The Star Garden (7 page)

In no time I had a bolt of muslin, boxes of nails, bags of beans, sacks of Indian flour and wheat and coffee. A new paper of pins. Five cards of buttons. Axle grease. Hide glue. Baking soda and liniment. I paused in front of a pyramid stack of five jars of Hagan’s Magnolia Balm, where a sign underneath said the stuff was guaranteed to keep a woman from looking old and worn. I shook my head, wondering how a woman knew when she looked old and worn. There was a handy mirror right next to the balms, just to check. Instead, I took a box of headache powders. When everything was totaled up it was nearly twenty dollars’ worth. I paid off the credit I owed Mr. Griego, too, another three dollars and eleven cents. I tied my string around a thinner roll of bills.

Well, I was ready to leave when I spied a peculiar item under the glass at the register. “Will you show me that?” I asked Mr. Griego. It looked to be some kind of kitchen tool I’d never seen. A metal box with a glass inside.

Mr. Griego squinted and felt around until I nodded when he took hold of the box. He said, “A spirit level, this one? A spirit level is a tool for men to put on things they building. To see is she flat and square. See these air bubble in the oil? When she’s lined up in these line, you got you a flat place. It’s not flat, it’s no good. House going to fall down. Got to be level, and only way is to put this on and see. Keeps everything straight. Just like, you no like when the floor go sideways and the stove don’t stand up straight. This fix it. Don’t build her crooked.”

I set the spirit level on his counter. It was off by a quarter bubble. “A person needs this to build a house?”

“
Sí.
This
mesilla,
she is too many peoples leaning their arms.” “Level would be better. Makes sense to me.”

“
Si.
Less than two dollars for a tool she is
indispensable.
Is good price. Fine instrument.”

I couldn’t possibly give Udell Hanna a shirt the way I’d do for my own family. That was far too personal. But this, this was the kind of thing a man might use if he had it. A better thing than another pair of gloves, fancier than a hammer. Useful but unusual. I counted out the dollar and ninety-one cents very carefully. I tucked the spirit level into my pocket next to the rolled-up bills, where it bumbled back and forth as I walked to the buggy.

Harland had been busy, and he’d found a lady to cook and clean, too. The place began to feel less mine with every tick of the clock.

Next morning, Harland and I fetched April and off we went. He bought over two hundred dollars’ worth of furniture and rugs and lamps from Caldwell’s store. Their wagons were loaded and sent to the house in quick order. April said she felt fine and that her baby sickness came on her some days and not others, so Harland took us to lunch at Bell’s Pharmacy where we had sandwiches and phosphates.

The wagons full of goods arrived that afternoon, and then we were all a-flurry, setting things right. Rachel had brought her own bedstead and two chests, and we prettied up a room for her on the second floor. With everyone helping out, it began to look like a real home in no time. I had become a guest in my own house. It smelled different. Looked different.

I sent Zack, who is ten, to the attic to sweep so there’d be a clean place to store the few remnants of my furniture. Then I told Ezra to go around all the windowsills with a wet rag. Well, before long I heard them howling up the chimneys at each other, when suddenly Ezra came tearing out of the parlor like a scalded cat, stringing dust and dirt from his hair as he galloped up the stairs threatening to hang Zack out a window. Pretty soon, down they both came, Zack just ahead of his brother, when he tripped and went nose over like a barrel down the stairs. He landed at the bottom with a thud and sprawled, unmoving. Truth and Story came on his heels, with Honor a few steps behind. Those three were cheering and hollering like wild coyotes.

Ezra ran to Zack, shouting, “Get up, you. I’m gonna make you eat a pound of dirt. Just you blink one eye, you yellow dog. Just you breathe one snort.”

The rest of us watched in horror. “Zack?” everyone called at once. The boy didn’t move. Albert went to him. “Son?” he said.

Zack opened one eye. “Don’t let him pound me, Papa. I didn’t know he’d stuck his big dumb head up the chimney. I was doing my chores like I was told.”

Ezra said, “Ah, I knew he was playing possum. You bum.”

“There’ll be no calling names,” Albert said. “Now, boys—”

Zack crossed his arms and said, “He was owl-hooting up the chimney like he was being some ghost.”

“Was not.”

“Was, too. He said Uncle Jack’s ghost was walking around up in that attic and if I moved the dust, the ghost would get me. Then he starts—”

“You were bragging you didn’t care about being up there. Bragging’s a sin.”

“—hooting up the chimney like he was a ghost. The only way to see a ghost is when they walk through dust, so I dusted him.”

Albert held both of them by the collars of their shirts. He said, “Ezra, go outside and shake that out of your hair. Then you sweep every speck of dust you spread through this house and finish the attic yourself.” Albert went on, jostling Zack by his neck, “You apologize to Aunt Sarah, then get in that kitchen, find the stove black and start painting that stove. And don’t you spill one single drop.”

I turned around to keep from laughing at their antics, but I kept a strong face while Albert scolded. A couple of men were busy tying netting over an oil painting of a river where cows grazed under a big tree. Even they were laughing.

In the midst of it all, I spied Blessing sitting at the top of the stairway. I went toward her, but she hopped up and ran for one of the bedrooms. She closed the door before I got there. I stopped outside the portal, wondering what I should do. Blessing had been her mother’s darling. Her father’s, too, I’d reckon. Far too headstrong and willful for a child. I thought of Harland hiring Rachel. An inexperienced girl would have her hands full with this bunch. Far as I could see it wasn’t the lack of a governess that caused them to be sassy and spoiled. My brother had put aside his responsibility for rearing them because it was easier to see them through eyes of pity than courage.

“Blessing?” I said, opening the door. “I want to talk to you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” came a little voice. She was seated on a rocking horse, staring out the window.

“Well, that’s not the reaction I expected, after you ran away from me just now.”

“Poppy said I have to say ‘yes, ma’am’ to you for my own good, or I’ll go to hell when I die.”

“Ah.”

“
Poppy says we have to live in your house now and we should be thankful.”

“Are you thankful?”

“I want to go home to our own house. Mommy’s there waiting for us. She doesn’t know where to find us, or she’d have come. I don’t want to live in
your
old house. It’s too far for her.”

I sat down on the window seat next to her. She turned her head and stared out the window in another direction. I said, “You know your house burned down. Remember the earthquake?”

“No.”

“Remember how sick your mommy got? Remember she was in bed in that awful tent and then you went with her in a train to Chicago, waiting for her to get well?”

“There wasn’t anything to eat.”

“I know.”

“Poppy said you came to take us to a safe place. To save Mommy. Where did you put her?”

“Blessing, you know your mother went to heaven with the angels.”

Blessing turned a red face toward me. Tears shot forth from her eyes and a slick of spittle came from the corner of her mouth. “She did not! She did not! She’s lost and she’s looking for me. My mommy would never go to heaven without me. She needs me. She said so.”

“I know she needs you. You were her favorite little girl in the whole world. You were a special gift to her from God. But He needed her up there with Him.”

“I hate God! He doesn’t need my mommy.
I
need her. I’m going to run away and find her. You’ll see. I’m leaving.”

There are people I know who would spank a child for saying to an adult anything so impertinent. But I knew how she felt. “Shall I help you pack?”

She made a choking sound and nodded “yes.”

I pulled her valise from under the new bed all decked with fluffy down coverlets and stuffed toys. “What would you like to take? This bear?”

“No.”

“You’ll need some drawers and stockings. How about one of these dresses?”

“I hate that one.” She slid off the wooden horse and pulled open a drawer on a chest between the windows. “This is my favorite nightie.” She folded it carefully and laid it on the bed. It was an old one that had belonged to one of Savannah’s girls that I’d restitched for her when she’d gotten to my ranch house. For some reason, it warmed my hands to touch it. “I want my dolls from home. Poppy said I can’t have them.”

“They are all lost, honey,” I said. I tucked the nightie in, along with stockings and two sets of pantaloons and the brand-new tortoiseshell hairbrush from her dressing stand. “Do you want the doll Granny made?”

“All right. Bring Molly. And my red cape. Poppy reads me ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ when I wear it.”

I folded the tattered cape. She’d had it on when I found her and Harland’s family in San Francisco, living in the filth left after the fire. It had taken me two washes to discover it had once been red. “If you leave, of course, he’ll never read it again.”

She glared at me, the look on her face one of suspicion and accusation. “Yes he will.”

“No he won’t. If his Little Red Riding Hood is gone.”

“I’ll be with Mommy. He can read it and come find me.”

“Do you want to take a buttonhook? How about a toothbrush? Are you all set, then? Shall I drive you to the train depot?”

“Yes.” She nodded firmly, a horse trader having made the best bargain of the day. I carried the valise through the house past workmen and movers, the maid and the cook. Harland was calling from a back room for men to put a piano in the front parlor. Truth, Story, and Honor were in the backyard prowling through crates and cartons, hiding and jumping out to shoot each other with their fingers. Out of habit, Blessing took my hand as we swept past them all and got into the buggy I’d only half unloaded. No one noticed that we pulled onto the road, nor waved or called as we drove toward the depot.

Two miles down the road we turned at a corner, and another mile went by before we pulled up at the station. It was quiet at the moment. I tied off the horse and helped Blessing down. “Sit there,” I said, and went to talk to the stationmaster. Then I returned to her. “It’s all set,” I said. “You have permission from the man who runs the trains to get on. All you have to do is wait for the next one. Good luck. It’s getting dark. Try and find something to eat along the way. There might be something left on the floor after someone real sloppy is finished. Don’t forget to brush your teeth once in a while so they don’t fall out. If they do, be sure to get some false ones that don’t clack too much. Goodbye and farewell.” I smiled and waved as if she were only skipping next door to see a friend, then I climbed into the buggy.

Worry took her face, but she sat still. I shook the reins. The wheels turned. The horse took two more steps. I heard a squeal of alarm. “Wait!” Blessing shouted. “Wait, Aunt Sarah!”

I stopped the horse and turned to see her. “Was there something we forgot?”

“Are you going to leave me here?”

“Well, ye
s.
You said you wanted to go.”

There was panic in her voice. It came out a shriek. “You can’t leave me here to wait all alone. I’m a little girl!”

“Well, if you’re leaving, I’ve got to go tell your poppy and brothers. They’ll be awfully sad, of course.” I gave a great sigh. “Maybe he’ll find another girl someday who wears a red cape and wants to hear the story.”

“He can’t do that.”

“Oh, well,” I said. “He is already so sad, with Mommy up in heaven and all, having to lose you too will just make him cry day and night. Maybe I’ll read ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ to
him,
so he’ll remember you before you left him.”

“I wouldn’t leave him! Poppy needs me.”

I turned the buggy around. Blessing stood at the edge of the platform. A train whistle howled from the west; the evening Santa Fe was pulling into town. “He needs you more than ever,” I said, “but you want to leave. He’s too sad right now to tell you to behave yourself. He doesn’t scold you or paddle you when you’re naughty because he misses your mommy so much. He might forget that underneath the tantrums you can be a good girl. Who is going to remind him of how good you can be, if you aren’t there? Why, he might keep crying until he’s old.”

She put her fists into her eyes and rubbed, crying loudly. “I want my mommy,” she crooned between sobs.

I got out of the rig and went to her, kneeling. “Blessing, Mommy can’t be here. She’s looking down from heaven, hoping you’ll help her take care of Poppy. She’d want you to come home.”

Suddenly, she threw her arms around my neck, nearly sending me sprawling on the platform. “I want my poppy. Mommy needs me to be with Poppy.”

“Yes, she does,” I said. Tears brimmed over in my own eyes. “Shall we go now?” The air began to hum with the low rumble of the train approaching. “Train’s almost here. You could get on it.”

“No!” She crushed my neck. “Don’t
let
me go away. I want my poppy.”

I picked her up and sat her in the buggy, her valise at her feet. We drove back to the house, and the whole way there, Blessing nestled against me, sniffling and whimpering. Soon as we got to the yard, she called her papa, and hopped down so fast when she saw him I had to brake hard and haul back on the line for fear of running over her.

I went to Harland, who looked exhausted. He patted Blessing’s head as she clung to his knees. He said, “Oh, Sarah, there you are. Can you please help me and watch her for a bit? Just do something with her to keep her from underfoot.”

“She was running away from home,” I said.

He stopped short. “Running away? To where?” He picked her up.

Blessing said, “To find Mommy. But Aunt Sarah said you’d have to read ‘Red Riding Hood’ to someone else because I was gone away. So I corned home.”