Nick & Carter Holiday #8
Sunday, March 31, 1929
Mrs. Wilson Jones (Louise) of Albany, Georgia, wakes up on yet another Sunday morning to discover her husband didn't come home after carousing down at Louray's by the river.
But she doesn't have time to worry. Easter dinner will be at her sister's house and Mrs. Jones has biscuits to bake. So, she turns on the radio, begins to sing with The Chambers Family Quintet, broadcasting over WSJ in Atlanta, and gets the buttermilk out of the icebox. There's work to be done and Mrs. Jones is a good cook, keeps a clean house, and always delivers on her promises.
Although this is an entry in the Nick & Carter Holiday series, Easter 1929 is a snapshot in the life of 8 year old Carter, long before meeting Nick. Having yet to read the Nick Williams Mystery series, I have only seen snippets of the characters both as a pair and individuals through these short stories so I imagine, like the other 3 I've read, we see reasons why Carter, in part at least, feels the way he does in regard to family and childhood.
As for Easter, 1929 I can't help but be reminded of my own grandfather who would also have been 8 that year(though only 7 at Easter) and a year later his mother died from breast cancer and his aunt moved in to help his dad raise him and his 2 sisters. From the stories I've heard, I can see similarities between Carter's family members and my grandfathers'(although my grandfather utterly adored his mother and took her death very hard and his dad was an uber Dutch Reformed Church member not a drunk) and I couldn't help but picture a young Berdean Vande Vrede in Carter's place. So not only is this short a very intriguing and I imagine telling peak into events that helped shape Carter into the man who falls for Nick Williams but it also helped me play out that moment in time in my grandpa's life in my mind's eye. I find stories that help the reader connect on a personal level and absolute treasure and that's what Easter, 1929 is for me.
I don't know just when I'll get to read the original Nick Williams Mystery series(I will though and I already have the first 2 on my kindle) but believe me with each new holiday short, it moves up a few notches on my TBR list.
Chapter 1
736 West 2nd Avenue
Albany, Ga.
Sunday, March 31, 1929
Half past 6 in the morning
Mrs. Wilson Jones (Louise) opened her eyes just as the sun began to flood the windows of her modest bedroom. Without looking, she tentatively reached out with her left hand and discovered that her husband was, once again, not in bed beside her on a Sunday morning. This was no surprise to Mrs. Jones, but she was disappointed that he hadn't bothered to show up before dawn on Easter Morning.
With a sigh, she threw back the covers, which consisted of a thin cotton sheet, a thin summer blanket, and her grandmother's handmade quilt. Granny Carter had made a quilt for each of her three granddaughters. Mrs. Jones happened to possess the one that was mostly green and blue, and she was always grateful it was that one and not the one that her sister Maria had insisted on which was an awful red and black pattern.
As she stood, she pulled on her cotton nightgown and cinched it tightly around her waist. She loved the feeling of security that the extra hard tug on the belt would bring her. Walking into the small bathroom that was included with the bedroom, she took care of her morning business. Once she was done, she picked up the new cake of Ivory soap and vigorously washed her hands. She'd read in The Atlanta Journal about how important washing one's hands was as a morning ritual, particularly upon rising. It helped get rid of deadly germs and Mrs. Jones was a firm believer that her attention to household cleanliness was the primary reason her two sons, Robert, age 9, and Carter, age 8, had both grown up free of the usual early childhood ailments, except for the chickenpox which, as Mrs. Jones well knew, every boy and girl needed to get as a child in order to avoid problems when they were young adults.
Once she had thoroughly rinsed her hands, Mrs. Jones left the bathroom, ensuring her hands were dry before depressing the electric light switch. She quietly made her way through the bedroom and out onto the landing. She saw that the doors to her sons' bedrooms and the bathroom at the end were all hygienically closed with the dormers open above them.
She made her way cautiously down the stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for toys that one or both of her sons might have inadvertently brought out during the night (something they had never done but it didn't hurt to check) and then confidently put her foot on the floor at the bottom of the stairs and made a right, walking through the living room and dining room and towards the kitchen at the rear of the house.
As she walked past the new sofa (all of Mrs. Jones's furniture was new, having been purchased in February when they took possession of the new house her husband had bought, all cash), she glanced to see if the sleeping body of her husband might be visible. It was not.
Mrs. Jones pinched herself on the inside skin of her left wrist in order to banish the passing hope that she might find his dead body strewn about somewhere out front or, preferably, in the backyard where the neighbors would be less likely to see it. Of course, Mrs. Jones considered, as she opened the radio cabinet door to switch on station WSB broadcasting from Atlanta, that, when the police arrived to take her statement as the grieving widow (Mrs. Jones liked that phrase—it gave her immense satisfaction), the neighbors would then have to know what happened. News would, as it always did in both white and colored Albany, spread like wildfire. The neighboring housewives, like Mrs. John Colbert (Roberta) who lived next door, would pick up their telephones (if they had one) and call their closest friends, making sure to speak loud enough for their colored maids to hear, like Ninny, Mrs. Colbert's maid who had also worked for Mrs. Colbert's mother until the poor dear passed in 1921. The colored maids would then tell the milkman or the butcher or the little colored boy who delivered the early-evening Atlanta Constitution all about it and the news would be off to the races.
As the radio began to warm up and she could hear the familiar voices of The Chambers Family Quintet singing "Bringing in the Sheaves," Mrs. Jones pinched herself one more time. She asked herself, "What sort of woman entertains such morbid thoughts?" Although, in her heart of hearts, Mrs. Jones well knew the answer, she was unwilling to look there. Instead, as she pulled out the pitcher of buttermilk from the icebox, she began to sing along with Hannah Chambers, the group's youngest member who was sweetly performing a solo on the second verse:
Sowing in the sunshine, sowing in the shadows,
Fearing neither clouds nor winter’s chilling breeze;
By and by the harvest, and the labor ended,
We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves.
That song always cheered her up. Mrs. Jones remembered seeing a photograph of the entire Chambers family in the Albany paper. The oldest had been the father, Adolphus, then his wife, Mary. In the paper, Mrs. Chambers had looked very strict but, being a Methodist, she would be. The oldest boy was Jeremiah, age 17, followed by Ezekiel, age 14, and then little Hannah, age 9. That was the same age as her Robert, and she was just as cute as you please. She had black hair pulled tightly into pigtails. Mrs. Jones had, on occasion, dreamed of having a daughter of her own. She could see her own little girl, blonde perhaps, sitting at a perfect little dressing table and allowing her perfectly shiny hair to be brushed a hundred times each night by her adoring mother. If she were only allowed to have two children, and Mrs. Jones had thought about this at length, she would have preferred to keep Robert and send Carter over to live with her sister Velma, who was childless, so she, Mrs. Jones, could welcome a little girl into the family home. Mrs. Jones was convinced that, if she ever had a girl baby, her husband would probably not drink as much as he did or be as rough with the children or with her as he was.
The phone in the living room suddenly burst through her reverie with the familiar two long rings followed by one short ring that meant the operator was calling their house. Mrs. Jones carefully covered the buttermilk pitcher with a towel to keep any flying or crawling bugs from getting in and immersing themselves into the liquid and become undetectable until someone accidentally found one in a biscuit. As the phone rang a second time, Mrs. Jones turned down the volume knob on the radio and then picked up the black candlestick phone, removed the receiver, placed it firmly against her ear to make sure she could clearly hear the far side of the conversation, and then conscientiously said directly into the device, "This is J-73."
"Louise?"
"Good morning, Velma. Happy Easter."
"Happy Easter to you, Louise. Did Wilson make it home yet?"
"No," was Mrs. Jones's crisp and curt reply.
"Well, I thought I'd call and let you know he should be on his way. Roscoe just crawled through the front door and he smells like the inside of distillery. I don't know yet whether he'll make it to church or not."
"Velma! It's Easter Sunday! What will the preacher think if you're there without him?"
Velma chuckled. "Brother Wilkins was down by the river with the rest of the sinners, Louise."
Mrs. Jones simply couldn't believe that was possible. "There must have been some sort of mistake, Velma. Brother Wilkins is a teetotaler. Everyone in town knows that."
Velma chuckled at the other end of the line again. Mrs. Jones hated when her sister laughed at her. She knew that Velma didn't keep to the same standards as herself. Mrs. Jones always felt as if she had to hold up the Carter family pride, even if Velma didn't. And Maria, their third sister, had a stubborn streak a mile wide so there was no reasoning with her. But Velma could be reasonable when she decided to. However, there were some things her sister did that Mrs. Jones simply could not abide.
One example that always got on her nerves was how Velma was so familiar with Mattie, her colored maid. It was all fine and well to talk about how those people were members of the family, but it really didn't do to be going over and having tea in dark town. It just wasn't right. Mrs. Jones, of course, didn't have a maid. Wilson didn't like having colored in the house, even if they only worked in the kitchen and came in through the back door. Mrs. Jones thought it was all for the best, in any event. She was sure Wilson would have been rude to anyone who came in to help. Besides, she could do her own housework, thank you very much. She never understood why Velma kept Mattie on. She didn't have any children. Of course, she and Leroy did live in that big old house just outside of downtown. But still—
"Louise? Are you there?"
"Yes, Velma."
"You didn't answer my question."
"What question was that?"
Velma sighed. "Are you still planning on bringing your biscuits over for Easter dinner today? If not, I need to let Mattie know right this minute. Otherwise, I'll be in trouble again and she might not cook dinner."
"Really, Velma. The way you let that woman boss you around is just shameful."
"Is that a yes or a no?"
"Of course I'll bring my biscuits," replied Mrs. Jones with a sharp tone of irritation in her voice. "But how can I cook if I'm spending the whole blessed morning on the phone?"
With that, her sister hung up.
Welcome to a year of holidays with Nick Williams and Carter Jones!
This is a series of short stories with each centered around a specific holiday.
From New Year's Day to Boxing Day, each story stands on its own and might occur in any year from the early 1920s to the first decade of the 21st Century.
Saturday Series Spotlights
Author Bio:
Frank W. Butterfield is the Amazon best-selling author of 89 (and counting) self-published novels, novellas, and short stories. Born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, he has traveled all over the US and Canada and now makes his home in Daytona Beach, Florida. His first attempt at writing at the age of nine with a ball-point pen and a notepad was a failure. Forty years later, he tried again and hasn't stopped since.
Easter, 1929 #8
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