A Stitch in Time

by Daphne Kalmar

  “Yes, and once Dorothy gets used to the idea, we’re sure she’ll enjoy the academic challenge, along with the cultural enrichments available to her in Boston—museums, concerts, lectures.”

  “She is a bright girl, full of curiosity. But she has so many attachments here—the village, schoolmates. Have you considered the possibility of settling in Cobden, allowing her to remain, giving her the comfort of a place she knows?”

  Aunt Agnes hacked at her chicken leg. The knife dinged against her plate. “Jo and I know very well that this move will be challenging for Dorothy. I appreciate your concern, but we will decide what’s best.”

  Donut stuffed a forkful of potatoes in her mouth to help with keeping quiet. Here she was sitting right at the table between the two of them and she might as well be a dead squirrel two crows were fighting over, for all she was expected to offer on the future of her very own life. Sam continued.

  “Yes, yes, I do apologize for bringing it up. Of course it’s your decision.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and scratched at the back of his head. Donut could see the signs of fluster starting up—his hair was beginning to lose its civilized appearance and there was a large gravy stain on his shirt shaped like Lake Michigan.

  But he kept at it like a dog with a bone. “I considered Jake a close friend. He was well-liked in Cobden, and we’ve all been keeping an eye out for Donut since he died.”

  “And I’m sure Dorothy appreciates the support, but life does go on.” Aunt Agnes worried her potatoes, mashed at them with her fork. “I assure you that we have her best interests at heart. And of course Jo and I have to earn a living, and we’re established in Boston.”

  Both Aunt Agnes and Sam got busy again with their suppers. This was not going well. “Established.” Her aunties were established all right, unmovable, like the bronze statue of General George Washington she’d seen with her pops in the Boston Public Garden.

  If she did get dragged to Boston, it would be only fitting if Aunt Agnes should go sleepwalking one night, climb up on a granite block in the park, and turn into bronze, Aunt Jo right next to her, each of them holding up a knitting needle like a sword, green-tinted from the rain, staring out at the passersby, pigeons sitting on their heads and shoulders, cooing and preening their feathers. Bird droppings would trickle down her aunties’ backs and bosoms like Mrs. Lamphere’s boiled icing on the chocolate cakes she brought to chicken suppers at the Methodist church on High Street. Donut smiled. Free of the both of them, she’d wave goodbye and get on the first train back home.

  Sam finished up his meal in silence, set his knife and fork down, and scrubbed at his head with both hands. His eyebrows twitched as he geared up for another assault. “Well, if Donut stayed with me I know Mrs. Lamphere and Beryl, her daughter, would provide a womanly touch to my clumsy bachelor parenting, but we could give it a go. There’s plenty of room, and she could go to Boston for school holidays.”

  Donut pulled in a deep breath. She’d argued herself out of even hoping, tried to keep her distance from wishing that Sam would take her in. And now he’d said it. All on his own. She was welcome to move right in. The dinner had worked a miracle—thank goodness for André’s plump chickens and Sam in his city shoes. He’d be so much better than a big dog. And he was all educated and adult and had known her since she was born and he’d known her mother and her pops, so living with him would be like changing trains but still heading in the same direction, still rattling along on the same set of tracks.

  “That is a kind offer,” said Aunt Agnes, stiffening a little, throwing her shoulders back. “And Dorothy, I hope you appreciate the kindness Sam is showing you tonight, but of course it would never do. We are her guardians, and Dorothy has a bright future. Women are making great strides in all fields now. For goodness’ sake, we have the vote. The world is wide open—she could go to university, have a career—and at the academy, she will get the start she needs.”

  Donut couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Aunt Agnes hadn’t even stopped to think about Sam’s offer. Donut pushed her plate away. Stared at her auntie. There was no point anymore in being polite, complimenting the chicken.

  “Mr. Calvin Coolidge, the president of the United States, started out just fine right here in Vermont,” Donut said in an ice-cold voice. “And I can vote in the Cobden Town Hall when I’m old enough.”

  “Dorothy.”

  Donut got up from her seat and glared at her auntie. Sam had given it his best shot, but there’d been no hope from the start. She slammed both hands down on the table. What was left of the chicken jumped.

  “My name is Donut.”

  “Dorothy,” said Aunt Agnes, her face pink, eyes wide. “Behave yourself.”

  “I am going to live with Sam!”

  “Donut,” said Sam softly, “sit down.”

  “I will handle this, if you don’t mind.” Aunt Agnes turned and glared at Donut. “Sit down this instant.”

  “No.”

  Donut wanted to smash her mother’s good china, grind the peas and potatoes and chicken skin into the floorboards. She was just a sack of onions with no choices, no nothing. She sagged a little at the nothingness, turned, and climbed the stairs to her room.

  “You will stay there until you’re ready to apologize,” called Aunt Agnes.

  Donut sat on her bed, heard Sam say his goodbyes, and listened to Aunt Agnes washing the dishes. She pulled her quilt up around herself, tried to breathe. Sam had offered to take her in, which was bigger than one of the pyramids in Egypt, and Aunt Agnes had dismissed it, turned her camel around and headed back where she’d started, not bothering to even consider one of the Seven Wonders of the World.

  Donut took a swing at her pillow. Aunt Agnes was gonna have to ride that camel back to Boston alone. And she, Donut, was going to be sitting in Sam’s kitchen with the woodstove roaring, their own darn chicken kicking out real homey smells all through his house. But first, like she’d figured all along, she’d have to take a page out of Teddy Roosevelt’s book—run off, live in the wild woods until Aunt Agnes and Aunt Jo decided she wasn’t worth the bother.

  12

  Donut pulled the rope ties loose on her pops’ army duffel bag. She packed the Rand McNally World Atlas, second edition, the photo of her and her pops in the silver frame, warm clothes, and the Ovaltine can where she kept her poker winnings. She shoved the duffel into the closet and sat down at her desk to write her auntie a letter.

  April 19, 1927

  Dear Aunt Agnes,

  I have run away. I’m not coming back. I will be safe because I have a plan. I’m sorry that I had to run away since I don’t want to worry you or Sam or Tiny or anyone else. But I have no choice.

  Say hello to Aunt Jo when you get back to Boston. I know you were trying to be a proper godmother and all. It just didn’t work out.

  Yours truly,

  Donut

  She changed into her nightclothes, pulled on her mother’s sleeping cap, and climbed into bed. It would have been easier to run away right then, when she’d built up a full head of steam. But it was dark and she needed supplies and a hideout.

  She didn’t plan on running far, not like Teddy Roosevelt, who’d made it all the way to the Dakotas. He’d been a lot older, and his family knew where he was even if they couldn’t get there very fast if he needed rescuing. She was going to be on her own, with no cowboys around or saloons to visit.

  First thing in the morning she’d hike out to Marcel’s place. Chanticleer, his cabin on Dog Pond, was the perfect hideout. And the Nehi was there. If Marcel said no, she could sleep in Mr. Hollis’s falling-down barn on Kate Brook Road. But it was wide open, with no solid doors or windows and a poplar tree growing right through a hole in the roof.

  Donut rolled over and pulled the covers up around her chin.

  Tiny might never forgive her for not telling him. But he’d have a terrible time lying to his folks. He’d turn to mush if Aunt Agnes got ahold of him. Sam would be after him, too. It w
as for his own good she wasn’t telling him. Donut kicked at the covers. Tiny wasn’t going to like it.

  “Tough luck,” she whispered.

  Donut twisted around under the covers and got her feet tangled up.

  Even if she got found out she’d run away all over again, show her aunties that she was just too much trouble. They’d tell Sam he could have her, and good riddance.

  She got herself untangled, curled up in a ball, and waited until she heard Aunt Agnes climb the stairs and go into her room, Pops’ room, now filled up with old-lady dresses and hats. Donut waited some more, listened as drawers opened and shut, the bed creaked. At long last, the soft rattle of her auntie’s snoring drifted through the wall. It was time.

  In her stocking feet, Donut hauled the duffel bag down the stairs. In the kitchen she lit the lamp, opened the cupboards, and pulled out four cans of evaporated milk, an almost full can of Ovaltine, crackers, and three cans of sardines. She wrapped up a wedge of cheddar cheese from the pantry box, along with a chunk of salt pork for frying up fish she planned on catching. She packed all of her provisions in the duffel along with a dozen winter apples from the crate in the mudroom, a box of matches, and a handful of candles.

  Donut pulled on her boots, and hauled her duffel and fishing rod outside and hid them behind the woodpile.

  Back in the house she crept up the stairs and climbed into bed.

  * * *

  She didn’t remember falling asleep, but when she woke up she was ready to run away. Donut made her bed, folded up her nightclothes and stuffed them in her book bag along with her slippers.

  At the kitchen table she poured extra maple syrup on her oatmeal. Aunt Agnes sipped her tea and didn’t look up once from her book as Donut ate her breakfast.

  She cleared her dishes, pulled on her coat and boots, and swung her book bag over her shoulder. At the door Donut mumbled a quick goodbye to Aunt Agnes and hurried outside. A person said goodbye to someone with an understanding of how long the goodbye was for—a day, a week, a year. The goodbye she gave her auntie was a crummy lie since she wasn’t going to school and wouldn’t be home to do her chores.

  “Too bad,” she said.

  Donut lugged her gear out to the road. The leaving part should have been more complicated—climbing down a drainpipe or leaping out a window onto a tree branch, not just walking up Slapp Hill like she’d done a thousand times before.

  “What do you want?” Donut muttered to herself. “A send-off with real live elephants and a brass band?”

  Halfway up the hill she started to feel more like a runaway.

  “I did it,” she said, and grinned. “Chanticleer will be perfect.”

  As she passed the Patoine farm she picked up her pace as best she could with the heavy duffel bag banging into her legs. She’d left extra early so she wouldn’t run into Tiny heading to the bridge to meet her.

  The herd of Guernseys was out in the pasture along the road. A few cows looked up at her as she passed. Donut searched for Winnie, for the distinctive patch of white fur shaped like South America that ran from her chest down her front leg. Winnie wasn’t there. Tiny must be in the stall with her, sitting in the straw, telling her she’d be on her feet soon in that voice he had that made you think it was a sure thing. And here she was, running off when her best friend could sure use a good sock on the arm and a smile.

  Donut set the duffel down in the dirt, turned, and gazed at the barn. “I just couldn’t tell you, Tiny,” she whispered.

  13

  At the turnoff to Dog Pond, Donut stashed her gear and returned to the road.

  It was a hike out to Marcel’s place. At the top of Bridgeman Hill she turned onto the long dirt track to his house. His roadster had cut deep trenches in the mud. She skipped over puddles and shivered in the shadowy, wet woods, pulling her hat down over her ears.

  Marcel’s two very large dogs had a reputation for being ferocious, which discouraged trespassers. His chunk of Vermont was wild forest, hundreds of acres of it, just sitting there with no buckets hanging on the sugar maples or cows in the clearings.

  He was a trapper in the winter, but ever since alcohol had been made illegal with Prohibition he’d been doing a bit of rum-running in the summer. She was hoping Marcel’s law-breaking ways would tilt him toward making a loan of his cabin to a fugitive.

  Donut began to whistle every few steps. A strong whistle. A no-nonsense, get-over-here whistle. She kept walking and whistling until she heard Lafayette and Rochambeau hurtling through the woods, busting dead branches, scrabbling through the brush, howling and growling.

  “Hey, boys,” she called. “Come on, puppies, it’s me, Donut.”

  They tore through the ruts on the track, huge dogs, stiff brown-and-black fur sticking out like bristles on a bottlebrush, wagging their tails at the sight of her.

  Donut crouched down and they licked her face, gave it a good scrub, shoved and pushed for a scratch behind the ears, knocking the loneliness and worry right out of her. She fell backward in the mud and laughed as they sat back on their haunches, tongues out, waiting for her to get up.

  “You’re just too darn big, the two of you,” she said, getting back on her feet.

  She continued on, escorted by the Generals, as Marcel called them. Donut had read up on the originals in her Encyclopedia Britannica. The Count of Rochambeau and the Marquis of Lafayette had sailed over from France to help George Washington win the American Revolution.

  Coming around the bend, she saw Marcel’s homestead—a small house along with a ramshackle barn. He was sitting on the porch lacing up his boots. The Generals raced up to him and barked to announce her arrival.

  “Settle down, the two of you,” he said, shoving them aside. “I see you’ve brought me la petite Napoleon.”

  She plunked down on a bench next to him. Marcel had a way of twisting up his r’s and spitting out his t’s with his French-Canadian accent that she admired. He’d called her Napoleon ever since she’d won her first hand of poker at Sam’s. She’d read up on Napoleon. His dream had been to rule the world no matter what the world wanted. She was glad this particular nickname hadn’t caught on.

  Lafayette came over and put his head in her lap.

  “We’ve missed you at Sam’s Friday nights,” said Marcel.

  “Aunt Agnes doesn’t approve of gambling.”

  “Some don’t, it’s the truth.”

  The Generals wagged their tails, beating out a rhythm on the porch floor.

  “She’s gonna drag me off to Boston. For good.”

  “I heard about this from Sam.”

  “I’m not going.”

  Donut scrubbed at Lafayette’s ears with both hands. She looked over at Marcel, who never seemed to be in need of the back and forth that made up a conversation. She just had to spit it out. Ask him about Chanticleer. But if he said no she was stuck with Mr. Hollis’s barn, which had a haunted look to it. She dug her fingers into Lafayette’s thick coat.

  “Sam offered to take me in. For me to live with him, and she said no.”

  Marcel eyed her closely. “Your tante Agnes, she’s your mother’s sister, yes? Doesn’t beat you. Doesn’t starve you.”

  “I just can’t go, Marcel.”

  “It’s a hard one, ma petite. The Generals and I are going to miss you. But your tante, she’s your family now.”

  “I hardly know her.”

  Marcel swept his hand down Rochambeau’s back, and the dog set his giant head on his knee.

  He was going to say no to Chanticleer. He was going to put a stop to her running off before she even got rolling. And if she managed to lug her stuff all the way to Kate Brook Road, the weather could turn—rain, a cold spell. It would be hard to stick it out, what with the night noises and the drip-drip of the rain through Mr. Hollis’s barn roof.

  She couldn’t ask Marcel because when he said no, sneaking off to Chanticleer anyway would be a much worse crime than hiding out there without asking.

  “Miss
Beebe’s rung her school bell by now,” said Marcel in a soft voice. “It’s early for a visit with the Generals. Why are you here, ma petite?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Turned right instead of left.” Donut swallowed and looked away.

  Marcel tilted his head and gazed at her. She needed to change the subject double-quick.

  “Sam’s moose has got his head on now,” she said in a rush. “Tiny and me, we can’t figure how he’s gonna get him out once he’s all put back together.”

  “Probably has a plan, just playing his cards close to the chest.” Marcel eyed Donut and she dodged his look. “I’ll be off to Montreal for a few days,” he said.

  “Have a good trip.” Donut got up and climbed down off the porch. “Gotta go. Late for school, like you said.”

  “I’ll see you when I get back, yes?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Lafayette and Rochambeau followed her down Marcel’s long track to the main road. “Puppies, he knew something was up, but Marcel’d never dig around for answers a person didn’t want to hand over.” Donut stood between the puddles, catching her breath. “I know it’s a crummy thing to do. But I’ve got no choice. I’m going to borrow Chanticleer, just for a little while.”

  They wagged their tails in unison, and she gave them each a pat on the head. When a dog wagged his tail, a person knew for absolute certain his happiness was the truth. Smiles could lie. Aunt Agnes’s smile was canned peaches.

  Donut hiked back to Slapp Hill Road and lugged her bags and fishing rod down the path to Dog Pond. The wind was blowing hard, kicking up waves and a cold spray of water off the rocks. She knew she should just haul her gear through the woods to the cabin. The Nehi wasn’t built for this kind of weather. But she couldn’t leave it behind. Her pops’ boat would keep her safe. She was sure of it.

  She tramped through the brush to the Nehi, unfolded it, secured the latches, lay the paddles inside, and wrestled it down to the shore. Once she had the boat bobbing in the shallow water she stowed her gear in the bow and climbed in without much fuss, except for her boots taking on some pond water.