by Jane Smiley
“All right,” said Mama, “I found it in the sideboard. But you’ve got to put some sugar in the knot or he won’t be able to stand the bitter taste.” She reached for a cup on one of the shelves, and poured something into it. After that, she lifted the tray of Frank’s chair, all the while anchoring him with her hand, and then she took him in her arms and set him gently on her jiggling knee. The noise subsided considerably. But even so, she did put a thing in his mouth, first burning and then moist and sweet, and anyway something to suck upon. Papa said, “Ragnar, the English for that is ‘sugar tit.’ ”
“Oh, Walter,” exclaimed Mama. “For goodness’ sake.”
Ragnar said, “Sukker smokk.”
Mama said, “I am sure you are telling Ragnar all the best dirty English words while you are cleaning the hog pens.”
Frank felt his mouth working, pulling the sweetness through the bitterness. Normally while sucking, he would be looking at Mama, the curve of her jaw and the fall of her blond hair half covering her ear, but now he stared at the ceiling. It was flat, and as he sucked, it seemed to lower itself onto him. The last thing he heard was “Did he fall asleep?”
The jiggling continued.
NOW THAT HE was crawling, Frank found that many doors were closed to him. Most of the time, in fact, he was confined to a space in the dining room that was nowhere near the woodstove in the front room, or the range in the kitchen. Many things were denied him that he once enjoyed, including the quotidian miracle of the flung spoon—he could have a spoon only when he was secure in his high chair in the kitchen (and he now had a strap to tie him in, since he felt no scruples about arching his back and sliding downward beneath the tray in his attempt to find the floor and take off). Things that he picked up, no matter how small, were removed from his grasp before he could give them the most cursory inspection, not to mention get them to his mouth. It seemed that he could never get anything to his mouth that he actually wanted to get there. Whatever he grabbed was immediately removed and a cracker was substituted, but he had explored all the features of crackers, and there was nothing more about them that he cared to find out.
The only thing he had left was standing beside one of the cane-seated chairs in his confinement pen and banging on it with his hands, sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes alternately, sometimes together. The cane in the middle and the wood around it presented an interesting contrast. His fist smacked the wood and it hurt just a little, though not enough to matter. His fist smacked the cane and then bounced. He also laughed when he pushed the chair over, but that could backfire if he then fell down—his balance was improving, but he wasn’t walking yet. These were seductive feelings, but no substitute for everything else in the house—the staircase, the windows, the basket of firewood, the books that could be opened and closed and torn, the rocking chair that could be tipped over, the cat that could be chased (though not caught), the fringe of the rug that could be chewed. He couldn’t even go out onto the porch anymore—when that door flew open, a cold blast shot through it that made him gasp.
Mama and Papa came and went. When he made noise (he now knew where the noise came from and how to make it whenever he wanted to—you opened your mouth and pressed the noise out and there were a variety of noises that produced a variety of effects upon Mama and Papa), she appeared from beyond one of the doors—the kitchen door—and she had a cloth in her hands. She said, “Frankie hungry? Poor boy. Two more minutes, baby.” The door closed and she was gone. He pounded his fist on the cane-bottomed chair. The noise he made was “ma ma ma ma ma.” The kitchen door flew open. Rosanna said, “What did you say, Frankie?” She stepped into his enclosure and came down to him. She said, “Say it again, baby. Say ‘mama.’ ”
But he said something else, who knew what. It was just noise for now. When she stood up, he did another thing, which was to look up at her and raise both of his arms toward her. It had the desired effect: She said, “You are the most beautiful baby!” And she picked him up, sat down on the cane-seated chair, then opened her dry, hard front to reveal the desired warm, soft object beneath. Frank settled himself into her lap.
It was not the same as it had been, though. There had been a time when her lap was enough, the crook of her arm was enough, the breast itself and the lovely nipple were enough to envelop him in pleasure. Now he was half distracted even while enjoying himself. His gaze rolled around the room, taking in the top corners of the doors, the moldings, the pale light floating up from the windows, the design of the wallpaper, Mama’s face, and then around again, looking for something new. Mama absently stroked the top of his head. Her body relaxed and she slumped against the back of the chair. In the quiet of the room (quiet because Frank himself was making no noise), other sounds manifested themselves—the howl of the wind curling around the corners of the house, the clattering of ice against the house (muffled) and the windows (sharp). Sometimes the wind was so strong that the house itself creaked. Just then there was a loud cracking noise followed by a longer, higher sound. Mama sat up. She lifted Frank more toward her chin, said, “What was that?” and stood. They went to a window.
There was nothing more surprising than a window, and you could not get to them on your own. You might have looked out a window many times, and even though the window was right where it was the last time you looked through it, each time there was something different. Sometimes, there was nothing, only flat blackness, but this time there was only flat whiteness. And its smoothness was terrible—when Frank reached out and laid his hand on it, Mama cupped his hand in hers and brought it back to her chest. She said, “Oh, a big branch off the hickory tree. Right into the yard, too. It must be ten below out there, baby boy, or worse. That’s cold for this time of year. I hate to think what it’ll be like when winter actually gets here.” Her shoulders shook. She said, “And more sleet! I hope your papa and Ragnar got all the cows in, I hope they did!” She kissed him again, this time on the forehead. “Goodness me, what a life—and don’t tell him I said so!”
They sat down again, this time on the other side of the confinement barrier, in the big chair, and Mama put him to the other breast, the one he preferred, the one with more milk. And then, the next time he knew where he was, he was in his cot on his back with a blanket up to his chin, and then he didn’t know where he was again.
AFTER THE UNION SUIT, Mama smoothed the socks she had knitted over his feet, sat him up, and lowered the shirt over his head, carefully avoiding his nose and ears. She buttoned the shirt. Then she straightened his knees and pushed his feet through the legs of his pants. The toes of his right foot were bent upward, and he gave a squawk. She pulled down the pant leg and pointed his toes. Soon she was buttoning the trousers to the shirt.
Frank felt strangely passive through all this. Once the pants were on, he went even more limp, so that she could barely slide him into his heavy, stiff snowsuit, first the legs again, and the suspenders, then, when she sat him up and he slumped forward. Papa said, “It’s going to take us an hour to get there, and it’s nearly five.” Frank felt Mama’s grip tighten around his shoulders. It was impossible to get his arms down the sleeves of the snowsuit, and when she did, they could no longer bend. She put on his mittens, then situated his cap around his head and tied the itchy straps beneath his chin. She slipped on his shoes and tied them. He began to whimper.
But they paid no attention to him. She folded the big flaps of the blanket he was lying on over his face and said, “Jake is hitched up and ready, right?”
“He’s got his own blanket over his haunches, and the buggy is full of blankets.”
“What’s Ragnar going to do for the evening?”
“Stay right here. He’s got tomorrow off.”
She put him, blinded by the blanket, into Papa’s arms and, probably, left the room. A moment later, that blast hit him, and he knew they were out the front door and onto the porch. He didn’t dare move, and he couldn’t move, anyway. Papa paused, then went down, then paused, then went down,
then paused, then went down.
“Oh,” said Mama behind him. “Slippery.”
“Ran out of salt.”
“Be careful, then.”
“You be careful. You’ve got the pie.”
“I’m being careful. But there will be plenty of pie.”
“Hope so.”
“And Frankie’s birthday cake. My mother is making her angel food.”
“Mmm,” said Papa. Now he set Frank in the crook of his arm and gripped him tight around the ankle, and said, “Evening, Ragnar. I’ll put Jake away when we get back.” Then the door to the buggy opened, and Frank was out of the wind and in Mama’s lap again, but he still could not move his arms or his head. He could kick his legs a little. The constriction was strange, or maybe perplexing, in that it didn’t require him to make noise of any kind. He lay there and they went on, up and down and forward—he’d done this before and liked it—and he watched things pass on the other side of the pane, everything dark against dark, until he fell asleep.
Now he was propped against Mama’s shoulder, looking at Papa as Mama stepped upward. He was still immobilized inside his suit, and hot now, his arms stuck out straight to either side and his head not nestled into her neck, the way he liked it, but sticking up. Papa looked down and said, “Steep steps. Could you hold the rail?” And Mama said, “I’m okay now—the porch is clear.” Papa’s face was bright, and then they went through, into a bright, loud place, and he was pulled away from Mama, who said, “What a night!”
There was a person here who always said to him, “Here’s my darling! Give Granny a smile! That’s my boy. Smiles like my father, even without many teeth,” and someone else said, “Your father didn’t have many more teeth than this baby, Mary!” And then there was laughing, and he was kissed on the cheek, and Granny sat him on her lap and unwrapped him piece by piece.
Now he was sitting up on Granny’s knee—she had her hands around him, and he was bending and bouncing and shouting, because all of the light and the smiles were so exciting that he could hardly contain himself.
“One year old!” said Granny. “Hard to believe.”
“Just this time a year ago,” said Papa, “I looked at Dr. Gerritt and realized that he was drunk!”
“Oh, Walter,” said Mama.
“Well, he was. But, you know, he was like a horse that’s used to plowing the same field year after year, just did what he knew to do, and everything was fine.”
“That was a piece of luck, Walter,” said Granny. “But what would we do without some luck after all?”
One of the faces, one he’d never seen before, said, “My goodness, Mary, that is the most beautiful baby. Look at those big blue eyes! And already such hair. You don’t see that with blonds very often. My niece Lydia’s child is three, and her hair is still as fine as down.”
Granny leaned forward to kiss, but she didn’t say anything. He walked toward some legs in overalls, and the legs stepped backward. He followed them. Some skirts swished around, too. When he sat down with a thump, hands grabbed him under his arms and stood him up. He headed toward a low table.
Mama had now taken off her coat and carried her pie to the kitchen. She sat down on the sofa, just where he could see her, and said, “Really, he’s a New Year’s baby, not a New Year’s Eve baby. He wasn’t born until three a.m.” He sidestepped around the table, understanding perfectly well that he was making his way toward her—Frank had no problem with mapping. “Dr. Gerritt told me he came out and then went back in again. Must have been too cold for him. My boy!” She touched his cheek with the back of her finger.
A voice said, “You ask me, any winter baby is a miracle. My sister—” but Mama picked him up as he came toward her and smothered him with hugs and kisses. Another voice said, “Spring fever makes winter babies,” and Granny said, “Is that so? No one ever told me that.” Everyone laughed again.
It was a wonderful party. Faces leaned toward him and then retreated. Maybe he had never seen so many smiles. Smiles were good. In a rudimentary way, he grasped the concept of universal love. He was the only baby here. He was the only baby he had ever seen.
Now the couch was full of gravelly-voiced stiff ones, like Papa. One of them said, “Karl Lutz lost two cows down that ravine he has there. Break in the fence, and two of them shorthorn heifers went through before anyone realized. Fell over the edge, I guess.”
Papa made a noise; then one of the others made a noise. There was head shaking, not nodding. Frank turned around. He had to balance himself with his hand on that little table, but he did it. The women were softer and looked at him more. Right then, Frank generalized from what had been mere habit, and decided that looking at women was just more agreeable in every way than looking at men. He lifted his hand off the table and precipitated himself in the direction of the women. One of them had to catch him a few seconds later, as his body outran his feet, which were slowed by his awkward shoes. He fell into her arms. He had never seen her before.
Granny called, “Supper!” and all the skirts and legs straightened up and moved. Mama bent down and picked him up, seating him in the crook of her arm. He was glad to see her. He put his arm around her neck.
There was no high chair at Granny’s, so he sat on Papa’s lap, sort of pinned between Mama and Papa. His chin rose just above the edge of the table, and he enjoyed looking around at the bright-colored and flashing dishes—he knew they were dishes of some sort, because there was food on them, and whenever he threw his plate off the tray of his high chair, Mama said, “Frankie, no! Don’t throw your dish. That was very naughty.” However, sitting in Papa’s lap, he could not get his hands on a dish to save his life—Papa’s long arm was pinned around him, holding him away from the table. Mama put a green bean in his hand. He held it while she then put a spoon full of something to his lips. He hesitated, but then let it in. It was mush. He was hungry enough to take it.
“Try the pork on him,” said Granny. “I cooked it all day. He might like it.”
Mama used the thing that was not her spoon or her fork, the thing he could never have, and pressed her plate over and over with it. Then she brought it to him on her spoon. It smelled so good that he opened his mouth, and in it went. “Down the hatch,” said Papa, and Frank opened his mouth for more.
“What’s in that?” said Papa.
“Just the usual. Some onions and a little fennel seed. Not much of that. Cooked forever.”
Mama said, “He likes most things, I have to say. He took a bit of liver the other day. Made a face, but swallowed it.”
“Never had a picky eater in our family,” said Granny. “You yourself ate asparagus when you were eight months old. Never saw a child just take a stalk of asparagus and gobble it down like that. Slaw. Boiled cabbage. Everything.”
“It’s the German in ’em,” said a deep voice. “Ja, it is. I myself liked sauerkraut better than anything when I was a boy. The others were bellying up to the apple pie, and I would ask my mama for another spoonful of sauerkraut.”
“Ah, well,” said Granny, “what else was there to eat in those days? Got old pretty quick, you ask me.”
All this time, Mama was giving him bits of things on the tip of her spoon, many different things, and he was a good boy. He recognized the applesauce and the sweet potato and the crust of bread. He took more of the pork and another green bean. The air was full of conversation, and many words he was already familiar with, though he had no idea what they meant—oats, corn, hogs, steers, barley, harvest, sale barn, threshing, crib, snow, freeze—as well as words that he did understand—sleet, cold, sunshine, spoon, aunt, uncle, no, good, bad, Frank, more, eat, thank you. His eyes roamed from face to face, and then Granny said a word, “Cake,” and it went around the room—“Look at that cake!” “Lovely cake, Mary!” “My favorite cake.”
All the dishes were cleared from the table, and Papa set him right in the middle, but holding him all the time, and the faces made a noise together—not a bad noise, “Happy Birthd
ay to You!”—and then Mama took him back on her lap, and handed him something soft, and he tasted it, and then he ate it, but only because he was a good eater, and a good boy, and ready for anything. Then Mama took him away into a dark room, and nursed him, and, for goodness’ sake, they both fell asleep on the bed, her arm over him and his mouth around her nipple, because, although he wasn’t really hungry, his chances to partake of this pleasure had gotten fewer and fewer.
1921
FIRST, Rosanna had arranged it so that her sister, Eloise, would live with them, and it was all going to work out for the best, since they had a better school for her nearby. When she wasn’t in school, she could help with Frank, who was getting around the house at about a mile a minute. Then she made a plan with Mrs. Frederick down the road to hatch some chickens in the old henhouse—she cleaned it out before telling Walter a thing about it—thirty to start. Rosanna had grown up raising chickens, and she missed them, and Eloise was used to chickens, and she and Walter both knew without saying a word that if all he did was break even for the year, then there had to be egg money. Walter, she knew, wasn’t fond of chickens—their mess got everywhere if you weren’t careful, and they could be underfoot—nor did he especially care for eggs, since he had eaten fried eggs every morning for his whole life because that’s what his father liked and his mother made. Well, chickens. Then there could be ducks and turkeys. And Eloise would sleep in with Frank, since Ragnar had the third bedroom. But Eloise was happy to come—one baby to take care of was preferable to three brothers. And none of them talkers—Eloise said days could go by without Gus, Kurt, or John saying a word. This was not true of Eloise, as Rosanna reflected when Eloise asked again—was it for the twentieth time?—“So little Frankie didn’t get baptized?”
