Celeste's Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate Read Free Book Online Page A

“You have another long ride ahead. Leave your stuff. It’ll be safe.”
    I staggered after him into the cold early-morning light, but took Dede and my schoolbag with me. I could survive without my lunch but not without them. He pointed to an outhouse several yards away. My stomach was squirming and rolling again nervously. I hoped going to the outhouse would calm it down, but it didn’t.
    When I returned, several new people had come into our car. One was a thin man in shirt and pants standing — I noted with a start — near my seat. When I sat down, he sat down beside me, smiling. Mr. Smithfield shook his hand. “Cece, this is Sandy Smalls, the puppet man. Mr. Smalls, my niece, Celeste.”
    I smiled back and nodded, but didn’t speak. When Mr. Smalls opened a suitcase, I saw the tiny man — a wooden puppet! — inside. He wore a painted red-and-blue-striped suit and a white shirt. Mr. Smalls screwed a long, narrow stick into the puppet’s back. Singing softly, Mr. Smalls made the puppet dance by flicking the stick and gently thumping on a wooden paddle that it stood on. The puppet’s jointed arms and legs swung rapidly in time to the thumping and flicking. I had seen puppets like this at our state fair but never any so close.
    “This is Mr. USA,” he said as the train began to move. “Would you like to help him dance?” I thought I was too old for puppets, but not this time! I told him yes, softly, and took the stick. Mr. Smalls began humming again, patting his foot and rhythmically thumping the other end of the paddle situated on his knee. I flicked the stick a couple of times. “Oh, my goodness gracious!” I whispered when the puppet jumped. I stared, waiting. Then I realized that
I
had to move the stick to make the little man dance. This was fun!
    Mr. USA and I danced until full daylight arrived, when around us folks and babies stirred, stretched, yawned, and talked. Mr. Smalls stored Mr. USA back in the suitcase.
    “I’m going to write to my friends back home about you and your puppets after I reach New York.”
    “You gonna like where you’re going?” he asked softly.
    “I — well, it’s because of Poppa,” I said. I told him about Aunt Society, too, and my poetry and the
Brownies’ Book
magazine, Big Willie, and — oh, my little lips just flapped! I guess Mr. Smalls’s kindly eyes made me spill the beans.
    “When you’re up in that big town thinking about home, talk to this little lady,” he said. He opened his suitcase and lifted out a small wooden girl puppet with a yellow and red dress and black shoes painted on her square feet. He screwed a stick into her back and handed her and a paddle to me.
    She was beautiful. “I shall keep her all my life,” I breathed. Remembering to speak louder, I thanked him over and over. “What’s her name?”
    “Whatever you want to call her,” he said. “I been making puppets since I was a boy. I’d carve them from pine splinters in the pine tar camps where me and my folks lived. We worked in camps outside Loris, Bucksport, and Conway, South Carolina. I sold ’em to make a little money. Now I just make ’em to give away. I get my real money from making tables, chairs, stuff like that. No more pine tar camps for me!”
    “Did you know a man named Thomas Day? He made furniture, too. We have one of his sideboards in our parlor.”
    “I never knew him, but I know his work. Now, he’s what you call a
real
furniture maker. He’s a famous man.”
    I tucked the puppet in with Dede where she’d be safe. “I’ll call her Miss Pinetar,” I said.
    My stomach growled. Mrs. Smithfield had fixed two thick slices of country ham, buttered yam cubes wrapped in collard green leaves, two boiled eggs, two corn bread squares, two slices of pecan pie, an orange — and six beautiful candy Easter eggs! She hadn’t forgotten me. I ate one piece of ham, a few yam cubes, one piece of corn bread, just half of one slice of pie, and the blue Easter egg. I gave a red