American Progress

by Veda Boyd Jones

  Maureen looked up at the tall bird feeders. The upturned glass jars were half filled with seed, and more seed was scattered in the backyard. Had the seed been poisoned? Why would Mrs. Hoag poison birds when she loved them so much? Because she is crazy, Maureen thought. Then she immediately felt ashamed. She had grown to love Mrs. Hoag, and she knew the woman wasn’t crazy, no matter what the others at school said. Maybe Mrs. Hoag had been misunderstood these last two years, but she wasn’t crazy.

  “When did you fill these up?” Maureen asked Mrs. Hoag.

  “It’s been a week at least,” she answered. “I put it out for the flocks that are just coming back north. There haven’t been that many yet.”

  “When did you get the seed? Is it old? Could it have gone bad?”

  Mrs. Hoag shook her head, her gaze still on the dead birds. “I went to the feed store the day after Easter. I remember it distinctly, because I also bought some arsenic for the mice that have gotten in the house. Bertha had said— Oh no! You don’t think I put them together, do you?”

  Maureen glanced at Mark, who looked like that was exactly what he thought.

  “No. You wouldn’t do that,” Maureen said. “Where did you put the seed?”

  “In the back room. I always keep it there so it will stay cool but dry.”

  “Show me,” Maureen said. She took Mrs. Hoag by the hand again, and the threesome walked into the house through the back door.

  “Right over here,” Mrs. Hoag said and pointed to a feed sack. “I had the man at the feed store mix it for me.”

  “Where did you put the poison?” Mark asked.

  “Bertha put it in the garden shed. I watched her sprinkle it behind cupboards so that Ruthie wouldn’t get in the stuff, then I had her put it in the shed.”

  The trio zigzagged out to the shed, carefully avoiding stepping on any of the dead birds, which were concentrated under the bird feeders. Mark opened the door and led the way inside.

  The open bag of powder lay on the dirt floor, its contents scattered about it as if someone had dropped it.

  “When she came out here with it, the bag was tied tight,” Mrs. Hoag said. “Come, let’s ask her.”

  Again they made their way carefully across the backyard and back into the house. Mrs. Hoag questioned Bertha, who said she put the bag on the back shelf of the shed as Mrs. Hoag had requested. That had been more than two weeks ago.

  “Then someone else got the bag of poison and put arsenic in the bird feeders,” Mark said.

  “And it must have been done today or last night,” Mrs. Hoag said. “That poison would have immediately killed the birds.”

  “What about the feeders in the front yard?” Maureen asked. “We didn’t find many birds there.”

  They trooped to the front yard and discovered that the few feeders there still held great amounts of bird seed. The few dead birds weren’t close to the bird feeders.

  “The killer didn’t put the poison in the front feeders,” Mark said. “He only put it in the back ones. He was probably afraid of being seen.”

  Maureen nodded. That was exactly what she thought, too.

  “Who did this?” Mrs. Hoag shouted. The anger fled from her voice and a mournful tone replaced it. “What do we do with all these poor dead birds?”

  “I’ll call Mother,” Maureen answered.

  Once again they went inside, and Mark and Mrs. Hoag sat on the couch while Maureen used the telephone in the Oriental Room.

  “Quiet, be quiet.” Ruthie waddled in. “Quiet.”

  “Mother will be right over,” Maureen said. “Mrs. Hoag, have you taught Ruthie to say that?”

  As if on cue, Ruthie said, “Quiet, be quiet.”

  “I’ve not been saying that,” Mrs. Hoag said.

  “I think someone who has come in here and stolen that Remington statue has said that, and Ruthie has heard him.”

  “Them,” Mark said. “Remember, we thought there had to be two of them, and one of them said it to the other one.”

  Maureen remembered, but they had never mentioned it to Mrs. Hoag. The first day they heard Ruthie say that was the same day they had met the president, and the excitement of that day had pushed Ruthie’s new phrase out of Maureen’s mind.

  “And what about the figure I saw by the creek and something red?” Maureen asked. “Maybe that person is the one who poisoned the birds.”

  “There are many strange things going on,” Mrs. Hoag said. “And I’m not sure of what you’re saying. What figure?”

  Maureen explained about what she’d seen on the day Bertha had cut her hand in the kitchen.

  “There are too many things to be remembering,” Mrs. Hoag said. “Mark, get my paper and pen off the library desk.”

  He ran to do her bidding; then Mrs. Hoag took the items and wrote WHAT WE KNOW at the top of the page.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” she said.

  “Your handbag was stolen,” Mark said.

  Mrs. Hoag wrote that down.

  “The Remington was stolen. And other art in the Western Room was taken and replaced by other pieces,” Maureen said. “Did the police say anything about them?”

  “They took a description of the items and said to lock the doors. I don’t know that they believed that something was taken, even though I showed them the photograph of The Wicked Pony.“

  “There was a footprint in the secret staircase,” Mark said.

  “What footprint?” Mrs. Hoag asked at the same moment that a knock sounded on the front door.

  Maureen ran to the door. “Mother, I’m so glad you came.” Maureen reached out and hugged her. She hadn’t done that since the day Mama had died, but it seemed right, and Mother put her arms around Maureen. “Something frightful is happening here.”

  Mrs. Hoag explained about the birds, and once more they trudged to the backyard.

  “This is horrible,” Mother said with her hand to her mouth.

  “What do we do?” Maureen asked.

  Mother gazed at the birds, nodded her head as if she’d made up her mind, and took charge. “We must burn them. Dead animals can carry disease, so we must dispose of them immediately. Mrs. Hoag, do you have some shovels we can use, and where can we start a fire?”

  They decided to burn them right in the backyard so they didn’t have to move the birds far. Mark carried some hot coals out from the furnace and helped Mother start the fire. Mother called Greta and their odd-jobs man to come down and to bring shovels and also called Father at the bank and told him what had happened.

  “We need some dry wood to keep the fire going,” Mother said. Maureen and Mark carried small twigs from beneath trees and then some small logs from the woodpile.

  Soon they had a bonfire blazing. Greta and the odd-jobs man arrived by the time Mother threw the first bird on the fire. The stench of singed feathers filled the air as dead bird after dead bird was added to the small inferno.

  Maureen felt her stomach churn from the sight of the burning corpses. Now that help had arrived, she turned her back on the fire and walked to the side yard to escape the smoke and the mayhem.

  A roar from the street caused her to look toward the front yard, and she saw the German car that Father had admired pull into Mrs. Hoag’s drive. Sidney Orr climbed out of the driver’s seat and strode toward her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “Where’s Lillian?”

  “Mrs. Hoag’s in the backyard,” Maureen said. She was going to explain more, but he marched past her. Maureen followed him.

  “Lillian,” he said and held out his hands to embrace her. Mrs. Hoag held a shovel and didn’t put it down to take his hands. “I was happening by and saw the fire. What’s going on?”

  Mrs. Hoag explained while the others periodically added more birds to the flames.

  “You must leave here,” he said. “Someone is playing a malicious prank on you. You’re welcome to come stay with me and my wife.”

  “Thank you, Sidney, but I’m fine here. No one po
isoned me.”

  “But you could be next,” he said.

  Maureen saw fear in Mrs. Hoag’s eyes, but then it was quickly gone. “I’ll be fine. We just need to be getting rid of these birds.”

  Mr. Orr took the shovel from her and threw some birds into the fire.

  “Come with me, Mrs. Hoag,” Maureen said. “Come away from the fire.” She led the woman to the side yard, but Mrs. Hoag wouldn’t turn her back to the flames.

  “I don’t like losing my bird friends,” she said as she wiped a tear from her eye. “I like having them in the yard. I like watching them out the window. When Franklin first died, I started watching the birds come and go. That’s when I put up the bird feeders. Bertha and I put them up ourselves. Now I best be taking them down and getting the poison out before other birds land here.”

  Maureen hadn’t thought of that. There were grains all over the ground. Would they poison a whole new flock?

  “We’ll rake up these seeds,” Maureen said with a catch in her voice, “and burn every one.”

  It took several hours before the fire died down and the last bird had been burned. Father and Uncle Albert had come after the bank closed, and they took over the fire and sent the women into the house. Maureen saw Sidney Orr leave soon after Father arrived.

  “Should we call the police and tell them what happened?” Maureen asked.

  “I don’t know that it would do any good,” Mrs. Hoag said. “When I reported the artwork stolen and replaced by other art, they looked at me very oddly. They said thieves don’t replace things they’ve taken. Now I have a yard full of poisoned birds. What’s happening, Maureen?” she asked in a sorrowful voice. “This is making me crazy.”

  CHAPTER 10

  The Footprint

  Even though it was late when they got home that night, Mother had insisted that Maureen wash her hair.

  “We all smell like smoke,” she said. “Let’s get rid of any vestige of this evening’s adventure that we can.”

  Both Mother and Maureen sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, finger-combing their long hair to dry it, when Maureen asked, “Why would someone poison those birds?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Mother said, “and I can’t find a reason.”

  “Mrs. Hoag said it was making her crazy … the things that have happened lately. Do you think someone is trying to make her crazy?” That was the only explanation Maureen could come up with, and it didn’t make sense. She’d grown to love Mrs. Hoag, yet there was always a niggling doubt about her that kept creeping in from time to time.

  “Mother, you said she was an important person to the community before her husband died, but now everybody thinks she’s crazy. Mark called her Crazy Old Lady Hoag when we found her handbag. The girls at school think she’s crazy. Why do people call her that?”

  Mother pulled her long hair back from her face and looked at Maureen. “People aren’t always very kind. Maybe it’s human nature, I don’t know, but they seem to pick on one person who’s a little different just to make themselves feel superior.”

  “Like the women at your meeting picked on Carrie Nation?” Maureen didn’t say it out loud, but she thought of how the girls at school had picked on her. Maybe they hadn’t exactly picked on her, but they had excluded her, and it felt like the same thing.

  “Carrie Nation is destroying other people’s property. We want our movement to be peaceful but forceful, and she is going against our principles. That’s why the women are talking against her. She’s raging against alcohol.”

  “Mrs. Hoag hasn’t raged against anything.”

  “No, she hasn’t. She withdrew into her home for a long time, shunning people, but she’s not the first person to deal with grief that way. People have been unkind to her because she changed so much—from being out in public all the time to being a recluse. Now she’s changing back to the way she was, and I believe you’ve helped her do that.” Mother reached over and stroked Maureen’s soft hair. “I have admired how you’ve dealt with your own grief, Maureen. Carleen’s memory will always be with you, but you’ve kept on living. I know this must be so very difficult for someone your age.”

  Maureen felt tears sting her eyes at the mention of her mama. “I talk to her picture,” she confessed. “Does that make me crazy?”

  Mother pulled her into her arms. “That makes you very normal. I still talk to my mother in my mind. I do something good, and I wonder if it would make her proud of me. Or I do something bad, and I know she’d be displeased because that was not the way she taught me.”

  Maureen gasped. “You don’t do anything bad.”

  Mother laughed. “I try not to, but I sometimes think unkind thoughts, and I want to do better than that. My mother taught me to live by the Golden Rule, and I believe that is the only way to live; but sometimes I slip.”

  Maureen shook her head. “That’s not possible. You’re the best person I know.”

  “And you’re the best daughter in the world,” Mother said as the grandfather clock in the hall struck eleven. “Oh, it’s late. We’re going to be tired tomorrow, but I wouldn’t exchange this time together for two weeks of sleep.” She kissed Maureen on the forehead and walked her to her bedroom, where they said their nightly prayer.

  The next day the story of the bird kill spread through the school. Maureen had hoped that Mark wouldn’t mention it to anyone because it would just give the girls another chance to talk badly about Mrs. Hoag, but he claimed he hadn’t said a word before he heard others talking.

  “Sidney Orr told my father,” Sarah said during the noon break. “Mrs. Hoag probably poisoned them herself.”

  “She didn’t!” Maureen exclaimed. “Someone is doing this to upset her, and I’m going to find out who.”

  “So now Maureen’s a female policeman,” Sarah said and laughed at her own joke. “A female policeman.” The others around them on the school grounds joined in.

  This was what Mother had been talking about. People picking on one person to make them feel like they were smarter and better. Well, Maureen would find out who was doing this to Mrs. Hoag. Somehow, she would find out. Then she’d show them. Problem was, school would be out at the end of the week, and she doubted that she’d discover who the bird killer was by then. She would see some of the girls during the summer at Sunday school. She’d make sure they found out about the bird killer once she found him.

  She sat in history class that afternoon and completed a list of suspicious things that Mrs. Hoag had started the evening before. She showed it to Mark after school as they walked to the mansion. It wasn’t their workday, but they both wanted to check on the old woman. And Mark had a plan.

  “I think the person who took the statue is the same one who left a footprint in the staircase. We have to catch him, and I know how.”

  Maureen still wasn’t convinced that the footprint wasn’t mud off Mark’s boot, but she listened as he explained about putting powder on the stairs and how then the thief would leave a trail.

  “How do you know this?”

  “I read it in a dime novel. Bowery Billy did it, and he caught the bad man,” he explained as they climbed the front porch steps.

  Mrs. Hoag wasn’t home. Bertha said she’d gone downtown to the library.

  “Can we come in and check on something?” Mark asked.

  “I suppose that won’t hurt,” Bertha said and held the door wide. She left them in the Oriental Room.

  “Stay on guard,” Mark said. “Mrs. Hoag said Bertha didn’t know about the secret staircase, so we can’t let her find us there.” He pushed on the secret panel and looked in the staircase. “No new footprints, but we haven’t had rain. Now, we need some powder.”

  “I saw some talcum powder in the bathroom that day I got the bandages for Bertha’s cuts,” Maureen said.

  “Good. Go get it,” Mark said in a low voice.

  “Yes, Bowery Billy,” Maureen said with a soft chuckle. Still, she fell in with his plan, tiptoed
to the bathroom, and returned with the talcum.

  “It’s got to be very light or the thief will see it,” Mark said as he gently sprinkled powder over the bottom landing of the staircase. “If he comes in through the Oriental Room panel, he’ll leave a footprint on the stair. If he comes down this way, he should leave a footprint on this rug.”

  As soon as he had finished and Maureen had returned the talcum powder to the bathroom, they wandered into the kitchen and told Bertha they were leaving.

  “Tell Mrs. Hoag we’ll be here tomorrow after school,” Mark said.

  The next day, they fairly flew to the mansion to check the staircase, although Maureen also wanted to search the creek bank for something red that the mysterious figure had left there. That would have to wait until Saturday, she concluded, but she wanted to add it to Mrs. Hoag’s list of what they knew. She carried her own list of suspicious items in her skirt pocket.

  Mrs. Hoag opened the door and ushered them in. “Bertha said you came by yesterday.”

  Mark explained about the powder and his theory that the thief used the secret staircase. “Can we check it?”

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  Mark pushed the panel back, quickly lit the lantern, and held it over the landing so they could all see. The talcum powder was gone.

  “There’s nothing there,” Mrs. Hoag said.

  “He put a light dusting on there,” Maureen said as Mark took the light and headed to the top of the stairs. “How could it be gone? You didn’t sweep it up, did you?”

  “I haven’t opened the stairs at all,” Mrs. Hoag said.

  “I found one,” Mark called down.

  Maureen climbed as fast as she could, which wasn’t very fast, since she didn’t have the light and needed to feel her way along.

  When she reached Mark, he showed her a footprint of the toe of a boot. It was faint, but it was a footprint made of powder.

  “Isn’t that odd?” he said. “They wiped everything clean except for this print. Why?”