The Little Friend

That gospel program. It was something that haunted Charlotte, though she’d never mentioned it to anyone. If Ida hadn’t had that racket turned up so loud they might have heard what was going on in the yard, might have known that something was wrong. But then (tossing in her bed at night, trying restlessly to trace events to a possible First Cause) it was she who had made pious Ida work on Sunday in the first place. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Jehovah in the Old Testament was always smiting people down for far less.

These rolls is nearly done, Ida Rhew said, stooping to the oven again.

Ida, I’ll get those. I think it’s about to rain. Why don’t you bring the clothes in and call Robin to supper.

When Ida—grouchy and stiff—creaked back in with an armload of white shirts, she said: He won’t come.

You tell him to get in here this minute.

I don’t know where he is. I done called half a dozen times.

Maybe he’s across the street.

Ida dropped the shirts in the ironing basket. The screen door banged shut. Robin, Charlotte heard her yell. You come on, or I’ll switch your legs.

And then, again: Robin!

But Robin didn’t come.

Oh, for Heaven’s sake, said Charlotte, drying her hands on a kitchen towel, and went out into the yard.

Once she was there she realized, with a slight unease that was more irritation than anything else, that she had no idea where to look. His bicycle was leaning against the porch. He knew not to wander off so close to dinnertime, especially when they had company.

Robin! she called. Was he hiding? No children his age lived in the neighborhood, and though every now and then unkempt children—black and white—wandered up from the river to the wide, oak-shaded sidewalks of George Street, she didn’t see any of them now. Ida forbade him to play with them, though sometimes he did anyway. The smallest ones were pitiful, with their scabbed knees and dirty feet; though Ida Rhew shooed them roughly from the yard, Charlotte, in tender-hearted moods, sometimes gave them quarters or glasses of lemonade. But when they grew older—thirteen or fourteen—she was glad to retreat into the house and allow Ida to be as fierce as she liked in chasing them away. They shot BB guns at dogs, stole things from people’s porches, used bad language, and ran the streets till all hours of the night.

Ida said: Some of them trashy little boys was running down the street a while ago.

When Ida said trashy, she meant white. Ida hated the poor white children and blamed them with unilateral ferocity for all yard mishaps, even those with which Charlotte was certain they could have had nothing possibly to do.

Was Robin with them? said Charlotte.

Nome.

Where are they now?

I run them off.

Which way?

Yunder towards the depot.

Old Mrs. Fountain from next door, in her white cardigan and harlequin glasses, had come out into her yard to see what was happening. Close behind was her decrepit poodle, Mickey, with whom she shared a comical resemblance: sharp nose, stiff gray curls, suspicious thrust of chin.

Well, she called gaily. Yall having a big party over there?

Just the family, Charlotte called back, scanning the darkening horizon behind Natchez Street where the train tracks stretched flat in the distance. She should have invited Mrs. Fountain to dinner. Mrs. Fountain was a widow, and her only child had died in the Korean War, but she was a complainer and a vicious busybody. Mr. Fountain, who ran a dry-cleaning business, had died fairly young, and people joked that she had talked him into the ground.

What’s wrong? Mrs. Fountain said.

You haven’t seen Robin, have you?

No. I’ve been upstairs cleaning out this attic all afternoon. I know I look like a great big mess. See all this trash I hauled out? I know the garbage man doesn’t come until Tuesday and I hate to just leave it out on the street like this but I don’t know what else to do. Where’d Robin run off to? Can’t you find him?

I’m sure he didn’t go far, said Charlotte, stepping out on the sidewalk to peer down the street. But it’s suppertime.

It’s fixin to thunder, said Ida Rhew, gazing up at the sky.

You don’t reckon he fell in the fishpond, do you? Mrs. Fountain said anxiously. I always was afraid that one of those babies was going to fall in there.

That fishpond isn’t a foot deep, Charlotte said, but all the same she turned and headed toward the back yard.

Edie had come out onto the porch. Anything the matter? she said.

He’s not in the back, yelled Ida Rhew. I looked already.

As Charlotte went past the open kitchen window on the side of the house, she could still hear Ida’s gospel program:

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling

Calling for you and for me

See, by the portals he’s waiting and watching …