Excerpt from All the Little Hopes by Leah Weiss, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Daddy reads aloud, "Honeybees and Wartime," then studies the brochure while we study the government man. Mr. Booker wears a shirt straining at the buttons and a skinny black tie, like an encyclopedia salesman peddling knowledge a month at a time. His belt is brown, but his shoes are black with scuffed tips that have never seen a lick of polish. He has surprisingly tiny feet that don't look able to keep him upright when the wind blows. He squirms at the silence and starts talking before Daddy's done.

"It pretty much says Worker Bees, Uncle Sam Needs You," and he grins like he told a funny. He adds weakly, "We could use your help, sir," then studies his chewed fingernails for somewhere to lay his eyes.

I've been holding back questions, so in the lull, I let loose in a polite way. "You a military man, Mr. Booker?" I say. I've never seen an unkempt military man.

"No, I can't be a soldier cause I got flat feet," he says and nods toward his briefcase. "I do paper stuff."

"Where you from?"

"Greenville," he says but not which Greenville.

"Did you know there are fifteen states that have towns called Greenville? Unless you're from Greeneville, Tennessee. That's different from all the others because of the extra e smack-dab in the middle. Which one are you?"

Mr. Booker mumbles, "North Carolina" without a crumb of interest in the insight I shared. He didn't even want to know the names of the Greenville states I can list alphabetically. I change course.

"Do you know rubbing beeswax on a fishing line makes it float?"

"No, I do not," he says.

"Do you like to fish?"

"No, I do not."

"Who's your favorite author? I love Carolyn Keene. She wrote the Nancy Drew books about a girl like me who solves mysteries and knows a lot about a lot of things. Do you like mystery books?"

Mama says quietly, "Enough, Lucy," and cuts off my litany of questions. "Leave Mr. Booker alone."

I comply, but I already know he's a dolt who's pitiful at conversation.

Daddy passes the brochure over to Mama and says, "Let me get this straight," and shifts his toothpick to the other corner of his mouth, and Grady does the same. "You want some of my honey and all my beeswax."

"Yes, sir, and we'll pay good money for it."

"And if we sell you beeswax, you'll give us barrels of cane sugar so we can supplement the hives with sugar syrup and sugar cakes. All the sugar I need, no ration coupon needed."

"Yes, sir."

"Say again what it's used for?"

"The war effort uses a million pounds of beeswax a year to waterproof canvas tents and lubricate ammunition, drill bits, and cables, stuff like that."

"You think it'll last much longer?" Daddy asks.

"Beeswax, sir?"

"The war."

"Don't rightly know, but we gotta be ready for what comes."

Daddy leans back on the chair legs. "Says on that piece of paper my boys won't have to enlist if they work the hives."

"Yes, sir… I mean, no, sir. They'll be doing war duty working bees. We know making sugar water to keep bees making wax will take a lot of man-hours. A hundred hives might need twenty-five gallons of sugar water a day. We'll give you the sugar, the scale, boxes, paper dividers, cutting tools—­everything you need, even the postage to ship the wax—­and send you a check."

"Is my son-in-law exempt, too?"

"Yes, sir. That release option applies to all the men tied to your family. Well, those who want to stay home, that is. It's kind of a sweet deal, don't you think?"

Daddy looks at Mama.

Our bees sign up.


With its departure, Mr. John T. Booker's car leaves another dust trail behind, and Mama's face has a flush of happiness in her sallow cheeks. She says, "I'll let folks know they won't be getting wax anytime soon." She turns to Daddy. "When will they let Everett and Wade know to come home?"

Excerpted from All the Little Hopes by Leah Weiss. Copyright © 2021 by Leah Weiss. Excerpted by permission of Sourcebooks. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.