Relationship Spotlight: Gypsy Leemaster & Woodrow Prater (Belle Prater’s Boy)

Belle Prater’s Boy is a book that captivated me when I was younger, and much of that is down to Gypsy and Woodrow.  Both are fantastic in their own right, but they’re so much better together.  Here’s a cousin bond that grows gently but swiftly into a fierce best friendship.

Although Gypsy and Woodrow know one another before the events of the book, they don’t really know each other.  Gypsy’s family lives in town, respectable, while her aunt, Woodrow’s mother, attached herself years ago to a holler-dwelling coal miner.  Woodrow is a poor hillbilly cousin that Gypsy sees infrequently, never for long stretches of time.  Their occasional visits are marked by the difference in their circumstances, Gypsy’s Sunday dresses compared to Woodrow’s too-big hand-me-downs.

Despite this distance, they fall into a comfortably intimate routine almost as soon as Woodrow comes to town to live with their grandparents.  They share jokes and tall tales, lie on the rug poring over the same comic book.  They join forces to campaign for trips to the movies, and Gypsy introduces Woodrow to all the new things to experience in town, from getting his hair cut at a real barber shop to giving their grandparents’ dog her favorite treat.  I may not have grown up in the South in the ‘50s, but watching them laugh together and keep each other entertained brings back so many summer memories.

And of course, they share more than just their hobbies and enjoyments.  Gypsy wastes no time in asking for Woodrow’s theories about his mother, who has disappeared, and he tells her his fantastical story of the place in his backyard where two worlds touch, the place he says his mother vanished into.  In turn, Gypsy confesses her own secrets – her prickly feelings toward her stepfather, for instance, and her fear that no one knows who she really is, that they only see a pretty girl and nothing of Gypsy herself. 

Of course, this means that each knows the other’s most vulnerable spots, and on the rare times that they fight, it can get nasty quickly.  All it takes is one flippant remark about Woodrow’s mother to wound him, and when he wants to get Gypsy’s dander up, he just needs to pal around with her stepdad.  Their falling-outs don’t last long, but it’s clear that they can both hit the other where it hurts, and when they’re feeling insecure or ignored or edgy, they’re not afraid to do it – interesting how friends on the outs can make the sharpest enemies.

Much more often, however, they champion each other against those who seek to hurt them.  When townsfolk gossip about Woodrow’s mother, Gypsy forcibly changes the subject, trying to shield Woodrow from it.  Like the rest of the family, Woodrow knows the truth about how Gypsy’s father died, and he runs interference when people poke too closely at the secret.  She challenges anyone who sneers at his crossed eyes, and he shows the light to anyone who suggests she’s less than she is.  Even when they’ve been arguing, they see when the other is being threatened and rush in to aid their cousin and friend.  In those moments, any disagreements, slights, or pointed stings pass away, and all that’s left is a pair of devoted protectors who would do anything to keep each other safe in a world that, they both know, is too quick to harm.