Out of the Dust

Billie Jo sees her mother through a set of complex lenses. In describing her physical appearance, Billie Jo says Ma is not “much to look at” (24) with her unwashed hair, bad teeth, and thin frame. Playing piano, though, she is spellbinding to Billie Jo and Bayard. Billie Jo comments on her mother’s ability to adapt to the hard life on a farm in the Panhandle, and readers see indirectly that Ma still shows her free-spiritedness when she stands naked in the rain. She is generous and righteous, exemplified in her donations to the church committee and her return of Mr. Hardly’s change. Billie Jo would like to accept more obvious signs of tenderness, love, and mother’s pride from Ma, like when the state test scores show Billie Jo’s academic prowess, but she also notes after Ma’s death that she misses Ma’s ability to listen, soothe Billie Jo’s restlessness, and smooth things over to her father. Ma also caters lovingly to her apple trees, which yield sweet and nourishing food, representing the silent but impactful care Ma administers over the family.

Ma taught Billie Jo piano, but Ma plays “fine tunes and fancy fingerwork” (25) while Billie Jo loves to play fast and furiously, songs she refers to as “rags”; so their piano preferences point to dissimilarities in their personalities, as Billie Jo loves the energy in the Palace and on the road when she gets to play for a crowd, but Ma is associated with staying at home and playing soothing music on the piano for Bayard when he comes in from the fields, exhausted.

After the accident, Ma might have told Billie Jo that it was not her fault or other words of comfort, but Ma cannot speak; additionally, Ma cannot take comfort by touch. When Billie Jo tries to give Ma water on the night Daddy goes drinking, she cannot squeeze the cloth or aim it well due to her own injuries. Any of these small gestures might have eased Billie Jo’s anguish, but instead, she carries the heaviest of burdens in guilt, bitterness, and sadness for the year that follows. As time passes, Billie Jo comes to think of Ma and Franklin resting permanently in the ground, their bones turning to stone the way the dinosaurs did in the region long ago. Eventually, when Louise becomes a part of their lives, Billie Jo feels that Ma’s bones do not mind.

Ma is a static character who serves as an archetypal Mentor to Billie Jo. She symbolizes hard work, earnestness, and righteousness, but she also represents the arbitrariness of existence when she meets her death unexpectedly, undeservedly, and violently.

Bayard Kelby, Billie Jo’s father, is a hardworking farmer devoted to his land and his family. He has one older sibling, a sister name Ellis who is 14 years older than him. Bayard’s father died of skin cancer. Bayard fought in World War I when he was 17. He gave the piano to Polly when they married. Billie Jo is convinced that he wanted her (Billie Jo) to be a boy, but Bayard never provides evidence of that. He does, though, allow Billie Jo to learn “boy” tasks like driving the tractor. Bayard shows some sense of humor with his comments about peppered potatoes and chocolate milk at dinner (referring to the dusty food), but his clearest personality trait early in the narrative is stubbornness. He refuses to listen to the possibility of the wheat failing. He will not listen to Ma’s reasoning about the pond and the diversification of crops, and tells her she is not the farmer, he is. Billie Jo sees others departing for better conditions and better work opportunities, but she knows the Kelbys will not leave: “My father will stay, no matter what, / he’s stubborn as sod. / He and the land have a hold on each other” (75).

Bayard, unlike Polly, grows and changes; he is a dynamic character. After Ma and Franklin die, his grief and guilt keep him immersed in silence. He stares at Billie Jo’s hands, and when she wants to do something that Ma would never allow (like go to see a flower bloom in the night) he just lets her go. While his stubbornness for hard work and trust in the land upon which his property sits remain a part of character for the duration of the novel, he changes his mind about the pond and about diversifying the crops after Ma is gone. This shows that he realizes change is inevitable; he also accepts that more education might help him through the dry spells and bad harvests, so he begins night school. At first stubbornly resistant to seeing the doctor for his skin spots, he shows that he wants what is best for Billie Jo by relenting and going to Doctor Rice. He also shows he feels it may be best to move on from their family tragedy when he begins to see Louise.