basket by the sink. “You make sauce out of tomatoes and spices and sugar and vinegar.”
“I see,” Granny said. She threw three tomatoes into the pot of water on the stove. Granny rummaged in the cupboard and took out a bag of sugar and a bottle of vinegar. She threw them into the pot. Then she went inside the pantry and came back carrying a jar of pickles. She handed the jar to Freddy. “Open these please,” she said.
Freddy grunted and groaned, but he couldn’t get that jar of pickles open.
“Give it to me,” I said. “Pierre and me will open it.”
With one twist, we opened the jar.
Granny took it from me and dumped the entire jar of pickles in the spaghetti sauce pan on the stove. “Why did you name your doll Pierre?” she asked me.
“Mama said that her Papa’s name was Pierre. I had named her Louis, after Papa, but Mama looked like she would cry every time I talked to my doll, so I changed her name to Pierre.”
“That was a thoughtful thing to do,” Granny Godfroy said, dumping four whole tomatoes into the sauce.
“Granny, you have to peel the tomatoes first,” Freddy said. “Mama always peels the tomatoes first.”
“You aren’t supposed to put the bag and bottle in the pot. You have to measure out the sugar and vinegar,” I told her.
“Too much bother,” Granny said, fishing out the bag and the bottle. “Cooking them together saves time and bother.”
Granny Godfroy handed me three platters. “Here are your plates.” She handed Freddy three soup ladles. “Here are your knives and forks. Now set the table children, while I finish the spaghetti.”
“You don’t have any spaghetti,” Freddy said.
“I’ll make some,” Granny said. “What does it look like?”
“Spaghetti looks like worms,” Freddy said.
Granny mixed some flour and water and salt and eggs. With her rolling pin she rolled out the noodles so skinny that they looked like worms. Granny twirled a spaghetti worm around her finger. “Like this?” she asked.
“Something like that, “ Freddy said. “Only just a little bit skinnier.”
“Show me,” Granny said.
Freddy showed her.
Granny smiled. “Now you show me how you like your spaghetti noodles, Francine.”
I closed my eyes. “I don’t like spaghetti,” I said.
“Let me cook it. You might change your mind,” Granny said.
Granny stirred and stirred. A tomato-sugar-vinegar smell floated around the room. The spaghetti and sauce cooked inside the pot so energetically that the pot danced back and forth on the stove. Granny danced around stirring it. “Alouette, gentile Alouette,” she sang in time to the pot dancing. That traitor Freddy danced and sang with her. I sat at the table, sniffing the air. The spaghetti smelled good, but I had watched Granny make it, so I wasn’t eating any of it.
The pot finally stopped dancing and Granny ladled spaghetti onto the platters. We sat down at the table. Freddy took a ladle bite of his spaghetti. Most of it dribbled down his chin. “Francine, it’s good. Try it!” he shouted.
“Mama always tells you not to shout at the table,” I said.
“This is Granny’s table,” Freddy said. “Look at her.” I stared at Granny. Granny had caught a clump of spaghetti in her ladle spoon and was slurping it into her mouth, noodle by noodle.
“Wow Granny! How did you do that?” Freddy asked her.
“It’s all in the pucker,” Granny said. “Watch me carefully.”
Freddy watched her. “Hooray!” he shouted. “Granny, you’re the best spaghetti puckerer I ever saw. You’re even better than Jake.”
Encouraged, Granny put some spaghetti on Harold’s plate and he slurped right along with her, making a horrible sucking noise. I buried my face in Pierre’s dress. The noise stopped so I looked to see why. Harold had tried to slurp three pieces of spaghetti all at once and they had wound around his nose and mouth and chin so tightly that he couldn’t open his mouth. Laughing, Granny rescued him and the noise started up again. I wish Granny hadn’t rescued him.
“Francine, aren’t you going to finish your spaghetti?” Granny asked me.
I looked down at Pierre and smoothed her dress. “Pierre’s tired. She’ s ready to go to bed,” I told Granny.
We went to Freddy’s room first. I sat in the chair in the corner and watched Granny turn down his bed and take out a pair of striped pajamas from the wardrobe. After Freddy washed in the water pitcher and ran back downstairs and outside to the outhouse and back up the ladder to the loft, he dove into that bed like it was a bed of black licorice that he loved so much. Granny tucked him in and then she settled back in the chair, cracked her knuckles, ran her fingers through her purple hair and said, “Now for the bedtime story. I’ll tell you a story about Harold when he was young.”
“How long have you had Harold?” Freddy asked her. He looked so comfortable leaning back against those snow white pillows with the patchwork quilts tucked up to his chin. I wanted to pull them off him. I would have done it too, if Granny had gone downstairs.
“I’ve had Harold for a twenty years. Pigs live a long time if you take good care of them,” Granny said. “And I had Harold’s father Herman as a pet before him. Do you want to hear a story about Harold’s father Herman?”
“Can I go to my room?” I asked.
“Come along, Francine.” Granny Godfroy picked up a kerosene lamp and climbed back down the loft ladder and I followed her. Looking down at the top of her head made me feel like I was lost in a meadow of purple grass.
Granny led me to door behind the kitchen stove. She grabbed my hand and pulled me into a tiny room. I blinked. The room was painted a bright pink, the kind of pink you see in a sunrise. Even the curtains at the windows were pink. A pink patchwork quilt was spread over the bed. Granny lifted up the quilt. Underneath it was a pink feather bed and the pillows were also pink. “Took me a lot of dying Granny said, but you were worth it, Francine. I started working on it as soon as I found out you were coming to stay with me. She pulled open the door of the wooden wardrobe that stood in the corner. She threw me a flannel nightgown, pink of course, and a pink bathrobe. “Quick, put these on and we’ll go back up into Freddy’s room and finish the story,” she said.
Granny stood looking out the window while I put on my nightclothes. “The frogs are going on and on tonight,” she said. “We oughta go frog hunting tomorrow night.”
My stomach jumped like a frog at the thought, but to keep from answering Granny, I pulled on the night gown and robe.
Granny helped me tug the nightgown over my head. “Or we could knit in the parlor she said. Your Mama used to like to sit in the parlor with me and knit.”
I grabbed Pierre and stood in the middle of the braided rug beside the bed. “I want to go to my own home,” I said.
“I know you do, Francine,” Granny said gently. “But you’ll just have to use this home for awhile until your Mama can get you another home. Are you ready to go back to Freddy’s room so we can have a bedtime story?”
I headed back toward the loft ladder without answering her. This time I climbed in front of her so I wouldn’t have to feel like I was drowning in a sea of purple grass.
Freddy was sitting up in bed waiting for us. “Are you going to tell us a story about Harold?” Freddy said as soon as we came into his room.
“I’m going to tell you a story about Harold,” Granny said laughing. She sat on Freddy’s bed and patted to a spot beside her. “Do you and Pierre want to sit down, Francine?”
“No, we can stand here,” I said.
(Here is the rest of the story.
granny_godfroy_grows_up_(2).pdf | |
File Size: | 479 kb |
File Type: |