Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg Read Free Book Online Page B

there was no limit to what women could do—and proved it. She brought her new husband home and proudly introduced him all over town as her “war bride” and soon owned and ran her own flying school. Soldiers who returned seemed more serious than they had when they’d left. But even people who stayed home during the war had grown up a little faster than they should have, including Anna Lee.
    At an age when she should have been concerned with nothing more than going to dances, wearing pretty clothes, and having fun, she received a letter.

    October 24, 1945
    Yorkshire, England
    Dear Miss Smith,
    I regret to report that your friend Pfc. Harry Crawford, United States Army, passed away in hospital this morning resulting from wounds received.
    Although I did not know him long I can tell you he was a lovely boy and displayed bravery and courage right up to the very end.
    If it is any consolation do know your letters and your photo cheered him greatly during his last days. As I was the one who read them to him, I felt I might take the liberty to write and return your letters and photo, along with my deepest sympathies for your loss.
    Respectfully,
    Glyniss Neale, R.N.
    Veterans Hospital
    That afternoon her mother tried to console her but there was little she could do except sit and listen as Anna Lee sobbed. “Oh, Mother, I’m so ashamed, I didn’t even answer his last letter. I thought now that the war was over it didn’t matter if I didn’t write so much. . . . Now it’s too late. . . . I feel so bad. I wish I could die.”
    It was shortly after that day that Anna Lee solemnly announced to her family that she had made a decision never to marry and to dedicate her entire life to the nursing profession. Her mother said, “Well, that’s wonderful, honey, but let’s wait until you finish high school and then see how you feel.”
    Dorothy certainly would not mind. As their next-door neighbor Nurse Ruby Robinson always said, “Nursing is a good steady profession.” But Dorothy was not convinced Anna Lee would stick to her decision. Last year Anna Lee had announced to the family that she planned to become a professional ice skater and travel around the world. An odd ambition for a girl who had never been near an ice-skating rink in her life, but as Mother Smith quietly pointed out, Anna Lee might have seen one too many Sonja Henie movies.
    The Songbird
     
    A FTER THE WAR the town’s population had remained much the same, except for the addition of Ada Goodnight’s new husband and the Nordstroms’ daughter-in-law, Marion, and their new grandbaby, who had come to live with them. Beatrice Woods, known professionally to her radio fans as the Little Blind Songbird, first moved to Elmwood Springs in the spring of 1945. Although she was Ruby and John Robinson’s official boarder and paid rent, she was a distant relative of Ruby’s. How she came to board with them that year turned out to be a stroke of good luck for everyone involved. As Dorothy said, “Everybody was in the right place at the right time.”
    The right place in this case being the funeral of Mrs. Lillian Sprott, who was Ruby’s oldest sister. Ruby and her husband, John, had traveled to Franklin, Tennessee, for the occasion. Beatrice Woods, who was Lillian’s niece by marriage, had been asked to sing at the funeral. At the time Beatrice and her father lived on a small farm outside of town.
    Blind from birth, Beatrice had passed all nineteen years of her life so far pretty much limited to the house. Her little Philco radio was her only window to the world. Except for church on Sundays or a rare outing, she spent most of her days alone listening and had learned to sing just about every song she heard.
    From the moment she sang her first song in church, her reputation quickly started to spread around the county. People came from miles around to hear the blind girl who sang like an angel. One Sunday, a visiting preacher, moved to tears by the beautiful sound of