Chapter 2: Three Trees

https://www.kcet.org/shows/departures/sycamore-park

     "You're the oldest girl now," preaches Mrs. Reed the next morning as Beat is headed for the door. "It's your job to take care of the young 'uns."

"All right already," scowls that first daughter, crossing index and middle fingers as she turns back to the living room where Beulah and Wiley are watching Captain Kangaroo. "Come on you two!"

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     The Reed family had only recently moved to New Jersey from eastern Kentucky where the dogs and children ran free over the hills and hollers. It was the role of older daughters to keep an eye on little siblings while the mother did the cooking, cleaning, washing, and shopping. This mostly worked in the close knit hill communities where neighbors were often aunts or cousins. As for fathers, it was either the coal mine or the still, which is why Mr. Reed had taken the whole gaggle up the hillbilly highway.

     Bound Brook was a small town at the base of a hill, but successive waves of immigrants, in turn taking their first generation stigmatization, had created a culture of ethnic neighborhoods. The Down's Manor subdivision was one of the first of the post-war equal opportunity housing developments where children of any ethnicity were forming their own community. By the spring of 1962 Beatrice and her older brother Blaine had fought their way past the hick label, her with words, him with fists as they abandoned their southern drawl for a north Jersey accent.  

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     "Wiley, you take the little one, Beulah gets the middle one, and I'll take this one," Beat begins, leading them over to a remnant wood lot between their house and D'Angelo's bar. "We can watch the pavers from up in these trees." 

"You just grab a limb and swing your feet up like this," demonstrates six-year-old Beulah to her four-year-old little brother who's about to cry because he doesn't know how to scale the smooth white trunk. "Once you're standing on a branch, it's easy to go up."

Soon all three are halfway up the budding sycamores and watching a dump truck spill gravel over the dirt track.

     "There's a golden carp in the brook this year," exclaims Keety Mazurkewicz wobbling by on his bike.

"Hey you, get off this rough road before you get run over," yells one of the workmen helping to lay down a manhole cover.

Beat scampers down the peeling bark and runs after Keety who's pedaling as fast as he can down the previously paved Hanken Road.

"Come on Wiley," assures Beulah helping him climb down. "We can watch from the porch."