Kizzy Ann Stamps Read Online Free Page B

the chimney, and Mrs. Warren can build a mean fire, let me tell you. She lays that kindling in first thing of a morning and keeps the fire stoked so that it never dies out. The earliest learners get a bit hot, as they sit closest to the fire, and the high-schoolers are farthest out, so they can get a mite cold, but those of us who sit middlin’ are nice and toasty. I guess I’m lucky I haven’t learned all there is to learn just yet!
    We had a heater donated two years ago by Ganell Woodruff, the biggest success story around here, who invented something I don’t understand but lives in Detroit and writes letters to Mrs. Warren regularly, telling her how great he is. This time, instead of a letter, he put his money where his mouth is and actually sent a heater. It had instructions, and Mr. Felix was going to hook it up. He started on a Saturday, but it took him forever and he was still finishing up on Monday morning. It clung to the low ceiling like a weighty beetle, which is not what any of us expected. Mrs. Warren would not let us sit at our desks, made us all stand behind her like little chickens behind the hen when Mr. Felix went to light it, him perched on this little three-rung ladder while she stood nearby and we peered around her, anxious to feel the heat pulsing out of the great warming box.
    “Do you have any idea what you are doing, Felix?”
    “Reckon I do, ma’am,” he answered.
    “Then light the contraption,” she commanded.
    He lit it.
    It blew up.
    Well, not completely. But it sparked and went
boom.
Mr. Felix jumped off that ladder like he was a spry sixteen, his legs filled with energy he probably never knew he had. Mrs. Warren spread her arms to shield us, her protective instincts mother-henning us, and we, the little chickens, herded behind her and ridiculously tried to fit behind her huge bottom. What a sight we must have been. The heater slowly, sadly sagged, then belched, then plopped onto the dirt floor.
    “You all right, Mr. Felix?” Mrs. Warren asked.
    Mr. Felix had his eyelashes, eyebrows, and what little hair had been on the front of his head singed right off. But he’d squeezed his eyes closed, and so, yes, besides having the bejeebers scared out of him and losing all his hair, he was all right. Mrs. Warren gave him the rest of the day off, telling him we’d “work around that monster for the rest of the day.” I heard she got her husband to come up that evening and heave it off to the junkyard. Next day, we just all brought wood again, and that was the end of the hanging heater.
    I hope you don’t have a heater hanging from your ceiling!
    I know I shouldn’t do this, but I’ll go ahead because you know I talk about everything. . . . Bathrooms. We have an outhouse — we have to go outside. I’m guessing you don’t, but that’s where the problem comes in, because James says we’re not going to get to use the bathroom with the white kids. I know I can’t ever use the ones in town, no matter how bad I have to go. I’ve just got to hold it or find a place in the woods. Am I going to have to hold it all day?
    I hope you don’t mind if I write you about something different from school. I didn’t want to end my letter on that question of the bathroom — that seemed just too awful, you know? So, I thought I’d talk about what we do for fun. We go to baseball games. We don’t go to the Lynchburg games. That’s a long way into town, for one thing, and it is kind of awkward anyhow, with James. He gets all mad, because there’s nothing but white players on the Lynchburg team. Since Jackie Robinson integrated major-league baseball, you’d think minor-league teams like Lynchburg would be mixed, and they
can
be, but they’re often not, and it drives James crazy. So, he’s no fun for any of us to be around, and it’s just not worth it. There’s plenty of action out here in Bedford. We find lots of teams playing out here, and we watch them. You just drive around the county until