Katherine's Story

by Thomas Kinkade

  Lizabeth sighed. “I said I’d help, so I will.”

  “The good thing about raking leaves,” Kat said, “is that new ones keep falling. So we’ll have lots of repeat customers.”

  “We’ll need dozens of customers to earn twenty dollars,” Lizabeth said.

  “Twenty dollars minus a nickel,” Kat corrected. “I’ll have to work every single day.” It was already November tenth and December fifteenth wasn’t that far off. “Look, that front yard is drowning in leaves! Let’s go.”

  Kat led the way up the front path and rang the doorbell.

  Mrs. Peterson opened the door. “Katherine, Amanda, and Lizabeth, my three favorite young ladies. You all looked lovely at the barn dance, all grown up.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Peterson,” Lizabeth said.

  “Mrs. Peterson? We saw the leaves in your yard,” Kat said, “and we could rake them up for you. It’s only twenty cents for all three of us.”

  “I don’t think so, Katherine.”

  “Or fifteen cents,” Kat pleaded.

  “We’d bag them neatly,” Amanda said, “and do a clean job for you.”

  “They do need raking, but it’s not a job for girls,” Mrs. Peterson said. “I’m sorry, but I’d feel very uncomfortable.”

  “But Mrs. Peterson—”

  Mrs. Peterson shook her head. “It’s just not appropriate.”

  Kat, Amanda, and Lizabeth went from house to house along the lane.

  Mr. Whipple looked amazed at the idea. “Girls raking? I don’t think so!” He turned to Lizabeth. “I could use some help if your brother Christopher’s interested.”

  “Young Jimmy Hanlon does all my odd jobs.” Mrs. Killigrew frowned. “Amanda, does your father know you’re doing this?”

  Mrs. Lee said, “Young ladies asking for yard work? I never heard of such a thing!”

  The three trudged on. At one house, there was a compliment for Lizabeth’s new coat. At another, someone sent regards to Kat’s mother. But everywhere they went the answer was no.

  Mr. Justin turned them down, too, but then he said, “Try Potter’s orchard. They had a huge crop this year and they’re desperate for more pickers. They might even take on girls.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Justin!” The bounce was back in Kat’s step on her way down his path. “I never thought of that. We can pick apples!”

  “Potter’s Orchard! That’s at least a mile from here,” Lizabeth complained.

  “One mile isn’t that far,” Amanda said.

  But the mile ran mostly uphill along curving roads. And what made it seem extra far to Kat was having to listen to Lizabeth all along the way. “This is ruining my new shoes,” and “I’m not dressed for hiking,” and “I’m used to riding in a horse and carriage.”

  “Lizabeth, we’re almost there,” Kat said wearily.

  They passed farmland with widely spaced houses. They passed by a red barn and a pasture with grazing cows. They passed neat haystacks. Kat was about to jump into one, but no, she had serious business to take care of today.

  Kat didn’t want to admit it, but by the time they reached Potter’s, she was worn out. Amanda said, “I feel like we’ve done an afternoon’s work before we’ve even worked.”

  At the orchard, they made their way through long aisles of apple trees. The winey fragrance of ripening apples drifted through the air. They passed groups of men and boys hoisting baskets of apples and climbing up ladders. They found Mr. Potter near the main house.

  “Mr. Potter, we heard you need pickers,” Amanda said. “And here we are, all ready to work,” Kat added.

  “Girls picking?” Mr. Potter scratched his white beard. “I don’t know about this.”

  “Please, Mr. Potter,” Lizabeth said. “We came a long way.”

  “We’re good workers,” Kat said.

  “It’s a sin to let the apples rot on the trees,” Amanda said.

  He hesitated and cleared his throat and hesitated some more. Finally he said, “All right. Bushel baskets, ten cents for each full basket.”

  Kat nodded eagerly.

  “Get your baskets from Hiram over there—the tall man in the checked shirt—and bring them back to me when they’re full.”

  “Yes, sir!” Kat said. “Where do we get the ladders?”

  “I don’t want you on ladders,” Mr. Potter said. “Pick whatever you can reach.”

  “But—but why can’t we use ladders?”

  “I have daughters of my own and I’m not about to have any girls climbing ladders! If I wasn’t so short-handed today…” He pointed to the far edge of the orchard. “Start over there, by the fence.”

  The man named Hiram looked surprised as he gave them baskets.

  The fence was far away from any of the other workers. “I guess Mr. Potter doesn’t want anyone to see that he hired us,” Amanda said.

  There weren’t many apples on the lowest branches and they had to reach up high to pick even those. Kat’s shoulder began to ache from the constant stretching. Amanda stood on tiptoe; her lips were set in a grim line. After a few tries at reaching for the crop, Lizabeth sat down against the trunk of the tree and munched on a McIntosh.

  Kat glanced at her. “We’ll never get anything done that way.”

  “We’re not getting anything done anyway,” Lizabeth answered.

  It was true; apples barely covered the bottom of one basket.

  “What if I shake the tree?” Kat asked.

  “It’s too big to shake and if the apples fall, they’ll be bruised,” Amanda said.

  “I know, I’ll climb up and hand them down to you,” Kat said. She found a toehold and shimmied up to a crotch in the trunk. It had been a lot easier to climb when she was younger, when she could still wear tights and skirts to just below the knee, like Tracy and Hannah. Kat handed a few apples down to Amanda and Lizabeth, but the big crop was still too high to reach. She had nothing to show for her effort but a skinned ankle.

  Kat jumped down to the ground. “This doesn’t make sense. I need a ladder.”

  “But Mr. Potter said—” Amanda started.

  “You can’t climb up a ladder. Your unmentionables will show!” Lizabeth said.

  “So what? There’s no one here but us.” Kat looked around the orchard. “I’m going to look for one!”

  Kat walked through aisles of trees. The other crews were almost out of sight. Far off in the distance she saw a shed and a boy going toward it, carrying a ladder over his shoulder.

  She ran down toward the boy. “Hey! If you’re through with it, I want it!”

  The boy turned around. His hair was as black as a raven’s wing and his eyes were startlingly blue. It was him! The boy from the barn dance, Christopher’s friend Michael!

  “What do you want with a ladder?” he asked. “Wait a minute! You’re Lizabeth’s friend, aren’t you? Is it Cat, as in ‘meow’?”

  “K-A-T, short for Katherine.”

  “Oh. Then I can call you Katie.”

  “You can call me that but I won’t answer,” Kat said.

  “What?”

  “That’s not my name. I mean, no one calls me Katie. Well…I guess you can…if you want to. I don’t mind if…I mean, maybe I’d answer if—” She stopped short; she was babbling like an idiot!

  Kat squirmed under his blue-eyed stare. She didn’t know what to do with her arms and legs. She had to say something. “What are you doing here? I thought you lived in Cranberry.”

  “How do you know where I live?”

  Oh, no. Now he knew she’d been asking about him! She could tell by his big grin. Kat prayed she wouldn’t blush.

  “Mr. Potter’s my uncle. I come here to help out in picking season. What are you doing here?”

  “Picking,” Kat said. “Apples.”

  “You?” His eyebrows lifted. “No, seriously.”

  “Yes! What’s so strange about that?” All day long people had been telling her what girls shouldn’t do. She was sick and tired of it! “And I need the l
adder,” Kat said.

  He took in the long skirt that reached her ankles. “You’re planning to climb up in that?”

  “Of course I am! What’s the problem? It’s not my fault if I don’t have trousers!” She’d have to hike up her skirt and her petticoat. Lizabeth’s warnings came back to her. “But don’t look, all right? Promise.”

  “I promise.” He looked confused. “But…don’t look at what?”

  “Oh, never mind!” Kat wanted to kick herself for saying anything. She sure wasn’t going to explain! “Please just give me the ladder!”

  “You can’t carry it by yourself.”

  “I can so carry it! As well as anybody! Why does everyone think girls are so helpless?”

  “Listen, Katie, I’m only trying to act like a gentleman.”

  “Just put it up on my shoulder!”

  Michael laughed. “All right! I’m not about to fight with a prickly redhead.” His hand grazed her shoulder to adjust the ladder and Kat was surprised by the shivery feeling that ran up her back.

  “I swear, I’ve never met a girl like you before.”

  Was that good or terrible, Kat wondered. Just possibly, just maybe, it was good because he said it with such a friendly smile. As if, maybe, he liked her! Wait, was that a nice smile, or was he laughing at her? How dare he!

  Kat carried the ladder back to Lizabeth and Amanda. Prickly, on second thought, definitely wasn’t good. Well, she didn’t care a bit. Michael was horrible!

  She steadied the ladder against the trunk and pulled her skirt up out of the way in spite of Lizabeth’s shocked expression. Kat took a cautious look around. Michael was way off in the distance somewhere. She couldn’t see the shed through the trees. She climbed up to a big bunch of apples.

  The girls fell into a work rhythm. Kat handed apples to Amanda, standing on a lower rung; Amanda gave them to Lizabeth, who placed them in the basket.

  They didn’t know she’d met Michael, Kat thought. She never kept anything from her friends but there was nothing at all to tell, was there? Except that Michael made her feel bewildered and jangled. Maybe if she saw him again…How could she have forgotten? She’d be far away in Boston.

  As the afternoon light began to fade, three very tired girls dragged three baskets of apples to Mr. Potter at the main house.

  Mr. Potter examined the baskets. “Almost full, but not to the top. All right,” he said. “I’ll give you ten cents for each. Thirty cents.”

  “Thank you!” Kat said. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “No, I have some other crews coming tomorrow.”

  “But we did a good job,” Kat protested. “We’ll start earlier—we’ll fill them all the way.”

  “No. Thank you, girls. You did fine, better than I expected, but this isn’t women’s work.”

  If Kat heard that one more time! She glanced at Lizabeth and Amanda; no reaction at all. If “women’s work” seemed normal to everyone else—to Ma, even to her best friends—then maybe she was truly odd to object.

  On the long walk back to Lighthouse Lane Kat did the arithmetic. “Thirty cents from twenty dollars leaves nineteen dollars and seventy cents. Minus one nickel…. Nineteen dollars and sixty-five cents to go.” She sighed. “I have nowhere near enough.”

  “We’ll find something else to do,” Amanda said.

  “Ten cents each,” Kat said slowly. “The two of you earned your share. It’s really yours, and I don’t know if I should—”

  “Of course you should,” Lizabeth said. “We want to help.”

  “That’s what friends are for,” Amanda added.

  “I spent all my savings on a new parasol,” Lizabeth said. “It’s aquamarine with the prettiest ruffle. But now I wish I still had the money to give to you.”

  “I love you both so much!” Kat pulled them into a big bear hug. “I’m so lucky to have such good friends.”

  As long as she was with Amanda and Lizabeth, Kat didn’t feel too discouraged. But when they separated at Lighthouse Lane and Kat walked on to Durham Point by herself, reality washed over her. It was November tenth and she had to allow time for the mail to reach Boston by December fifteenth. She had only four weeks left.

  Kat came home from the orchard barely in time for her lighthouse shift. She gobbled down a quick supper and automatically started to reach for an apple from the bowl on the table to take up to the tower with her. Wait, the last thing on earth she wanted was an apple!

  Kat settled into her chair and scanned the horizon. The sun was setting and turning the sea into glorious shades of rose and gold. It was a scene begging for her watercolors. The light of the kerosene lantern was too dim for mixing colors, but at least she could sketch. She had read somewhere that the human hand was the hardest thing to draw well. She could use her left hand as a model and sketch with her right. The more she practiced, the better she’d be when she arrived in Boston. If she arrived in Boston. No, she wouldn’t allow herself to doubt. She had to think of something she could do to make money.

  Kat crossed to the shelf where she kept her art supplies. She picked up her sketch pad and the Carstairses’ letter peeked from between the pages. The letter was grimy and wrinkled from her many rereadings. Next to it was the carefully folded gift paper that had wrapped the box of chocolates. Kat touched it gently.

  Suddenly, Kat’s eyes widened. Yes, this was it. She had the answer right in front of her nose!

  eleven

  The gift paper, with its red and blue designs over a shiny gold background, was beautiful. Any gift, even the simplest, would seem special wrapped in paper like that. So different from the plain white paper they had in Cape Light.

  Kat examined the paper more closely. The red and blue were curlicued squiggles, pretty, but not hard to imitate. Could she? Of course! She didn’t have shiny gold paper like that, but she could paint designs all over a white background, pale blue and lilac snowflakes for winter, red and green bells for Christmas. Or red-striped candy canes, or green pinecones! Winding yellow or pink ribbons for birthdays, red hearts for Valentine’s Day, colorful dots for any-occasion gifts…. Kat caught her breath as ideas kept coming. This was something she could do and surely the people of Cape Light would want it. Maybe she could sell her gift paper to the general store and the Pelican Street Bookshop! She needed to make samples.

  For the rest of the evening, Kat squinted in the light of the lantern and painted designs on the pages of her watercolor tablet. She labored over the pale blue and lilac snowflakes, each one different. She was pleased with the results. Next, she painted scattered red balloons with trailing strings. There was a flutter of excitement in Kat’s stomach. This was going well! Oh, she wished she didn’t have to keep stopping to scan the horizon! But it was her job and she did it, however impatiently. Yellow stars…she redid them; they looked nicer if they weren’t too crowded. The bright red hearts were easy. They went fast.

  At the end of her shift, Kat nodded with satisfaction. Almost a dozen pages of designs were propped up to dry on the shelf.

  The next day, Kat was anxious as she climbed up the ladder to the tower. Would her designs still look as good in daylight? In the tower, she examined them critically. She tore up the green pinecones: the color was muddy and you couldn’t tell what they were supposed to be. The stars, well, chrome yellow was too garish; pale yellow would be prettier. She’d redo them. The rest had turned out well, she thought. Kat picked the best samples to show.

  On her way to Lighthouse Lane she waved to Papa on the roof of the cottage. He’d been working up there for days.

  “Morning, Papa,” she called.

  “Morning, Kat,” he called back. “I saw your pages on my watch last night. Different from the things you usually paint. Nice, though.” He moved gingerly from one part of the roof to another. “What are they for?”

  Kat hesitated. Her gift paper might go the way of the ice cream drink and the raking project. It would be better to surprise him later, if this worked out. “Just someth
ing I’m trying,” Kat called back.

  At the general store, Mr. Thomas studied the snowflake page. “Hmmmm,” he said.

  Kat held her breath and crossed her fingers.

  “Gift paper, eh?”

  “Yes, sir.” Kat’s mouth was dry. She fidgeted nervously.

  “Just the other day Mrs. White was in for the mister’s birthday present and she was pining for some fancy wrapping. I’ll tell you what, Katherine, I’ll try the snowflakes. And the ribbons. And…hmmm…the dots, too. I’ll try a dozen sheets of each. Thirty-five cents a dozen.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Thomas! But Mr. Thomas, they’re hand-painted.” There was a sudden catch in Kat’s voice. Was she pushing too hard? She’d never done anything like this before!

  “Hmmmm. All right, forty cents a dozen, paid on delivery.”

  “Thank you!” Her first sale! “I’ll have them ready for you in no time! I’ll need some of your white wrapping paper to paint on.”

  Mr. Thomas unrolled the spool of wrapping paper behind the counter. “Let’s say…two feet for each sheet. That should be big enough to wrap most anything.”

  Kat watched him cut the paper into two-foot sections and place them in a brown paper bag. Forty cents for a dozen sheets, times three. One dollar and twenty cents!

  Flushed with success, Kat stopped in at the bakery.

  Mr. Witherspoon stood behind the counter in a smock dusted with flour.

  “Hello there, Katherine. Was there much storm damage out your way?”

  “Some broken shingles on the cottage roof.”

  “Not too bad, I hope. Well, what’ll it be today? I have some nice chocolate cookies still warm from the oven.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Witherspoon, I’ve sort of given up chocolate. I’m here to show you my samples.”

  “Samples? What kind of samples?”

  “For gift wrapping paper.” She spread her pages out on the counter. She was less nervous now that she had practiced on Mr. Thomas. “I thought you might want some.”

  “Nice, but what do I need with wrapping paper? Everything here goes into cardboard boxes.”