The Cape Ann (8 page)

We drove him home in the pickup. Hilly wanted to ride in the back. “Wind,” he said, brushing his hands back over his face and hair.

Main Street was lighted up and full of the noisy self-importance of a small town Saturday night: cars driving up and down, people
hollering across the broad street to each other. All the farmers and half the townspeople were on the streets and in the stores, seeing to Saturday night duties and pleasures.

When Mama stopped in front of Rabel’s Meat Market, Hilly jumped off the back of the truck and came around to say goodbye. I handed him the cake.

“Good … bye,” he said. “Thank … you.”

We waited for him to climb the stairs and open the screen door, then we drove off. “Is Hilly getting his sanity back?” I asked Mama.

“I don’t know. Sometimes it seems that way.” She didn’t sound as excited as I thought she should. I wanted to ask her why, but I kept quiet. When it came to pressing for answers, I was often shy, as if it were not yet the time for me to know.

Instead of going right home, Mama drove around town with the windows rolled down. The evening was warm, and there was a Saturday night edge to it, as though something exciting ought to happen. We passed Bernice and Bill McGivern’s. Mama gave the horn a tap. Mama couldn’t carry a tune in a bushel basket, but we sang “Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.” If they hadn’t known us, people would have thought we were coming home from The Nite Time Saloon.

Mama pulled the big, galvanized tub out from under the crib when we got home. “Bath time,” she announced, dragging it to the kitchen. While I got undressed and into my pink chenille robe, Mama put kettles of water on the stove to heat. I sat down on the davenport to look at the new
Life
magazine.

After my bath, Mama dried me, sprinkled me with Sweet Memory talcum powder, and helped me into a clean nightie. We carried the tub out to the tracks and dumped the water. “It’s almost time for the last freight,” she said. “We’d better use the toilet now.”

Quietly we crossed the dimly lit waiting room to the restroom. The lights in the office were burning, but we didn’t stop to see if Papa or Art Bigelow was working. Sometimes they both stuck around in the evening until after the second freight.

As quietly as we had come, we left, scurrying back to our house before the train pulled in and surprised me out and about in my nightie.

“Do you want a bedtime read?” Mama asked, helping me into the crib.

I remembered the house plans. They were lying on Mama’s
bed. “There’s a pretty house I want to show you.” I pointed to the booklets, and Mama handed them to me. Riffling through the pages until I found #127—The Cape Ann, I held it up. “This one.”

Mama sat down on the edge of the big bed to study the floor plans and the exterior sketch. “Mmmmm,” she murmured, not at once dismissing it.

“It has two bedrooms upstairs and one downstairs for your sewing room. And it has shutters. And a big living room, I think, and two dormer windows.” I opened
Happy Stories for Bedtime
. There was the boy, still sitting in the window. “Look at this, Mama. They made a window seat in the dormer. Can we do that?”

“This Cape Ann has possibilities,” Mama said, looking up from the plans. “A window seat. Yes. You could keep your toys in there.”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Oh, yes,” I squealed, bouncing up and down. Did the boy waiting by the sea for his father have toys in his window seat? I bet he did.

“I like this plan,” Mama said, “because it has a breakfast nook at the end of the kitchen, and the back door’s right here by the cellar-way.” She showed me where the back door was. “We could plant flowers along here,” she added, indicating an area beyond the breakfast nook windows. “Nasturtiums and zinnias and marigolds and poppies. I like flowers that have a lot of color.” So did Sisters Mary Clair and Mary Frances.

“And hollyhocks?” I begged. “I like hollyhocks.”

“We’ll grow hollyhocks along the fence.” Mama ran to the kitchen for a pair of shears. “I’m going to cut this out and tack it up on the wall,” she explained, “so we can look at it every day.”

“Put it up here by the clock.” I stood up to show her where it should go.

“Yes, that’s good.”

“Mama, how can we get some money for the house?”

She finished cutting the two pages from the booklet, then set the scissors aside. “I don’t know,” she said, “but I’ll think of something.”

SOMETIME IN THE NIGHT
, Papa came home and slept in the big bed. But in the morning, and for weeks afterward, Mama was only civil to him and nothing more.

After church Mama and Papa read the Sunday paper. Papa pored over the sports section, keeping track of the Chicago Cubs, his favorite team and winner of the 1938 World Series. Mama studied the classified ads for money-making schemes. Armed with a grease pencil, she circled anything not requiring the applicant to relocate.

There were opportunities for refined women to sell Lady Sylvia corsets and undergarments in the privacy of their homes. There were openings for ambitious salespeople to call on friends and neighbors, introducing them to the comfort, durability, and beauty of Ayler’s A-One shoes (“Hard-to-fit Sizes Our Specialty”). And there were once-in-a-lifetime chances for folks with get-up-and-go to make big money as dealers for Bismark brushes (“Brushes for Farm and Home”).

None of these held much appeal or promise. No work was to be had locally, either, except for sewing or house cleaning or selling magazine subscriptions. But a glut of seamstresses and cleaning ladies and subscription salespeople existed already, so the employment picture was bleak. Bleak was not the same as hopeless, however. “I’ll think of something,” Mama had told me.

But would she? If there were jobs to be had, the young men down in the hobo jungle would be working. They were always out looking, knocking on doors, scouting the filling stations and junkyards, anyplace there might be something temporary that could lead to something permanent. They would mow your lawn, burn your trash, and wash your windows for a meal and half a dollar. Where, then, would Mama find work?

Late in the afternoon, Papa fell asleep stretched out on the davenport, the funny papers lying across his chest. Mama pared
potatoes and cut up the chicken for supper. At times like this, Mama and I played “Lady Caller.”

In the bedroom I combed as much of my hair as I could see, pulled on an old navy blue cloche Mama had donated to me, and tiptoed past her as she melted Crisco in the iron skillet. Outside, I adjusted the hat, smoothed my dress, and examined the contents of my red patent leather purse: one powder puff, stiff and lumpy; a pencil stub; a cracked and badly tattered St. Joseph’s missal Grandma Erhardt had passed along when she’d received a new one; a dainty black rosary from the same source; and in the very bottom, jingling as I shook the purse, two pennies.

Snapping the bag shut, I tucked it under my arm, patted my hair, stepped up to the door, and knocked. Mrs. Erhardt answered, opening the screen.

“Why, Mrs….”

“Brown.”

“Mrs. Brown, it’s nice to see you. Can you come in and visit? I was just putting chicken in the pan to fry.”

“Thank you. I can only stay a few minutes. I have to get home and make supper for my husband and my little girl.”

“Well, sit down here at the table. Can I get you anything?”

“Do you have any penuche candy?”

Mrs. Erhardt appeared a little surprised by this request. “Yes… let me see.” She went to the cupboard and from the top shelf brought me a candy. “I’m sure you’ll want to save it to share with your little girl after supper,” she suggested, handing over the piece of penuche on a circle of wax paper. “I seem to have forgotten her name.”

“Myrna Loy.”

“Myrna Loy?”

“Yes. Myrna Loy Brown. Don’t you think it’s pretty?”

“Very. How is Myrna Loy?”

“She’s fine. She had tonsilitis a while back though.”

“Was she very sick?” Mrs. Erhardt asked, dropping pieces of chicken into a brown bag of flour and seasonings, shaking them, then placing them one at a time in the hot skillet, where they squirmed and sizzled and spattered.

“I’m afraid she was. She ran a fever of a hundred and four, and she had to have her throat painted every day. The poor thing missed a lot of school.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Will she pass to second grade?”

“Oh, yes. She’s very smart and she works hard. Her papa is strict though. He doesn’t like A-minuses.”

“A-minuses don’t seem so bad to me,” Mrs. Erhardt said sympathetically.

“I know, but Mr. Brown wants her to be the best. The same at catechism class.” I crossed my right leg and swung it importantly. “Myrna Loy has a whole cigar box full of holy medals and those little cards with pictures of Jesus and saints on them. She wins something every week at catechism.”

“You must be proud of her.”

“Yes, I am. But Myrna Loy worries about confession.”

“Why is that?”

“She has so many sins,” I explained.

“She’s only six years old!”

“Six-year-old children can be very bad, even when they’re not trying.”

“Well, six-year-old children should remember that their mama and papa love them no matter what they do.”

“Yes, I tell Myrna Loy that, but she worries anyway. Sometimes I think she’ll worry herself to death. Did you ever know anyone who worried themselves to death?”

“No. I don’t think that happens but once in a blue moon.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I make Myrna Loy penuche candy, like you do for your little girl, and nice dresses like the ones in the catalog. She has a lot of nice dresses. I sewed her an angel dress for church.
That
was a lot of work. We had her picture taken, and I sent one to my friend Earl.”

Mrs. Erhardt turned the pieces of chicken as they browned. When they were all turned, she put the lid on the skillet, lowered the heat, and flicked on the burner under the potatoes. After this she opened a large can of green beans and emptied them into a saucepan. “I don’t think I know about your friend Earl,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite me. “Is he from around here?”

“No, Earl’s from back East. He and his sister, Elda, lived on a farm when he was a boy. Then the family had to sell the farm. Elda is married to Bill, and Bill just got a job. He was out of work a long time, and they couldn’t be together. Earl hasn’t seen Elda for six years. He’s out of work, too.”

“That’s a pity.”

“Earl’s smart and good looking, like William Powell, so I think he’ll find something soon. There’s a girl near New Ulm he might marry if he gets work. Her name is Angela.”

“I think it’s all going to turn out hunky-dory.”

“I would like Earl and Angela to live near Mr. Brown and me. Earl could build a house like ours.”

Mrs. Erhardt poured herself a cup of tea from a pot on the stove. For me she poured a second cup, half-full, filling it the rest of the way with milk. “What kind of house do you have?” she inquired.

“You’d like my house. It’s white with blue shutters and a brick sidewalk. It has a white picket fence and hollyhocks. Upstairs in Myrna Loy’s room, there’s a window seat. Across the street there’s a house just like ours, and a boy named Phillip lives there. Phillip’s father is away at the war a lot, so Phillip’s mother, Helen, comes over and visits almost every day. I think Myrna Loy will grow up and get married to Phillip.” I sipped my tepid tea. “I forgot to tell you, Phillip’s mother is a tap dancer. She’s won hundreds of prizes for tap dancing. She says one day when she was about six or seven, she woke up and put on her black patent leather shoes and a dress that had a lot of starch in it, and just like that, she started to dance, without any lessons.” I blotted my imaginary lipstick with a paper napkin. “They moved here from England. Helen’s sister, Cynthia, moved here, too, but she’s living at the Harvester Arms because she and her husband can’t afford a house.”

“That’s a shame,” Mrs. Erhardt said, carrying her cup to the sink.

“Cynthia’s husband plays poker,” I told her confidentially.

“I see.”

“He lost a thousand dollars.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Cynthia says she doesn’t want to live at the Harvester Arms all her life because she has to go down the hall to the bathroom, and her little girl, Sonja, doesn’t have her own room. Cynthia’s going to get a job.”

“Jobs are hard to find.”

“Not for Cynthia. She can do anything.”

It was nearly time for Mrs. Erhardt to put supper on the table for her husband and her little girl, Lark, so I said, “I’ve got to get home now. Myrna Loy and her papa will be hungry.”

“Next time you come, bring Myrna Loy with you. I’d like to meet her.”

“Thank you for the tea and penuche. I’ll save the candy and share it with Myrna Loy.”

Mrs. Erhardt let me out, and I strolled twice around the depot and once past the Harvester Arms. Returning, I pulled off the cloche, stuffed the red purse inside it, inched open the screen door, and sneaked past Mama who was looking into the refrigerator.

A few minutes later she called Papa and me to dinner. Mama had made milk gravy in the chicken pan. No one has ever tasted better gravy than Mama’s milk gravy. I quickly made a big well in my potatoes and watched as she poured the creamy, freckled liquid, so dear to my stomach, into the depression.

“Papa, don’t wreck my well,” I implored.

He laughed heartily and reached for a drumstick. “Who? Me?” he asked and, as he spoke, the drumstick fell from his hand into the potato well, spilling the gravy over the plate. Papa laughed until he nearly choked on his green beans.

After Mama and I had washed and dried the dishes, Papa asked me, “Want to tag along while I check the boxcars?”

“Take the pails with you,” Mama said, so Papa and I each carried a slop pail out to the tracks and dumped it. Then, leaving the pails on the platform, we walked across the tracks to the furthermost one, alongside the grain elevators. Papa carried a clipboard and papers, and he checked the information on these against information on the boxcars. He slid open the doors of the empty cars to see that no one was sleeping in them. He never made a fuss about men
riding
in the empty cars, but he wouldn’t let them
sleep
there. Papa told me that in some places, men were hired to beat up tramps found coming into town on the train. Papa didn’t approve of that. He’d gone to school with fellows who’d had to take to the rails. A man who voted a straight Democratic ticket wouldn’t beat up on tramps, he’d told me. “I hope you’ll always vote a straight Democratic ticket,” he’d added. I promised him I would.