by Diane Noble
DAISY PICKED UP Rosemary who was fussing in her high chair. Joggling the baby up and down on her arm, she turned to watch as her mother laid into her brothers. Rosemary sucked on her fist and started to wail.
“I don’t care what Mister Taggart said or didn’t say.” Her ma looked madder than Daisy had ever seen her look before. “You both march upstairs to your bedroom and don’t you come down until your pa gets home.”
Violet and Clover, bent over homework on the kitchen table, snickered, and giggled behind their hands.
Daisy headed to the breadbox, broke a hunk off the day-old loaf, and handed it to Rosemary. The baby gnawed on the hard crust, happily distracted.
“Ma?” Daisy moved Rosemary to her opposite arm and headed to where her mother stood, hands on hips, looking near tears. “Ma?” she said again, softer this time. Her mother turned, the frown disappearing when she saw Daisy and the baby. “It wasn’t Mister Taggart. I saw what happened.”
“Don’t start now. Don’t start in about your Mister Taggart.”
“I was there, Ma. Honest. I saw what happened.”
Ma lowered her voice so the others would not hear. “He smelled like a brewery. I can spot a drinker a mile away. He’s one, child. I’m sorry to tell you, but he’s just proven what I’ve known all along. He can’t be trusted.”
“But I saw with my own eyes—”
“Child, I know you want to believe the best about people, and that’s an admirable trait.” Her mother’s voice grew kinder, and her eyes misted as she touched the top of Daisy’s head. “I know you mean well, honey. But you’re not doing Mister Taggart any favors by sticking up for him. Too many folks stick up for the likes of him, bringing down others by coverin’ up for them.”
“But Ma—”
Her mother’s voice was harsher now. “I don’t want to hear anything more about this from you, child. You hear?”
Daisy let out a deep sigh and felt the tears well. Finally, she nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Her ma reached for Rosie, and her expression softened as she cuddled the baby. “You go on out and get your ciphering done now, child.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Daisy said again, turned to join her sisters at the table, then stopped midstep. “Ma?”
Her mother frowned a warning, but Daisy had to ask.
“Ma? What did you say to Mister Taggart earlier today about my drama show?”
“Your drama show?”
Daisy nodded. “Did he tell you?”
Her mother chewed her bottom lip. “Well, no. He didn’t say anything.”
Because I asked him to keep it a secret. She smiled, then remembered why she asked. “He was going to help me make my story into a drama show for the children to put on. I gave him my song… a song I wrote just especially for it. Later I heard music, like he’d been fiddling around with a melody to my words.” Her mother remained quiet, so Daisy went on. “It was beautiful, Ma. Like something angels might sing.”
Her ma was playing with Rosie’s hair, and still she did not speak.
“But when I asked him about it, asked about my song, he said he couldn’t help me now. Couldn’t help me now… or ever. That’s what he said, all sudden like. I figured your visit must’ve had something to do with it.”
Her ma peered into Daisy’s eyes, and Daisy had the oddest feeling… as though her mother were seeing something there she had not seen before. “Go on now, child. Go do your homework.” Her voice was softer, and she seemed to be puzzling over something. “Go on. I’ll take care of the baby.”
Daisy picked up her notepad and a pencil and headed through the back door to the swing hanging from the big oak in the backyard. The sun was slanting from the west, casting long shadows from the pines. Daisy settled onto the wide wooden plank, fluffed her skirts a bit, and sighed. She looked upward into the gnarled limbs, remembering how her pa had looped the rope over the branch when she was just a tyke. She had clapped her hands and danced beneath the canopy of branches as he fastened the wooden seat between the two lengths of rope.
Her pa had instructed her to sit while he measured the distance from the hard soil to the swing. He wanted it to fit just right, he had said. Just high enough to be a challenge to scoot into, but low enough for her feet to press against the ground to provide the oomph to sail into the heavens.
Daisy was the only one of his children Pa had measured that day. It made her certain that he had made the swing just for her. No one else.
She twisted the swing, let it spin and then come to a rest while she kicked the soil and thought about her brothers. It frightened her, what Alfred had done. He had broken some unspoken rule that made her heart twist as tight as she had just twisted the swing ropes. She pondered that rule, not knowing how to arrange it in her mind, so alien it was to her thinking.
That he dared to sneak a drink of whiskey was bad enough. But what puzzled and hurt more than anything was how he blamed it on Mister Taggart. She bit her lip and stared at the ground, watching a fire ant make its way over a dead pine needle. Her disappointment in Alfred weighed like a rock in her stomach, but her sadness about all that had happened to Mister Taggart since morning made her want to cry.
She thought about her teacher sitting alone in the music room, his head down, his fingers nigh onto floating above the piano keys, the music playing by itself without any help from human hands. He had been humming, then singing, the words to her song. And as she thought about it now, the sound was so beautiful it broke her heart.
Looking up into the tree branches, she considered the angels she thought might abide there. Oh, she knew such a thought was fanciful. But she could not help but hope Ma was wrong… that there were such things as real-life beings sent from God above to help His children.
“God, if you are listening, we need to talk.” She frowned as she kept her face tilted heavenward. “This church I’m mindful of is for Your children—all of us. Alfred and Grover and Toby.” She sighed. “And Wren and Cady. Even the little ones: Clover and Violet and Rosemary. And all the rest, big and small, here in Red Bud.”
She sighed heavily once more. “And me, God. Maybe most of all. Seein’ as how I’ve bungled it up, could you help me figure out how to do it right? I don’t know if I believe in angels anymore.” Her shoulders slumped, and she stared at the little red ant making its way across a stone. “I suppose I don’t. That’s something for children who don’t know any better, and maybe I’m not one of them any longer.”
When there did not seem to be an answer that came to her, not even a whisper of a breeze that wiggled the branches overhead to make her think of angels, Daisy looked down at the notepad and pencil. After all that had happened, getting a circus tent seemed unimportant. But she had promised Cady and Wren she would write the letter.
Halfheartedly, she licked the tip of her pencil and started to write:
Mister Otto Ringling of the Ringling Brothers Great Double Circus and Congress of Trained Animals
Baraboo, Wisconsin
Dear Mister Ringling,
You and you’re brothers do not know me, so please allow me to introduse myself. My name is Daisy James, and I live in Red Bud. That is in California where we had a gold rush more than fifty years ago.
My friends Cady and Wren had an idea to write to you, and seeing as how I am the one who knows how to string words together the best—or so they tell me! Ha!—I am the one picked to compose this letter.
Our town Red Bud needs a church. We have a tavern, a general store, a schoolhouse, and a company where my pa—actually all our pas—work day and night that will soon make elect-tricity by bringing water thrugh pipes called pin stocks. I reckon I don’t know how electricity is made from water. I just know from what my pa has told me that someday it will travel all the way from here, way high in the mountains, to the big city of Los Angeles. I always believe my pa.
I have written a drama show called Come, My Little Angel. (It’s about angels in heaven.) Our teacher was going to help us put it
on in our town near Christmas, but now he’s changed his mind. We plan to charge 25 cents for folks to see it.
Wren and Cady and I are going to put on the drama show anyway. Our town is made up of five hundred people (babies too) and we figure if we get everyone to come see our show, we will have plenty of money to give our pas so they can build our church.
But we do not have a building big enough for all those people to see our drama show. We could do it outside, but seeing as how it will be near Christmas, the snow might keep folks from wanting to come.
And well, a drama show about angels might not go over so well if we wait untill summer. (Ha!)
Besydes, we need our church now. My big brother got in trouble only today. I saw him behind the tavern drinking wiskey with my other brother and another boy named Toby. That was terible, as you can imagine. But worse than that, he lied to Ma about it all. He got my teacher (the same one who said he cannot help us with my drama show anymore) in trouble too.
As you can see, my brother Alfred needs to learn about God before another ocassion comes along to tempt him and he gets in trouble again. He does not believe in angels. Or God either, I expect, though I would never tell anyone else that.
Well, I must go inside now and help Ma with my brothers and sisters. Thank you for reading this, Mister Ringling.
Your friend,
Daisy James
P.S. Ha I almost forgot to ask. Could we borrow your big circus tent for our play? I figure your animals don’t need it in the wintertime, though maybe that’s where you shelter them when they are not acting in a show. I have never seen a circus before, so I don’t know anything about that.
Daisy was just starting to read the letter through to check her spelling, when shouting from inside the house carried through the windows. Alfred was yelling again, and their ma was telling him sternly to go back to his room. Clover was teasing Violet, and Baby Rosie was crying.
Grover was puking.
Daisy wished her pa would hurry home to help Ma. She remembered the narrow, pinched look of her mother’s face, and how her eyes seemed dull and uncaring. She wondered if Pa had noticed, if he knew that their ma could not take much more of the bad times.
She placed her lined notepad on a smooth stone beside the swing and headed to the back door. She would finish the letter sometime before the sun went down.
Abigail stepped outside the back door, leaving the kitchen to Daisy, who was stirring the batter for drop biscuits and calling out spelling words to Clover. Baby Rosemary was banging pots and pans on the floor, and Violet was shelling peas, standing on a stool near Daisy. Clover labored over forming her words on wide-lined paper, leaning low over the big kitchen table.
Honestly, she didn’t know what she would do without Daisy. The child seemed to have a magic touch when it came to her brothers and sisters.
Abigail was sorry she needed Daisy so, needed her capable hands to help out. Too often she saw the longing in her daughter’s gaze when friends came by to invite her to play. Too often Abigail said no, letting Daisy know her chores came first, that work was more important than play.
She stepped down the concrete stairs and headed to the clothesline. She had just reached up to take down a pair of Orin’s work pants when a flutter of paper caught her eye. Clothespin still in her mouth, she headed toward the swing, then stopped with a frown. Surely Daisy knew better than to leave her homework carelessly fluttering in the wind like that!
She bent over to retrieve it, then held it to the waning light. It was a letter. Addressed to Mister Ringling of Ringling Brothers’ Circus.
Frowning, she scanned the first page, at first believing it was Daisy’s homework assignment. Then the realization dawned. Her eyes filled as she saw into her daughter’s heart. Saw what she was up to with her big dreams, the drama show, as she called it, the plans to have her father—all the fathers in town—build a church.
Abigail swallowed hard and, almost angrily, put the letter down before reading page three. She brushed the tears from her cheeks. Daisy’s heart was too big. She was bound to be hurt. By this Mister Ringling, who would likely read her letter and throw it in the trash. There would be no tent. No show. That would be just the prelude. Even if, by some divine miracle, the drama show about angels was held, next would come the disappointment about too little money, and fathers too tired, too broke, and too busy to care about building a church.
Life was like that. She was sad that Daisy would soon find it out for herself.
Abigail smoothed her apron and started toward the house. Before she reached for the door, a voice called out to her. She turned and peered into the falling dusk.
Her husband’s frame was barely visible in the distance. Until he strode close. That was when she saw Orin’s face, its thunderous expression. Her heart sank.
“I’ve just seen Paddy McGowan!” He gritted the words out between clenched teeth. “It seems his Toby fell from a tree and broke his arm. We owe him for the doctor bill and the stolen whiskey.”
“We owe him?” Abigail’s hand flew to the place over her heart. “Why?” But she already knew.
“It seems our sons led his down a path of ill repute. Caused him to drink whiskey in a tree. He fell and broke his arm in two places. He might even need surgery.”
“But we have no money. No extra money.” Tears filled her eyes again.
“That’s why I’ve already arranged for Alfred and Grover to start work tomorrow. They’ll work until the bills are paid.”
“Oh no, Orin. Please, not both of them. The danger. Think of it. They’re so young, especially Grover. Oh, please…” She took a shuddering breath, and laid her hand on his forearm. “Besides, I hear it was Percival Taggart who caused all three boys to stray.”
Orin’s face was still purple with emotion, darkening even as twilight fell. “They should’ve stood up to him, if that’s the case. They need to be kept too busy to get into trouble.”
She lifted her chin. “Be that as it may, Percival Taggart should be made to pay the doctor bills.”
Her husband met her gaze with a troubled one of his own. “If you’re thinking of going after his job, I’m with you this time. But maybe you’d better make sure he has it long enough to pay off Paddy McGowan.”
Without waiting for an answer, he took the back stairs three at a time. “Now where’re those boys?”
PERCIVAL TAGGART WATCHED the fall days pass with a growing sadness. It seemed a pall had fallen upon the little town of Red Bud. Even as the golden leaves fell, exposing the gnarled, barren limbs of the oaks that spotted the hillsides, a darkness fell more severe than that caused by mere shortened days.
“Lord,” Percival breathed on more than one occasion. “Have you forsaken us? This village? Its children?” He did not add his own name to his complaint, though an awful chill had invaded his soul in recent weeks. He dared not whisper the same question about himself for fear the chill would deepen when no answer was forthcoming.
He found a verse in the book of Isaiah that he clung to, believing, hoping, and counting on it being true: “A bruised reed he shall not break.” Don’t break me, Lord, he pled. But just as the dark silent skies prevailed, so did the silence in his heart.
The week before Thanksgiving a petition began circulating among the citizens of Red Bud, calling for his expulsion from the school and its music department. He knew who was behind the campaign, and it saddened him. Abigail James’s fury touched more lives than just his. The rumors flew. Even he heard the whispers drift through the music room windows from the schoolyard.
Each day he watched the light in Daisy’s face dim. His heart was heavy with the certainty that once extinguished completely, the child’s flame of hope would be hard to rekindle. Hope squashed, an innocence betrayed… and all by the one she loved more than anyone: her mother. A mother who thought she acted out of love and protectiveness.
The child had stayed after music lessons to speak to Percival the morning after he caught her brothers d
rinking whiskey in the tree. Tears flowing, she confessed she knew the truth about what happened. She wanted him to stand up for that truth, swearing that she, Wren, and Cady would be his witnesses.
Gently, he told her that the people of Red Bud would believe what they wanted, no matter who said what. God knew the truth, and that was all that mattered. He did not assure her that the rumors about his leaving were not true.
He paid Paddy McGowan for the amount Doc Murphy charged to set Toby’s arm. Percival had made it clear that it was a gift, given on behalf of the James family. He knew they could ill afford the expense. He also made it clear that it was not due to his guilt in any way. Surprisingly, Paddy McGowan believed him and told the story all over town.
But no one believed the tavern keeper’s words, not when they knew Percival had too often whiled away his hours slumped over McGowan’s bar.
With three young girls and the barkeeper as his unlikely champions, he kept quiet about his innocence.
“Why don’t you stand up for your honor?” Daisy asked him more than once as she put away her fiddle, lingering after the other children had filed from the room. “Let people know how God changed your life?”
He did not answer her the first time she asked, or the second, or even the last—but her words stayed with him through the cold days of autumn, echoing his own conflict. Who he had once been—unredeemed, unloved (or so he thought) and the lowliest of God’s creatures—battled with who he was now: a new man with a changed heart.
How could anyone but himself see the change? Know the change? Others judged him by the whole of his life.
It was that very judgment that caused his fear.
Who was he, after all, to stand up for honor? He had been the town drunk far too long. Each day he struggled to keep from sliding back into the gutter. Each day might be the last he would spend sober. And, truth be told, his craving for whiskey never diminished. He wondered if it ever would.
