American Progress

by Veda Boyd Jones

  Carrie noticed the time. “I must go now, Dvora. Thank you for telling me your story. I’m sorry it was so difficult for you.” She stood and began putting on her coat.

  “Difficult perhaps,” Dvora said, “but somehow I feel a little better. Not so heavy.” She moved her shoulders to show the heaviness was gone.

  “That’s what happens when we share a load with another person.”

  Dvora smiled. “May I hug you, Carrie?” she asked shyly.

  “I think friends should hug one another,” Carrie said. And she gave her new friend a warm hug. Picking up her books from the table, she hurried outside.

  As she walked home in the crisp fall air, these lines went through her head:

  Alone in the forest with God as my guide,

  I moved ever forward with no place to hide.

  But God never failed me,

  Though dangers assailed me,

  And He safely led me where freedom abides.

  In her room that evening, Carrie wrote the words neatly on a piece of tablet paper, signing her name at the bottom. The next day, she found Dvora in the fifth-grade classroom before school started. Mrs. Harwell was at her desk, and only a few other students milled about the room. Garvey was there early because it was his turn to take care of the terrarium.

  Carrie stepped up to Dvora and handed her the sheet of paper containing the poem.

  Dvora was improving in her ability to read English. She scanned the page and then smiled, her eyes shining bright. “For me?” she said. “It is so very lovely. You wrote this just for me?”

  “It’s about you,” Carrie said, “and it’s for you. Both.”

  “No one ever wrote a poem especially for me. Never,” Dvora said.

  “Now someone has.”

  Just then, Garvey, ever the practical joker, lifted the garter snake from the terrarium. “Hey, girls,” he shouted. “Think fast!” As he said the words, he flung the small snake as though he were going to throw it on them.

  Dvora’s eyes grew wide and terror-filled. She let out a strangled kind of shriek and crumpled to the floor in a heap.

  “Garvey, you hateful thing!” Carrie said. “How could you be so cruel?” She knelt beside her friend, and Mrs. Harwell came rushing over.

  “I think she’s fainted,” Mrs. Harwell said. “Garvey, since you were the cause of all this, hurry and fetch us some wet paper towels. Susan,” she said to another girl, “bring a glass of water for us.”

  “I wasn’t going to throw the old snake,” Garvey said in a pitiful tone. “Honest I wasn’t.” He put the striped snake back into the terrarium and hurried off to bring the towels.

  As she knelt over Dvora, Carrie whispered to her teacher, “She’s terrified of snakes.” Her teacher nodded in understanding.

  In a few moments, Dvora’s eyelashes fluttered, and she opened her eyes. She looked ashamed. “I am so sorry,” she kept repeating.

  Mrs. Harwell shushed her. “You are not the one who should be apologizing,” she said. “It’s Garvey.”

  Once Dvora had her wits about her and was sitting in her seat, and once school was taken up and order had been restored, Mrs. Harwell lectured the class about practical jokes and excessive teasing.

  “We never know when our teasing, which we think is very funny, is deeply wounding another person,” she told them. Then she made Garvey apologize to Dvora in front of the whole class.

  Carrie sensed that Garvey was truly sorry. He’d never seen one of his jokes backfire so dramatically. It was a hard lesson.

  In the time since Carrie had been friends with Vi and Nate, she’d seen Mrs. Oriel Simmons only a few times. The Bickersons’ aunt was a tall, regal-looking woman who stood ramrod straight. Most old people who Carrie knew were bent over, but not Oriel Simmons. She wore her white hair piled high upon her head and wore black dresses with high collars, long sleeves, and skirts that swept the floor. Garvey said she looked as though she’d been caught in the 1800s and never moved forward a day.

  One afternoon, Carrie chanced to meet Mrs. Simmons again. She and Vi were playing in the attic, and Carrie had gone up into the turret. Although it was a cold day, the sun was shining brightly. From the window, Carrie could see Dvora playing with her kitten—which wasn’t such a little kitten anymore—near the Carrutherses’ garden gate.

  As she watched, Mrs. Simmons emerged from the back porch of her house with a long, fringed black shawl about her shoulders. She strolled out as though going for a walk. Then a strange thing happened. Mrs. Simmons approached Dvora. The girl never moved. When Mrs. Simmons drew near, the old woman reached out and rested her hand on top of Dvora’s head. They stood like that for a brief moment. Then Mrs. Simmons turned and went back into the house.

  Carrie pondered what she’d seen, but she told not a soul.

  CHAPTER 12

  To Detroit

  Carrie, my girl, how would you like to fly in an airplane to Detroit?” Father asked her at supper one evening. “You and your cousin Garvey.”

  Carrie shivered with delicious excitement. This meant Father had finally convinced his boss that a radio station held enough merit to at least be investigated. But for him to invite her and Garvey—that was a surprise twist. “You want Garvey and me to go along with you?” she asked. “In an airplane?”

  “Oh, Glendon,” Mother said, “are you sure you know what you’re doing? Taking two children along with you?”

  “Wait’ll I tell Garvey,” Carrie said, paying no attention to Mother’s remark. “May I call him right now and tell him?”

  “It’ll be all right, Ida,” Father said. “I seem to remember a young girl who was always having misadventures on family trips. If I managed to keep track of her when I was just a boy, I think I can handle my daughter and her cousin.”

  Carrie looked in amazement as Mother blushed. Could Father be talking about Mother when she was a girl?

  Father winked at Carrie and said, “I think you should finish your supper first. Then we’ll drive over and tell Garvey. I want to see the look on his face.”

  Carrie bounced in her chair. “Oh yes! That’s a splendid idea!” Then she stopped for a minute. “But, Father, won’t Larry be jealous?”

  “Larry’s been flying for several weeks now,” Father told her. “It’s high time Garvey had a turn.”

  “When is it?” Carrie wanted to know. “When will we fly to Detroit?”

  “Next Friday morning.” He finished off the last of his coffee and pushed back from the table.

  “I’ll have to miss a day of school.”

  “That’s right,” Father said, “but this will be an education you can’t get in the classroom.”

  The look on Garvey’s face was indeed worth waiting for. Carrie couldn’t remember him ever being so excited. He was ready to go right then. Later, while the adults were talking in the kitchen, Carrie said to Garvey, “I know I’ll be so afraid. I’ll probably wither up into a little grease spot right there on the airplane.”

  “Naw, you won’t,” Garvey said. “Not with me there to calm you down.”

  “You won’t be afraid?”

  Garvey shook his head. “Not one bit. Not a tiny smidgen. Why, Larry’s been up a bunch of times, and he says it’s great. Nothin’ to it. One time, the pilot even let him take the controls. By this time next year, Larry’ll be a full-fledged pilot.”

  “Maybe one day he’ll have his very own airplane,” Carrie put in.

  “Maybe so. Then we can fly with him all the time.”

  “Well, I’ll have to get over my nervousness first,” she admitted.

  Early Friday morning, as Mother drove the three of them out to the airport, Carrie’s stomach was doing crazy flip-flops. Father had suggested she not eat much breakfast. She was glad she had taken his advice.

  Garvey was talking a mile a minute all the way out to the airport, barely pausing to take a breath. Not only would they be flying in an airplane, but they would also be staying the night in a hotel room. Carrie had
never stayed in a hotel before. Garvey hadn’t either.

  Larry was already out at the airport when they arrived. He came over to the car to greet them, pointing out the four-seater plane that would take them up. The day was clear and calm, and Larry pronounced it perfect flying weather. Then he happened to look at Carrie.

  “You look pale as a ghost,” he said with a smile.

  “Aw!” Garvey said in a pitiful tone. “We have a fraidy cat going on the trip with us.” He put his hands on Carrie’s shoulders and turned her about. “Turn around here, Cousin. Let’s see how wide that yellow streak really is.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Carrie said in a not-too-convincing tone.

  “Well, you go right ahead and be scared,” Garvey told her. Then jabbing his thumb at his chest, he added, “Me, I’m planning to have a swell time up there.”

  “You’ll both have a swell time,” Larry told them.

  Carrie could only hope he was right.

  Mother walked out to the airplane with them and hugged each of them good-bye.

  “I’ll telephone you,” Father told her, “just as soon as we’re settled in at the hotel.” He gave her a kiss; then they climbed up into the airplane. Father sat in the front by the pilot, a lanky young man whose name was Edward Maddox. Carrie had heard Larry talk about Ed before. Ed Maddox had been a fighter pilot during the war, shooting down more than a dozen German planes.

  Carrie and Garvey sat in the two seats right behind Father and Ed. The small pieces of luggage were stowed in the back. They’d been told earlier to pack light.

  The door slammed shut, making Carrie shudder. Because the nose of the plane sat up higher, she was unable to see what Ed was doing at the controls, so she peered out the little window beside her. There was Mother standing by the Chandler Six. Carrie smiled and waved, and Mother waved back. She could see Larry heaving down on the big propeller. Suddenly the noisy motor sprang to life, and the plane inched forward.

  “We take her clear to the end of the runway,” Ed said over the noise of the motor, “and then turn her around.”

  Carrie found she was gripping the arm of the seat as tightly as she could. The plane bumped and bounced along the ground, then turned around just as Ed described. He revved up the motors, and they gained momentum. Carrie’s breath caught in her throat as they went faster and faster. In a moment, like magic, the plane lifted. Then it lifted a little more, over the tops of the trees, over the roofs of the houses. She gazed in wonderment as they sailed over the top of downtown Minneapolis.

  “Oh, Garvey, look!” she exclaimed, pointing to the neat rows of tall office buildings along Washington Avenue. She turned to see if Garvey saw what she was pointing at. But Garvey wasn’t looking out the window. His head was lolling back against the seat. His face was pale, and his breath was coming in short gasps. He clutched at his midsection with both hands.

  “Father,” Carrie said, reaching up to touch her father’s arm. “I think Garvey’s going to be sick. I mean,” she added, “I think he is sick!”

  Ed turned around and grinned. “Happens to the best of us, chum,” he said to Garvey. He handed back a bag that felt all waxy on the outside. “Use this if you need to.”

  At first, Carrie wasn’t sure what he meant. Then it hit her. He meant for Garvey to use it if he needed to throw up. She handed the bag over to Garvey. He took it from her, but he wouldn’t look at her.

  Carrie didn’t feel sick at all. And all her feelings of fear had disappeared. They were flying through tiny bits of clouds that looked just like fluffs of cotton. Down below, the land stretched out like a quilt with colorful patches here and there. Roads crisscrossed the land, and streams and rivers meandered through it. The awesome beauty nearly took her breath away. The most beautiful part was when they flew over Lake Michigan. The sun on the water sparkled like diamonds.

  When they were on the ground in Detroit, Garvey was as frisky as ever. But later, as they waited for Carrie’s father to check them into the hotel, he begged her not to tell his brother Larry about it.

  “He’ll never let me live it down,” he said. “And don’t tell Nate either,” he added quickly.

  “I promise, Garvey,” she said solemnly. “I won’t tell a soul.”

  She wanted to remind him of how he had accused her of having a yellow streak down her back, but she kept quiet. Poor Garvey had suffered enough.

  Once their luggage was put away in their room, they took a taxicab from the hotel to the newspaper office. “To the office of the Detroit News,” Father told the man, as the three of them piled into the backseat.

  “Right away, Jake,” the man answered.

  Garvey chuckled at that.

  It wasn’t far from the hotel to the tall building that housed the Detroit News. When Father paid the cab fare, the man said, “Righto, Jake,” and whizzed away.

  “He must call everyone Jake,” Carrie said laughing. For the rest of the day, she and Garvey kept calling one another Jake. “Righto, Jake,” they said to each other, then burst into giggles.

  Father took them up the elevator to the eighth-floor office of the man in charge of station 8MK. His name was Ralph Anderssen. Carrie and Garvey had to wait in the reception area while Father and Mr. Anderssen talked. But presently the two men emerged, and it was time to go see the station located on the second floor.

  The station wasn’t at all what Carrie expected it to be. About the size of the Ruhles’ front room, the station walls were hung with thick drapes all the way around. The floor was covered wall to wall with thick carpet.

  “This,” Ralph explained as he touched one of the curtains, “is to absorb the other sounds in the room so all we hear is the voice at the microphone.”

  A white grand piano was off to one side, and a large microphone stood out in the center. Along one wall was a long table where the controls were located. It looked somewhat like Sonny’s setup in the Simmonses’ basement, only larger and cleaner—more neatly arranged. There were dials, meters, knobs, wires, tubes, and headphones.

  Garvey’s eyes were about to bug out of his head. “A real station,” he kept saying in a whisper. “A real radio station.”

  “You kids come and sit down over here,” Ralph Anderssen said, pointing to several chairs sitting against the wall near the controls. “We’re going to air a program shortly.”

  “Air a program? Honest?” Garvey said.

  Ralph laughed. “Honest,” he said.

  The program was only a lady playing the piano while a man stood close by playing the violin, but it didn’t matter. What did matter was that it was a real show, and Carrie and Garvey were right there. “Wait’ll Nate hears about this,” Garvey whispered to Carrie.

  Ralph stood at the microphone and announced the musical numbers, and another man sat at the controls and worked all the knobs and meters and dials. Father watched over his shoulder to see how he operated the system.

  When the music was over, Ralph gave a newscast by reading a page of news items into the microphone. At the beginning of the newscast, he said, “Hello, all you folks out there in radio land.” At the end, he said, “Tune in tomorrow, same time, same station for the late-breaking news tips on Detroit 8MK.”

  Then it was all over.

  Ralph came to the hotel that evening and treated them all to supper in the hotel restaurant. One would never have suspected that Garvey had been sick. He ate like a horse. While Carrie enjoyed eating out in a nice hotel restaurant, she enjoyed even more hearing Father talk excitedly with Ralph about the radio station. She was sure he wanted to start one at the Tribune.

  The next morning, they rose early. Ed said a storm might be brewing and he wanted to beat the storm back to Minneapolis.

  Privately, Garvey admitted to Carrie that he wasn’t too thrilled about getting back into the airplane.

  “At least this time you’ll know,” she said. “So don’t eat much breakfast.”

  He nodded his agreement. However, on the way home, the air was bumpy, a
nd the little plane jostled and jerked. Garvey didn’t just turn white. He turned green, as well.

  CHAPTER 13

  Thanksgiving

  Miss Tilden let Carrie begin practicing Christmas music midway through November. Carrie had been asking because she adored Christmas carols and was anxious to learn to play them. She’d already asked Aunt Frances if she might play for the family on Christmas Day. Aunt Frances said that it would be a nice addition to their festivities.

  Finally, Miss Tilden gave Carrie the name of a book to purchase at the music store that contained nothing but Christmas music. Carrie was delighted. She’d even attempted to play several numbers at home without Miss Tilden’s help. Her ability to read music was steadily improving.

  The first day that Carrie used the book during her lessons, she thought about Miss Tilden and the fact that she didn’t believe in God. Curiously, she asked, “Miss Tilden, do you decorate your house for the Christmas holidays?” She didn’t know if a person who didn’t believe in God would do such a thing.

  Miss Tilden assured her that of course she decorated for Christmas. “I put up a tree and have tinsel and gaudy lights. Why, sometimes I even put out a bowl of ribbon candy.”

  Carrie wasn’t sure if her teacher was kidding with her or not. But she guessed it didn’t matter. Opening the book of Christmas songs, she asked Miss Tilden where she should begin.

  “Since this is your choice of music, I’ll let you start with the one you like best,” her teacher said.

  Carrie quickly flipped pages to “Joy to the World.”

  “This one is my favorite,” she said.

  “By all means, let’s begin with your favorite.” Miss Tilden set and wound the metronome.

  Carrie played the piece through several times with Miss Tilden making notes on the pages and demonstrating to Carrie ways to improvise with the chords on the left hand.

  “Want to know why I like this Christmas carol the best?” Carrie asked.

  “I suppose you’d tell me whether I wanted to know or not,” quipped Miss Tilden.