Holly Jean and the Box in Granny's Attic. Bonnie Compton Hanson

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      Chapter 1

      Three Letters

      July 1942, deep in the Eastern Kentucky Mountains

      Waving three envelopes, Holly Jean Roberts ran across the dandelion-dotted front yard. “Granny Nanny! Aunt Kate!” she shouted gleefully. “Look! Mail!”

      She raced her grandmother’s joyfully barking dog up their ancient cabin’s rickety steps to the front porch, then plopped down on an empty rocking chair. Setting down her basket of groceries, she caught her breath. Then Holly Jean announced, “The letters are from Papa Joe and Aunt Bea and someone whose name I don’t recognize. Can’t wait to see what’s in them!”

      Beads of perspiration poured down Holly Jean’s face from running the half-mile from her Uncle Tom’s general store in the little village of Morgan Mills, up Hickory Hollow to Granny Nanny’s farm. She’d passed fields of corn, daisy-filled pastures, and whispering forests, plus bounced from stone to stone over meandering Catfish Creek. By the time the exuberant dog, Bear, met her down at the edge of Granny’s garden, even Holly Jean’s bright-red curls were wet with sweat! But her smile was even brighter than her hair.

      Decked out in her starched sunbonnet and apron, her grandmother sat in another rocker, snapping a tub of just-picked string beans. Shaded by a holly tree planted by her Great-Great-Grandfather Ebenezer, this porch was about the only half-cool place around on this blistering hot day. Heat waves bounced off their cabin’s tin roof. Even the tree-robed mountains all around seemed to wilt under this heat spell, while the frogs down at nearby Catfish Creek were simply too hot to hop or croak or do much of anything else.

      “Well, I do declare!” her grandmother exclaimed with a grin. Calling to Holly Jean’s great-aunt inside the house, she said, “Kate, dear, can you get this poor child some nice cold tea before she melts away completely? Some water for Bear, too. Don’t rightly know what we’d do with a melted dog.”

      A moment later Aunt Kate stepped up on the porch with both drinks.

      After slurping up the whole bowl, Bear collapsed happily at Granny Nanny’s feet. Holly Jean splashed some cold water on her face from the well bucket that sat on the porch; then gratefully sipped her tea. Of course, it would have been a lot cooler if they’d had a refrigerator for ice cubes, such as the one Holly Jean had back in the big city before she had to move here. Back in the days before her Papa Joe was drafted to help fight in the war. Maybe one day power lines would run up Hickory Hollow so they could have electricity here like Uncle Tom did down at his store.

      Meanwhile, Granny Nanny always kept a canning jar of sweet tea down in the well on hot days, and Holly Jean was more than grateful for that! Especially today!

      Around them bloomed bright hollyhocks, honeysuckles, and pink climbing roses. Granny Nanny’s garden flourished with sweet corn, tomatoes, string beans, and potatoes. Flies and bees buzzed back and forth, flitting between joyful butterflies. What a gorgeous day—even if it was roasting hot!

      Holly Jean’s great-aunt, Kate, plopped down heavily into the remaining rocking chair and picked up the just-delivered envelopes. She reached for her reading glasses, “Better git my store-boughten specs on to read them with, I guess,” she announced. “Say, didn’t we just get a letter Saturday from Joe, telling us about his Army training? Yep, I remember now. Miss Tillie handed it to us just afore we’uns walked home after the big pie social. Wonder what this letter’s about?”

      Wiping her ample forehead, “Whew! As I live and breathe, today’s a hot one, ain’t it, folks? Notice the temperature down at Tom’s store, child?”

      As if she could miss it! The brightly decorated thermometer that hung beside her uncle’s rusty screen door was half as big as the door itself. “Yep, it said 100 degrees, Aunt Kate—and that’s when I was there at 10:30. Probably says 110 by now. Uncle Tom’s cat was so hot he tried to get inside the soda cooler! Almost got the lid slammed on his tail!”

      Holly Jean thought back to the recent pie social held at the one-room schoolhouse not long after her 13th birthday. Everyone turned out that night to help raise money for both their village’s school and for its only church—including “Madman Max” Morgan’s daughter, Daisy, and grandson, Moon! Even though forbidden by her father to come, Daisy was hoping to find information that night about her long-missing husband, Ben Dunn.

      Then Daisy’s father turned up at the pie social too—furious at his daughter and grandson for disobeying him and riding down from their mountaintop farm. He thought the people in Morgan Mills were all hypocrites—especially his younger brother Jake, now the local pastor. Max believed that Jake had started the big fire many years before that destroyed their father’s mills and broke their father’s heart. But poor Pastor Jake was really innocent.

      Well, by the time that evening was over, all the misunderstandings had been cleared up. Max and Jake had settled their differences; Jake and Aunt Kate had made up, after years of wanting to, but not quite knowing how. Best of all, through the efforts of Miss Linda Wilson, the local school teacher, and her friend Pete Curtiss, editor of the local paper, Miss Daisy’s long-lost husband Ben Dunn had been found. Soon after leaving home for a job years before, he had been blinded—while saving a busload of people.

      Now after several years at a school for the blind, Ben would soon be coming home a hero. And Madman Max was so happy about it, he was throwing a big party for his son-in-law at his mountaintop farm that very next Saturday. Everyone was invited!

      As Aunt Kate opened the envelope, she said, “Now here’s the one from your Joe, Nan. It says—oh, shoot! Heat’s got my glasses so fogged up I can’t see a word.” Handing the letter to Holly Jean, Aunt Kate asked, “Mind reading for us, dear?”

      “Glad to, Aunt Kate.” Then Holly Jean read aloud:

      Dear folks,

      Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July. Independence Day is a pretty special holiday, you know, because that’s our great nation’s birthday. We’re so privileged to live in a land dedicated to freedom. That’s why we’re fighting this terrible war, of course—to help other countries be free too. Please keep СКАЧАТЬ