Voices at Whisper Bend

by Katherine Ayres

  Betsy shook her head. “Ma says she’s a disgrace to the neighborhood. If she’d just clean her yard and porch, she wouldn’t have to holler. Those poor cats are always bumping into trash and knocking cans over.”

  “She’s old, Bets. And there’s so much junk, it would take a whole company of soldiers to clean her place.” Something glinted on the sidewalk and Charlotte stooped to pick it up.

  “What’d you find?”

  “Nothing. Just a bottle cap.” She drew back her arm, ready to pitch it, then stopped stock-still. “Hold on a minute. Look at this.” She showed the cap to Betsy. “What’s it made of?”

  “I don’t know. Steel? Tin, maybe. Why? What are you thinking up, Charlotte?”

  Charlotte smiled. She tossed the bottle cap into the air and caught it. Then she polished its smooth silvery top on her skirt. “That’s it. That’s what we’re going to do for the war.”

  “Pick up bottle caps? Why? So we can throw them at the wicked Germans? That’s about as dumb as being spies.”

  Charlotte turned and pointed upriver toward North Braddock. Huge billows of black smoke drifted across the morning sky from the giant mill chimneys. “Look, Bets, they’re making more steel every day. People are having scrap metal drives all over the country, so mills like the Edgar Thomson can melt down the old metal and pour new steel for ships and planes.”

  “Scrap metal. Sure, we could collect that—steel and tin and aluminum! Charlotte, you’re a genius.”

  “We’ll get our class to help. Mrs. Alexander will go for it. She’s been making us write all those paragraphs about freedom and the USA.” Charlotte speeded her stride again. Uphill, the early bell rang.

  “Slow down,” Betsy said. “You’re always in such a hurry, Charlotte. We’ve got five minutes. This hill’s a killer.”

  “Come on, I want to talk to Mrs. Alexander right away. Before school starts.” Charlotte stuck the bottle cap into her skirt pocket. Maybe she was in a rush, but today she had a good reason.

  “I’ll hurry, but if I pass out on the sidewalk, you’d better pick me up.” Betsy’s cheeks were red and she was huffing and puffing.

  Charlotte’s lungs burned too, but they only had a block left to walk. “I’ll tell you what we’ll be picking up. Old wheels and bent pots.”

  “Sounds like work,” Betsy said. “But down by the river it wouldn’t be so bad. You see a lot of old junk there. ’Course, we’d have to be careful. The banks can be steep.”

  Steep and slippery. Charlotte shuddered. “I’ve got a better idea. We’ll start our drive right in old Mrs. Dubner’s back yard. Just you wait, Bets. We’ll be the best scrappers in Braddock.”

  Charlotte placed her right hand over her heart and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. On mornings like this one, when the President had just given a speech, it seemed like everybody stood a little straighter and spoke a little louder. Even her teacher wore a dark blue suit that looked military. Charlotte held her shoulders back the way Jim had taught her to do once he joined up. She wished that the flag hanging over the blackboard was bigger, and less faded.

  Then Mrs. Alexander nodded for them to sit down. She perched on the edge of her desk. “Class, may I have your attention, please? Before we begin this morning’s current events reports, Charlotte Campbell would like to speak to all of you.”

  Heads turned. Charlotte’s stomach did somersaults. She stood and cleared her throat. “Um, I guess you all heard the President last night. I’d like to do something for the war. Not just buy stamps. Betsy and I got an idea. We could start a metal drive, right here in Braddock. What do you think?”

  Her cheeks burned. She slipped into her seat, fiddling with the bottle cap. Around the room she heard whispers. What would they say? Would they do it? Amazingly, most of the class liked her idea.

  Then Sophie Jaworski raised her hand. “But what about lockjaw, Mrs. Alexander? You can get it from rusty metal.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes at Betsy. They both knew what really worried Sophie—getting dirty, or, heaven help her, breaking a fingernail.

  “Good question, Sophie. We’ll have to be very careful.”

  Paul Rossi wanted to collect everything—rags, rubber, and paper, as well as metal—but Mrs. Alexander didn’t agree. “Let’s save something for the seventh and eighth graders to work on. I’ll speak to their teachers. Now, on to current events.”

  Several kids reported on the President’s talk, which seemed odd to Charlotte. Every family in America listened, so why tell what people already knew?

  Sophie Jaworski pulled her news from the fashion pages as usual. “Hemlines Go Up to Save Fabric for Our Soldiers.” It was war news, but barely. That girl!

  When it was Paul Rossi’s turn, he got out a newspaper clipping and read the headline. “‘Woman Found on Church Steps.’ Did you see this?” he asked. “It was in the morning paper. They found a dead woman on the steps of St. Stanislas Catholic Church in Pittsburgh. She was wearing her nightgown and wrapped in a torn blanket. Nobody knows who she is. Nuts, isn’t it? I’ve heard of people falling asleep in church, but this one never woke up.”

  When he sat down, a lot of the boys were grinning. Some laughed out loud and Mrs. Alexander had to shush them. How dare they laugh? It made Charlotte want to cry. The poor woman, left there like nobody cared about her.

  Charlotte scowled. That Paul Rossi, he was always digging up creepy stuff from the newspapers. Murders and bodies and escaped convicts. What kind of person enjoyed reading about such things? She wished he lived in a different state.

  After current events, they planned the scrap drive. Mrs. Alexander spoke to other teachers at lunch. By the end of the day, Charlotte’s idea had caught fire in the whole school. The principal visited her class and explained what each grade would do. “Thanks to Charlotte, the sixth grade will become scrappers,” he said. “The seventh grade wants to run a newspaper drive and save some trees for building barracks. We’ll store the metal and the papers in the school cellar. And the eighth graders will roll old tires to the riverbank, where they’ll be loaded on a barge and sent to a factory to make new tires. Younger students in first through fifth grades will help their older brothers and sisters.” He shook Charlotte’s hand before he left.

  Back at home, Charlotte changed out of school clothes and rushed to meet Betsy in front of old Mrs. Dubner’s house. Junk littered the small front yard and the porch. The only thing that kept the trash from spilling into the Campbells’ yard was the tall wooden fence Pa had built between the yards. If the old lady’s house had ever been painted, you couldn’t tell what color, for it had faded to a soft, peeling gray.

  “You knock,” Betsy said. “I’m too nervous. What if she says no?”

  “I’ll knock, but we’ll both ask her. That way she can’t say no.” Charlotte knocked, and the old lady answered as a pair of cats wove themselves around her thin legs. She wore a long, baggy dress and what looked like men’s socks and slippers.

  “We’re having a metal drive,” Betsy began.

  “It’s for the war,” Charlotte added. “We wondered if you had any old stuff you didn’t need.” She pointed toward a rusty wheel in the front yard. “We could haul it away for you if you wouldn’t mind.”

  Mrs. Dubner bent to pick up a gray-and-white cat. She scratched its ears. A light wind blew raggedy strands of white hair into her wrinkled face. “You’d clean my yard for me? How much?”

  “For free,” Charlotte said. “We’re collecting metal. We’ll haul off things from your house too, if you’d like.”

  “The yard and the house too? For nothing? If that ain’t a bargain. Sure. You gals help yourselves to all the junk you want. Ain’t nothing out here I need.” She closed the door.

  “Let’s start in the front yard,” Betsy suggested. “The whole street will look better once we clean that up.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Fine with me.”

  She borrowed Robbie’s wagon. Betsy brought three bushel baskets from her house,
and they set to work. By suppertime, they’d filled them with tin cans and dented pails. They’d even piled two tires on the sidewalk for the eighth graders to pick up.

  “See you tomorrow,” Betsy said. “I’m tired and starving.”

  Charlotte grinned. “You’re not too clean, either. Good thing there’s nobody around with a camera, or they’d blackmail us for sure. See you tomorrow.”

  Charlotte let herself in the back door and scrubbed her hands before supper. She could hardly wait to tell Ma and Pa about the scrap drive. But first she carried steaming bowls of beef stew to the kitchen table as Ma poured milk for everybody. Then the family sat, and Charlotte waited for Pa to say the blessing.

  “Guess what,” she said as they began to eat. “I’m helping with the war.”

  “The whole school is helping,” Robbie interrupted. “And it was Charlie’s idea. Not bad, for a sister.”

  Pa smiled as Charlotte explained.

  Ma looked thoughtful. “I’m proud of you, Charlotte.” She paused for a moment, straightened her napkin, then looked up at the family. “I want to do my part too. I’m considering going to work.”

  “Work?” The word stuck in Charlotte’s throat.

  “What? Where?” Pa asked.

  Ma rubbed her chin with her knuckles. “At first I thought I’d go down to Pittsburgh, to the Heinz plant. They put out a call for workers, and I thought maybe I could make rations for the troops. Might even end up fixing meals for our Jim.”

  “Did you get a job, Ma?” Robbie asked. His eyes were round.

  “Not at Heinz. I phoned up first. They aren’t looking for cooks. Turns out they’ve converted half their plant to make plywood for airplane parts. Besides, the plant’s a long ride from here. So I decided to stop at the mill here in Braddock and see if they could use me.”

  “The Edgar Thomson?” Pa asked. Charlotte could tell from the look on his face that he was as surprised as she was.

  Ma nodded. “They’re making plate steel. A lot of it goes into ships for our Navy. I said I could start Monday.”

  “Wow, swell, Ma,” Robbie said. He saluted her and then Charlotte. “All hands! Now everybody’s helping Jim win the war.”

  Ma’s cheeks turned pink. “James, what do you think?” she asked Pa.

  He turned a serious face toward her. “I’ve hardly had a chance to think. What would you be doing in that mill? A lot of those jobs are heavy work, Mary. And dangerous.”

  “They seem to think they could train me to operate a crane.”

  Pa didn’t speak right away. When he did, it sounded like he was picking out each word. “If … if it’s what you want … I’ll be proud. Proud of both my gals.” He smiled at Charlotte. “You collect the metal, and your ma here will turn it into battleships.”

  Ma cleared her throat. “One thing,” she began. “I know you’ll be busy in school, Charlotte. And now this metal drive. But I’ll need you to help with the housework, start supper for the family, and watch Robbie, especially when your pa’s on the boat.”

  “Sure, Ma,” Charlotte said, but her tongue felt like lead. She needed to spend every free moment hunting scrap metal. How could she help win the war if she had to do Ma’s jobs too?

  CHAPTER 3

  CONFETTI LETTER

  Seaman First Class, Robert Michael Campbell, reporting for duty, sir.” Supper was over. Charlotte was washing dishes and trying to figure out how to collect as much scrap as she could before Ma started at the mill. Robbie saluted, then reached for the dish towel.

  “Cut it out,” Charlotte grumbled. “You’re not in the Navy.”

  “Not yet,” Robbie said. “But when I’m old enough, I’m going to be a sailor, same as Jim. On a battleship.”

  “Who says he’s on a battleship?” Charlotte asked. She scrubbed at a sticky spot on a plate. “He might be on a destroyer, a patrol boat, convoy duty. We don’t know. We don’t even know which ocean they’ve sent him to.”

  “Wherever they sent him, I’m going too.” Robbie stuck out his chin.

  Charlotte knew she’d never win that argument. She changed the subject. “For now, how about becoming Landman First Class?”

  Robbie groaned. “Not more gardening. We already dug Ma’s victory garden. There’s not much left of the backyard.”

  Charlotte lifted the skillet into the sudsy sink. “I’m not talking about gardening, buster. How about helping Betsy and me collect scrap at Mrs. Dubner’s?”

  Robbie whirled his dish towel above his head. “You mean it? You want me in your crew? Aye, aye, capt’n. When’s my first job?”

  “Tomorrow morning. We’ve got a heavy load to haul up the hill.”

  Robbie threw the dish towel on the back of a chair and rubbed his hands together. “How about collecting more junk right now? The dishes are done, and I’m good at finding stuff.”

  And he was. Before it got too dark to see, he and Charlotte had cleared half of the old lady’s backyard and piled up three more heaps of junk. That night, Charlotte was too tired for dark thoughts or bad dreams.

  Everybody in Charlotte’s class brought scrap metal to school the next day. Mr. Willis, the janitor, stood at the door to the school cellar to help them stack it. He was a skinny man with thinning gray hair, and he didn’t talk much because he had a bad stutter. He always smiled at Charlotte, though, and he gave her a big grin when he saw her full wagon. “N-nice, Missy,” he said, pointing to the back corner where kids were busy unloading.

  “Great idea, Charlotte,” one of the boys said. “My ma says the town of Braddock has never had so many clean basements. She’s treating my pals and me to the movies on Saturday for all the work.”

  Charlotte smiled. Scrap for the war and clean basements. That was a good deal.

  Over the weekend, Charlotte, Betsy, and Robbie gathered even more scrap, finishing Mrs. Dubner’s yard and starting on her cellar. They carried another large haul to school on Monday morning, and all that day Charlotte counted the minutes until school let out and they could get back to work at Mrs. Dubner’s.

  When she reached home Monday afternoon, Robbie met her on the back porch, as anxious to start as she was. “Hey, Charlie, do you think we could use Pa’s gardening wheelbarrow? We could haul more.”

  “We’ll ask Ma,” Charlotte said. But when she reached to turn the back doorknob, it wouldn’t move. Then she remembered. Ma wasn’t home. She’d started her job at the mill today. Charlotte pulled on the string that hung around her neck, fished out a key, and unlocked the door.

  Robbie rushed inside and headed upstairs, but Charlotte stepped into the kitchen slowly. It didn’t feel right, coming home to a locked-up house—it felt cold and empty. Charlotte shut the door and glanced around the quiet kitchen. Ma had left a note on the table. Charlotte leaned over and read it.

  Dear Children,

  Please finish all your schoolwork before going outside. My shift goes until four o’clock and I’ll take a while to walk home, so don’t expect me before four-thirty or five. Don’t forget to change into play clothes.

  Love,

  Mother

  Charlotte looked up as Robbie bounced back into the kitchen and headed for the door. “Schoolwork first,” Charlotte told him.

  “Aw, come on, Charlie,” he grumbled. “I want to get more stuff from that cellar. Ma won’t know if I do my arithmetic now or later.”

  “Schoolwork first,” she repeated. “Orders from the first mate.”

  He frowned and his shoulders slumped. “Aye, aye.”

  “I’ll help if you get stuck with your multiplication,” Charlotte offered. “Do the easy ones while I work on current events. Then we’ll go to Mrs. Dubner’s.”

  Charlotte nudged Robbie into a kitchen chair, then seated herself and unfolded the newspaper to check the headlines. “Two Convoy Ships Sunk in Shipping Lanes off Florida Keys.” “Destroyer Crippled by Bombs in North Atlantic.” Bad news for the Navy, and that meant bad news for Jim. She tried to ignore the sick feeling in he
r stomach and turned to the inside pages. “Three Men Hold Up South Side Bank.” Great. That was a Paul Rossi article. She didn’t need to read it—he’d tell all about it tomorrow. “Sugar Rationing to Begin, Meat Will Soon Follow.” She clipped the column. That was an article she could tell about without crying in front of her class.

  She and Robbie finished their work and repacked their books. They changed quickly and headed next door for Betsy.

  “The cellar again?” Betsy asked as they turned up the sidewalk toward Mrs. Dubner’s. “I wish we could work outside today. That sun feels so good. Spring’s really here.”

  Charlotte nodded. “Come on, troops. To the cellar, spring or not. All the outside trash is gone.” Charlotte knocked on the back door, then led the way down the rickety steps and found the string that worked the bare lightbulb. A moldy, damp, earth smell filled her nose. Deep in the shadows, spiderwebs hung as thick as curtains.

  “Clear the decks,” Robbie warned. He grabbed a broom and attacked the spiderwebs, covering himself in sticky dust.

  Charlotte pried open a door off to one side, revealing a little room packed to the ceiling with old newspapers.

  Betsy peered over her shoulder. “Hey, my cousin Pete’s in seventh grade,” she said. “He and his friends could haul these papers away for their drive. Shall I go find him?”

  “Good idea. There’s plenty of metal over there for us.” Charlotte pointed to where Robbie had swept away the spiderwebs. As Betsy left, the two of them started clearing out the corner.

  “Here’s a lunch pail. Nice one too, except the catch is busted.” Robbie tossed it into a bushel basket.

  “Hey, look at this,” he said. “Did Mrs. Dubner ever have a kid?” He lifted out a bent and twisted frame with four wheels. The bottom and sides were in shreds, but once, a long time ago, it had been a baby buggy. Robbie shoved it along the cellar floor, but one of the wheels was stuck so it wouldn’t roll. “Did she have a kid, Charlie, or did she use the buggy for one of her cats?”