The Treasure of Way Down Deep by Ruth White is the charming middle grade sequel to Way Down Deep.
The Treasure of Way Down Deep by Ruth White is the charming middle grade sequel to Way Down Deep.
Paperback(Reprint)
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Overview
The Treasure of Way Down Deep by Ruth White is the charming middle grade sequel to Way Down Deep.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781250073334 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Square Fish |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2016 |
| Edition description: | Reprint |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.20(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.80(d) |
| Lexile: | 850L (what's this?) |
| Age Range: | 10 - 14 Years |
About the Author
"My fondest memories are of playing in the hills and creeks, and of family read-alouds, which we had almost every day. Before I started school, I knew that I would be a writer someday, and I never wavered from that goal. What I did not know was that I would be writing about those days in which I was living. I had visions of stories involving princesses and swashbuckling heroes, lovesick cowgirls and faraway places with strange-sounding names. It was only after I grew up and away from the Appalachian region that I realized what a wealth of unique story material I had stored up in my memories during those early years, and therein lay my greatest asset as a writer."
"My sisters and I were not only avid readers but also great mimics. We had no television, but we had the movie theaters close by, and we were privileged to see the latest movies from Hollywood, which we would later act out to one another. We would write down all the lines we could remember from a good movie and learn them for our own entertainment. We also picked up every song that came along and developed a remarkable repertoire of folk, country, blue-grass, spiritual, and popular music. To this day we know the words to thousands of forgotten songs. We are a wealth of music trivia! I often use the lyrics of some of these songs in my books."
"Upon graduation from high school, I had a rare opportunity to go to college. It was almost as if the fates took over for me at this point and manipulated me right into a good education and preparation for a future career. There was a beautiful little college down in North Carolina called Montreat, which I still dream about and think of sometimes with a feeling much like homesickness. Going there was a turning point of my life. It lifted me out of the only life I had ever known and introduced me to a wider world. From there I went on to Pfeiffer College, married, had a child, and settled down to being a mother and teacher."
"But the memories of the hills did not leave me. They did, in fact, haunt me, so that I began writing down some of those memories, and from these writings my novels sprouted, took root, and grew like living plants. They have gone through many revisions, on paper as well as in my mind, but what they represent for me is a record not only of my past but of the Appalachian region."
"It is important to me that the children of today read these books and feel they can escape for just a little while into another place and time which once was very real. I want them not only to enjoy my stories and my particular style but also to feel what
I used to feel when I was in the habit of reading every book I could find — 'This feels right. I love this. Someday I will write books like this.' "
Ruth White holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in English and Library Science. She worked in schools as both a teacher and a librarian in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia before moving to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where she writes full time.
Read an Excerpt
The Treasure of Way Down Deep
By Ruth White
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2013 Ruth WhiteAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-374-38067-0
CHAPTER 1
It was Saturday, October 2, 1954, in Way Down Deep, West Virginia, and Ruby Jolene Hurley was celebrating her thirteenth birthday. It was a crisp autumn day, and the sky was a deep blue with a few puffy white clouds floating over the valley. Ruby was in her new room at The Roost, which was the boardinghouse where she had grown up. Only recently had she moved into this room, formerly occupied by Miss Worly, the town librarian. Miss Worly and Mr. Gentry, the high school band director, who had also lived at The Roost, had married and moved into a small house out on Highway 99.
"My spacious pastel boudoir" was how Miss Worly had described this room. She used that term, because, first of all, she liked peppering her sentences with fancy words, and, second, the room was decorated in pink and blue, with a dash of purple here and there, and it was larger than most of the other guest rooms at The Roost. Ruby loved the spacious pastel boudoir.
For a few minutes she lingered in front of the mirror before going downstairs to receive guests for her birthday party. Her new dress was the color of the golden maple leaves outside her window, and her shoes were black patent leather. Ruby's hair, of course, had always been a mass of red ringlets around her face, and her eyes were the color of bluebells. The people of Way Down considered her a natural beauty, but when she looked at her own image in the mirror, she was far more critical. She thought her hair was way too thick and wild, and too curly. And she thought she could have done without some of those freckles.
Downstairs in the common room Ruby found that her guests were arriving and were being greeted by Lucy Elkins and Ruby's Grandma Combs, both permanent residents of the boardinghouse. Miss Arbutus Ward, owner of The Roost, was also there. She was a direct descendant of Archibald Ward, who had first discovered Way Down Deep in the eighteenth century, and the last Ward still living in the town. Miss Arbutus had raised Ruby since she was a toddler and was like a mother to her.
The Reeders had come dressed in their finest, which wasn't to say much, but they were clean, and good-looking, every blessed one of them, starting with Peter, who was the same age as Ruby, and the boy she liked more than any other; Cedar, barely twelve; the identical twins Jeeter and Skeeter, nine; and the only girl, Rita, just turned six. They had moved to Way Down this past June when their stumpy little daddy, Robber Bob, had made a feeble attempt at robbing the bank—thus the nickname. Naturally, the bank president, Mr. Dales, had been so moved with pity for the desperate man that he had offered him the use of his own rental house, free of charge, until Robber Bob could get back on his feet. Mayor Chambers, owner of the A&P, also gave him a job at the grocery store.
The eleven-year-old identical Fuller triplets came in next. They were Connie Lynn, Sunny Gaye, and Bonnie Clare, whose flaxen hair and blue eyes could light up a dark room. They were street evangelists who sang in three-part harmony as fine as the famous Andrews Sisters.
Next came Reese Mullins with some of his brothers and sisters. Reese used to fancy himself Ruby's beau, but that was before Peter Reeder came to town and stole her heart away.
After the Mullins children, Ruby was in such a whirlwind of greetings and giggles that she couldn't keep up with who had come in and who wasn't there yet. Of course every kid who lived in town would come. That's the way it was in Way Down. When you threw a party, you didn't have to send out invitations. You just told a few people, or you mentioned it over your telephone party line, and everybody got the message. You saved a lot of time that way.
Just then Rita approached Ruby and hugged her around the waist.
"Happy birthday, Ruby."
Rita was wearing a cute green and white pokey-dotted dress that Ruby had outgrown when she was six.
Ruby hugged her back.
Miss Arbutus and Ruby both had taken a shine to the little girl, and Rita had been spending every school night at The Roost in the tiny pansy-speckled room next door to Miss Arbutus, which used to be Ruby's room.
"So we can give her a good breakfast every morning," Miss Arbutus had explained to Rita's daddy, when asking his permission to keep the child, "and dress her pretty for school."
Robber Bob had agreed. He was tickled to see his only daughter get some feminine attention, since her own mother had died almost a year ago. Rita had started first grade in September, and Ruby and Miss Arbutus helped her with her schoolwork. They also introduced the little girl to their evening ritual of grooming and the sharing of confidences. When they were finished, and darkness had settled over their town nestled way down deep between the mountains, Ruby and Miss Arbutus would kiss Rita good night and hug each other. Then Ruby would go up to the second floor to visit with Grandma for a few minutes and give her a good-night hug as well before retiring to her spacious pastel boudoir, which was right beside Grandma's room.
Each Friday when school let out, six-year-old Rita would walk to her own house, just a hop and a skip up the street from The Roost, to spend the weekend with her daddy, Robber Bob; her addled granddaddy, Bird; and her four brothers. At dusk on Sunday evening Ruby would fetch her back to The Roost. It was an arrangement quite satisfactory to everybody concerned.
"I got you a present," Rita said to Ruby as she handed the older girl a small package wrapped in brown paper.
Not everybody was able to give Ruby a gift, but she didn't mind a bit. Inside the paper was an odd pewter-colored metal button with a hole in it.
Ruby was delighted. "What an uncommon thing!" And it really was. It looked like it might have come from a soldier's uniform.
"You can put a ribbon through the hole, and make a pretty necklace," Rita said proudly.
"What a good idea!" Ruby cried. "Thank you, Rita."
Carefully Ruby placed the metal button inside a small pocket in her new dress. Then she hugged the beaming little girl again.
"Let's play blind man's bluff!" somebody yelled.
Yes, they should start the games. What a grand party this was going to be!
After blind man's bluff, they played guess what?, then treasure hunt. It was during this game that the party expanded outdoors, because Miss Arbutus and Grandma had hidden some of the treasures in the yard.
Ruby and Peter were seated side by side in the common room, watching Skeeter and Jeeter tussle over a piece of bubble gum they had found in a vase, when suddenly Slim Morgan charged through the front door.
"Catastrophe!" he yelled. "Where's Ruby at?"
"I'm here, Slim. What'sa matter?"
"It's Jethro, Ruby. I think he's dead."
CHAPTER 2When Ruby was around seven years old, a traveler had offered a baby goat to Miss Arbutus in exchange for two hot meals and a room for the night. Ruby had named the animal Jethro, and he had been her pet ever since. He stayed in the yard outside The Roost, lived a comfortable life, and in fact became quite famous among the people of Way Down for his antics.
"Oh, dern, we'll never get to see him climb the woodpile again!" Skeeter Reeder wailed.
"And we'll never get to see him stand on the top of a car again!" Jeeter Reeder moaned.
"He'll never again run up to me when he sees my face at the back door," Ruby said, and burst into tears.
For it was true: this funny animal, belonging to Ruby but beloved by all the town, was indeed dead. He lay stretched out on his side in the autumn leaves, his tiny eyes closed, his white goatee full of chocolate, and his little goat heart at rest.
"Chocolate?" Miss Arbutus said. "Ohhh, chocolate. The poor thing must have found the Hershey bar I hid on the porch for the treasure hunt."
"Do you think that's what killed him?" Lucy Elkins asked.
"If so, it's not a bad way to go," Grandma said.
The children gathered around Ruby and tried to comfort her.
"He was kinda dumb anyhow."
"Don't cry. It'll make your eyes red."
"A funeral! A funeral!" Connie Lynn Fuller cried.
"Yes, a funeral!" Sunny Gaye agreed.
"And we will officiate!" Bonnie Clare added.
"What's that?" Reese Mullins wanted to know.
"A funeral?" Connie Lynn said. "It's a ceremony for the dead before you bury them in the ground."
"I know what a funeral is!" Reese sputtered. "I mean what's off ... off ...?"
"Officiate?" Bonnie Clare said. "It means we are in charge." And she waved a hand around to indicate herself and her sisters.
"It has to be a proper funeral," Ruby sobbed, and buried her face in Miss Arbutus's chest.
"Of course it must," Miss Arbutus said, as she patted Ruby's back. "We will bury him on that grassy spot beside the sign where the ground is nice and flat."
Everyone understood that Miss Arbutus was talking about the sign that read WAY UP THAT-A-WAY. It had an arrow on it pointing to the path that curled up the mountainside to the home of Granny Butler, the albino woman who had the gift of communication with animals.
"Yes, it's a sunny location," Ruby said, "and Jethro loved the sun."
Miss Arbutus found a shovel. All the kids went to the flat spot beside the sign and took turns digging a hole for Jethro's grave. Ruby was excused from that duty. The Mullins children—Reese, Mary Nell, Susie, Pauline, Junior, Clarence, and Gerry Joy—did the most digging, as they all had jobs at their family's two places of business, the Pure Gas Station and The Boxcar Grill, and were familiar with hard work. In fact, it was a rare Saturday that their parents gave them time off, but Ruby's birthday was special.
The Morgan children—Juanita, Jude, Edna, and Slim—were also a big help, and the Reeder boys did their share, while Rita tried to comfort Ruby. Soon they had a hole large enough for Jethro's poor lifeless body to fit into. The bigger boys carried the body to the grave.
"You can't just dump him into the dirt!" Ruby cried out. "He has to have a casket."
"You're absolutely right," Grandma said. "I've got just the thing."
When Grandma went into the house to fetch the thing that was "just the thing," the Fuller triplets started humming "Amazing Grace," and when she came back outside, they were in full harmony and volume, while others were trying to sing along, but not in the same key.
Grandma had brought out a big rectangular basket with a fitted lid that, she had once explained to Ruby, she had made from broom straw with her own hands when she was young. It was now too dilapidated to be of further use to Grandma but would be perfect for Jethro's needs. Grandma set the basket down on the ground and removed the lid. The boys picked up the goat by the legs and placed him gently into it. Everybody took a last look at Jethro. Except for his head being in an odd position so that he would fit into his casket, he seemed comfortable enough.
"O death, where is thy sting?" Connie Lynn quoted scripture.
"O grave, thou hast no victory." Sunny Gaye mis quoted scripture to make it more dramatic as Peter, Cedar, Reese, and Slim lowered the casket into the ground.
Ker-plump! One of the boys lost his grip and the basket fell unevenly into the hole. There was a scramble to upright it, and in the process Cedar fell in on top of the dead goat.
"**^##@++$!" Cedar let out a string of cuss words too appalling for human ears.
The shock of finding himself nose to nose with a dead thing had caused him to backslide on his resolve never to cuss again. The triplets clapped six hands over their six ears as there was another scramble to pull Cedar out of the hole. Cedar, of course, was more than mortified to have an attack of cussitis in the presence of the triplet angels. Since he could not tell one from the other, he was hopelessly in love with all three of them, and he knew how they deplored bad words.
"In my father's house," Bonnie Clare courageously continued with the service.
"There are many mansions," Connie Lynn finished the verse for her.
"And some of them are goat mansions," Sunny Gaye declared happily.
"Amen!" the triplets said together, then began to sing "Mansion on the Hilltop" as pretty as you please. It was among their top ten hits, and it suited the moment perfectly.
Peter dropped the basket lid down over poor Jethro, and there was nothing left to do but shovel the dirt back into the hole. Ruby did not care to see this part, so she turned away.
Rita pulled at Ruby's dress tail. "Now, can we have some cake?"
"I think we should," Ruby said. "Jethro would want us to."
On hearing the word cake the grave diggers went into overdrive and promptly finished the job. When all hands had been washed under the outside pump, the birthday cake was carried from the kitchen to the front porch. Everybody gathered around to see Ruby make her wish and blow out the candles. She closed her eyes and wished real, real hard. Then she took a big breath and blew out all thirteen candles in one tremendous puff.
CHAPTER 3Ruby had met Grandma for the first time this past summer and had stayed with her on Yonder Mountain. While there, she had told Grandma stories not only about Jethro, her best friend Peter, and her other young friends but also about the folks living at The Roost and elsewhere in Way Down. Grandma had started to daydream, like a young girl, of living in that boardinghouse in that town, among those people. She had long ago given up ever having one of her dreams come true, but now here she was, and it was as good as she had imagined. Grandma had been living at The Roost for almost a month, and it had been the most excellent month of her life. She had never before had so much fun chatting and laughing with others.
Each morning she rose with the singing birds and scuttled down the stairs to help Miss Arbutus and Lucy Elkins fix breakfast. At one time, Ruby had been the only assistant in the kitchen. Now it seemed Miss Arbutus had more helpers than she really needed, but it was a nice break for Ruby. She was able to spend extra time preparing herself and Rita for school.
Grandma loved eating her meals around the big oak table with the other guests. After breakfast she would go out to the roomy wraparound porch, sit in one of the white rocking chairs, and holler out greetings to people as they walked by. Everybody in town was friendly to her. Some even stopped to talk. They all knew who she was, and by this time they knew her life story. They also knew that every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon Grandma walked down to the library where Mrs. Gentry, formerly Miss Worly, was teaching her to read and write, because in Grandma's day country girls were not properly educated. She had spent her entire life on one mountaintop or another until she had become as mean and ornery as a caged animal. The people in Way Down sympathized with her and admired her metamorphosis into this new and improved personality.
Another permanent guest at The Roost was Mr. A. H. Crawford, who lived on the third floor and was writing a book called A Colorful History of Way Down Deep, West Virginia. He, too, had recently changed into a new creature.
It was well-known that Mr. Crawford used to have the blues and had slept away a good bit of his life, but recently he had been up so early that he had time to go to the kitchen and aggravate the ladies as they prepared breakfast. They were too gracious to tell him to get out of the way, so they pretended he was a walking, talking piece of furniture and went around him.
After breakfast, Mr. Crawford retired to his room to write. When the weather was warm and the windows were open, you could hear his typewriter all up and down Ward Street. The townspeople thought of book writing as a highfalutin occupation that rather tickled their fancy.
"I wonder what fascinating words are flying onto the pages," they would say to themselves.
Or, "Is he writing about my ancestors?"
Or more often, "Am I in the book?"
But now that October's chill had crept into town, the doors and windows were shut tight and Mr. Crawford's typewriter could not be heard except by the residents of The Roost.
"Maybe you could let me peep at a few pages," Lucy Elkins said to Mr. Crawford in her thin, melodious voice. It was the Monday morning after Ruby's party, and she was setting the table for breakfast. "I don't think I can wait another day to read the book."
"And my reading lessons with Mrs. Gentry are coming along so well," Grandma chimed in, "that I may be able to read some of it myself."
"Now, ladies," Mr. Crawford said as he stood in the middle of the kitchen floor waving around an empty coffee cup, which Miss Arbutus finally refilled. "Please be patient. I will have finished the manuscript by Christmas, but I don't want anyone to read it until it has been made into a book."
He wouldn't admit even to himself how much he enjoyed these early-morning moments with the three ladies of the house. Since he had commenced writing his book in earnest, they had showed so much admiration for him that he felt like their knight in shining armor.
Just then Ruby and Rita entered the room spruced up for school. They went straight to Miss Arbutus, who, with a smile, examined them, told them how lovely they were, and gave each one a kiss on the cheek.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Treasure of Way Down Deep by Ruth White. Copyright © 2013 Ruth White. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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