The Cinderella Who Drove Her Own Coach

by Mitzi Dorton

The trees stood with arms, like a woman who had lost a child, reaching, weeping and wailing to the Lord. At least that was how Norita’s life seemed in Beech Fork, bleak and without hope. There were fathers and brothers lost to the coal mines, children with no hope for a life without want, and women in bad marriages, who had no choice. Her own father had recently been diagnosed with black lung. He had spells of coughing and wheezing off and on, while he held his ribs and moaned.

Norita could see a fingernail moon over the silhouette of a black mountain against the dark grey sky. She lay on the thin mattress in the stillness, with the occasional sounds of shifting coals in the potbellied stove, or a rollicking cough from her daddy’s bedroom. If the dark part of the moon, could point like a fingertip, would there be other worlds beyond Beech Fork, West Virginia under this same moon? 

Norita slept, one of four sardines, tucked into a bed, sideways, folding her knees up or sleeping at a slant to make it work. Her skinny younger sister, Teeny, snored like a kitten beside her, with a soft rattling purr. The other two girls were small too, with sweet and angelic faces, but she hoped one didn’t wet the bed. It happened on occasion, and there was no place to turn from it.

The white sheets that Norita had smoothed and tucked under the thin mattress before bedtime were the work of all of the children in the family, walking miles, door-to-door, to sell candy. Norita remembered the luscious coconut bars with pink, brown and cream stripes, and the peanut brittle squares. It was difficult to give them up on the rare occasion that someone bought them, imagining their children enjoying the sweet and buttery tastes that were denied to her and her siblings. All of the candy money went for linens, curtains, bedspreads, sheets or tablecloths. 

Norita recalled a conversation with a neighbor girl who asked,

"Did you ever sneak a piece?" 

"Girl, we knew better!  We all wanted the candy, but we didn’t touch it. We toted it in a wagon, and I put an old shawl over the boxes, so the little ones wouldn’t hanker after it.

She continued to explain to the girl, "Mama always bragged on us about earning the linens when company came. I had to sell thirty-one boxes of candy to get one bedspread. Why, I didn't think that old, ugly orange and gold threaded thing to be especially pretty; I would have rather enjoyed the candies. When my cousin's mama heard about it, her daughter started selling them, and she became our competitor, so they could have the sheets and pillowcases and bedspreads too.

“We never get any sweets either, except at Christmas,” her friend replied, assuring Norita that she wasn’t by herself in the matter of being poor.

Norita didn’t admit that she and her brothers and sisters had plucked pieces of pine tar from the road to chew, imagining the sweet taste to be something akin to the treats they sold. It was her brother’s idea, tearing up fresh pieces that bubbled up from the street and encouraging them to try it. Oddly, it did have a sweet taste, but she was sure nothing at all like the denied candies.

The mining boss and his family had most of what there was to grasp in Beech Fork, his empire perched on a hill above the miners’ houses. Norita’s life was as boxed in as the mountains that sprung up straight and tall in the distance, walling in her whole community.

Norita imagined for a moment as she drifted off a bit, what it would be like to be in the mining boss’s family. She envisioned herself in a sparkly gown on the hilltop.

Then the reality of her daddy’s husky cough smacked into the image she held and reminded her how scrunched she felt between three sisters. 

Mama didn’t seem to be feeling well either, so the garden fell to the children. 

*****

The following day, Norita marveled to Teeny, while they were digging potatoes as she gazed up at the hill, watching as the mining boss’s wife directed some men who were planting bushes in her yard.

“I’ve watched their house. His wife sets a red book in the window on the days she wants Miss Elsie to come up and clean her house. I am going to rise up and have a life like that woman’s some day! Imagine owning the whole community of houses, the company store with all of its fine merchandise, and being able to go in and pick out a new coat or any dress in there!” 

Her younger brother, Bass, interrupted her thoughts, as she gazed up at the hill, “I hate hoeing these old potatoes, don’t y’all?”

“I don’t know what we are going to do,” Norita kept talking as she gazed up at the hill.  “I‘ve got plans bigger than Beech Fork.”

The West Virginia sun hammered on her auburn crown and caused drips of sweat to drizzle down on her face, like rain on a windowpane. The sun was unforgiving, but they knew better than to quit. She wiped a dirty hand across a sweaty forehead and saw the postman bend down from the side of his familiar grey horse. He held out a letter. 

Mama had seen him too and stopped on the second step. “Oh, it’s from my aunt. They used to live down the road, before her boy took off preachin’ down in Kingsport, Tennessee.”  She held her head and paused. “Oooh, mercy, I’m not feeling the way I used to,” she floundered, “Plumb swimmy headed!”

“Better see the doctor, Mrs. McMullen!” the postman said. “You’re not that old, you know.”

She smiled at the compliment, and waved him on,

“Mines dock too much out of the check to see anybody but the company doctor. He don't see nothing," she added. “Can’t afford to go to the city.” She seated herself on the step, groaning loud enough for the little potato diggers to hear and wince. “It’s a letter from Aunt Wannie!” 

It was the grandest excuse to leave their post.  Norita and Teeny went scampering down.  “Wait a minute.  You’re not leaving me on this daggone hill.”  Bass cried out, as he followed.

“Read it, Mama. Read it!” Teeny exclaimed.  

“Oh, my stars, she will almost beat the letter here!”  Mrs. McMullen declared.  “It says she’s a comin’ to Beech Fork today!”

The children moaned, because they knew they were in for a streak of quick housework. Their little homeplace sure wasn’t in shape for company, more like someone had turned a billy goat loose in there. Norita, however, saw a crack of light for an opportunity to rise on that very day.

When Aunt Wannie and Radford arrived, Norita asked, “What brings y’all to Beech Fork, all the way from Tennessee?”

“We spent the night down the road in Ammonate with a preacher. We’s on church business.” Wannie explained. “Radford wanted to get Pastor Puckett to come down and speak for our revival in Kingsport. Your Uncle John had told us about your mama being sick, so ‘course we wanted to stop by and check on her too.”

“It’s awful good to see you all.” Mama said. Norita enjoyed seeing Mama smile.

Norita asked them questions about where they lived. She was excited to know, and it must have shown. They offered in passing to take Norita back to Kingsport with them for a visit. She surprised them, and she said yes.

She packed her few belongings in a suitcase, turned and exclaimed, her eyes toward the ceiling, “Thank you, Jesus!” when she and Teeny were in the bedroom, away from company.

Norita stood before the chifforobe mirror and straightened the damaged straw hat that belonged to her mama. Her brother, Bass, had pierced two holes in it, to make a homemade mask. She remembered his blue eyes appearing through it, making her jump, as she sat on the living room chair, and she also remembered the thrashing from her father he received for making it. 

Norita had safety pinned a dark wide piece of green satin scrap cloth from an old nightgown across the holes to mend it, but it looked nice, and Teeny said, “You wouldn’t even know it!”

Norita looked back as she started to leave. She saw Teeny standing and watching on the front porch of the mining camp house. Teeny had always been a part of her life. This would be her first trip away from home, and Norita felt a little homesick already, but she couldn’t spend time dwelling on that. She moved toward the car

A spray of sunlight broke from the clouds and seemed to shine down for a moment on the carriage that she imagined would whisk her away to her dreams. She blinked as though hope could disappear in an instant.

Bass and Teeny ran and followed Norita’s coach down the driveway, and a little way down the road, waving at the windows and patting the sides of it. Mama and Daddy stood in the distance waving with the little ones. Norita looked back at her family down the dirt road, until they disappeared, when the old car rattled over the hill.

*****

Norita was in awe of the lights and the restaurants, the concrete sidewalks. The maple trees, with their branched out, green leafy boughs, rising in arches over the two-way streets, like a welcoming arbor to a new beginning. Radford didn’t talk much, but he did point out Maypole Street, a neighborhood lined with historic mansions and brick walkways. Norita had never seen anything as fine as Maypole Street in her life. “The richest people in Kingsport live here,” he said, almost reverently, shaking his head.

“Would you teach me to drive?” Norita spoke suddenly. Radford looked surprised. He hesitated, then offered, “I suppose someone will need to drive your mama and daddy around when you get yourself a car.” He pulled down a side street and let her take the wheel. He instructed her around the block. “You’ll meet my wife, Verna Ruth, when we get back. She grew up here in Kingsport and knows all the roads. She won’t mind to take you out a time or two and give you some practice, if you ask her. Be careful with my car though.”

“Oh, I will!” Norita promised. Norita felt very satisfied, and there would be no need to remind her to question Verna Ruth on this matter.

A few days later, Norita sat down with her Aunt Wannie, trying to convince her to let her stay and look for a job.  She insisted it wouldn’t take long. She planned to go to every business within walking distance.

She landed a job within two days as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, and her aunt let Norita stay rent-free and save the money to bring the family to Tennessee. The pay wasn’t much, which is perhaps why it was not filled by someone else. Norita was proud to have a job though, especially since she had no formal work experience.

The telephone puzzled her. No one had one in Beech Fork. She heard the doctor speaking to someone on the phone about her, while she took a break in the back room.“I hired a new girl. She seems nervous, a mountain girl, but anyone can see that she is not ignorant by any means, in spite of her cultural limits.” 

When she returned to her desk, she glowed, thinking ‘not ignorant by any means.’ He thinks I’m smart! She had encountered people on her job search who seemed to swallow a giggle, when she said she was from Beech Fork, West Virginia.

The phone rang, startling her. She lifted the receiver, her first experience with one. She wanted to live up to what the doctor had said, and trying to sound as sophisticated as she felt in her new job, said, “Dr. Sullivan’s office, just a moment please!” She placed the receiver back on the hook and went to get the doctor.

He followed her back to the phone.

“Miss McMullen!  You don’t hang up the phone if someone wants to speak to me.  You leave the receiver off the hook!”

She observed the doctor’s furrowed brow and interpreted his tone of voice to mean he could possibly fire her. The thought of losing her job terrified her. To her surprise, though, he demonstrated the use of the phone. She could only imagine what he might say about her to someone now, but she would never make the same mistake again.

Norita went to the post office and purchased two stamps.  She sent one along with the letter she wrote to her family, so they could write back:

July 6, 1938

 I wish you all were here. Kingsport had a big parade with marching bands and baton twirlers. Aunt Wannie, her kids, and I went down to see it. Her boy, Radford, brought the fixins for a picnic to celebrate the Fourth of July! We’ve been going down to hear him preach on Sundays.

 How about this! I got a front desk job at a doctor’s office. I’ve also been trying to get on at the Eastman.  They have real good pay.  I go every week at my lunch break to try and talk to the boss, but I haven‘t gotten on yet. When I do, I will try to bring you all here.

 Love, 

Norita

Norita felt terrible, leaving all of the work in Beech Fork to Bass and Teeny. She didn’t mention the watermelon she ate on the Fourth. It reminded her of how much her own family loved the sweet, ripe, and rare treat. A travelling peddler had given Mama a couple of watermelon seeds when she bought some pie fillings a few years ago, but only one grew in the West Virginia soil. When they ate their watermelon harvest, Mama had hung the Sunbonnet Sue and crazy quilts all across their clothesline, so as not to make the neighbor children look in and feel hurt to see them burying their faces with glee into the rich garden prize.

Aunt Wannie’s postman tossed the letter right through a slot in the door, and Norita happened to be walking by. She recognized the handwriting.

August 7, 1938

Dear Norita,

Daddy had to walk away from his work in the mines, and now we have no income other than what we can grow here.  Uncle Johnny paid for Mama and Daddy to go down to the big hospital in Bluefield. He says Mama’s eat up with cancer, and Daddy has heart dropsy, besides the black lung.  Me and Bass do all of the work for them and for the young ‘uns too.  We might expect the worst. The mine boss hasn’t said anything about kicking us out. We can’t believe this has happened to our sweet mama.

A pitiful old woman came to the door saying she had nothing at all to eat, and Bass went down in the cellar and got a can of beans and gave it to her. Daddy found out and whooped him for it. He talked about Bass going into the mines. Bass is only seventeen, though, and Mama sat out on the swing and cried. 

Love your sister,

 Teeny

 P. S.   On the bright side, Uncle John brought me some genuine cultured pearls, but Daddy put him out by the seat of his pants.  Poor Uncle John!

Teeny’s letter set off alarm bells; Norita had to find work with higher pay now. She had to bring Mama down to Kingsport. Norita could pay for her to see a good doctor, and they had a big hospital right here in town. Daddy was almost in as bad shape and would need to see a doctor too. Teeny didn’t mince words. 

Norita did have to smile at the mention of Uncle John, though.  He was a drinker, but he had a good heart, and he always brought gifts when he came to visit from over in Buchanan County. The younger children would water down Uncle John’s whiskey so he wouldn’t get so drunk. Uncle John would exclaim, “Why, that’s pure old rot gut!” He only came on rare occasions. And when he did, although the little ones loved him, Daddy would take him by the seat of his pants and throw him out on the front porch.

*****

Norita applied at Eastman. A pamphlet she had taken from the woman at the front desk stated: Eastman is Kingsport’s largest employer, a modern plant which produces materials for making film, dyes and fibers She hoped for a position in the yarn plant. Though the CEOs migrated down from the north, many Eastman workers came from the surrounding farms and mountain regions. “I’ve got to get a job there!” she told her Aunt Wannie. Her eyes stared off in the distance, envisioning life in the future.

 *****

Radford’s wife, Verna Ruth, had taken Norita out for a spin in Radford’s car on some of the main streets in Kingsport. So Norita was able to drive the borrowed car to her first interview at the Eastman Company, arriving thirty minutes early. She sat in the parking lot, waiting and very nervous. She hoped it would not show. Hopefully, she didn’t commence babbling in unknown tongues, like the women she’d heard at the brush arbor, where they held a summer Holiness church camp meeting back in Beech Fork. Norita spoke out loud in the car, practicing what she was going to say, until a woman wearing a smart hat with a little feather pulled up beside her, put on lipstick in the mirror and went inside. Looking down at her own outfit, Norita thought of the cardboard she had stuck down in the soles of her old shoes, hiding the holes that had appeared in the bottoms.

The woman with the feathered hat waited in one of the waiting-room seats when Norita entered. They called Norita first.

The man who interviewed her wore a suit and had a handlebar moustache. He smoked a cigar during the whole conversation. He did not seem to even see Norita, as she told him what a hard worker she was. When she could see he was not even focused on her, even blowing a smoke ring at one point, she pleaded with him, “My father and mother are both quite sick, and no one is able to provide for my brothers and sisters I left behind in Beech Fork, West Virginia. I need a job with higher pay.”

Mr. Holiday was a well-fed man who did not concern himself too much with the problems of others, especially those in so remote a place as West Virginia. With a flick of his cigar in the big orange ashtray on his desk, he said in a singsong tone, “We will let you if we are interested…Next!”

His eyes glazed over, and he called to the waiting room. The woman with the feather hat whisked past her and went in for the interview. Norita felt the cardboard slide in the sole of her shoe as she exited and headed for the parking lot.

Norita went back to Eastman and reapplied every chance she could. She was told this was how it was done at that particular company. Perhaps she could just show them her determination. The same man, Mr. Holiday, would interview her repeatedly, and she never got the job, but that did not stop her from going back again. Once Norita thought she saw Mr. Holiday roll his eyes when she came in, but she couldn’t be sure.

At dinner that night, Aunt Wannie slid a piece of paper around the big meal she’d prepared. “A letter came from your sister,” she said, as Norita bit into a piece of cornbread.

August 30, 1938

Dear Norita,

The mining boss has been knocking at our door. Mama gathered me and the children, and we hid at the side of the dresser. It was frightful when he came around and knocked on the window right beside us. The curtain was pulled, but we could see his shadow. Daddy stayed in bed and held his cough. We are worried sick!

Love,

Teeny

Norita took a deep breath and choked a little on the cornbread. How long would the mine boss allow them to stay in the house without her daddy working? They could already be set out, or it could be any day now. The more she thought about Mr. Holiday, the situation made her angry.

Time to try another tactic. What did she have to lose?

The Kingsport phonebook provided the address and the phone number: Circle 5-5771.  

Do I dare to dial it? she thought. “No,” she told Aunt Wannie. “I’ll go there myself.”

“Here,” Aunt Wannie said, “Wear Radford’s wife’s high heels. Size 7? She won’t care.”

It was the perfect offer. Aunt Wannie talked Radford into letting Norita borrow his car one last time, too.

The home was so well built, unlike any of the shacks where her family of nine shared four rooms. Norita felt the soles of the empowering shiny black patent heels step on Mr. Holiday’s flagstone porch, raising her to a new height. Her hand shook as she held to the white wrought iron railing. She was a mixture of strength and doubts, as she approached the storm door, dressed in the best of what she owned, starched, pressed, and spit spot polished.

She hesitated on the doorstep. No one was going to lead her family out. Bass was a year away from following in his father’s footsteps. A lantern and a pickaxe awaited him. The image of poor Bass with all his dreams squelched for a life of hard labor, or even an early death in the middle of a dark mountain crevice, was all the encouragement she needed.

She knocked.

An attractive well-dressed woman with finger waves and fancy combs at her temples opened the door. Norita could not believe women walked about the home wearing earrings and heels, but this woman did. Her own mother wore a homemade cotton housedress, usually with an apron, and some flat brogan shoes.

Norita swallowed and paused for a moment before saying anything. 

When the woman said, “Yes?”

Norita replied, “Mrs. Holiday?”

“Yes?” the woman repeated.

“I’m wondering if I might speak with you.”

Mrs. Holiday looked worried. Norita bet that this wife was beginning to wonder if her husband was involved in some kind of love affair.

“Certainly, come in.” The older woman motioned for her to follow. She ushered Norita into an unfamiliar world of gold-leaf-framed oil portraits and marble-topped tables. Norita had meant to sit up straight and brave, but the white down-filled couch was soft like a fat marshmallow, which seemed to swallow her, as she sat.

“Now, what is this all about?” Mrs. Holiday spoke with a more demanding tone, probably expecting the worst.

Norita smiled timidly at the floor, stumbling on her words, “My m-mama-mother has just been diagnosed with cancer. I am the only one of my family who has come here to Kingsport. There are seven of us children. I am the oldest, and all of the others have not finished school.  My father has heart dropsy and lung problems and can no longer work in the mines, even though he is forty-eight. I left this family behind, with only the end of our summer garden and what food they can get from the canning jars left in the cellar. Since my daddy can’t work, the mine boss may even put them out of the house any minute now.”

Norita continued, surprised at her own bravery, “I’m a very hard worker, Mrs. Holiday.”

A look of relief crossed Mrs. Holiday’s face.

Norita continued, “I’m used to being the oldest of seven and taking care of all the young ones, plus cleaning and cooking.  I am not a person who gives up. I need to bring my family out of that mining town, where there is no hope of a future for them. They might be homeless soon, and fall is coming. I want to find my mother a good doctor here and get her some care. I’ve been to interviews with Mr. Holiday several times. I work as a receptionist in a doctor’s office, but the pay is not nearly enough. I have to be able to afford a place for my family to live here, and I need to be able to buy a car of my own. I’ve been to an interview with Mr. Holiday ten times. Is there any way you can help me by speaking with him?”

The next day Norita received a call. She recognized his voice, muffled, as though he had his handlebar mustache right up at the mouthpiece and was forced to say the words. She was hired!

*****

Norita did her best to impress them.  She ran from one section to another, always busy, always the worker bee, trying to impress.  It was not long before they made her supervisor of the yarn plant. She took her position very seriously. The women, all shapes and sizes, young and old, watched her as she moved from one area to the next, demonstrating to one the process of winding and assisting another with the bobbins.

In the meantime, Uncle John made a visit. He informed Norita that a notice had been tacked on to the front of the camp house. Her father had thirty days to get out of the Beech Fork mining camp house.

Norita bought a tarpaper covered wooden house on stilts by Muddy Creek with a hundred dollar down payment, and she would make regular payments of twenty-five dollars a month.  Teeny and Bass could pick up little jobs in town and help pay for it too. Now her mama and daddy could get help from the doctors in Kingsport, and Bass wouldn’t have to go into the mines. 

Norita made a payment for her own car, a used Buick, and drove it back on the weekend to Beech Fork. Teeny wouldn’t be able to recognize me, arriving in this grand coach, she thought, as she drove the twisting roads home. As she approached the curve the that led to their camp house, she knew the boys would be out front. Automobiles didn’t pass frequently.

Sure enough, at the sound of the engine, they ran out to see. Norita pulled in the driveway, as the boys encircled the car, stroked the exterior, and called Daddy to check under the hood. Bass shook his head in disbelief. The younger children, Teeny among them, ran out to gawk. Daddy hobbled out. “I expected it more of the boys. Shoot! I’m proud of you, girl.” Praise didn’t come easily from this stern man.

Norita broke down and cried.

Mama shook her head when she came out on the porch, walked over and wiped both her eyes, then dabbed Norita’s. with her cotton apron.

Everyone gathered their belongings in their arms. Norita watched Teeny fold the picture- day dress Mama allowed her to order for seventy-five cents from the Sears catalog. Norita remembered the excitement of each of her younger brothers and sisters, when her parents had let each child to purchase one school photo during their elementary years. Norita was the first to have hers, a tiny postage-stamp-sized-print, which she carried home as though it were a rare butterfly that might disappear into the winds, without her careful guardianship.

Teeny, of course, made sure that she had Uncle Johnny’s genuine pearls.

Bass had a rare all-day sucker he had saved from three months ago. He explained he had exchanged the copper wire he scavenged around the coal camp and traded it in at the company store for three cents a pound. Norita insisted he pack his homemade shoeshine kit as well, because there were many more customers in Kingsport than in Beech Fork.  

Norita’s mama sat next to her in the front seat and held the youngest boy on her lap. Bass and Teeny sat in the back, with the other two little ones on her lap. Next to them, Daddy held a portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt on his lap, with each of the children’s tiny one school picture glued around it. As Norita’s car wound around the curves of the roads toward their new home, they left the coal camp in Beech Fork behind.

Catching the eye of Teeny in the backseat, Norita winked at her. Then she reached back and offered a small paper bag with enough sticks of horehound candy to go around. Squeals of delight echoed from the backseat. Norita saw Bass’s eyes numbering the sweets, his mouth opening in wonder as each child tasted one. She observed his satisfied face in her rearview mirror as he sat back, laughed, and took a piece of his own. Bass offered another stick to his younger brother, who was already reaching over the front seat for it.

As Norita looked straight ahead at the road before her, the happy little shrieks of excitement of her brothers and sisters lingered in her thoughts, and she made a note to herself.

Someday I will rise up and have a home like Mr. Holiday’s on Maypole Street!

*Originally published with "Rise," Northern Colorado Writers, Colorado Book Award in anthology, 2020. Northern Colorado Writers has since become Writing Heights Writer's Association.

BIO: A multi-genre writer, Mitzi Dorton has work in Rattle, Esoterica, Southern Literary Review, Women of Appalachia Project, Poetry South, Oxford Magazine (Golden Ox Micro-Flash Contest finalist), Pine Mountain Sand and Gravel, and many others. She is author of the book, Chief Corn Tassel, Finishing Line Press, (Literary Global Book Award finalist in history and biography), and she is an associate editor with Fiction on the Web.