Girl in Falling Snow

by F. M. Parker

  Alice heard Eduardo arise on Friday and leave just as the sunlight came in through the shop window. She opened the shop at the usual time and tended to the customers. Eduardo did not appear as the day wore on.

  Five o’clock arrived and Alice prepared to close the shop for the day. She was worried about Eduardo for it was so unlike him to miss a full day of work. As she started to shut the door, a black sedan pulled up in front of the shop and stopped. A tall man in a gray suit climbed out of the car. He signaled for Alice to not close the door. The man wasn’t one of their customers and Alice’s concern for Eduardo surged.

  Alice backed away into the shop to allow the man to enter. He came inside, cast a quick, appraising look over the shop and then settled his attention on Alice.

  He spoke to Alice. “My name is Earl Whittaker. I’m a lawyer. Eduardo Sandoval was one of my clients. He once told me a niece had come to stay with him. Are you that niece?”

  Alice nodded, and wondering at the same time if she should tell the man the truth of her relationship to Eduardo. Before she could resolve the question, the man continued speaking.

  “I have bad news for you. Your uncle is dead. He died about an hour ago in my law office.”

  “Dead?” Alice said disbelievingly.

  “Yes, I’m sorry to say. The stock market fell steeply today, even steeper than yesterday. He came to my office to tell me that he had lost all his money and couldn’t pay me what he’d borrowed on this shop. And that the shop now belonged to me. Then he just keeled over dead right there on the floor.” Whittaker shook his head. “I warned him not to invest all his money in the stock market, but he was a stubborn man. He was old and not in good health and his heart just couldn’t stand the loss of all his savings.”

  Whittaker noticed Alice’s intense sorrow. “Miss, I’ve known Eduardo for several years. We met soon after he came here from Spain and started this cobbler shop. I liked him. But he was too much of a gambler and brought this trouble on himself. And there are thousands of others in the city and elsewhere around the country in the same sorry straight. They all went crazy believing the market would climb to the sky and they would become millionaires. Damn fools.

  “However, Eduardo did plan ahead in one regard, he had placed enough money with me to ship his body back to Spain when he died. He wanted to be buried in his home village among his relatives. I made him a promise that I’d do that. And so I will.”

  Whittaker cast a look around at the tidy shop. “I see that he had a nice little business here. I should get my money back when I sell it.”

  Whittaker turned to Alice. “Can you run the shop by yourself? Long enough to give all the people back their shoes?” He gestured at the several pairs of shoes on the workbench.

  Alice nodded, unable to speak through her misery. She had liked the old cobbler very much.

  “Then I’ll give you a week to find the customers and return their shoes. You can keep all the money you collect. I’ll send Mrs. Rodriquez around late next Friday to collect the keys and lock the shop up until I can get it sold.”

  Whittaker abruptly left. Alice watched through the front window until the black car pull off along the street. She was all alone again.

  *

  In the cobbler shop, Alice waited for the appearance of Mrs. Whittaker. Her suitcase was packed and sat by the door. The day was ending, the light fading. A cold November wind blustered along the street. The people passing by on the sidewalk were bundled up in heavy coats and hats.

  An older woman dressed for the cold passed in front of the window and entered the shop, ringing the little brass bell on the door.

  “I’m Mrs. Rodriquez. Mr. Whittaker sent me to collect the keys and lock the shop.” The woman gave Alice a friendly smile.

  “He told me to expect you. Here are the keys.”

  Mrs. Rodriquez accepted the keys. She started toward the back of the shop, but then halted and watched Alice pick up her suitcase.

  “Do you have a place to stay?”

  “Yes. I’ve rented a room on Calloway Street.”

  “That’s a long ways off. Especially to carry a suitcase.”

  “I’m strong and I’ll be okay.”

  “Be careful for you’ve got to go through a bad neighborhood to get there. It’d be especially risky for a girl in the dark like it’s getting outside.”

  “I’ll be careful. I’d better get going.”

  “Watch out for the gangs of boys. They’re the worst. Mugging people and stealing what they’ve got that’s valuable. Now I’d better see that everything is locked up and get home myself.”

  “Goodbye,” Alice said.

  “Better hurry for it looks like rain,” Mrs. Rodriquez said and moved toward the rear of the shop.

  *

  Alice hastened along the sidewalk through the deepening night and the rain that had begun to fall shortly after she left the shop. Her coat was buttoned tightly to her chin and her hat was pulled low over her head. She leaned into the stiff, chilled wind that blew directly into her face. She was getting wet and so too was her suitcase, and there were still several blocks to travel to reach her room on Calloway Street. The rain had driven foot traffic indoors, and except for a vehicle passing now and again on the street, she was alone.

  Her thoughts were gloomy. She was friendless in the strange city. She touched the bulge of the packet of bills pinned inside the top of her dress. The money must be spent frugally.

  She stopped on the curb of a cross street and waited for a car to roll by with its two yellow headlights fighting the rainy darkness. The big raindrops were visible falling through the beams of the headlights. She proceeded on and had progressed half the next block when a man came up behind her and passed by, his raincoat flapping in the wind and shedding water. He slowed and glanced back at Alice and then down at her suitcase. She had a sudden concern that he was going to turn back toward her. However he faced about in the direction he had been walking and continued on. Alice breathed a sigh of relief. A girl in the night carrying a suitcase could be in danger for it might signal that the she was a stranger and by herself and unprotected. She shivered and not just from the falling rain penetrating her thin coat and pressing cold against her skin.

  Ahead of Alice in the middle of the block, two people, blurred, ghostlike forms in the night, left the sidewalk and took shelter from the rain under an awning over the entryway of a store, the store closed and dark. She made out the two turning to face her. A fiery red eye opened in the face of one of the murky figures and glared at Alice. She knew the eye was but the burning end of a cigarette. Her step faltered for she sensed danger. She moved off the sidewalk and continued her course on the street.

  As Alice drew even with the two figures, the larger one leapt across the sidewalk and upon her. His arm swung and a hard object crashed into her head. Alice fell heavily upon the brick pavement. With stars exploding in her brain, she looked up through the falling rain to see a big boy kneel over her. She struck up at his face and hit him on the mouth. She twisted to the side and started to roll away so as to get to her feet and run. The boy ignored the blow and reached out and caught her by an arm and pulled her down and captured the other arm. Alice screamed and tried to bring up her legs to kick him.

  The boy leaned closer over her and clapped a rough hand over her mouth. He called out to the second boy. “Hurry, damn you and help me pen her down!”

  The second boy sprang close and caught Alice’s thrashing legs with strong hands. Both boys leaned their weight on Alice and pressed her down upon the street on her back. Their foul stinking bodies intensified her fear and anger. Were they going to rape her?

  “Now search her and see what she’s got hidden on her,” said the first boy.

  The second boy speedily ran his hands into the side pockets of Alice’s coat and found nothing. He moved his hands to her legs and worked upward to her crotch, hesitated there his fingers probing for the cleft between her legs. Alice squeezed her legs together. He
pinched her leg painfully, but moved on and ripped her coat open, breaking loose all the buttons. His hands slid up her waist and then over her youthful breast, stopping there, lingering to rub and finger their firmness and the nipple.

  “She got some nice tits. You want to feel them?”

  “We’ve not got time for all that,” the first boy said nervously. “Hurry up and find what’s she got hid on her.”

  The second boy’s hands moved off Alice’s breast. He cried out with discovery. “Found it, sure as hell. It was pinned between her tits. And it’s a thick wad too.” The boy jerked the money loose, tearing Alice’s dress.

  “Make sure there’s no more money somewhere else on her.”

  “I felt everywhere and I got it all. Let’s get the hell out of here before somebody comes and sees us.”

  “There might be something we can sell in the suitcase.”

  The boys sprang to their feet. The larger boy snatched up Alice’s suitcase, and following his companion, raced away along the dark street.

  Alice, aching with her injuries, slowly struggled to her feet. She trembled, shaken by the violent blow to her head and the boy’s hands on her private parts. She felt the inside pocket of her coat that the boy had missed in his search. The treasures of her mother’s poems and her father’s picture and watch were safe. She ran her hand under her hat and explored the lump on her head caused by the boy’s blow. The wound would heal. However the money that she needed for survival was gone. The room on Calloway Street was paid up for a week. After that she would be just another penniless orphan on the perilous streets of New York.

  A hot anger burned through Alice. Damn those two to hell. She should have carried a weapon with which to fight them. She knew where to get one. She pulled her torn coat closely around her and began to retrace her steps toward the cobbler shop. The blustering wind heavy with rain pushed against her back and lengthened her resolute stride.

  *

  Alice left the street and entered the alley and onward to the rear yard of the cobbler’s shop. She looked warily about at the pale squares of light from the rear windows of the nearby buildings. Nobody was out and about. The only sound was the wind and the falling rain. She opened the gate to the yard of the shop and stole to the door and tried the knob, finding it locked.

  She moved to the kitchen window made of two sashes, each containing six small panes of glass. Searching about on the muddy ground with her hands, she found a loose brick among those that made the pathway across the yard. She hoisted the brick. A pane of glass broke with a sharp crack and a tinkle of falling shards.

  Careful of the jagged edges of broken glass, Alice reached through the window and undid the latch. The sash lifted easily and she crawled out of the rain and into the kitchen of the cobbler shop. She drew the blind down over the window and turned on the electric light

  With the kitchen stove burning and casting off heat, Alice undressed and hung her clothing over the backs of chairs to dry. The book of poems and the picture within it had become damp even though she had done her best to protect them. She opened the book midway and laid it and the picture in the heat of the stove to dry. A can of green beans and another of corn and a packet of crackers were taken from the almost empty pantry. She ate directly from the cans.

  Alice went into the shop with all it familiar its odors. She glanced about. Never again would she see the stooped old body of Eduardo bent over a shoe, or hear the rapid clicking of the sewing machine or the whisper of the sander. Her heart felt lonesome. She shook the sad thoughts away and moved to cutting tools. She chose a knife with a sheath. The knife, including both handle and blade, was slightly longer than her outstretched hand.

  She tested the blade by stabbing it through a thick piece of leather and slicing a long cut. She smiled grimly, never again would she allow herself to be harmed without fighting back.

  With weariness heavy upon her, Alice set up the cot and spread two blankets upon it. She wound her father’s watch, as she always did every evening before she slept, and placed it and the knife within easy reach on the floor. She slid naked underneath the blankets. Cautioning herself that she must be gone from the cobbler shop before daylight, she went to sleep.

  Chapter Five

  Orphan Train

  In the girl’s dormitory of the Children’s Aid Society, Alice awoke from her sleep with its dreams and memories. That journey through her past life had caused her to sleep fitfully and she felt un-rested and troubled by the lingering emotions. A sense of loss, of aloneness lay heavily upon her. That brought thoughts of Gracie in the hospital. She hoped fervently that her little friend now in a doctor’s care was recovering from her illness.

  The other girls in the dormitory still slept. In the far end of the room, a tiny voice spoke in a babble that Alice couldn’t decipher. Nearer to her, a child whimpered. The orphanage with all of its strangeness and now the journey to some unknown destination was worrisome for Alice. For the little girls, it must be terrifying.

  She felt restless, and shoving aside the blankets, quietly rose to sit on the edge of the cot. The room was chilled, the wooden floor cold to her bare feet. The rectangle of the close by window was visible and she knew the day was breaking. She stood up and stepped to the window and placed her hand upon one of the glass panes totally covered with frost of a thousand crystal forms. Using her fingernails she scratched the frost from a small area of glass at eye level. Under a darkly overcast day, the sidewalk and an elm tree were in view, and farther away was the brick paved street with the trolley rails. A snowflake, a quite large one that appeared to be partially defying gravity by the slowness with which it drifted downward, passed in front of the window. A second fell. Then more snowflakes followed, quickly increasing in numbers.

  Alice heard somebody come up beside her. She turned to see Opal.

  “What’s happening out there?” Opal asked as she scratched at the frost on the window.

  “It’s starting to snow.”

  “So I see,” said Opal and peeking out through the small opening she had made. “It’s going to be a cold day for traveling.”

  “That’s all right with me for I want to get out of this orphanage.”

  “Me too.”

  The door at the end of the dormitory opened and Sisters Marie and Evangeline entered. Sister Marie flipped the switch and the electric lights flared to life.

  Sister Marie lifted a little brass bell and shook it three jingling times and called out, “All right, girls, rise and dress. We’ve a long journey ahead of us. The train won’t wait so hustle yourselves. You big girls help the little one you’ve been assigned to care for. See that they get washed and dressed. Breakfast is ready and waiting. Soon as everybody has eaten, then off we go to the railroad station.”

  Sister Marie turned to Sister Evangeline. “See that the little ones are properly taken care of. Find dry clothes for those that have peed themselves.”

  “Yes, Sister,” Sister Evangeline replied.

  Sister Marie turned and left the dormitory. Sister Evangeline moved in among the cots and began to pull blankets off those children slow to rise. Little voices began to cry, complaining at being hastened from their warm beds.

  Alice washed and dressed and followed Opal into the dining room that was warm due to its nearness to the cooking stove in the adjoining kitchen. The aroma of the food was a fine welcoming to the day. At the serving table, a nun handed each girl a plate containing a bowl of porridge, two generous slices of bread covered with butter and a mug of hot tea.

  Alice sat with the other big girls and watched the boys appear and accept their breakfast and carried it to the same tables they had used the evening before. Alice saw Teddy with his plate of food. She noted some of the older boys looking at the girls.

  Alice finished her breakfast and was directing her steps back to the dormitory to pack her belongings when Sister Marie intercepted her and caught her by the arm.

  “Come with me,” said Sister Marie.

/>   “How’s Gracie,” Alice asked quickly and sensing the sister had news. “Is she all right?”

  “Just come along,” said the sister in a non-committal voice and walked toward her office.

  “Is Gracie all right?” Alice asked again as she followed behind.

  Again Sister Marie did not reply, but led onward and into her office and closed the door. There she turned to face Alice. “Gracie is dead, Alice. She died during the night.”

  “Oh! No! My Gracie can’t be dead.” Her grief was too much and she began to sob.

  “I tried to take as good care of her as I could,” Alice said through her sobs.

  “It wasn’t your fault. It was God’s will.”

  Alice focused her tear blurred vision on Sister Marie. “God’s will that Gracie died? No, it was because was starved and weak and with the cold and everything else, she died.”

  “It was all his plan for Gracie.”

  “Plan?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “No, I don’t understand.” Alice was angry at God and at the sister for defending him. “Do you?”

  Sister Marie clasped Alice in her arms and hugged her closely. Though her mouth was almost touching Alice’s ear, her words were barely audible. “No, dear Alice, I don’t know why innocents are allowed to die.”

  They stood wrapped in each other’s arms for a moment and then Alice pulled away. “I’m alright,” she said

  “Then go pack and get ready to travel. We’re going to Minnesota which is far off to the west.”

  “Yes, Sister Marie,” Alice said and left the office.

  As Alice entered the dormitory, she came upon Sister Evangeline talking with Opal and several other larger girls. Opal beckoned to Alice.

  “Sister Evangeline has just told us we’re going to Minnesota.”

  “I know,” Alice replied. “Sister Marie told me.”

  “I don’t want to go to Minnesota,” said one of the girls. “It’s cold and snowy there.” She shivered.