Paintings for an Unpublished Children's Story, The Schoolbus Family
All Summer and Fall we live in a bus,
Grandma, Aunt Glory, and Buddy and me,
Way back in the woods where there's no one but us
and some squirrels that hide nuts in our busted T.V.
That's how the text for this book started out. Sadly, I lost the manuscript somewhere in our move from Leeds. The story was about a dirt-poor family living in a bus out in the middle of the woods. Near Christmastime, the preacher comes to tell them a snowstorm is on the way and it's dangerous to stay there. The grandfather is stubborn, but the preacher asks if he can take the children, at least, home with him. That evening, while the little boy falls asleep against the preacher's leg, the little girl admires the manger scene. She likes it so much that she steals the baby Jesus and takes it to bed with her.
Later in the night, the little girl has a dream that the manger scene is real, but that the manger is empty. She knows just what to do. She picks up her little brother and puts him in the manger, and then listens to the angels and the shepherds sing to him.
The next morning there are nice presents under the tree, including the manger scene wrapped up especially for her. She takes the baby Jesus from her pocket and puts him back. Later, she makes snow angels before the snow melts.
I based this story on an actual family living not too far away from me at the time. They really did live in a schoolbus on the grounds of their family cemetery in Prescott, Alabama, where the Confederate flag looked down on city hall--at least till recently. Somebody from our church bought them a mobile home, and then that burned down and they went on somewhere else. I drove the mom to the welfare office once to pick up food stamps; she was quiet, but didn't seem like somebody in such bad straits.
The second picture is of the girl jumping on her trampoline before the real schoolbuses come to pick up the kids on the state route. I have three other pictures from the series, but they're all too dark to show up well here.
