by Richard Peck
Rumors are things with wings too. The rumor that I had two dollars reached Ray Veech before I could. He was going to have to give me my driving lessons at the end of the day when he was sure his dad was out on the farm, milking. Otherwise, his dad would take a cut. Also, we needed to use the Terraplane 8, which was strictly forbidden under an agreement with the Hudson Motor Car Company.
I started off to Ray’s that evening with a two-dollar bill in my jeans and a song in my heart. I felt like I was six feet tall and shaved. My right hand played through the gearshift positions, and I was ready.
Then Grandma called out after me that she and Mary Alice were going along for the ride.
And how could I explain to Grandma that learning to drive was kind of a sacred thing, and you don’t want your kid sister and your grandma along?
Grandma filled most of the backseat of the Terraplane. Mary Alice sat beside her with an unspent two-dollar bill in her pocketbook. From Grandma, Mary Alice was learning thrift. She could squeeze two cents till they begged for mercy, let alone two dollars.
Ray was up front with me, and I was behind the wheel. I’d crept out of town in second gear, and now Ray was showing me third. I knew if I got so much as a scratch on the fender, I was a dead man, so that kept me alert. And I stayed to the crown of the road, hoping not to meet anything oncoming. Visors flipped down to keep the setting sun out of our eyes. It was a car with every refinement. And though I wasn’t steering straight yet, I was beginning to get the feel of the thing. The Terraplane and I were becoming as one. I no longer let the motor die at crossroads.
After we made it across the plank bridge over Salt Creek, Ray reached down and turned the radio to WGN. Out of static came the sweet strains of cocktail hour music from the Empire Room of the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. It was a modern miracle. Here we were skimming along a country road out past Cowgills’ Dairy Farm, and we were hearing music being played in the Chicago Loop.
Grandma’s head appeared between Ray’s and mine. “What in the Sam Hill is that noise?” she said.
Ray indicated the radio.
“Shut it off,” she said. “Let’s listen to the country.”
So we did. Since a Terraplane is another thing with wings, I edged up to twenty-five miles an hour, watching the needle rise. Over the purr of the motor we heard a wind pump squeaking as it turned and a calf bawling and the katydids starting up in a grove of walnut trees. I see us yet, chasing the setting sun down the ribbon of road between the bean rows, in the Terraplane. I thought it was about as fine a car as they’d ever make. I’m not so sure it wasn’t.
Grandma came to the depot with us on the day we were going home. But she wasn’t there to see us off. She was there to meet Mrs. Effie Wilcox, who was coming home to her house.
The Wabash Blue Bird didn’t exactly stop at Grandma’s town. It only hesitated. As we were struggling to climb on, Mrs. Wilcox was struggling to get off. Her valise was full to bursting, and her eyes were everywhere, so I don’t know if she spotted Grandma at first.
But then somehow Mary Alice and I and our suitcase were on board, and Mrs. Wilcox was on the platform, and the Blue Bird was pulling out. Grandma didn’t wave. Mrs. Wilcox was telling her something. But we waved anyway.
Centennial Summer
1935
I was fifteen the last summer we went down to Grandma’s. Mary Alice was thirteen, so we both thought we were too old for this sort of thing. Next year I’d be in line for a summer job in Chicago, if I could find one. Mary Alice was about to sail into eighth grade, which put her in shooting distance of high school.
We both assumed an air of weary worldliness as we climbed down off the Wabash Blue Bird one last time. But the train hadn’t pulled out before we noticed a difference.
The depot was swagged in red, white, and blue bunting. Where the old DRIFTERS KEEP MOVING sign used to hang, a new billboard in fancy lettering read:
Welcome to the Centennial Celebration
A Century of Progress
1835–1935
See our Ladies’ Hospitality Committee
for a complete list of centennial activities
Gentlemen: grow a beard or pay a fine!
“You’re in trouble right there,” Mary Alice remarked to me.
We both sighed. We were still kids, so we liked everything to stay the same. Now the whole town seemed to be up to something.
“What’s it all about?” we asked Grandma when we got to her house.
“The Centennial Celebration? Nothin’ but an excuse for people to mill around, waste time, and make horses’ patooties of themselves. I hope I never see another one.”
Considering that the next centennial celebration would be in the year 2035, we didn’t think Grandma would have a problem with it.
Over dinner she added, “There’ll be a parade, of course. We can watch it from the porch.”
As we tucked into big slabs of sour cream raisin pie, Grandma observed, “They’re putting on a talent show. We might look in on that. We won’t have to stay till the end.”
Then after dinner she said, “You two are going to have to climb up to the attic and go through them trunks again.”
“What for?” said Mary Alice, who hated the attic.
“Well for pity sakes,” Grandma said, quite impatient, “you and me’s going to have to wear old-time long dresses.” She aimed a fork at me. “And you’re going to have to wear a historical getup too.”
At least she didn’t comment on the fact that I couldn’t raise a beard, though her glance skimmed my chin.
“Grandma.” Mary Alice clutched her head. “What’s happening?”
“It’s the Centennial Celebration,” Grandma said. “We’re all going back to the old days and the old ways for a week.”
“Grandma,” I said, “you never gave up any of the old ways.”
“Ha,” she said. “A lot you know. And while you’re up in the attic, look around for that old churn. It’s how we used to make butter. Bring it down.”
The attic was hot as hinges, and nothing had changed since last year. “For pity sakes, don’t mention those old coal-oil lamps,” Mary Alice whispered to me. “She’ll shut off the electricity and make us use them.”
We made a quick survey of the trunk full of dress patterns and the one with the buffalo robe in it. In old suit boxes under the eaves we found folded clothes that went back before the war, way back. Mary Alice’s forehead was greasy now, and we were both down on all fours, pawing through strange old dresses and funny shoes.
“What are you finding?” came Grandma’s voice from below.
“Grandma, you’re not going to be able to get into any of these old clothes,” Mary Alice hollered down.
“No, but you can,” Grandma hollered back.
I grinned. Mary Alice wilted.
Then she came on another box with a lot of brittle old tissue paper inside. “Aha!” she said, drawing out an old black coat with braid around the lapels. Then a waistcoat with many buttons. Then a shirt with a high collar attached by another button. A pair of drainpipe pants. A string tie, a derby hat.
“Made for you!” Mary Alice crowed. She was beginning to enjoy herself, I was sorry to see.
“I’ll look like Broshear the undertaker in that stuff,” I said. “I’ll look like a horse’s patootie. I want to go home.”
Mary Alice burrowed under more tissue in the box.
“Oh, look.” She held up a dress finer than the others, white going yellow with age. It had a high collar of flaking lace.
“Made for you,” I said, but Mary Alice didn’t mind. She ran a careful hand over it. “Seed pearls,” she murmured.
In another box there was nothing but old cut-velvet curtains with fringe at the bottom. “Just curtains,” I said.
“Cut-velvet with fringe?” Grandma thundered from below.
“Yes,” we yelled back.
“Bring ’em down,” she roared. “And don’t forget the churn.”
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br /> After Mary Alice twice said she was so hot she thought she might throw up, we left. We took everything we’d found with us: clothes, curtains, churn—half the attic. Grandma was nowhere about.
“Let’s see if these clothes fit,” Mary Alice said.
Let’s not.
“Joey, you know we’re going to have to wear this stuff,” she said.
I went to my room and skinned off my shirt and pants. Then I put on the old white shirt with the stiff front. It came to my knees, but I could push the sleeves up. The drainpipe pants were a fit when I gave the legs extra cuff. It took me awhile, buttoning up the vest, and I liked the coat. It gave me shoulders. The string tie was like a bootlace, so I could tie it by looking in the mirror. Then I thought, why not? I put on the derby hat. It went down to my ears and balanced there.
I strolled out into the hall, and stepped back. Mary Alice stood there, posing in the old white dress. She was beginning to develop a figure, more or less. But the dress had a figure of its own. Narrow in the waist, generous above.
“I stuck in some tissue paper,” she said quietly, glancing down. Her chin balanced on the high lace collar, and she reached down into the folds of the skirt that swirled to the floor. “But there’s something wrong,” she said. “Behind.”
“Turn around,” I said. The dress fitted her like a glove, above the waist.
“What’s all this?” She patted an enormous artificial behind, swagged with seed pearls.
“I think they called it a bustle,” I said.
“But how did she sit down?”
“Search me,” I said.
Mary Alice turned back. “You look good,” she said. “The hat’s dumb, but you look good.”
“So do you.” Though I’d never noticed before, Mary Alice was going to be quite a nice-looking girl. I supposed boys would be hanging around her pretty soon. It was a thought I’d never had.
“Let’s go show Grandma,” she said.
With a dainty gesture, she lifted her skirts as she started down the stairs. I followed, sweaty in two wool layers. Grandma wasn’t in the kitchen or the front room. We found her in the little sewing room off her downstairs bedroom. She was bending over her old treadle Singer sewing machine, threading a bobbin.
Mary Alice rustled her bustle in, and I followed. Just before Grandma turned to see us, I took off the derby hat. I put it in the crook of my arm, like we were an old tintype picture in a fancy frame. Mary Alice held out the silky skirt. Grandma turned around from the sewing machine, and froze.
An instant of silence fell when you could hear a wasp on the windowsill. Then Grandma swept the spectacles off her nose. She wiped a hand quickly over her eyes. We quaked. We hadn’t seen her like this before.
“You give me a turn,” she said. She put her hand out to us and took it back. “I thought it was me and Dowdel on our wedding day.”
Of course—these were their wedding clothes. They’d lived together all these years, separate in their box together.
“How did you sit?” Mary Alice said, turning to show the bustle.
“To one side,” Grandma said, “on one of your haunches. Then you let the skirts fan out on the floor. I only wore it that one day.” She couldn’t take her eyes off us, and her eyes were full.
We three were at the breakfast table the next morning, in our regular clothes, when a sharp footstep sounded on the back porch.
A rounded figure with a head cocked like a bird filled the screen door. It was Mrs. L. J. Weidenbach, the banker’s wife.
Grandma looked up from her breakfast, scrapple and corn syrup with sides of bacon. “Only ten after six,” Grandma muttered, “and she’s already girdled and gallivantin’.”
Mrs. Weidenbach must have been desperate, because she’d lowered herself to come to Grandma’s back door. “Oh, Mrs. Dowdel,” she said through screen wire, “you see before you a woman at the end of her rope.”
“I wish,” Grandma mumbled.
Mrs. Weidenbach dared to open the screen door and slip inside on her teetery high-heeled shoes. Dad had taught me to stand up when a lady enters the room, but a look from Grandma kept me in my place.
“Mrs. Dowdel, as head of the Ladies’ Hospitality Committee for the Centennial Celebration, I have come to fling myself at your feet. We of the committee have worked our fingers to the bone to make the celebration worthy of the town’s traditions. Now on the eve of the event, my committee members are dropping like flies. You will have heard how Mrs. Askew has been brought low.” Mrs. Weidenbach’s voice fell. “Female troubles.”
Grandma’s specs were riding down her nose. She looked up over them. “Oh yes. Cora Askew’s insides has been given a public airing.”
“And then there is Mrs. Forrest Pugh’s nervous condition,” Mrs. Weidenbach sighed. “Mrs. Dowdel, I’ll put it to you straight. Our committee has more than it can manage—handing out programs, setting up chairs, arranging for prizes, keeping the ladies’ public rest room tidy. It is not glorious work, Mrs. Dowdel, but it is meaningful. I thought you might step in and lend us a hand. We understand that at your time of life, you are not as active as you once were. But we are in great hopes you will rise to the occasion.”
I thought Grandma might rise to the occasion and throw the kitchen table at Mrs. Weidenbach. Mary Alice and I got ready to run.
Mrs. Weidenbach’s hand plunged into her bosom and drew up a lacy hanky. “I can do no more,” she said, dabbing at her mouth. “I will have my hands full with Daddy during the celebration itself. As a ninety-year-old veteran of the Civil War, Daddy is bound to carry off the honor of being Oldest Settler, and he will need all my support. But he’s bound to win.” Mrs. Weidenbach looked suddenly uncertain. “Unless Aunt Puss Chapman—”
“Naw.” Grandma waved a strip of bacon. “You couldn’t blast Aunt Puss off her place with a charge of dynamite.”
“Well, then,” Mrs. Weidenbach said, reassured. “And I will have to be on hand for the talent show,” she continued. “My nephew is entering it with a dramatic reading, and I must be there for the boy.”
“Ah,” Grandma said. “Let me see if I heard right. At my time of life, my hearing isn’t what it was.”
Mary Alice and I stared at each other. Of all her whoppers, this was Grandma’s crowning achievement. She had ears on her like an Indian scout.
“You want me to swab out toilets while you run your old daddy for Oldest Settler and your nephew for public speaker. Or did my ears deceive me?”
“Well, I wouldn’t have put it quite like that.” Mrs. Weidenbach dabbed all around her neck.
“I’m busy as a bird dog myself these days,” Grandma said. “I’ve got my grandkids visiting, as you may have noticed. And my tomatoes are coming on. I’m rushed off my feet.” Grandma sprawled in her chair, the picture of ease.
“You don’t mean you’re canning tomatoes on Centennial week!” Mrs. Weidenbach goggled.
“Tomatoes wait for no man,” Grandma said, gazing at the door.
Defeated, Mrs. Weidenbach took the hint and retreated. We listened to her heels pecking off the porch. I wiped the last scrap of scrapple around my plate in the corn syrup. Mary Alice examined her fingernails, waiting. Grandma was deep in thought, and we were passing the time until she came to a conclusion.
She slapped the oilcloth at last. “No rest for the weary,” she said, climbing to her feet. She ran a hand down the small of her back, though it was none too small. “Not enough hours in the day.”
“We picking tomatoes, Grandma?” I asked, testing her.
“What?” she said.
She glanced down at Mary Alice. “Bring your tap shoes?”
“My tap shoes!” Mary Alice clutched her head, which she often did these days. “Grandma, I haven’t taken tap since I was a kid.”
“Give it up, did you?” Grandma said.
“Ages ago.” Mary Alice sniffed. “I’m taking ballroom dancing now, to get ready for high-school mixers and formal and semiformal evenings.”
Grandma pondered, fingering her chins.
Then she said to me, “Find my gum boots. We’re goin’ to high grass and tall timber. Take us the better part of the day to get there and back on shank’s ponies.” Which meant we’d be walking.
When I didn’t find her gum boots in the cellar, she sent me to the cobhouse. As I passed through the kitchen, I noticed Grandma and Mary Alice had their heads together, conspiring.
The only light in the cobhouse came from the open door. But I could see the Phantom Brakeman’s old overcoat hanging on a peg. Under it stood Grandma’s gum boots. When I reached down for them, a boot moved.
Remembering cottonmouths, I recoiled. My hands were in my armpits when I heard a sound. One of the boots mewed. I’d forgotten about the old tomcat. But then he’d have jumped at me by now, if he’d been around. A kitten’s face appeared out of the top of the boot. Pointy ears, whiskers, big green eyes. She mewed at me again and tried to get a paw up. I reached down for her. She was gray with a white bib and boots. She only weighed ounces, and she kept her claws in when I tucked her in my arm and carried her back to the house with the gum boots.
In the kitchen Grandma had her gardening hat on, with the chigger veil. She was packing our lunch, with a couple of early tomatoes and some salt for them in a twist of paper. I drew nigh and planted the kitten on the table beside her.
“Get that thing out of the house!” she barked. But neither the kitten nor I was fooled. The kitten butted Grandma’s hand. Then she rubbed herself along Grandma’s arm, and Grandma let her.
“Got a new pet?” I inquired.
“Chicago people have pets,” she said. “But there’s a new litter living down in the cobhouse now, and I let ’em. They keep down the vermin. Don’t need all of them though.” Gently, she lifted the kitten and put her in the hamper with our lunch. “We’ll drown this one in the crick on our way,” she said. But I wasn’t worried.
