Mable Riley

by Marthe Jocelyn

  Alfred, Viola, Elizabeth, and I walked to the crossroads with Mrs. Watson after Endeavor this evening, just as we did three weeks ago. What a changed view I have of her now! (And not only because her belly is growing as the baby's time comes near.) Viola, of course, had no cause for an altered opinion and was perhaps warmer than before.

  “It was a treat, Mable, to have you at our meeting on Sunday,” said Mrs. Watson, as calm as you please. “Perhaps you'll bring along your sister next time.”

  “I found it most enlightening,” I ventured. “I hope you found an answer to the worries of your special guests.”

  “We have a few ideas.” Then off she went with a cheery little wave!

  “That is one woman who will shortly have no time for reading,” said Viola.

  The Goodhands had arrived home while we were out, but Mrs. was already retired to her room.

  “I'm glad you're here,” said Mr. Goodhand. “Hazel's wanting some tea. She's all done in from the traveling.”

  Viola and I made up a tray: a pot of tea and bread and butter with a sprinkle of brown sugar. When I took it in to her, Mrs. Goodhand sat up in her bed looking dreadful, with her spectacles off and gray hair hanging limply about her shoulders. Of course, I've never seen it down before so it gave me a jolt. I tried to notice if she'd been crying, but I think she was just plain tired.

  “Thank you, dearie,” she said, patting the quilt for me to put the tray there. “Will you girls manage in the morning if I have a bit of a lie-in?”

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Goodhand. You take your rest.” When I reached the door, I realized I should say something more. “I'm sorry about your father. I know it's a terrible loss.”

  Her eyes were closed but she nodded to show she'd heard.

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18

  I assembled the Commas at lunchtime, on the sunniest patch in the yard, and made them each recite the spelling list between bites of bread and cheese. Cathy whined and Joseph glared mutinously, but all were word perfect for the bee! Unfortunately, Elizabeth took notice of our practice and performed the same, resulting in not quite the same triumph Henry erred on fascinate.

  Hiccuping Hyphens: 97

  Celebrating Commas: 96

  SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19

  I cannot decide whether to go to Silver Lining tomorrow or not. (Will I even be welcome? Did I offend by leaving last week without saying goodbye? Or did she even notice? Am I simply a coward?)

  I am still all of a jumble about what happened there.

  “Will you listen to this,” said Mr. Goodhand, reading the Daily Beacon as we readied the table for supper.

  “KOREA'S NEW EMPRESS

  The emperor of Korea has invited the foreign representatives to an entertainment to be given on October 23, when Lady Om will be introduced as the new empress. Lady Om was a slave girl rescued from captured pirates by the Korean court.”

  “Think of that!” said Mrs. Goodhand. “That's rather romantic, is it not?”

  “Romantic? Humph!” said Mr. Goodhand. “What kind of a name is Om? Lady Om?”

  “It's a Korean name, Dad,” said Alfred. “In Korea they would think Howard to be a very odd name.”

  “Well, I don't go around putting my name in their newspapers, do I?” said Mr. Goodhand.

  “It's quite a journey,” said Viola, “from captured slave girl to empress.”

  “Better than the other way around,” I said. “I would rather travel from slave to empress than from rich to poor like Mrs. Rattle. She grew up in a wealthy family but now is working in a factory!”

  I received stares from all around the table.

  “Mable,” said Viola in her tight voice.

  “It is not for us to say,” said Mrs. Goodhand.

  “I won't have gossiping here,” said Mr. Goodhand.

  “It's not gossip. She told me herself.”

  “I won't have backtalk, either.”

  “I wonder if Om will be a better empress because she has been oppressed and downtrodden before becoming rich?” I said.

  Mr. Goodhand gave me a long look. “Could be you're spending too much time over there with that crackbrain,” he warned.

  We bent our heads and said grace. Supper was horrible. Mrs. Goodhand is back in the kitchen!

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20

  I was almost relieved to wake and find rain slashing the window. It made not going to visit Mrs. Rattle seem not quite of my own doing. She will look outside and think, Oh, I suppose Mable did not come because of the rain. Instead of Oh, I suppose Mable did not come because she thinks I'm a crackbrain.

  Is she a crackbrain? Are all suffragists crackbrains? Or do they speak a truth the rest of us are not yet ready to live with? I cannot stop thinking about it. In the classroom this week, I looked at the little first-reader girls and wondered, Will they someday vote for the prime minister? Will one of them perhaps even be the prime minister? (Very doubtful, as Irene is rather silly and Ellen much too bossy for anyone to want her in charge.)

  The rain did not prevent us from going to church, of course. The sermon was “Is God Tired?” I don't know about God, but I felt very tired myself to-day. I lay on our bed and read all afternoon Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a lovely adventure, full of frights. I wish I could put some beastly pirates into my romantic novel, but Helena is nowhere near the sea. Hattie will have to be satisfied with train bandits instead.

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22

  Cathy Forrest announced that her mother has bought her a new store dress for the Harvest Social on Saturday. Several others said their mothers are busily sewing. Elizabeth said she won't have anything new this year because the family is in mourning. Tommy Thomas said his mother is making nine angel food cakes for the refreshments table. Irene Singer swears that her father is providing Coca-Cola for everyone at the Social.

  There will be a fiddler, but no dancing, of course. I understand why God might think dancing is too intimate an activity for public occasions, but I admit also to feeling the music in my feet sometimes and wishing to sway about. One day, when I'm certain God is busy with a dreadful war somewhere I would like to dance with a boy. We will have promenades at the Social, which are for the couples who are courting, or hoping to court. Would the Brown boys dare? I might have to do with Tommy Thomas, who is turning out to be more fun for the most part.

  PART THE EIGHTH

  {HELENA IS ABDUCTED}

  Our heroine blinked, seeing double. The train bandit, Captain Joseph Brigand, and his twin brother, Harry, were amused at her bewilderment. Suddenly, from the railway carriage behind her came a gunshot and gruff shouts.

  Harry instantly signaled a boy, who held their horses nearby.

  “Do excuse us,” said Joseph, bowing to Helena. The brothers jumped astride their mounts and cantered toward the train, where a drama was unfolding!

  The two men plundering the treasury carriage had encountered unexpected resistance from one of the guards. Although several heavy sacks lay in snowbanks beside the train, the courageous guard struggled to prevent a metal safe from being heaved overboard as well. It was he who had fired the shot, lodging a bullet in the chest of one of the criminals. Helena shuddered to see scarlet blood staining the snow beneath the wounded man, but watched agog as the twin bandits easily disarmed the guard and bound him tightly.

  “Frederick!” called Harry to the boy. “Bring the horses!”

  “Men!” shouted Joseph. “We're away!”

  A burst of activity consumed the next minute. The loot was strapped to the snorting horses. Whiphand Pete emerged from the passenger car, pulling an iron bar across the doorway before he mounted his animal. The injured fellow was lifted into his saddle and joined there by the fifth bandit, who gripped him to prevent his sliding off in a faint.

  Helena was frozen where she stood in part by the winter wind but mainly in alarm and awe. As the laden horses thundered back toward her, Helena's only thought was a prayer that she not be crushed beneath their hooves. In the next
moment, her heart jumped as strong arms embraced and then dragged her up upon the back of a galloping horse.

  Helena, near swooning, held on to the man who now gazed into her green eyes.

  “Our lad, Tom, is shot,” said Joseph. “We need a nurse. You're coming with us.”

  To be continued …

  FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25

  (The Commas and the Hyphens are exactly at a draw!!)

  Mr. Goodhand got as far as the “Letters to the Editor” tonight. Viola and I tidied the kitchen after supper while Mrs. Goodhand mixed the dough for tomorrow's bread. “Will you listen to this? This beats all,” he said.

  “To the Editor,

  How is it possible that here in the bucolic heart of Perth County there exists a place of such an unwholesome nature that it would more likely be discovered in the slums of Toronto?

  A place where young women arrive in the darkness of dawn, return home in the darkness of evening, and toil in the dim light provided by a miserly master for the long hours in between?

  A place where young women are forced to perform tedious tasks for twelve hours at a stretch with only two short breaks? A place where aching backs, blistered hands, strained eyes, and sore arms are the daily badges of being employed?

  The place I speak of is central to the community of Stratford-Sellerton, and yet I doubt that anyone who has not visited within its walls is aware of its true character.

  I speak of the Bright Creek Cheese Company, owned by Mr. Francis Forrest.”

  “Oh, mercy!” exclaimed Mrs. Goodhand, her floury hand on her mouth.

  “There's more,” said her husband. “You just wait.” Oh, double mercy, I thought. Mrs. Rattle is the bravest person I ever have met.

  “To the outside world, Bright Creek is the familiar home of the Forrest family business, making and selling cheddar cheese for three generations. But inside its walls, Bright Creek keeps secrets, which are ugly to behold.

  The women who make the cheese so cheerfully eaten at nearly every table in the county are afraid to speak the truth for fear of losing their jobs.

  They suffer daily hours of hardship, stirring the curds with heavy long-handled rakes or scrubbing milk cans with scalding water. They tolerate the lewd remarks of the foreman or the insults of Mr. Forrest himself. They swallow the injustice of being fined for being moments late or speaking to a fellow slave during the endless day, and then opening a weekly pay packet of less than two dollars because the fines have been taken out.”

  “Is this all true?” asked Mrs. Goodhand.

  “There's more yet,” said Mr. Goodhand, continuing.

  “These admirable women are not asking for charity. They are working to support themselves and their children. But they are asking questions. Such as, What sort of man drives a fancy carriage to church and dresses his wife in a fur cloak but takes money back from his workers for minor infractions?

  And what sort of woman enjoys the riches wrung from the anguish of her sisters? Who ignores their plight instead of standing up to shout to the world that the time has come for change?

  Look hard at your neighbours and ask yourselves fairly Is this the world we wish to live in? Is this the example we wish to set for our children?

  When will women have a voice on their own behalf? And when that time comes, will you be able to look them in the eye and say you support them?

  Sincerely,

  A Good Neighbour”

  “Whoever has written this?” said Mrs. Goodhand. She punched the bread dough with vigour.

  “It takes brazen stupidity to publish something like this,” said Mr. Goodhand. “The Forrests might be understood for committing murder.”

  I felt Alfred's eyes upon me. I caught his glance and looked away. He remembered the day at the post office when she had announced her new job. There was a look exchanged between Alfred and my sister.

  “I think,” said Viola slowly, “I think I am correct in believing the author to be Mrs. Rattle. Am I right, Mable?”

  I knew not where to look. I was hot from my skull to my toenails. The Goodhands stared. Viola tilted her head, watching me.

  “I cannot claim to know it as a fact,” I said. I dreaded their remarks, thinking I would be held responsible for Mrs. Rattle's action.

  “Humph,” said Mr. Goodhand. “She's a sneaky one but clever, I'll give her that. I wouldn't be in Forrest's shoes tonight, no sir!”

  “I never saw you as one to support emancipation, Dad,” said Alfred.

  “I don't,” said Mr. Goodhand. “Flat out, women are built to look after things in a home. But if what the newspaper says is true, there's no call to be treating people this way.

  Look at cows. You have to treat them with respect if you want them to produce good milk. They need fresh air and sweet hay and plenty of time to digest. If you overwork a cow, you've tossed away your own cream. That's just foolish.”

  “Dad,” Alfred said, grinning, “that might be the smartest thing you ever said.”

  “Doesn't mean women aren't better off as wives,” said Mr. Goodhand. “But some of them are widows or haven't found a husband yet. They've got a living to make, too. They don't need to be mistreated by a self-important bully like Francis Forrest. He was that way in school, and I didn't like him then. He must be madder than a kicked dog, being attacked by a woman.”

  “That may be, Howard,” said Mrs. Goodhand. “But Bright Creek buys our milk. If this woman makes trouble at the factory, it's our livelihood that's put in danger. You'd best keep that in mind.”

  “Mable?” said Viola. “I warned you before and I repeat the warning: You stay away from her.”

  “Mmmm,” I said.

  Mrs. Goodhand gave me a sharp look and lay the tea cloths over the rising bread.

  It is a large hornet indeed that Mrs. Rattle has released into the pantry.

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27 THE HARVEST SOCIAL

  Where to begin with my record of the Harvest Social? I hope I can write it all down quickly before I forget a single detail!

  Elizabeth arrived after luncheon yesterday so that we could begin our preparations early. It was much jollier to have her there than to be alone with Viola.

  “Did you know?” she whispered as we hurried to the bedroom. “Did you know from Mrs. Rattle that she was planning to provoke a scandal?”

  For a moment I was tempted to pretend, to say yes, that Mrs. Rattle trusted me enough to have confided all her plans….

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, well,” said Elizabeth disappointed, I could see. “I was hoping for some news from the inside. Isn't this just the most delicious disaster?”

  “Elizabeth?” Viola appeared behind us on the stair.

  “Yes, Miss Riley?”

  “The subject of Mrs. Rattle is forbidden in this household.”

  “Yes, Miss Riley.”

  We took turns washing hair, using the iron, trying on dresses, choosing ribbons, changing our minds, and so on. Viola eventually relented from her schoolmarm mood and joined the fun. She was kind enough to lend me her pale green shirtwaist, which almost fits and felt almost new. She wore the gray, which is so elegant. Alfred used pomade to slick down his hair. He clearly thought he was debonair, but I prefer his regular floppy red curls.

  We all squeezed into the buggy for Alfred to drive us to the church hall. I felt quite sorry for Darling hauling such a load, but not sorry enough to climb down and walk. I was too excited to get there using shanks pony!

  We came into the hall, shed our cloaks, and were swept up in the circle of girls, admiring each others' dresses. Cathy Forrest strutted back and forth in a blue velvet with ribbon trim. I shall be catty and say it is much too nice a dress for such a brat to wear. Viola looked a bit lost (not having, as yet, made any friends in Sellerton), but I saw her later with Mrs. Watson, so she wasn't completely alone. I did not see the Brown boys. Elizabeth and I made our escape to the refreshments and were followed by Tommy Thomas and his little sister, Lyddie.

 
Mrs. Forrest was at the cake and pie table, arranging name cards for the entries in the baking contest. She wore a new hat, which looked as though a naughty boy hiding up a tree had dropped a bird's nest on her head, complete with a fat robin peering over the brim.

  “And that's the mister,” whispered Elizabeth, pointing to a man lurking nearby, holding tightly to his sons hand.

  It was my first sight of Mr. Forrest, and he looked nothing like a villain. I'd been hoping for a whip and a spiky mustache, but he was an undersized man with sloping shoulders and a red face.

  “I wouldn't dare go to a Social if I knew everyone would be talking about me,” said Elizabeth.

  “Just think of him snoring,” I whispered back, “like a dinosaur.”

  We had to cover our mouths for laughing. Viola shot us a look from across the room.

  “I'm hungry,” said Lyddie, eyeing the feast spread out before us. (It would take two pages to list all the offerings. Suffice to say, no one went hungry!) We filled our plates and found Joseph and Henry already eating, so we shared a table with them.

  When the plates were finally stacked and the tables tidied, we prepared for the next portion of the evening. Reverend Scott stood behind the lectern, picking crumbs of angel food cake from his beard. Finally, he called the room to order and announced the first promenade.

  The Ladies Committee had ruled that no one younger than high school could participate in the promenades, so our group hugged the wall as spectators. We had a good view and much to say about all the dresses.

  “Choose a partner, gentlemen,” advised Reverend Scott. “We will begin shortly. After three circuits of the hall, you may exchange partners and start again.”

  There was a flurry of cosmetic adjustment among the young women: hair patting, cheek pinching, lip rolling, skirt smoothing, until the young men inched forward to make their selection. I was pleased to see Alfred bowing like a prince in front of Viola.