CHAPTER ONE
The War Department sent the telegram dated October 25, 1919. Mister Egbert Jenkins, the local telegrapher, breathing heavily because of his heart condition, shuffled two blocks to our store to deliver the news the moment he received it. Coming along the walk, he saw me standing behind the store window holding a couple of hats that I was about to place on dummies. He held up the paper and waved it expecting me to understand its importance.
“Is your aunt here, Davy?” he said, his voice muffled by the glass.
Before I could reply, he came through the front door and spotted Aunt Esther at the counter half hidden behind a stack of bib overalls.
He crossed the floor and handed her the telegram. She took it, her eyes pinched in worry, which said she expected the worst, but as she began to read, her face lit with hope, and she began to cry, not the kind of hysterical sobbing I’ve seen from other women, but rather a few silent tears followed by a sniffle or two. Reaching into her apron pocket, she pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes, now rimmed in red. I had never seen her cry, not once in the ten years I’d lived with her and Uncle Marsh, not even at the funeral of my mother, her older sister, whose death had brought me to their home in the first place.
Mr. Jenkins reached across the counter and patted her hand. “Now, now Esther, everything’s going to be fine. He’s coming home.”
Embarrassed, I looked away and placed the hats on the dummies, pretending to position each just so and wondering what made Aunt Esther cry. The telegram obviously brought good news, so why would a person cry over good news? I felt much the same as my aunt―I was glad Uncle Marsh was coming home―yet no one would see me cry. Of course there was another explanation. A part of me felt a little intimidated. After all, Aunt Esther and I had run the business as well as our own lives for the past year and a half, and things ran smoothly. Now I wondered how our lives were going to change.
Don’t get me wrong. I was proud of Uncle Marsh, and any doubts were the doubts of a sixteen-year-old kid who didn’t like change. From the first day I entered their house, he treated me like I was his own son, praising me for my achievements, chastising me for my sins with a stern, cold look that proved far worse than any whipping. He never laid a hand on me, never once, not even when Ben Cooperson and I stole a pack of smokes from Wiggins’ General Store, although on that occasion he hauled my butt to the sheriff’s office where fat Harvey Ralston locked me up for a couple of hours. I was eleven at the time, and that scared the bejesus out of me.
The Courage of Others Description:
Sixteen-year-old Davy Stoneman accompanies his Aunt Esther to the train station to greet his Uncle Marsh, returning home to Twin Forks, Texas from World War I in 1919. When Davy’s uncle steps off the train, Davy realizes that the army has sent him home to die.
Aunt Easter seeks the help of Sister Rose, a black woman known for her herbs and cures. As Sister Rose slowly restores Uncle Marsh’s health, a friendship develops between Sister Rose’s teenage son Daniel and Davy. Through his new friend, Davy meets Rachel, a black girl his own age, and he finds himself attracted to her.
The three young people are soon working together to repair an old house that will be used to teach black children to read and write. As a result, Davy and his uncle and aunt find themselves caught up in events that lead to death and tragedy.
In the face of tragedy, Davy learns that the true nature of each person is deeper than one’s skin, that depravity can reshape a soul into something ugly and mean and destructive, and that the courage to confront such depravity, no what matter the cost, is often learned through the ‘courage of others’.
