The Silver Suitcase

by Terrie Todd

  “I understand,” Charles said, but Cornelia wondered whether he really did. His own planting was no less important, yet he had sacrificed several hours of precious daylight to sit here and visit with this old friend.

  “Here, Mrs. Roberts. You may as well keep these.” Cornelia pulled a stack of letters from the bottom of the box, wrapped in a ribbon. “Your letters to my mother. I’m sure they are even more precious to you than they are to us.”

  “Oh my—look at that! She saved them.” Eva took the bundle and held them to her heart, her eyes glistening.

  “You were always special to her.” Charles smiled, then turned to Jim. “And son, I know you’ve been dying to know what’s in the package these good folks brought. I think it’s time.”

  Jim needed no further encouragement. He picked up the box from where it had sat at his feet since before supper, when his father first instructed him to be patient. In a flash, Jim opened the box and pulled out a bucketlike contraption with the words North Pole Freezer printed on the side and a crank handle with 1910 stamped on it.

  Jim’s eyebrows came together like a puzzle. “What is it?”

  Charles and Eva laughed. “It’s an ice-cream maker!” she said, as though it were the sort of thing everyone should know.

  “Ice cream?” Jim looked stumped. “Well, I love ice cream. I mean, I’ve only tried it a few times, when the fair comes to town. But what they make it in doesn’t look anything like this.”

  Charles explained how the machine worked: A person placed the cream and sugar in a cylinder inside the bucket, then added ice or snow around the cylinder, plus salt to make the ice melt faster. Then they turned the crank continuously while melted ice leaked out the little hole in the side of the bucket.

  “Well, we’ve got plenty of cream . . . but where can we find ice this time of year?” Jim examined the gears.

  “I think we can manage to round some up,” Charles said. “But first, you all need to hear the story behind this gadget.”

  “I thought you’d never get to that part.” Cornelia turned to Eva. “Why did you say this belonged to us?”

  “I’ll let your dad tell it,” Eva replied, and smiled in Charles’s direction.

  “Let’s see if I can remember all the details right.” Charles paused and looked at his children with a grin.

  “Mrs. Roberts, your mother, and I were all in the same Sunday school class at Roseburg Christian Church. We were, what, about twelve or thirteen?”

  Mrs. Roberts nodded.

  “The Sunday school superintendent was Old Man Jacob, Elsie Jacob’s father. Somehow he’d acquired this fantastic ice-cream maker and offered it as a prize to the student who could memorize the most Scripture over the course of the year.”

  Cornelia tried to picture her father at Jim’s age, knowing Jim’s dislike for memorization of any kind.

  “Old Man Jacob made the offer in September and the ice-cream maker would be presented at the Sunday school picnic in June,” Charles continued. “Naturally we all wanted it, although some of us were a lot more disciplined about memorizing than others.”

  “Most of all, we didn’t want Elsie Jacob to win it.” Eva laughed.

  “Well, now, that’s true, too. Old Man Jacob was convinced his daughter was the smartest, finest young lady in the whole Sunday school and would win the machine hands down. He figured he’d be able to enjoy the ice cream while still looking like a hero for having come up with such a great prize.” Charles chuckled. “Poor girl probably never felt so much pressure in her life.”

  “Poor girl?” Eva interrupted. “Her opinion of herself was even higher than her father’s. Nobody wanted to see her win. Your mother and I went to work memorizing verses immediately, quizzing each other at every opportunity . . . recess time, mostly. But I’m sorry, Charles, you’re telling this.”

  The three youthful faces around the table all turned back to Charles. Cornelia wondered if Jim and Henry were imagining their parents as children, like she was.

  “Well, I wanted that ice-cream maker, and so did half a dozen other boys. But by Easter, it was pretty clear that only two of us were still in the running.”

  “You and Eddie Hoffmann.” Eva laughed. “But there were at least eight of us girls still in. Sorry, you tell it.”

  Charles smiled. “You can go ahead and tell it, you know.”

  “Well, okay, if you insist.” Eva scooted forward in her chair. “The elimination round was held two weeks before the picnic. We kids stood at the front of the church and recited Scripture as Mr. Jacob called out the reference for each passage.”

  “If you missed more than two words in any given passage, you were out,” Charles added.

  “By the end of the round, five contestants were still standing.” Mrs. Roberts counted them off on her fingers. “Your father, your mother, Eddie Hoffmann, Elsie Jacob, and me. We worked like crazy for the next week. Competition got fierce. It wasn’t so much about the ice-cream maker anymore.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Charles laughed.

  “By the day of the picnic, your mother and I were no longer helping each other. We weren’t even speaking to each other! Here we were, best friends since infancy, and we were making an all-out war with a Sunday school contest.”

  “Girls.” Jim rolled his eyes and Cornelia swatted his elbow.

  “So who won?” Henry’s question fell on deaf ears.

  “The picnic day was glorious,” his mother said. “The grown-ups decided to hold the contest outdoors so the little ones could run around. Parents sat on blankets in the shade, and we five lined up in a row.”

  Charles picked up the story again. “Eddie Hoffmann went out first, and boy, was he mad! Stomped off in a big huff, and nobody could keep from laughing because the verse he went out on was James 1:20—”

  “‘For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God,’” Eva recited. “It started as a snicker, and then as people realized the irony, the laughter got louder and just made Eddie angrier.”

  “The next person to go out was Elsie Jacob. She never lost her dignity, just walked casually over to her mother with her nose in the air and plunked down as if she didn’t have a care in the world, while her father fumed. It all proved quite entertaining.”

  “That left Mary, Eva, and me,” Charles said. “I felt so nervous I thought I would be sick right on the spot. Ice cream had never seemed less appealing. I’d learned a lot of verses, but I figured those two girls were way smarter.”

  “Besides, you already had a little thing going for Mary,” Eva teased.

  “I won’t deny it. I went out on the very next challenge. To this day, I don’t recall the reference.”

  “Nor do I.” Eva looked around to make certain she had everyone’s attention. “I was just glad. Now it was down to Mary and me, and we’d gone from bosom friends to archrivals in the course of a week. I really wanted to show her up.”

  “Obviously, you won,” Henry said. “You ended up with the prize.”

  “But she brought it here and called it ours,” Jim protested. “So who won?”

  Eva responded with a sly smile, and Charles took up the story with a twinkle in his eyes.

  “The contest carried on. Both girls kept reciting Scripture after Scripture . . . from Proverbs, St. John, and Philippians. Neither of them made a single error. Old Man Jacob ran out of references from his required-learning list, so the parents started throwing out random verses. They assigned Eddie and me the task of looking them up and verifying the accuracy.”

  “The contest went on for what seemed like hours,” Eva said.

  “This story is going on for what seems like hours,” Jim muttered. Cornelia smacked the back of her hand against her brother’s shoulder.

  “Especially to those of us who were waiting to enjoy some ice cream,” Charles said. “The little children got
cranky, and the men worried about getting home to milk their cows.”

  “At some point, Mr. Jacob declared the contest a tie, and when he finally did, the handful who still remained all cheered.” Eva smiled at the memory.

  “The adults produced cream and ice from I-don’t-know-where,” Charles said, “and for the rest of the afternoon, we cranked out ice cream. What no one had realized was how long it would take or how little ice cream the machine would make. I think everybody ate only a spoonful before it disappeared.”

  “Oh, no!” Jimmy wailed.

  “At the end of the day, Mary’s family took home the prize with the understanding that they would share it with Eva’s family, passing it back and forth as often as they could.”

  “And you two were friends again?” Cornelia asked.

  “Yes. But there’s more to the story.” Eva smiled at Charles.

  Cornelia’s father raised his eyebrows. “More?”

  “It seems that while you had a thing for Mary, Eddie Hoffman had a little thing for me. While you were distracted, by Mary no doubt, he purposely had overlooked a mistake I made and pronounced it correct.”

  “Really?” Cornelia’s eyes sparkled. “How romantic!”

  “I should have gone out on the turn just before Mr. Jacob declared a tie. Your mother really did win.”

  “Did you ever tell her?” Henry asked.

  “I never knew about it until years later when Eddie ’fessed up to me at my wedding. By then your mother was already married, the ice-cream maker had traveled between our homes on a regular basis, and we had grown up enough to laugh it off.”

  “That Eddie guy must have carried a torch for you the whole time,” Jim said with a big grin.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Eva dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “I wouldn’t have wanted someone so dishonest. He wound up marrying Elsie Jacob.”

  Everyone laughed.

  “The best part? We all learned a lot of valuable Scripture,” Charles said, “although we didn’t see it that way at the time.”

  “True enough,” Eva said.

  “Now, Eva, if you aren’t in too big a hurry, I think this calls for a celebration. Henry, if you’ll be so kind as to drive that fancy car of yours, Corrie will be happy to show you the way to Tucker’s General Store where you can pick up some ice.”

  Cornelia’s head shot up from studying the ice-cream maker, but her father didn’t seem to notice.

  “We’ve got more cream than we know what to do with. Now, the sooner you’re back, the sooner we can start cranking.”

  Cornelia’s palms immediately began to sweat. She would be riding with Henry in the car, all the way to town and back? Alone? Part of her wanted to protest, but she didn’t know how to do that without hurting Henry’s feelings.

  “Jim and I will do the milking while you’re gone.” Charles was already donning his coveralls.

  “How come Corny gets to—?” Jim began, but a stern look from his father stopped him mid-complaint. He headed out the door and to the barn, craning his neck toward the fine car as he walked.

  “And I’ll wash these supper dishes,” Eva offered. “Thank you for a lovely meal, Corrie.”

  And so it was decided.

  CHAPTER 4

  Cornelia grabbed a sweater and climbed into the Robertses’ bright red car, and Henry hopped in behind the wheel. He headed down their driveway and turned right on the gravel road, toward town.

  “Nice car,” Cornelia said, to make conversation. She didn’t care much about cars, but this one sure beat the rusty Ford Model T truck her family drove around in.

  “Thanks. It’s a ’32 Pontiac five-window coupe. It’s my dad’s.”

  “I’m sure you could find the store on your own. There’s not much in Roseburg.”

  “I’m glad for the company.” Henry looked around at the freshly plowed fields. “Do you go to school in town?”

  “Oh, no. I went to the one-room school just ahead, where Jim goes still. This will be his last year.”

  “What about high school?” Henry shifted gears as the car sped up.

  “I didn’t go. I was twelve when Mother died, and Daddy really needed me around the house. I finished my grade nine through correspondence, but by grade ten Daddy figured I’d had enough education.”

  When Henry didn’t respond, she added, “It’s more than a lot of the girls around here get.”

  “What about Jim?”

  “Jim and Dad constantly discuss whether he should continue. He wants to quit school and help out on the farm. Dad thinks it would be good for Jim to take some high school, but he would need to board in town—which costs a lot. Plus, I’d be stuck helping Dad with the farmwork. So, I’d be fine with it if Jimmy stays home, even if he does get on my nerves sometimes. Nobody around here finishes high school if they’re planning to farm. What about you?”

  Henry hesitated. “I graduated last year.”

  Cornelia shouldn’t have been surprised. Henry was a city boy, after all. But somehow knowing that she sat next to a high school graduate, especially one so close to her own age, felt intimidating and made her long for something more for herself.

  “I’ve been working with my dad this past year, in his printing business. But to be honest, we haven’t been getting along so well. Typesetting gets awfully tedious. Actually . . .” Henry paused. “That’s the biggest reason for this trip out here. I’m going to stay with my cousins for the rest of the summer and help out on their farm.”

  “Wow!” Cornelia felt strangely pleased with this new information. “Do you even know anything about farming?”

  “I’ve never done any, but it’s always fascinated me. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved to hear the stories my mother told about growing up on the farm. Besides a ball diamond, a farm is the only place I ever really wanted to be.”

  Cornelia recalled conversations around the kitchen table that she’d overheard through the years. The adults loved to discuss “the dirty thirties.” They talked about how much harder the Great Depression was on city folk, many of whom were out of work, standing in long lines for soup to feed their families, or hoping for a few hours of work just to pay the rent.

  “We may not have it so good, either,” her father often repeated, “but even with the drought, we’ve always had potatoes and eggs to keep us going. And nobody’s going to kick us off our land.”

  To her ears, the city sounded like a horrible place, and she was thankful to live in the country. She tried to picture Henry growing up in the noise and squalor and sadness she imagined Winnipeg to be.

  Cornelia watched a jackrabbit bound across the road ahead of them. “I don’t blame you for wanting to be out here.”

  “It sure is quieter.”

  “Is it true every house in the city has electric lights?” Cornelia found this hard to believe.

  “Every house I’ve ever been in. I guess I’ll miss that.”

  Feeling surprised by how quickly she’d become comfortable around Henry, Cornelia said, “I’ve even heard they have indoor bathrooms.”

  “Some do. We use an outhouse, but my parents hope to put in a bathroom soon. We already have running water in the kitchen. I’ll miss that, too, I suppose. My cousins here have a pump in their kitchen, like yours. I guess that’s just as good.”

  “What do you do for fun?”

  “Baseball. All the way!” Henry’s grin spread across his face.

  “Really? Are you on a real team, with uniforms and everything?”

  “I was. Even coached a kids’ team for a while. Wesley Park is behind United College. It’s home to the Winnipeg Amateur Senior Baseball League. In 1932, they built a new grandstand, bleachers, outfield fence, a public address system, and a cutting-edge lighting system.” Henry’s face glowed like the ballpark itself. “The park holds six thous
and fans. They played the first night game in May of 1932, only one year after the first night game ever played at any level of baseball.”

  “So you’re a history expert, too?” Cornelia grinned.

  “Only baseball history. Osborne Stadium was opened in 1932 as well. It’s another lighted facility. Football is usually played there, but it can also seat five thousand for baseball, and it hosts lots of tournaments and touring teams. Sherburne Park in the west end has dressing rooms and padded grandstand seats. It’s home to the Winnipeg Maroons. I’d love to play for them someday.”

  Cornelia wasn’t really taking in much of what Henry shared, but she sure loved how his eyes sparkled when he talked about baseball. And he wasn’t through.

  “Winnipeg now has three first-class baseball parks, two of them lighted and capable of hosting any level of baseball. They rival any facilities in baseball outside the major leagues. And that doesn’t even count the community fields, where I play.”

  “You won’t find any organized baseball around here, I’m afraid,” Cornelia said. “But you’ll definitely find guys who love to play if they’re given the chance.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll just do that.” Henry grinned as he pulled up in front of Roseburg’s only store, Tucker’s General.

  Mr. Tucker seemed happy to sell them two buckets of ice and insisted on carrying one to the car. “Fine automobile,” he said, eyebrows raised.

  Henry did not offer more than a simple “thanks,” leaving an inquisitive-looking Mr. Tucker to watch them drive away.

  On the ride home, Cornelia felt glad that her father had suggested the trip.

  “It’s your turn,” Henry said. “Tell me what you like.”

  Cornelia grinned. “Well. Not baseball.”

  Henry reached one hand to the floor where one bucket of ice sat, picked up a chip of ice, and threw it at her, missing her nose by several inches.

  “Strike one!” She laughed.

  “Seriously, what do you do for fun?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Unless you want one of the folks in the backseat to go first.” Now it was Cornelia’s turn to toss an ice chip Henry’s way, and she nailed his right ear.