American Progress

by Veda Boyd Jones

  “I need some practice,” Mrs. Hoag said. “I told Theodore Stevenson that I could manage, and manage I will. In my younger days I drove a horse and buggy all over Minneapolis.”

  Maureen refrained from repeating what she’d told Mark, that driving a horse and an automobile were two different things.

  The vehicle lurched forward, then the ride smoothed out even though they only moved a few inches each second. Mrs. Hoag wildly moved the stick back and forth, trying to avoid the bird feeders sticking up in the backyard.

  Finally they reached the street. Mrs. Hoag made the Road-Wagon go faster, not nearly the pace that Father drove his automobile, but faster than she’d been going in the yard.

  At one point, she took her hands off the tiller and reached up to adjust her hat.

  “Mrs. Hoag!” Mark shouted. The Road-Wagon veered dangerously to one side as the right wheel went off the road and skimmed along the ditch. Mark grabbed the tiller and pulled it sharply toward him.

  Maureen was thrown against the door, which swung open. She screamed and clung to it, dangling in midair until the force of the turning wheels made the door swing back against the body of the car, and the automobile found solid road beneath all four wheels.

  Mrs. Hoag stopped the automobile in the street and patted her chest with her hand. “Oh my! Oh my!”

  “You have to watch what you’re doing,” Mark said in a voice that sounded like Father’s when he was explaining driving to Mark.

  Mrs. Hoag looked sharply at him. “I can do this. That was a temporary lapse.” She stared straight at the road and kept her hand on the tiller. She made a U-turn in the street while Maureen ran into the house and got Father’s Brownie camera. Maureen climbed into the automobile again, glad the house was only two blocks away.

  Mrs. Hoag maneuvered the Road-Wagon back to her house and inched it into the carriage house.

  “That was a wild ride,” Mark said. “I liked it.”

  “I just need a little practice,” Mrs. Hoag said.

  They climbed the stairs to the third floor, and Maureen took pictures of two of Remington’s statues.

  “When Father has these developed, I’ll give a picture to you,” Maureen said.

  “That would be fine. Now, would you like a ride home?” Mrs. Hoag asked.

  “Thank you, but we’ll walk,” Maureen said.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Missing Statue

  Father, would you give Mrs. Hoag some instructions on driving her electric?” Maureen asked at dinner that night.

  “She told me she was fine with it when I took it over,” Father said. “The literature about the car said even a child could handle it.”

  Maureen told them about the wild two-block ride.

  “Theodore, I don’t want Maureen riding with Mrs. Hoag if she’s unsafe,” Mother said.

  “Oh, it wasn’t unsafe,” Maureen hurriedly assured her. “We weren’t going at all fast. I could have walked here faster than riding in her Road-Wagon. Please don’t say I can’t ride with her, Mother. I merely wanted Father to give her some instruction … without her knowing it.”

  “How’s this? I’ll call and ask if I can go for a ride in her electric. Then when she’s showing me how it works, I’ll give her a few hints.”

  “Oh, Father, that would be wonderful,” Maureen said and beamed at him.

  True to his promise, Father called Mrs. Hoag and arranged for a drive the next day after he got home from the bank. Mrs. Hoag told Maureen and Mark all about it on Saturday when they were working.

  “I’ll drive you home today, and you can see how much I’ve improved. I told you I just needed a little practice.”

  Maureen thanked her but said they would walk so the electric could keep charging.

  They worked in the French Room again and finished cataloging the paintings and statues. There weren’t nearly as many as in the huge Western Room.

  “That’s all that’s on the top floor,” Mrs. Hoag said. “Of course, the ballroom takes up most of the space. The French Room was used as a ladies’ powder room when Franklin’s parents lived here.”

  “This is an old house,” Mark said.

  “It sure is. Franklin grew up here. Hoags have always lived here. But the end is near since we didn’t have any children and Franklin was an only child. There are no more Hoags left. Only me,” she said in a sad voice.

  “I like this house,” Maureen said.

  “Do you think it has any hidden rooms or secret passageways?” Mark asked.

  Mrs. Hoag smiled, and the warmth of it reached her eyes. “Would a secret staircase do?”

  “Do you really have a secret staircase?” Mark asked.

  As an answer, Mrs. Hoag walked over to the wall by the French Room fireplace. She pushed against a dark wood panel, and it swung inward. She reached inside and pulled out a lantern.

  “I keep a lantern at the top and the bottom of the staircase. When Franklin had the house wired for electricity, he decided not to tell the workmen about this staircase. It wouldn’t be a secret if everyone knew about it.”

  Maureen had thought it odd that there wasn’t a painting hung in the three-foot area next to the fireplace, because the other walls were packed with artwork. Now she understood why. If a painting were hung there, it would fall when the secret panel moved.

  Mrs. Hoag lit the lantern. “Want to see what’s in here?”

  There was no question about that. Mark rushed to Mrs. Hoag’s side, and Maureen followed. Mrs. Hoag carried the lantern and let the light play all around the narrow winding stairs.

  “What was this used for?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe it was built as a whim. Franklin said he had fun playing in it when he was young.”

  They followed the steep stairs down to the second floor. Mrs. Hoag pushed on another secret panel that opened into a bedroom. They peeked in, then closed the panel.

  Mrs. Hoag led the way to the first floor. She pushed open another panel and stepped out of the staircase.

  “We’re in the Oriental Room!” Mark exclaimed as he and Maureen followed Mrs. Hoag.

  Maureen closed the panel door beside the fireplace. “I couldn’t pick it out if I didn’t know it was there.” She moved it back and forth. It opened easily without a squeak.

  “Mark, would you go back up these stairs and hang the light at the top?” Mrs. Hoag asked.

  As soon as she closed the panel behind him, Mrs. Hoag turned to Maureen. “I spoke with Sidney about your citizenship. You only have to fill out some forms and swear allegiance to the United States. He said the government is getting ready to make some changes in the naturalization policy. There are some senators who want to make it harder to become a citizen, so you’d best be doing this soon. Your mother called, and I told her all of that. She said she would pursue it immediately.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hoag. I told Mark about it, but I’m not telling anyone else until I’m a citizen.”

  “Quiet, be quiet.” Ruthie waddled into the room. “Be quiet.”

  “Shush yourself,” Mark said with a laugh as he joined them in the Oriental Room. “Are we done for the day?”

  Mrs. Hoag nodded and fetched her handbag. She took out two envelopes and handed one to Maureen and one to Mark. “That’s for the first week’s work. I’m thinking we got a lot done this week. Now, next week, we’ll be working on the second floor. And next Saturday I have a surprise for you. I’d like you to come in the morning, like you did today, but ask your parents if you can stay to lunch and not be home until late afternoon.”

  Mark said it would be fine, and Maureen could almost see him adding up the extra money he’d make.

  They waved good-bye with a promise of returning after school on Tuesday to start the African Room.

  Father had said he’d help Mark work on his brother’s bicycle that afternoon, so Maureen had put off plans to go roller-skating until the next Saturday. Now that they’d be working all day for Mrs. Hoag, that would be off, to
o, but that was all right. Since Sarah had called her an immigrant in that superior voice, Maureen hadn’t wanted to be around her and her friends. And she certainly didn’t want to go to the roller rink without Mark. He was her friend, her protector, and the best cousin anyone could ask for.

  Early that morning, Uncle Albert had brought Mark and Calvin’s bicycle over in a hired wagon so that Mark and Father could fix it. Mark had bought the parts he needed with Mrs. Hoag’s reward money.

  After the noon meal, he and Father worked on the bicycle, putting on a new wheel and straightening the bent fender. Maureen watched as they oiled the friction points and polished the metal, then Mark climbed on and rode up and down the drive.

  “It works like a dream, Uncle Theodore,” he called as he flew by, his feet moving fast on the pedals.

  “Maureen, it’s time you learned to ride a bicycle,” Father said. “You may be a bit small for Nadine’s bicycle, but I imagine you can manage it.”

  From the carriage house he wheeled out a woman’s two-wheeler. Maureen straddled the bicycle and put her feet where Father said to. He held onto the seat and ran behind her as she pedaled along. When he let go, the bicycle wobbled, and down Maureen went.

  “It’s a matter of practice,” Father said. “Much like Mrs. Hoag with her electric.” He explained about balance and brakes and speed, and then they tried it again and again. Each time Father let go, Maureen fell.

  She was ready to give up when Father ran behind her for a longer distance than he had before. Suddenly, she was halfway down the drive.

  “You’re doing it!” Mark yelled. “You’re riding!”

  Maureen glanced behind her and saw that Father had let go at his regular spot. That was all she needed to fall once again, but now she had the confidence that she could ride, and she tried it again and again until it felt comfortable leaning this way and that.

  “I’m riding!” she called. “I’m riding!”

  All the next week, Maureen rode the bicycle to school. So did Mark, and together they rode to Mrs. Hoag’s for their job during the week and on Saturday morning.

  “I brought the pictures of the Remingtons,” Maureen announced early Saturday morning. They had come out fairly well. If there had been better lighting in the ballroom, they would have been better. “Could I look in the Western Room for a minute?”

  “Of course. Meet us back on the second floor.”

  Mark climbed the secret staircase to the second floor, as he’d been doing all week. Maureen climbed the main staircase to the third floor. She carried the pictures to compare to the statue of The Wicked Pony. The way that horse bucked, standing only on its two front feet, fascinated her. Father had said Remington was an outstanding artist, and maybe he would get one of his sculptures. If he did, she’d like him to get one like this one.

  She opened the door to the ballroom and hurried to the third table in the row next to the windows, but the statue wasn’t there. In its place was a horse standing on all four legs. She looked around but didn’t see The Wicked Pony.

  Maureen quickly made her way down to the second floor, where Mark and Mrs. Hoag were already in the African Room.

  “Where did you move The Wicked Pony?” she asked.

  “I haven’t moved it,” Mrs. Hoag said.

  “Then it’s gone,” Maureen said. “Come look.”

  The threesome climbed the stairs, and they all looked at the table where the Remington was kept.

  “It’s always been there. Franklin put it there himself. He liked the way the light came in from the windows and added life to that horse.”

  They started at one end of the room and looked at each statue. Not one of them was The Wicked Pony.

  “Did we imagine that statue?” Mrs. Hoag said. “Is this my mind playing tricks on me again?”

  Maureen held out the picture. “We didn’t imagine it. Someone took that statue and put another one in its place so you wouldn’t notice it was gone.”

  “I wonder if any of the others are gone,” Mark said.

  Mrs. Hoag got her cataloging papers for the Western Room, and they went piece by piece around the room. Soon they found another switch. Two paintings had been taken and others hung in their places.

  “The burglar is very selective,” Mrs. Hoag said. “And he’s very clever. If we weren’t cataloging these items, I would never have noticed that something was missing.”

  “What about the other rooms?” Mark asked.

  They checked the catalog against the objects in the French and African Rooms and found each item in its place.

  “I can’t be sure about the uncataloged rooms,” Mrs. Hoag said. “We never made a complete list before. We just estimated the worth of the items for insurance purposes.”

  “Do you think the thief is the same person who took your handbag?” Maureen asked.

  “I’m thinking it’s the same thief, but how could he get in? Bertha and I lock this house up tight. I’ll be having a word with Bertha right now. I also need to call the police and report this,” Mrs. Hoag said and left Mark and Maureen to go downstairs.

  “If you didn’t have that picture, Mrs. Hoag would think she was imagining things,” Mark said.

  “Quiet, be quiet,” Ruthie said as she waddled into the room.

  “Imagining things … like the voices?” Maureen said. “Ruthie, who should be quiet?”

  “Quiet, be quiet,” Ruthie repeated.

  “I’m thinking that Ruthie knows who has taken these things,” Maureen said. “There must be more than one thief. The voices Mrs. Hoag hears are the thieves talking to each other.”

  She heard Mrs. Hoag coming up the stairs, her footsteps loud on the wooden steps. “Could footsteps be the noises she hears at night?”

  “Bertha doesn’t know anything about the Remington,” Mrs. Hoag said. “She doesn’t even go into the rooms where we have the artwork. Until now I’ve not been worrying about keeping them dusted.”

  “Did you call the police?” Mark asked.

  “I did, but I’ll have to wait awhile for one to come to the house to write a report. Many are already in St. Paul helping out there with the parade. Oh,” she said and covered her mouth with her hand. “I didn’t mean to mention that.”

  “We’ve talked at school about the parade,” Maureen said. “If we weren’t working for you, we’d go and see President Roosevelt.” She hadn’t wanted to mention it, because she didn’t want to force Mrs. Hoag to acknowledge that she didn’t know the important man.

  “We are going,” Mrs. Hoag said. “That’s my surprise for today. Let’s work a wee bit on the African Room, and then we’ll go to St. Paul for a nice meal at a special restaurant and see Theodore.”

  So she calls him by his first name now, Maureen thought. What would she do when he didn’t acknowledge her presence at the parade? How would Mrs. Hoag react?

  Cataloging artifacts in the African Room was slow work. Although Mark and Maureen described what they saw, they didn’t know the significance of each item. Most were primitive, and their significance and their countries and the tribes were unknown to Maureen. But each one sparked a long story from Mrs. Hoag.

  Maureen cringed as she dusted the animal skulls and carved wooden figures. Who had boiled the skin off these skulls and arranged them in this specific pattern? A witch doctor? Just last week Mother had read aloud an article from the National Geographic Society about African tribes. They had talked about missionaries going to darkest Africa to enlighten the tribes about Jesus. That continent was not a place Maureen wanted to go.

  The threesome worked for another couple hours in the African Room. Then they loaded up in the electric, and Mrs. Hoag drove them across the bridge to St. Paul.

  The streets were crowded with people. Mark squeezed the horn as Mrs. Hoag zigzagged between people. The automobile wasn’t going very fast, but Maureen held on for dear life and took a big breath when Mrs. Hoag finally stopped the car beside a downtown restaurant.

  “We’ll eat here
then get a good spot to see the parade,” she said.

  Maureen and Mark exchanged a look, and Maureen knew he was thinking the same thing that she was. How long would Mrs. Hoag keep up the pretense of knowing President Roosevelt?

  Their meal was delicious. Mrs. Hoag ordered chicken fricassee for all of them with corn on the cob and mashed potatoes. For dessert they had ice cream and cake, the most expensive item on the dessert menu. It would have taken Maureen an hour and a half of work at Mrs. Hoag’s just to pay for dessert, but Mrs. Hoag acted as if the price didn’t matter.

  Once they finished eating, they left the electric where it was parked and walked to the parade route. People milled everywhere and stood five and six deep along East Sixth Street.

  Maureen was relieved to see the crowd. If the three of them couldn’t get close to the street, then President Roosevelt couldn’t see them, and Mrs. Hoag wouldn’t be embarrassed when he passed them by without a word.

  They kept walking and finally found a place where they could squeeze in, but Mrs. Hoag said they must go one block farther. Finally they reached the spot she was seeking, and Mark and Maureen stood close together in front of Mrs. Hoag, right behind a row of policemen who were keeping people out of the street.

  “Here they come,” someone yelled, and word was passed down the long row of spectators.

  A band led the procession. Next came military men in uniform and veterans of the Spanish-American War carrying a banner and the American flag.

  Then in the first open carriage, waving his hat, sat President Theodore Roosevelt. He looked exactly like the picture of him that hung in the hallway at school.

  “Theodore!” Mrs. Hoag shouted as his carriage drew across from them. “Theodore, it’s Lillian Hoag!” she called above the applause.

  The president must have heard her, for he turned in their direction and scanned the crowd.

  “Theodore, it’s Lillian Hoag.” She waved with both arms.

  The president leaned forward and spoke to the driver, who pulled up on the team of horses.

  “Lillian,” he shouted and climbed out of the carriage and walked directly toward them. The policemen in front of them parted to let Mrs. Hoag through. She hugged the president, then waved at Maureen and Mark to join her in the street.