by Richard Peck
There followed three of the busiest days of my young life. Wrestling twenty-five pounds of sugar back from Moore’s Store was nothing to picking all the gooseberry bushes clean. As Mrs. Weidenbach said, gooseberries are tricky things—sour to the taste and spikey with stickers. Not unlike Grandma. My throbbing hands were covered with sticker wounds from getting all the gooseberries into the pail. With towels around their middles and their hair tucked up, Grandma and Mary Alice rolled out endless pastry on big breadboards.
We baked a gooseberry pie every four hours for the next three days. I had about all I could do to feed corncobs into the stove to keep the oven heat even. Gooseberries are so tart that more sugar than fruit goes into the pie. Some pies were still too sour, others gritty with too much sugar.
We tried and tried again. Grandma grew careful about balancing her ingredients, holding the measuring cup up to the light. She was like a scientist seeking the cure for something. I had to go back uptown for more sugar and another big can of Crisco. And we had to sample them all in search for the perfect pie. Mary Alice says she’s never since been able to look a gooseberry in the face.
The day of judgment came. Mary Alice and I were in the parlor early, waiting. Grandma had told us to cover our heads against the fairground sun. I had on the Cubs cap I traveled in, and Mary Alice wore her straw from Easter. The house reeked of baking.
Then Grandma sailed like a galleon into the front room, striking us dumb. For her, dressing up usually meant taking off her apron. But this morning she wore a ready-made dress covered with flowers. The collar was fine net, fixed with a big cameo brooch that rode high. On her feet were large, unfamiliar shoes—white with the hint of a heel, and laces tied in big, perky bows. On her head was a hat with a big brim. The hatband on it happened to be a blue ribbon.
She glared, daring us to pay her a compliment. But the cat had our tongues. Mary Alice stared up at her, transfixed. Was she seeing herself fifty years hence?
The Hupmobile growled up outside, and the next thing you knew, we were in it. It wasn’t as long as Al Capone’s big Lincoln limousine, but it was the biggest car in this town. Mary Alice and I had the backseat to ourselves. The pie was in a box between my feet.
Grandma took charge of a small hamper full of our lunch, since they charge you two prices for everything at a fair. She rode up front beside Mrs. Weidenbach, with one big elbow propped outside the open window. The town had emptied out because this was prize day at the fair. But when we went by The Coffee Pot Cafe, there were faces at the window, and a loafer or two paused on the sidewalk to see us pass. Grandma inclined her head slightly. Most people wouldn’t take their bows till after they’d won a blue ribbon, but Grandma wasn’t most people.
The fairground was a pasture along a dusty road this side of the county seat. It was a collection of sheds and tents and a grandstand for the harness racing. But this was the big day for judging cattle, quilts, and cookery, so the grounds were packed, though it was a nickel to get in.
Mrs. Weidenbach twinkled along in her high heels next to Grandma. She didn’t dare show her pickles, but she wanted some reflected glory in case the gooseberry pie won. “Let’s run that pie over to the Domestic Sciences tent and get it registered,” she said.
“I don’t want it setting around,” Grandma said. “The livestock draws flies.” The pie was no burden to Grandma because I was carrying it. “Let’s see something of the fair first,” she said, managing to sound uninterested.
Along the midway the Anti-Horse-Thief Society had a stand selling burgoo and roasting ears. The 4-H club was offering chances on a heifer. Allis-Chalmers had a big tent showing their huskers and combines. Prohibition was about to be repealed, but the Temperance people had another big tent, offering ice water inside and a stage out front with a quartet performing. We stopped to hear them:
You may drive your fast horse if you please,
You may live in the very best style;
Smoke the choicest cigars, at your ease,
And may revel in pleasure awhile;
Play billiards, from morning till night,
Or loaf in the barroom all day,
But just see if my words are not right:
You will find, in the end, it don’t pay.
At the other end of the midway was a rickety Ferris wheel, a merry-go-round, and a caterpillar. Beyond it was a sight that drew me. In an open stubblefield a biplane stood. Beside it was the pilot in a leather helmet with goggles, and puttees wrapped around his legs.
And a sign:
BARNSTORMING BARNIE BUCHANAN
AIR ACE
TRICK FLYING AND PASSENGER RIDES
My heart skipped a beat, and sank. Another sign read:
RIDES 75¢
I didn’t have that kind of money on me. I didn’t have any money on me. Still, my heart began to taxi. I’d never been in a plane, and my hero was Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, who’d flown the Atlantic alone.
The American Legion was sponsoring Barnie Buchanan. A red-faced man in a Legionnaire’s cap bawled through a megaphone, “Tell you what I’m going to do, folks. Any minute now Mr. Buchanan is going to show us his stuff by putting his machine through the same maneuvers he used in the Great War against the wily Hun. Then if you think six bits is still too steep, Mr. Buchanan has agreed to a special prize-day offer. To every blue ribbon winner, Mr. Buchanan will give a ride in his plane gratis. That’s free of charge, ladies and gentlemen.”
My heart left the ground, skimmed a hedgerow, and sailed into the wild blue yonder. The pie in my hands would win first prize since nobody but Grandma would take a chance with gooseberries. But she’d let me have her plane ride because she was too old and too big.
“You reckon that thing will get off the ground?” she said doubtfully, building my hopes higher.
“It looks like a box kite,” Mary Alice said. “A person would have to be nuts to go up in it.”
The biplane’s wings were canvas-covered and much patched. It was more rickety than the Ferris wheel. Still, it was a plane, and this looked like my one chance in life to go up in one. Now Mrs. Weidenbach was plucking at Grandma’s arm, and it was time to enter the pie into competition.
When we four went into the Domestic Sciences tent, Grandma remarked, “I said there’d be flies.” Surrounded by crowds, the long tables were all laid out: jams and preserves, vegetables in novelty shapes, cakes and breads. A half-sized cow carved out of butter reclined on a block of melting ice. It was as hot as Grandma’s kitchen in the tent, so people fanned paper fans, compliments of Broshear’s Funeral Home, each with the Broshear motto printed on it:
WHEN YOU COME TO THE END,
YOU’LL FIND A FRIEND
Mrs. Weidenbach averted her eyes as we passed Pickled Products. I took charge of unpacking the pie and getting it registered at Fruit Pies and Cobblers. Grandma started at the other end of the table, casting an eye over the competition. Everything looked good to me, and I was wishing I was a judge so I could have a taste. A little card with a number and a name stood beside each entry.
When she got to her own pie, Grandma froze. Next to it was another lattice-topped gooseberry pie. There was no doubt about it. Only gooseberries are that shade of gray-green. And it was a very nice-looking pie. The edges of its pastry were as neatly crimped as Grandma’s. Maybe better. She bent to read the card, and whipped around.
I followed her look as it fell on one of the smallest people in the tent. It was a man, one of the few there. A little tiny man. He wore small bib overalls, a dress shirt, and a bow tie. Four or five strands of hair were arranged across his little bald head.
“Rupert Pennypacker,” Grandma breathed. You seldom saw her caught off guard. Was he responsible for the other gooseberry pie?
“Who?” I said.
“The best home-baker in the state of Illinois,” Grandma said. “Him and me come up together out in the country, so I know.”
Mrs. Weidenbach quaked. Even Mary Alice looked concerned.
A puttering sound deafened us. It was Barnie Buchanan, the air ace, right over our heads. He was doing his aerial stunts: barrel rolls and vertical figure eights, or whatever he did. Everybody looked up, though we could only see tent.
It was just a moment, but somehow I was sure. In that split second when we’d all looked up, I thought Grandma had switched her pie’s card with Rupert Pennypacker’s. It was a desperate act, but as Mrs. Weidenbach had said, these were desperate times. It was the wrong thing for Grandma to do, but I might get a plane ride out of it. My head swam.
Grandma nudged me away from the table and elbowed through a parting crowd. She was making for Mr. Pennypacker. I wondered if she’d reach down, grab him by his bib, and fling him out of the tent. With Grandma, you never knew. “Rupert,” she said.
Standing beside him was the scariest-looking old lady I’d ever seen, weirder than Aunt Puss Chapman. She was only a little taller than Mr. Pennypacker and dressed all in black, including the veil on her hat. She had warts, and her chin met her hat brim. There was a lump in her cheek that looked like it might be a bunch of chaw.
“You remember Mama,” Mr. Pennypacker said to Grandma.
His voice was high, like it had never changed. My voice hadn’t changed either, but I was twelve, so I still had hope.
His old mama hissed something in his ear and tried to pull him away with a claw on his arm.
“Well, may the best man win,” Grandma said, turning on her heel. By now the judges were at work. They carried little silver knives and miniature trowels for sampling the cobblers and pies. Tension mounted.
Nervously, Mrs. Weidenbach said to Grandma, “What a nice, moist consistency your pie filling has, Mrs. Dowdel. I’m sure it will be noted. How much water did you add to the mixture?”
“About a mouthful,” Grandma replied.
The judging went on forever, but nobody left the sweltering tent. We all watched the judges chewing. Finally, Mary Alice said she thought she might faint, so I took her outside.
Up among the clouds Barnie Buchanan was still putting his old biplane through its paces. He dived to earth, then pulled up in time. He gave us three loops and a snap roll. And my heart was up there with him, scouting for Germans.
A voice rose from inside the tent, followed by gusts of applause. They were announcing the winners: honorable mention, third prize, second—first. I didn’t want to go back in there. I hoped we’d win, but I wasn’t sure we should. Not if Grandma had switched—
The tent quivered with one final burst of applause. People began streaming out, flowing around us. Then out strolled Mr. Pennypacker and his mama, clutching him. You couldn’t read anything in that face of hers, but Mr. Pennypacker was beaming. From the clasp on his overall bib hung a blue ribbon.
“Shoot,” Mary Alice said. “After all that pie crust I rolled out.” In a way I was relieved. But then I saw my one and only chance for a plane ride crash and burn. Mr. Pennypacker was already heading for the field where the biplane was coming in for a landing.
At last Mrs. Weidenbach and Grandma came out. A nod from Grandma sent me back to the Hupmobile for our hamper of lunch. We ate it at a table in the Temperance tent, sliced chicken washed down with ice water. Grandma had her great stone face on, but Mrs. Weidenbach tried to make the best of things.
“Never mind, Mrs. Dowdel. As I have said, a red ribbon for second place is not to be sneezed at or scorned. You did right well.”
But Grandma hadn’t come to the fair for second prize. She didn’t wear it, if she’d bothered to collect it at all. “And you were up against stiff competition,” Mrs. Weidenbach said. “I daresay Rupert Pennypacker has had nothing to do all his life but wait on his dreadful mother and bake.”
Consoling Grandma was a thankless task. She ate her chicken sandwich with her usual appetite, observing the crowds. If I could read her mind at all, she was thinking she could do with a cold beer.
The day seemed to have peaked and was going downhill now. As we left the Temperance tent, the quartet was singing, in close harmony:
. . . Lips that touch wine
Will never touch mine. . . .
We were ready to head for the parking pasture, but Grandma turned us the other way, toward the midway and the biplane.
“Wha—” said Mrs. Weidenbach, but fell silent.
We were walking through the fair, and something inside my rib cage began to stir. There ahead, the biplane was on the ground. Afternoon sun played off the dull mahogany of its propeller. Something within me dared to dream. I wasn’t swooping. I didn’t even taxi, but I was walking lighter.
Giving blue ribbon winners free rides hadn’t stimulated much business. Barnie Buchanan was lounging beside his plane. He was smoking another cigarette in a cupped hand, pilot-style.
Grandma strode past the ticket table, out onto the field. She paused to look the plane over from prop to tail. Then she glanced briefly down at me. I didn’t dare look up at her. But my hopes were rising. Then she marched forward. When Barnie Buchanan saw Grandma bearing down on him, he tossed away his cigarette.
“I’m a blue ribbon winner,” Grandma announced, “here for my ride.”
“Wha—” Mrs. Weidenbach said.
My brain went dead.
“Well, ma’am,” Barnie Buchanan said uncertainly, noticing her size. “And what class did you compete in?”
“Fruit Pies and Cobblers.” She held up a crumpled blue ribbon clutched in her fist. She gave him a glimpse of it, then dropped the ribbon into her pocketbook.
“Well, ma’am, it seems to me I’ve already given a ride to a man who won first in pies,” he said. “A little fellow.”
“Oh that’s Rupert Pennypacker,” Grandma said. “You got that turned around in your mind. He won in Sausage and Headcheese. Don’t I look more like a pie baker than him?”
Grandma reached up to pull the pin out of her hat. She handed the hat to Mary Alice. “Here, hold this. It might blow off.” I saw the hatband was missing from her hat, the blue ribbon.
It took three big members of the American Legion and Barnie Buchanan to get Grandma into the front cockpit of the plane. Eventually, the sight drew a crowd. The Legionnaires would invite Grandma to step into their clasped hands, then boost her up. That didn’t work.
Then they’d hoist her up some other way, but she’d get halfway there, and her hindquarters would be higher than her head. They had an awful job getting her into the plane, and they were wringing wet. But at last she slid into the seat, to a round of applause from the crowd. Grandma was a tight fit, and the plane seemed to bend beneath her. Barnie Buchanan stroked his chin. But then he pulled his goggles over his eyes and sprang up to the rear seat. He could pilot the plane from there, if he could see around Grandma. A Legionnaire jerked the propeller and the motor coughed twice, then roared.
Mrs. Weidenbach was between Mary Alice and me now, clutching our hands.
A lot of Grandma stuck up above the plane. The breeze stirred her white hair, loosening the bun on the back. Her spectacle lenses flashed like goggles. She raised one hand in farewell, and the plane began to bump down the field.
Now my heart was in my mouth. Everyone’s was. The biplane, heavy-burdened, lumbered over uneven ground, trying to gather speed. It drew nearer and nearer the hedgerow at the far end of the field.
“Lift!” the crowd cried. “Lift!” Mary Alice’s hands were over her eyes.
But then distant dust spurted from the plane’s front wheels. The tail rose, but dropped down again. It had stopped just short of the hedgerow, and now it was turning back. We watched the bright disc of the whirling propeller as the biplane returned to us.
Barnie Buchanan dropped down from the cockpit. He looked pale, shaken. Boy, did he need a cigarette. But they had to get Grandma down from the plane, and getting her out was twice the job of getting her in. She’d plant one big shoe on a shoulder and the other on another. They had her by the ankles, then by the
hips. She tipped forward and back, and the pocketbook swinging from her arm pummeled their heads. She brought two big men to their knees.
At last she was on solid ground, scanning the crowd for me. She crooked a finger, and I went forth. As always, I couldn’t see a moment ahead.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry,” Barnie Buchanan was saying to Grandma. “But I was just carrying a little more . . . freight than this old crate could handle.”
Grandma waved that away. “Don’t give it a thought. You can take my grandson instead,” she said. “If he wants to go.”
The heavens opened. I thought I heard celestial music. Somehow I was up in the front seat of the plane, buckling myself in with trembling hands. And Barnie Buchanan was handing me up a pair of goggles. Goggles from the Great War.
Now we were taxiing, Barnie and me, bumping over the ground, gathering speed behind the yearning motor. And I felt that moment when we left the ground, and the fair fell away below us, and ahead of us was nothing but the towering white clouds. And beyond them sky, endless sky. I didn’t know there was that much sky, as we flew, Barnie and me, in stuttering circles higher than birds, over the patchwork fields.
That night Mary Alice went up to bed early, tuckered out. Still in her fair finery, Grandma sat in the platform rocker, working out of her shoes. They’d been a torment to her all day. Now she kicked them aside. “If I could pop all the corns on my toes,” she said, “I could feed a famine.”
I’d settled on the settee, watching her in the circle of light, after the big doings of the day.
“Grandma,” I said at last. “I’ve got a couple of things on my mind.”
“Well, spit ’em out,” she said, “if you must.”
“About your plane ride. You never did expect it to get off the ground, did you?”
“Lands no.” She turned down a hand. “When I was dainty enough for a plane to lift, they didn’t have them. We couldn’t have dusted the crops with me on board. I just wanted to see what it felt like sitting up there in that hen roost.”
