“Je vois que vous avez combattu non loin de la Normandie, Monsieur Sullivan. J’avais un frère qui a débarqué à Utah Beach,” she said.
“You don’t say, Warden. I don’t recall running into a Sanders serving over there. I hope your brother has at least a few fond memories like me.” Buttermilk grinned.
Warden turned to me. “My, aren’t we full of surprises,Coosee.A hillbilly who can speak French.” She threw back her head and laughed.
“Fille de la montagne,” I corrected, switching out the insulting word withmountain girl.
“Hillbilly,” she quipped.
If she was surprised that a hillbilly like me could learn French, I was just as flabbergasted by her unpolished tongue. The word came from those who’d never been born here—never set foot in Kentucky. Instead, it had been harvested from the mirth of stick-throated foreigners in their newsprint, advertisements, and drawings.
Pa’d taught me as a child and then told me never to repeat the ugly word, not even in jest.
She raised a brow, threaded with a hint of contempt that had me stepping back. “Have you visited France, Coosee?”
“I was schooled as a child, ma’am. Though it seems I’ve forgotten the lessons. But, Warden, you speak as if you grew up there.”
“DC,” she said haughtily and turned back to Buttermilk. “Well, I don’t know what we’d do without you, Mr. Sullivan.” Warden clasped her hands. “The library is really shaping up nicely thanks to all your hard work. Warden Alton just needs to send the painters over here, and it will be done.”
The older gentleman’s face flushed, and he thanked her in French.
I watched them bandying compliments back and forth, mystified by the warden’s behavior around the man.
She spun the globe and looked around. “Impressive, Mr. Sullivan.” Then: “Looks like you’ve got everything you need for your library, Lovett.” Her hand trailed down the soft fabric of the flag. “Except readers.”
Readers. She’d surely see my failure and fire me.
Buttermilk cast quizzical glances between us and cleared his throat. “Warden, I still need to switch out a few more deadelectrical outlets I’m waiting on to come in from the hardware store deliveryman. Can’t chance a shock. I also need to get the last of the ladder shelving together and replace several rungs. And I’m almost done building the library catalog chest; just need to get those brass pulls. The painters have been running behind. Be ready for visitors soon enough, ma’am.”
She glanced at her wristwatch and gestured to me. “Have Waldeen fix Mr. Sullivan a dinner tray and bring it to my office. Make sure he gets a generous helping of those apple dumplings she whipped up this morning.Anda tall, cold glass of buttermilk,” she added pleasantly enough. “Mr. Sullivan, I hope you’ll join me. I’d like to discuss our latest trouble with the boiler?”
***
I darted my eyes between the door and calendar, still waiting for my first patron, willing a reader to step inside. Fretting the day, hour, or minute when the warden would send me back to Laundry. Worse, lose her funding, dismiss me, and shut down the library.
I’d soon found myself avoiding her whenever she’d happen into the cafeteria or inspect a wing.
Another week had gone by, and nary a soul had graced the door. I lingered by the light switch, watching the second hand slip into another lost minute on a rainy Saturday, knowing I could do a lot of things, but I couldn’t stop the fear and repulsion the inmates regarded me with.
Couldn’t stop the ones I needed from not needing me.
I turned off the lights and rested my head against the wall in the darkness.
Mindless, I switched the light on and off.
My moods tangled between the soft clicks, the courage laddering and descending into a rumbling rhythm.
Stepping over to the library catalog case Buttermilk had built,I admired the tiny drawers full of index cards and his fine workmanship on the beautiful oak piece.
I thought about the hundred miles I’d traveled each week to reach my patrons. The thousands of books and reading material I’d dropped onto time-worn porches over the years, and how desperate the mountainfolk had been for any printed word.
It’d been a risk in the beginning. And Pa’d fought me every step of the way.
Some back home didn’t warm to the Pack Horse librarian program, and thefoolish booksandcoaxing notionsthey might invite, any more than they trusted the meddling government, visiting missionaries, or predatory rich from far off.
Others greedily fed their souls with hungry bellies, reaching for hope outside the hills.
And with the violent unrest of the bloody coal mine wars, starvation, influenzas, and the Depression taking their toll on the Kentucky man, it could be downright deadly trying to grow readers in those Troublesome parts.
