All Waiting Is Long

by Barbara J. Taylor

  Violet pussyfooted into the kitchen so as not to disturb her mother. She found an old biscuit and smothered it with molasses. If she closed her eyes and let the syrup linger on her tongue, she could almost taste Christmas with its ginger cookies and candied sweets.

  “Is that you, child?” her mother called from the bedroom.

  Violet eyed the biscuit, the last one in the house. “Can I get you something?” she yelled back.

  “A cup of tea.”

  Violet stoked the fire and placed a half-full kettle on the stove. Brewing tea would make her late getting back to school by a good ten minutes. She hoped Miss Reese wouldn’t make a fuss.

  After steeping the leaves, Violet spooned cream off the top of the milk and into the tea. White foam bubbled on top. “That’s money in your pocket,” she said, scooping some into her mouth. It was one of her mother’s favorite sayings.

  “If you won’t be needing anything else . . .” Violet said, as she set the cup and saucer on the table next to her mother’s bed.

  “Watch!” Grace snapped, snatching a framed photograph, the one taken of Daisy and her friends on the day disaster struck. In the picture, Daisy stood on the far end of the second row, her long hair pulled up in a bow, her white baptism dress illuminated by the sun. While the other six girls stared straight into the camera, Daisy glanced beyond it, her mind seemingly running ahead, her body leaning out, poised to follow. Grace pored over the smile, the laughing eyes. You couldn’t know, my pet, what the day would bring. Of course not, she thought with some relief. She studied the other girls—Flo, Ruth, Marion in the first row, Janie and Susie in the second. No signs, no indications of what was to come. And then, as impossible as it seemed after two months, Grace noticed Violet for the first time. Somehow she’d managed to squeeze into the photograph. Her closed right hand covered most of her mouth; her left clung to the skirt of Daisy’s dress. Violet had been worried about spoiling the picture. She knew she didn’t belong.

  “I best be on my way,” Violet said uncertainly. In that instant, the sour smell of vomit reached her nose and choked her. “Been sick again this morning, I see.” Violet held her breath, walked over to the chamber pot, and lifted the container with both hands. Emptying it would delay her another five minutes.

  When she finally got out the door, Violet found Stanley waiting for her at the bottom of the steps, holding two fishing poles.

  “Ever play hooky?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO LEGGETT’S CREEK, one of the better fishing spots in the Providence neighborhood of Scranton, and cast their lines, Violet had discovered that Stanley was anything but stupid. He could do numbers in his head, even his times tables up to eight. He could name at least forty of the forty-eight states, including Arizona and New Mexico, which had only been added the year before in 1912. And he could call birds better than the birds themselves.

  “Shush,” Stanley said. “Hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “That blue jay,” Stanley whispered as he pointed across the creek toward a thick line of hemlocks.

  “I can’t see anything.” Violet stood up and stretched on her toes to see what Stanley saw.

  “Listen.”

  Violet sat down, closed her eyes, and focused on the bird’s triple-noted whistle, a high-pitched twee-dle-dee, twee-dle-dee, like the old nursery rhyme. The song repeated several times, and then a nearby blue jay, too near for Violet’s comfort, returned the call. Violet leaped up with arms flailing in an attempt to shoo the bird. She’d heard from her neighbor Tommy Davies that blue jays would peck a soul to death. No need to take chances.

  Stanley sat at the edge of the creek, doubled over in laughter. “That was me, you silly goose.” He blew into his cupped hands, and the bird sang again. He straightened right up when he saw Violet’s red face. “Aw, come on. I’ll teach you if you like.”

  Violet stood, arms folded, mouth turned down, until Stanley had apologized half a dozen times. She thought six an adequate number of “I’m sorrys,” especially since she really did want to learn how to call birds.

  “We’ll start with the sparrow. He’s an easy one. Think of your mother when you’ve let her down.”

  Violet’s eyes flashed with tears.

  “Or a teacher when you’ve made her real mad,” he added quickly. “That’s a better one.” He raced on: “You know, when she makes that tsk, tsk sound with her tongue on the roof of her mouth.” He fired off a series of eight or twelve trilled tsks, too quick to be counted.

  Much to Violet’s surprise, a sparrow immediately returned the song. “How’d you learn to call so good?”

  “Mama. She had what Pa calls a gift.”

  Had. Violet paused to digest so small a word.

  “Rheumatic fever,” Stanley added, in answer to her unasked question. “It’ll be a year next month.”

  So that explained it, Violet thought. No mother to make him go to school. She glanced at Stanley’s dirty face and clothes. No mother to make him wash behind his ears or change his britches. She pulled in her line, rethreaded the half-dead worm on the hook, and cast back into the water.

  “You’re not doing it right,” Stanley said, flinging his line out twice as far as hers. “It’s in the wrist.”

  “Who made you boss?”

  “I’m older,” he said. “Been fishing longer.” The tip of his pole bent toward the creek. “See?” He smiled broadly as a mud-colored sucker with a hook in its cheek broke the surface of the water. “Biggest one yet.”

  “Sing in the morning,” Violet warned, “cry at night.”

  “How’s that?” Stanley asked, just as the line snapped. They both watched wide-eyed as the sucker disappeared downstream.

  “Don’t count your fishes until they’re caught.” She stifled a giggle before handing him her pole to share.

  * * *

  “You’re going to catch hell when you get home,” Stanley said as they admired two suckers and a chub strung by the mouth and gills on a piece of rope.

  Violet knew truth when she heard it, and marveled at Stanley’s ability to express it so effectively. Not only had she skipped a whole afternoon of school, but she’d skipped a whole afternoon on the first day of third grade.

  On their way home, they tried to think of an excuse, not that Stanley had any particular need for one, but he wanted to help Violet, especially since fishing was his idea in the first place.

  “You best take them all home,” Violet said, eyeing the chub she’d caught not an hour before. “If I walk in the house with a fish,” she paused to consider her words, “I’ll catch hell.”

  * * *

  Grace plodded into the kitchen, clamped the meat grinder onto one end of the table, and started in on a supper of ffagod, Owen’s favorite Welsh dish. She minced the pig’s liver and onions before folding them into a bowl of suet and breadcrumbs, seasoned with a light hand. It had been weeks since Grace felt well enough to tend to a meal, and she hoped Owen would notice her effort. After flouring her hands, she started rolling the mixture into egg-sized portions. Not having added any coal to the stove since morning, Grace looked over at the bucket alongside it. Three-quarters full, more than enough to keep the oven going.

  She pulled her eyes straight back, ignoring the lightly bruised wall where a few of the blueberries had landed that day. Ignoring the purple pinpricks that would inevitably bleed through this latest coat of paint. Not today. Not now.

  Not again.

  July 4, 1913. Just two months ago.

  Grace had been so happy, full of hope for the first time since she’d buried Rose nine months earlier. Daisy would be baptized that morning. Since baptism could only be performed after a profession of faith, the elders saw fit to limit the practice to those nine years and older. With the girls only eleven months apart, they probably would have accepted Violet’s profession of faith as well, but Grace thought it best for each girl to have her own special day.

  Grace had even put
on the new straw bonnet that her sister Hattie had ordered from Montgomery Ward’s summer catalog. She’d never worn so fancy a thing before. A band of moss-green silk circled the bell-shaped crown. A single quill shot out from three crimped rosettes, nestled in the seam of the brim. Topped with such beauty, Grace dared to walk a little taller that morning, not in a prideful way, not that she could see, just a little taller.

  But Myrtle Evans had to have her say even before the service started. “A bit fussy for the Lord’s house. Some might even say improper.”

  “Jesus must have liked fine things,” Grace replied with a smile. “The Bible tells us they cast lots for His garments.”

  After church, Grace stomped through her kitchen, yanking flour off the shelf, slamming lard onto the table. Although Myrtle’s remark had irritated her, the fact that she took satisfaction in her own response bothered her even more. “Lord, I know full well that pride goeth before a fall,” Grace said aloud, working the lard into the flour with a sprinkle of cold water. “I’m heartily sorry for my sinful ways. Amen.”

  She’d decided to make a huckleberry pie for Daisy. Why not indulge her? After all, it was her baptism day, and later they’d be going to the Providence Christian Church’s annual picnic, one of the rare days the mines shut down in Scranton.

  She looked up to see Daisy stroll into the kitchen. She twirled once, the air opening the pleats on her store-bought dress, a one-time indulgence.

  “When did you become old enough to be taken into the church?” Grace’s eyes locked on her daughter. “So grown up. My pet. Be marrying you off before we know.” She pushed a colander of huckleberries in Daisy’s direction.

  “Never,” Daisy laughed. “Though I expect I’ll be promoted to the Junior Choir, seeing I’m a member now.” She picked through the berries, tossing the green and the spoiled into a bowl.

  “More than likely.” Grace dropped the ball of dough into the bowl to rest and turned to adjust the damper on the stove.

  Daisy began singing. “I come to the garden alone . . .”

  “My favorite,” Grace said. “Get Violet to play the piano. I love to hear both my girls.”

  Daisy stood up, took two steps toward the parlor, and called, “Vi-o-let!”

  “If I’d wanted someone to stand in my kitchen and yell, I’d have done so myself.”

  Daisy moved into the parlor and turned down the hall of their one-story house toward the bedrooms, Grace and Owen’s on the left, the girls’ on the right.

  Grace picked up an empty milk bottle and began to roll out the crust. Two things she knew how to handle, piecrust and babies. And babies. She shook off the thought before it had a chance to take hold. “Lord, I’m grateful for the ones you let me keep. Amen.”

  Two pairs of feet marched back into the kitchen, but Daisy pushed through the doorway first. “Tell Violet to listen to me.”

  “I’ll do no such thing.” Grace stirred the berries into a bath of butter and cinnamon sugar and poured the mixture into the pie shell.

  “Daisy is telling me what to do again.” Uneven bangs framed Violet’s angry brown eyes, the cropped hair a reminder of a lice incident earlier in the summer.

  “I’ll not have bickering today of all days.” Grace bore three finger holes in the middle of a second crust, lifted it on top of the pie, and pinched the two shells shut with thumbs and forefingers. “And you,” Grace nodded toward Daisy as her elbow landed in her sister’s side. “What kind of example are you setting?”

  Daisy dropped her arm and stared at the floor. Grace lifted the pie and stepped toward the oven. She looked back briefly to see if the girls were behaving and caught sight of Violet shoving her hip into her sister’s side. Daisy teetered, and for a split-second, Grace thought Daisy might grab hold of the table and save herself. They both locked eyes as Daisy missed her chance, knocking into Grace and tumbling to the floor with her mother and the pie.

  “Owen!” Grace yelled loud enough to be heard out on their front porch, and the front porches of the neighbors on both sides. “Take hold of your girls before I get my hands on them.”

  * * *

  Grace lined the ffagod on a plate wondering how she could have been so angry over a pie. If only I’d been more patient that day. If only I hadn’t taken Myrtle’s comments to heart. If only I’d worn my cloth hat to church. Sobbing, she wiped her hands on her apron and went back to her bedroom.

  * * *

  After fishing all afternoon with Stanley, Violet arrived home late to find uncooked ffagod on the table and her mother in bed. She wanted to feel relieved about the lies she wouldn’t have to tell, the day she wouldn’t have to explain, but fear kept tugging on her sleeve. She wondered about her father and the late hour, then set her attention to finishing supper.

  END OF EXCERPT

  More about Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night

  ___________________

  Named a Best Summer Book for 2014 by Publishers Weekly!

  Named a Pick of the Week for the week of June 30th by Publishers Weekly!

  “An earnest, well-done historical novel that skillfully blends fact and fiction.” —Publishers Weekly

  “A profound story of how one unforeseen event may tear a family apart, but another can just as unexpectedly bring them back together again.” —Publishers Weekly, Best Summer Book for 2014

  “A fantastic novel worthy of the greatest accolades. Writing a book about a historical event can be difficult, as is crafting a bestseller, but Barbara J. Taylor is successful at both.” —Downtown Magazine

  “Taylor’s careful attention to detail and her deep knowledge of the community and its people give the novel a welcome gravity.” —The Columbus Dispatch

  “One of the most compelling books I’ve ever read . . . a haunting story that will stay with the reader long after reading this novel.” —Story Circle Book Reviews

  “Rave reviews are pouring in for this historical novel of a family tragedy.” —The Halifax Reader

  “This haunting story of tragedy and hope in an early twentieth century mining town is . . . an expertly crafted arrow that shoots straight for the heart. Reminiscent of classics such as How Green Was My Valley . . . this book is a must-read for fans of character-driven, authentic historical fiction.” —Amy Drown Blog

  “This is an incredibly well written novel that has the kind of historical accuracy and details that make reading historical novels a treasure. . . . Not to be missed.” —She Treads Softly

  “The story may have a sad premise, but Taylor convinces the reader to join her in the tale, as we watch bewildered Violet try to find a space in her new world.” —A New Day

  “A beautiful, haunting book . . . heartbreaking and moving, and ultimately beautiful.” —Constantly Reading Momma

  “No one without a heart as big and warm as Barbara Taylor’s possibly could have written a story about a family tragedy that’s infused with so much hope and love, humor, mystery, and down-to-earth wisdom. This is a book I’ll want to give to people. I could not put it down and can’t wait to be captured again by the next book this wonderful human being writes.” —Beverly Donofrio, author of Astonished: A Story of Evil, Blessings, Grace, and Solace

  “Not since reading Richard Llewellyn’s How Green Was My Valley fifty years ago have I felt such empathy and love through fiction for a place, a time, and a people. Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night is a book of equal power and beauty, a bittersweet tale set in early-twentieth-century Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania, the heart and soul of America’s anthracite coal-mining region, a place where Grace and Grief—now, as then—walk hand in hand.” —Sara Pritchard, author of Help Wanted: Female

  “The world of Christian miners—the hard core of the anthracite mining industry in northeast Pennsylvania—is beautifully evoked by Barbara J. Taylor in this remarkable novel. I found myself drawn back to its pages, living deeply in its world as I read. The sense of place—a place I know well, as I grew up there—is vividly realized. This is a lyrical,
passionate novel that will hold readers in its thrall. A first-rate debut.” —Jay Parini, author of The Last Station

  Almost everyone in town blames eight-year-old Violet Morgan for the death of her nine-year-old sister, Daisy. Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night opens on September 4, 1913, two months after the Fourth of July tragedy. Owen, the girls’ father, “turns to drink” and abandons his family. Their mother Grace falls victim to the seductive powers of Grief, an imagined figure who has seduced her off-and-on since childhood. Violet forms an unlikely friendship with Stanley Adamski, a motherless outcast who works in the mines as a breaker boy. During an unexpected blizzard, Grace goes into premature labor at home and is forced to rely on Violet, while Owen is “off being saved” at a Billy Sunday Revival. Inspired by a haunting family story, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night blends real life incidents with fiction to show how grace can be found in the midst of tragedy.

  Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night is available in paperback from our website and in bookstores everywhere. The e-book edition is available wherever e-books are sold.

  A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  I wrote All Waiting Is Long because I was curious to see how the tragedy in my first novel, Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night, affected my characters over time, particularly Violet, who was eight years old when her sister’s accident occurred. All Waiting Is Long opens in 1930, and Violet is twenty-five.

  Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night was loosely based on the death of my great-aunt Pearl. On the day of her baptism, she and her friends were playing with sparklers when Pearl’s dress caught on fire. Her younger sister Janet witnessed the accident, and though she lived into her eighties, she didn’t have the happiest life. I always wondered how much of that stemmed from what she saw that day.

  While I can’t answer that question for Janet, I decided to do the next best thing—answer it for my character, Violet, who was with her sister during a similar accident.