The Luck of the Buttons

by Anne Ylvisaker

  Tugs was not familiar with being asked what she thought about anything. What did she think about the United States? Tugs looked around the library office. She picked up the small dictionary Miss Lucy kept on her desk and looked up the word progress. She studied the portrait of President Hoover hanging on the wall and felt a swell of pride.

  When she came out of the office, she felt suddenly shy, and to cover it up, she said roughly, “It’s stupid. Don’t read it.” Then she dropped it in the trash and walked slowly to the door, glancing back and hoping Miss Lucy would retrieve it from the can.

  My favorite thing about the United States of America is our new president because he is from Iowa like me. I have been to West Branch where Herbert Hoover was born. The houses in West Branch look like the houses in Goodhue. When he was a boy Herbert Hoover sledded on hills in winter like children in Goodhue do and in summer he fished the streams like we do.

  During the Great War he helped get food to hungry people in Europe, and in America he taught people to conserve food.

  My Granddaddy Ike and all his friends wrote letters to Herbert Hoover to ask him to run for president. Herbert Hoover solves problems, they said.

  The dictionary says progress means moving forward. Herbert Hoover was just a boy in Iowa. Then he lived all over the world helping solve problems. Now he is president of the United States. That is progress. And Iowa is part of progress. So I am part of progress.

  Monday morning, Tugs stayed indoors with Rootabaga Stories, trying to avoid Granny, who was in the backyard making war with weeds, and G.O., who was surely out looking for his revenge for the tire incident. She turned the pages, but her eyes were on the front window.

  They used to be friends, she and G.O. In third and fourth grade. He was really good at drawing maps, and they’d plotted out a new town. She couldn’t remember now what they’d named it, but it had three movie theaters and a racetrack, and each of their houses occupied the space of an entire block. Then his dad went to prison for robbery, and his mother took up making sculptures from junk, and G.O. had come back to school in the fall of fifth grade thin and mean.

  Tugs jumped when she saw a head appear in the window and then at the front door. Aggie Millhouse was standing at her very house, on the other side of her very screen door. Tugs got up so fast, she tripped over her mother’s darning basket, grabbed the floor lamp, which offered no stability, and sprawled with a thud face-first in front of the door.

  “Ouch,” said Aggie. “Can I come in?”

  Tugs looked up, her hand on her nose.

  “How did you get here?” she asked.

  “I walked,” said Aggie, letting herself in the door and helping Tugs up. They righted the lamp and tried to straighten its shade. The brightness of Aggie’s navy-and-white sailor dress made the room around her look tired and worn.

  “I mean,” said Tugs, “how did you know where I live?”

  “Mrs. Dostal does my mother’s sewing. Sometimes I ride along when she drops it off. I saw you once when I was waiting in the Buick.”

  “Does your mother know you’re here?”

  “Nope. I’m supposed to be practicing piano. She was on the phone and I set a roll on the player piano. But as soon as the roll runs out, she’ll know I’m not in there and start looking for me. She’d never think of coming here, though.”

  “Are you going to get in trouble?” asked Tugs.

  “Nah,” said Aggie. “Come on. We’ve got work to do. Can you walk?”

  Tugs’s knees smarted and her nose was sore, but she nodded.

  “But you don’t want to race with me.”

  “Sure I do. We are the exact same height,” said Aggie. “Our legs are the same length; that’s the secret to winning the three-legged. We don’t have to be the fastest. We just have to step together. It’s always the team that doesn’t fall down that wins. So that’s what we need to practice, not falling down.”

  “That will take practice,” said Tugs. Then another thought struck her. “What am I going to tell Ned?”

  “Well, he must have some friends his own age. Maybe he wants to race with someone else, too, and just didn’t want to hurt your feelings. Isn’t there a Stump in his grade?”

  Tugs had never thought of that possibility. Ned looked up to her because she was one year older. She just assumed that Ned wanted to do everything she did, because he was, well, Ned.

  “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to practice.”

  “Good,” said Aggie. “Here, I found this braided twine in the bushes in my front yard. We could cut off part of it to tie around our ankles.”

  “No!” said Tugs. “I mean, that looks like a perfectly good jump rope, doesn’t it? I’d hate to cut up someone’s jump rope.” And to prove the point, Tugs took the twine and tried to demonstrate its superior rope-jumping qualities. But on the first turn, she tripped. The rope was too short.

  “Guess it’s meant for someone shorter than us.” Tugs looked at the rope for a moment. She pulled it through her hand. “If we wrapped it around our legs a few times, we wouldn’t have to cut it.”

  “OK,” said Aggie. “Come on.”

  Tugs was reluctant to go outside, in case of G.O. coming around. But here was Aggie Millhouse, wanting to race with her.

  “Let’s try the alley instead of the sidewalk,” said Tugs. Aggie shrugged and followed Tugs out the back door. They sat on the step and tied their inside ankles together, then stood up.

  They put their inside arms at each other’s waists so they could stand shoulder to shoulder. Aggie smelled clean, and Tugs counted back in her head the number of days since she’d last taken a bath. She hoped Aggie couldn’t tell.

  Tugs glanced over at Aggie. They really were exactly the same height.

  Buttons weren’t generally tall, but Tugs had gotten height from her mother’s side and had had her growth spurt early. When, in the third grade, someone had mistaken her for a sixth grader, she’d been mortified. What if people thought she was really twelve, but she was acting like an eight-year-old? At least now, with Aggie Millhouse just as tall, Tugs felt like she was the right height for her age. Aggie was fast. Maybe she could be, too.

  “First we should practice just walking,” said Aggie. “We’ll always lead with our inside legs. The ones that are tied together. Ready, set, walk.”

  They took one step with their tied-together feet, but Aggie took a shortish step and Tugs eagerly tried to take a longer stride and fell forward, dragging Aggie to the ground, too.

  “Are you hurt?” gasped Tugs. Had she broken Aggie Millhouse already? “And your dress!”

  “I’m fine,” said Aggie, brushing off her knees and turning so Tugs could inspect her dress.

  “No tears, but it is pretty dirty.”

  “Overalls would be more convenient,” sighed Aggie. “Maybe we should try something different. Let’s count. Our together legs will be one, and our outside legs will be two.”

  She pulled Tugs up and they tried again, counting out loud as they went. One, two, one, two . . . They were looking at their feet and concentrating so hard, they didn’t hear G.O. running up behind them.

  He shoved Tugs and Aggie hard, laughing as they fell. He stood over them as they untied their legs and tried to pull each other to standing.

  “Quit being such a bully,” said Aggie. Tugs gasped at Aggie’s boldness.

  “Who’s going to make me?” said G.O., glaring at Tugs. “I’m the one with the busted bike.”

  Tugs stared back at G.O. He didn’t look so scary when she stood next to Aggie. In fact, he looked about the same as in fourth grade, only taller with a surlier face. Tugs took a wavering breath. “Can’t you just put a patch on it? It wasn’t on purpose.”

  “It’s more fun to watch you squirm,” he said, and sauntered away.

  “Rapscallion!” Tugs yelled after him.

  “Never mind him,” Aggie said. “We’re getting the hang of this. Let’s go faster.”

  They walked up and down the alley
, then around the block, chanting one, two, one, two and keeping their eyes peeled for G.O.

  “Maybe if we win, we’ll get our name in the Goodhue paper,” said Aggie.

  “You know about the newspaper, too?”

  “Sure. There was a man over for dinner last night.”

  “Harvey Moore?”

  “Uh-huh. He asked my dad for money to get a printing press.”

  “Is he going to give it to him?”

  “Yes. He thinks Mr. Moore has a good business plan.”

  Tugs concentrated on her one, two, one, two. If Mr. Millhouse thought it was a good plan . . .

  “Didn’t you think . . . ?” started Tugs, but just as they rounded the corner by Tugs’s house, they heard the rumble of a car behind them. They turned to see Mrs. Millhouse at the wheel, hollering as she screeched to a halt.

  “Agnes Lorraine Millhouse, you get in the car this instant.” Aggie bent down to untie their ankles.

  “And as for you, Tugs Button, you get on home. You should be ashamed of yourself, luring my Aggie away from the piano. You are a bad influence. Imagine what could have happened to her on the way over here.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Millhouse,” said Tugs. “We’re going to win the three-legged race on the Fourth of July! Aggie’s a real good runner. And I can come over and help her practice the piano double tomorrow.”

  But Mrs. Millhouse wasn’t paying attention to Tugs. She was already berating Aggie as she climbed into the car.

  “Look out!” Aggie called out the window as Mrs. Millhouse sped off. Tugs spun around and saw G.O. running toward her. Tugs grabbed the rope off the ground and ran for home, leaving the sidewalk and cutting across lawns.

  Mrs. Dostal appeared on her front porch just then, with a watering can. Tugs ran toward her.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Dostal,” said Tugs, stopping short at the fence between their houses.

  Mrs. Dostal looked up.

  “Tsk,” she said. “So unladylike.”

  G.O. slunk by, scowling at Tugs as he passed.

  “Rogue!” Tugs hollered after him. “Rascal! Scamp! Cheeky child!” Then she turned back to Mrs. Dostal.

  “So,” said Tugs in her most conversational tone. “You’ve got Mr. Moore living with you.”

  “Yes,” said Mrs. Dostal. “We take in boarders now and again. You know that, Tugs.”

  “Don’t you think there’s something fishy about him?” asked Tugs.

  Mrs. Dostal lifted her watering can and held it to her bosom. “Why, Tugs Button. What kind of nonsense is that? Mr. Moore is a perfectly gentlemanly gentleman. He’s going to bring the news to Goodhue. Progress, it’s going to be called. The Goodhue Progress. He’s going to go to church with us every Sunday he’s here, he says. And in exchange for room and board, he’s going to fix Mr. Dostal’s car and teach him how to sail. Besides, I don’t know why I’m telling this to an eleven-year-old.”

  “I’m twelve,” said Tugs.

  “Twelve, then,” huffed Mrs. Dostal. “Now, if you can’t say anything nice . . .” And she resumed her watering.

  Tugs pressed on. “Is he really not paying you room and board?”

  “Why, child, I just told you. He’s paying in kind. That’s what some people do. I wouldn’t expect you to know that.”

  “I just think . . .” said Tugs.

  “And that’s your problem right there, young lady,” snapped Mrs. Dostal. “You think too much, when you should be inside helping your mother or dragging that scruffy little cousin of yours somewhere or another, preferably to his own house. Now, I’ve got real work to do here. Run along and leave adult matters to adults.”

  “We don’t have a lake for sailing,” Tugs said as she turned and tromped up her own porch steps.

  Tugs shrugged into yesterday’s clothes, which still lay in a heap on the floor, slipped past Granny, who was writing a letter at the kitchen table, and collected five pennies from her mother on her way out the door.

  Wednesday mornings were Granddaddy Ike’s checkers mornings, and in the summer, Tugs was in charge of walking him from his house to Al and Irene’s Luncheonette to make sure that (1) he didn’t wander off to City Hall or the Baptist church, and (2) he didn’t gamble away anything valuable. The importance of the task made Tugs proud.

  Granddaddy Ike lived in a tiny cottage next to Ned’s, between Tugs’s house and downtown. He was older than spit and had been a drummer boy in the Civil War. This afforded him a bit of notoriety around town. His house smelled of sweet pipe tobacco and was cluttered with his collections. He took his meals with Aunt Mina, Uncle Wilson, Ned, and Gladdy, but didn’t like them interfering in his day otherwise.

  “My savior!” Granddaddy trumpeted when Tugs let herself in the door. “Quick! Let’s escape before Mina catches us!” Tugs played along, finding one of Granddaddy’s walking sticks and his cap and whispering conspiratorially as she helped him down the sidewalk. The trick today was avoiding Ned. She still hadn’t told him she wanted to race with Aggie, and while she hadn’t actually said to Aggie that she would race with her, she was sure Aggie assumed it after their Monday practice.

  “What are you playing for today?” she asked, steering him past Ned’s house as quickly as she could.

  Granddaddy stopped and reached into his pocket.

  “Looky at this,” he said proudly, holding out a kitchen spoon. “Silver! I slipped it in my pocket after dinner last night. Mina will never notice.”

  Tugs took the spoon and examined it appreciatively as she got Granddaddy walking again. “Did you ever play the spoons as instruments, with two together?” she asked. That got Granddaddy talking about the old days. He didn’t notice when Tugs slipped the spoon in her own pocket so she could give it back to Aunt Mina. She always came prepared with something to substitute if necessary. Like today’s pennies.

  “. . . and that was the end of George,” Granddaddy was saying. “Which reminds me, Mina better be pressing my uniform for the All Join In Parade tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. Independence Day. Tugs groaned. Maybe it would rain. She looked up at the sky hopefully, but it was frustratingly blue, only a wisp of a cloud floating by.

  They turned on Main to see mayor Corbett standing outside Al and Irene’s, carrying on an animated conversation with Harvey Moore.

  “Are you any relation to boxing great Gentleman Jim Corbett, mayor? Should I be ready to duck?”

  “Mr. mayor!” Granddaddy interrupted. “What do you got to say about that upstart come to town to churn out a newspaper? Are you going to give your approval? It’s about time we got our own news, I say. The people and places of our own streets and businesses. And our own take on the rest of the country. And pictures. Do you think the Cedar Rapids Tribune will cover the dignitaries in tomorrow’s parade? No, siree. No, sir. Pits, I say. Pits on Cedar Rapids and their big-wheel attitudes. Pits on Iowa City and their swanky university. And what about the carryings on of our own mayor? Never know what kind of rubbish those yahoos are trying to feed us, I say.”

  “Mr. Button,” mayor Corbett interrupted. “This is . . .” But Granddaddy wasn’t finished.

  “It’s a free country now, isn’t it, mayor? A fellow doesn’t need your approval to start a newspaper, does he? I hear he’s a little short of cash, though.”

  Harvey stuck out his hand and pumped Granddaddy’s free one.

  “Harvey Moore, pleased to meet you. I am that young upstart, Mr. Button, and you are absolutely right on all fronts. News, right here from Goodhue and the nation. I can tell you are a businessman, Mr. Button, astute as you are about money.”

  Granddaddy Ike hooked a thumb through his suspender and stood up taller.

  “Why, I don’t mind telling you . . .”

  But Harvey interrupted and continued his flattery of Granddaddy, weaving in his tale of investment opportunity.

  Tugs turned away. Harvey Moore reminded her of the balloons at Aggie’s party. They grew bigger and bigger as you blew into them, but the minu
te you let go of the end, the air whooshed out and the balloon wafted away. She wondered when the air would fizzle out of Harvey Moore.

  Tugs stopped listening and skimmed the publicity notice for this year’s Independence Day picnic posted on Al and Irene’s window, looking for announcement of the penny raffle prize.

  A Button had never won anything in the penny raffle, but then a Button had never bought a raffle ticket either. It’s rigged, they said. Waste of a coin.

  Tugs stared at the poster.

  She read it quickly, then again.

  There was a picture of a boy holding a small box in front of his chest, looking down into it with a grin, taking a photo of two girls in frilly dresses.

  Tugs reached in her pocket and felt the five pennies her mother had given her for Granddaddy Ike. She rubbed her fingers around their smooth warmth. A camera. She read it again.

  Going into Ward’s Ben Franklin was out, but she hadn’t worn out her welcome at Pepper’s, as far as she knew. It was the last day to buy tickets. Tugs turned back to Granddaddy, who was winding up with Harvey Moore and the mayor, and led him inside, where Mr. Jackson and Mr. Everett were waiting.

  “Thought you bought the farm!” said Mr. Jackson.

  “Thought you’d caught the bus!” said Mr. Everett.

  “I got more kick in me than either of you two geezers,” retorted Granddaddy Ike. “What are we playing for?”

  He settled into a chair and looked back at Tugs. “Where’s the goods?” he asked. “I got to put in.”

  Tugs hesitated. She could just give him the spoon and take the five pennies to Pepper’s. Mr. Jackson and Mr. Everett were used to his odd antes. They’d been known to put in buttons and bow ties and even once a locket of hair from Mr. Everett’s horse’s tail.

  “Luckier than a rabbit’s foot, that,” he’d said. Granddaddy Ike had wanted to win that horsehair like anything, but Mr. Jackson had taken home the horsehair and a set of Granddaddy’s false teeth that day. Granddaddy won back his teeth, but the horsehair never came back to the table.