The Green Years by Karen Wolff

Author:Karen Wolff
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical fiction, coming of age, world war 1, WWI, idaho, depression era, small town stories, young adult and teen fction, literary
Publisher: BHC Press
Published: 2019-07-24T00:00:00+00:00

ON SUNDAY MORNING Gram emerged from her bedroom and announced that she was going to church. Her hair was freshly washed and done up in a tight bun. She wore her heavy, dark Sunday dress and her polished black shoes with their silky ties.

I looked up, surprised. “I figured you’d be too tired to go.”

She harrumphed. “I’m not going to let people think that they can get me down, especially those fools who joined the Klan.” She straightened her shoulders. “We have to stand up to them. Which one of you wants to go with me?”

I implored Ty with my eyes to speak up. He figured out what I wanted and said, “I’ll go, Gram. Harry’s still got bandages on his hands.”

I loaned him a pair of my school pants and breathed a sigh of relief when they set off. I needed time by myself. Granddad dozed off after he finished eating breakfast, so I poured a cup of coffee, pondering all that had happened, and then I made a plan. I would try to talk to Carol Ann and make up with her. I would need to think about my words so she’d believe how sorry I was. But that was for tomorrow. Today I’d go over to Sally McVay’s and ask Dad, outright, if he’d been in on this terrible thing. If he’d helped the Klan.

I took a big breath and got up to leave, but something pulled me right back to my chair. It surprised me. Maybe I was a coward. Maybe I was afraid to face my own father. Maybe I had a big yellow streak in me. It wasn’t that I was scared of him. After all, what could a one-armed man do to me? Maybe the truth was that I just didn’t want to know. What would I do if he denied it? Would I believe him? What if he said he had been at the store that night? Then what? Hit him? Kill him? No. No, everybody said it wasn’t the local group. Some men from out of town, they said. One of the other Klaverns.

Just then Granddad called to me from the bedroom in his weak, croaky voice, and I left off planning to see my dad.

“Harry, are you here? I’m really dry.”

I went to his side with a glass of cold water.

“God, this thing hurts,” he said. His face with its two-day stubble was contorted as he twisted around, trying to find a comfortable position in the bed. He drank thirstily and sank back into his pillow. “I’ve don’t see how we’re going to get by. Me laid up like this.”

I nodded. “We’ll figure it out, Granddad. Don’t worry.”

“Bessie can’t look after me and run the store too. Ty sure can’t run the place by himself fourteen hours a day.”

I knew what was coming, and I didn’t want to hear it.

“We’ll manage somehow,” I said in an effort to stall him.

“No, Harry. I think you’ll have to stay home from school and run the place.

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