The Collected Short Stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow

Dreams Come True

cfJreams Come 'frue This story was written while Harriette Simpson lived in Burnside, Kentucky. It has never before been published. ;4nn, have you heard the latest?" Jeanette sang out, as Ann and her younger sister Willie entered the kitchen. Not giving her sister time to answer, Jeanette continued: ''You know those awful Godbys. Well, Mrs. Godby sent her little boy up here to know if you wouldn't be so kind as to come down and cook her children something to eat. Her husband is still in bed with pneumonia, and she got up too soon after this two-weeks-old baby was born and has taken a relapse." "What did you tell the child?" Ann asked. "Naturally, we told him to tell his mama you were busy and couldn't come." "That woman certainly has her nerve," said Sue indignantly. "The very idea of asking people like us to come down and work for those trashy Godbys." "It would be terrible to cook in such a filthy place, but still I can't help but feel sorry for that family. They have had sickness all winter." Ann was . 10 • DREAMS COME TRUE always more sympathetic with people in distress than her more sophisticated sisters. "Oh, Ann, don't be silly and think this is just one more form of social service. What would the neighbors think if you were to go down there?" Jeanette remonstrated. Ann said nothing to this and the subject was dropped; the talk [changed] into other channels: high school basketball, a certain story in a favorite magazine, doings at the office where Jeanette worked, and comments of Sue's latest beau. The Bertram girls lived with their widowed mother in a small town, in the northeastern part of Kentucky, called Rothington . The Bertram family was very much like any of the other millions of decent, up right, church going families scattered over the world. They were rather poor, but as Mrs. Bertram was so fond of saying, came of one of the South's proudest and most aristocratic families. Of the four daughters, Sue and Willie were still in high school; Jeanette, the oldest of the four, did stenographic and secretarial work, while Ann had chosen teaching for her career. Mter two years of college study, Ann had decided to teach a year before finishing her studies. Her school being a rural school, and consequently of a shorter term than those in town, she was for the time unemployed save as a helper to her mother in the house work. The other members of the family often spoke ofAnn as being peculiar and full of queer notions. On more than one occasion she had been scolded by her mother and laughingly ridiculed by her sisters, because of some contribution made or work done for certain of the many destitute families around her home. While still in high school she had all but created a family scene by helping some older, public spirited women clean and fumigate the home of the shiftless Brays, while the whole family was down with typhoid. In spite of the severe rebuke called forth by this act, during the remainder of the epidemic she spent her spare time in visiting various sources of water supply in the outlying districts of Rothington. From these different places she collected samples of the water and sent it to the state board of health to be examined. Sometimes it was heartbreaking to have the results show a high count of the germs, and in many cases, see the owners of such a water supply listen stupidly to reports, and stubbornly continue to use the water. The local doctors, the only two within a radius of . II . KENTUCKY; THE 1920S more than ten miles, did not greatly encourage vaccination of any kind to those ignorant and superstitious families. The doctors themselves were too nearly worked to death to preach vaccinations and sanitation. However, Ann never became discouraged; not even when Mrs. Newcomb , mother of nine children, persisted in ignoring her plea that little Jimmy with his crooked feet be sent to an institution where his feet could be straightened at no cost to his mother. In spite of everything Ann had her dream, a dream of a time when things should be different. In college, while studying sociology and rural hygiene, the dream had grown brighter and assumed a more tangible form. A sympathetic...