American Progress

by Veda Boyd Jones

  The girls turned the corner and left the sad area where the men were waiting in the hot summer sun for a small meal.

  “Hi, Anna! Hi, Dot!”

  Anna was jolted out of her thoughts about Dot by her cousin Fred Patterson’s voice. His smiling face and eyes beneath strawberry-blond hair lifted her spirits.

  “Hi!” she answered. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m on my way to the movies. What are you two doing?”

  “We went to the grocery store for Dot’s mother,” Anna told him. Anna glanced at Dot. Maybe I’d better not tell him about Dot’s penny, she thought. It might embarrass her.

  Fred grinned. “It doesn’t look like you bought anything. Or are you carrying the groceries in your pockets?”

  Anna bit her bottom lip and didn’t answer.

  “I was carrying my money in my pocket,” Dot told him, “but I have a hole in my pocket and lost some. When we got to the store, I didn’t have enough money left.”

  “Boy, that’s tough.” Fred’s blue eyes grew troubled. “How much did you lose?”

  Anna watched Dot. This time it was Dot who bit her lip. Then Dot said, “A penny. All I was going to buy was a loaf of bread, but I can’t buy it without that penny.”

  Anna was proud of Dot. She knew it hadn’t been easy for Dot to tell Fred about the penny. When Dot’s father had made a lot of money, Dot had been very proud and would have thought a penny was nothing to worry about.

  “Dot’s father is in Washington with the Bonus Marchers,” Anna told Fred, “so she can’t ask him for more money, and her mother doesn’t have any more in the house.”

  Fred dug his hand into the pocket of his brown knickers and pulled out a dime. He held it out to Dot. “All I have is this dime for the movies, but you can borrow it if you’d like.”

  Dot’s green eyes opened wide in surprise. “I … I couldn’t take a whole dime from you. Especially if it’s all you have.”

  “It’s all right. I didn’t mean it’s all the money I have of my own. I meant it’s all the money I have with me.” He shrugged his shoulders, as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another if he had any money, though Anna knew he was proud of his savings. “I have twelve dollars in an account at the bank.”

  “Twelve dollars!” Dot stared at him. “Where did you get so much money?”

  “Father helped me open a savings account a long time ago. He wanted me to learn to save my money. Anyway, I don’t mind lending you the dime.” He held it out again.

  Dot put her hands behind her back. “I can’t.”

  Anna thought Dot looked at the dime like she really wanted to take it, even though she said she couldn’t.

  “Sure you can,” Fred said. “Tell you what, if you don’t want to borrow all of it, you can give me the money you have right now.”

  “Well, maybe that would work.” Dot’s eyes grew troubled. “Mother and Father don’t believe in borrowing from people when he doesn’t have a job. And if I borrow your dime, you won’t have enough money to go to the movies.”

  Fred looked at the ground and kicked at a pebble. “Aw, that doesn’t matter. It’s just a movie. I can go another day.”

  “Thanks,” Dot said quietly. “I have eight cents. If I used the dime to buy the bread, I’d get a penny in change. I could give that back to you and then I’d only owe you one penny.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” Fred said.

  Dot took the dime. Then she held out the fist in which she clutched the pennies and dropped the sweaty coins into Fred’s hand. “I didn’t dare put them back into my pocket,” she told Anna. “The first thing I’m going to do when I get home is stitch up that hole!”

  Anna smiled at her. “I guess we’d better go back to the store and buy that bread. Coming, Fred?”

  “Sure.”

  As the three friends walked along, Anna’s thoughts were troubled. She was glad her cousin had lent Dot the money for the bread, but Dot’s family needed a lot more help than one penny or one dime.

  They turned the corner where hundreds of men were still waiting in the bread line. Her heart felt sad. There were so many people who needed help. She and Fred sure couldn’t help everyone, but she wished they could. She wished she had millions of dollars and could give everyone jobs. Then no one would have to stand in bread lines or be homeless.

  But she didn’t have millions, and she couldn’t help everyone.

  All I can do is stay friends with Dot, Anna thought.

  CHAPTER 2

  Caught!

  Fred eagerly looked out the windows of his father’s car. They were leaving the Gateway, where Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues met. The huge Hotel Nicollet stood right between the avenues, where they became one street almost three times as wide as a normal street.

  Fred liked this part of the city. It was always bustling with people and cars.

  The train depot, where they were headed, was only a short way ahead. The buildings they passed as they neared it weren’t as grand as the Hotel Nicollet. Here there were employment agencies and “flophouses”—cheap places for men to sleep. Racks of overcoats and men’s pants stood in front of little stores. Fred knew the clothes were padlocked to the racks to keep people from stealing them.

  Everywhere, men stood or sat, lounging about, looking dejected. How many of them are homeless men? Fred wondered. How many of them have lost their jobs and their homes and their savings because of the depression?

  The questions made his chest hurt. There didn’t seem to be any way to stop the depression the country was in. He wished he could help each of these men, but he knew that wasn’t possible. The men who ran the country and states and cities and businesses would have to find a way to help them.

  He was glad when they reached the depot and left the depressing scene behind them. The depot was built beside the Mississippi River, near St. Anthony Falls. The slightly fishy smell of the river mixed with the oil and soot and metal smells of the trains in a way that made Fred’s heart beat a little faster.

  His heart beat faster still when they entered the station with its large waiting room. It was crowded with people arriving and leaving and the people who were there to meet travelers or see them off. All the people made the already warm July evening even hotter.

  Fred had to raise his voice to be heard above the sounds of the people and trains. “Do you see them?” he asked his father. He stretched his neck, trying to look over the crowd. He couldn’t see any of the Harringtons or the Moes.

  “Not yet.” His father was looking over and around heads, too.

  Someone yanked on Fred’s sleeve. “Hi!”

  He glanced down and grinned. “Hi, Anna. We were looking for your family.”

  She pointed across the room to where the gates opened into the train shed. “We’re over there. So are Uncle Erik and Aunt Esther. We want to be where we can see Addy as soon as she comes into the station.”

  Fred and his parents followed her across the room, weaving through the crowd.

  Aunt Esther’s eyes were sparkling. She grabbed Fred’s mother’s hands. “She’s coming home, Frances. Addy is coming home!”

  Mother laughed. “I know, dear.”

  Fred and Anna grinned at each other. They all knew. It was why they were at the station house. Uncle Erik and Aunt Esther’s daughter, Addy, was coming home from the sanatorium. She’d been there for three and a half years. She had gone away when she was sixteen, hoping her tuberculosis would be cured at the sanatorium for tuberculosis patients.

  It had been cured. Fred knew how blessed they were that Addy was cured. Two-thirds of TB patients died, even with the best treatments.

  Fred glanced at the huge clock high on the wall. He leaned close to Anna so she could hear him. “It’s fifteen minutes until Addy’s train is due. Let’s go outside for a bit. It’s too hot in here.”

  Anna nodded.

  Father agreed they could go out. “Be sure you are back by the time the train arrives. We don’t want to lose
you.” He held up a finger in warning. “Mind you, don’t get too close to the trains. They can be dangerous.”

  When they were back outside, Fred fanned his face with his hat. “Phew! It sure feels better out here. Let’s go around the station house so we can see the trains coming.”

  The train house was between the station house and the river. It was very wide and long so that many trains could be inside at one time. The roof was curved like an upside-down bowl. Passengers could go into the train house from the station house. That way, they didn’t get wet if it was raining or snowing.

  “Should we watch the trains coming or going?” Anna asked.

  “Coming,” Fred decided.

  “I wish I were coming or going,” Anna said. “It would be fun to travel, wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure would.”

  They leaned up against a long, high cement wall that kept people away from the dangerous tracks. Looking over the top of it, they watched a train winding across the Mississippi toward them on the stone arch bridge James Hill had had built back in the 1800s. Fred could tell the train was slowing as it neared the depot on the tracks that ran along the river’s edge. Still, its brakes squealed when it entered the yard.

  Fred flinched at the sound, and Anna threw her hands over her ears.

  Anna pointed toward the end of the train. “Why are those people getting off? Why don’t they wait until the train stops in the train shed, so they don’t get hurt?”

  Fred’s gaze followed hers. “Those are hobos. They didn’t pay to ride the train. That’s the same as stealing from the railroad. That’s why they don’t want to go into the station house. If they did, they’d be caught.”

  While they watched, people jumped down from the open door of a baggage car. There were men his father’s age and men who were younger. There was even a family: a man with his wife and two little children.

  As soon as the hobos were off the train, they hurried over the tracks.

  “Where are they going?” Anna asked.

  “Anywhere they can that will keep them from being seen until they can get out of the train yard and into the city.”

  “They are homeless people, aren’t they?” Anna’s voice was quiet.

  Fred could tell she was upset. “Yes.”

  “I thought hobos were the men and boys who stop at the house. You know the ones I mean. The ones who ask if they can do some chores for us, and we give them something to eat.”

  Fred nodded. He knew. Almost every day someone like that stopped at their back door.

  “I didn’t know they rode trains like this, too,” Anna said. One of the last hobos to leave the train was a tall, slender boy with a skinny face. The boy carried himself straight and tall, with his shoulders thrown back. He looks proud, Fred thought. He was wearing a hat like Fred’s, the same kind of hat all the boys wore, so Fred couldn’t see what color his hair was. Even though it was warm out, he wore a loose-fitting jacket over his dark shirt.

  “He doesn’t look much older than us,” Anna said. “I sure wouldn’t want to be riding across the country in a baggage car.”

  “Me, either.”

  There was a shrill whistle then a shout. “Hey, there! Stop, all of you!”

  Fred whirled to see who was calling. “Railroad detectives!”

  Two men in uniforms that looked like policemen’s uniforms were racing down the track toward the hobos. Each carried a club in one hand.

  The hobos were scattering as fast as their legs would take them. They were heading down the tracks in the direction from which the train had come. Fred could see they had to get past the high wall before they could get out of the train yard.

  From where they stood, Fred could see some of the hobos hiding behind other train cars. Some hid between cars that were hitched together.

  Some of the hobos managed to get away, but not all of them. Fred held his breath while he watched one of the detectives chase after the tall, skinny boy. Would the boy get away? “Run!” he urged under his breath. He knew riding the railroad without paying was wrong, but for some reason, he didn’t want this boy caught.

  The boy was running flat out, his coat flying behind him.

  “Go!” Fred urged again.

  “He’s going to make it.” Anna’s voice was full of excitement. “He can run a lot faster than those old detectives.”

  Another train was coming over the bridge, heading toward the train yard. What if the boy doesn’t see it? Fred wondered, his heart hammering. What if he runs across the wrong track and gets hit?

  The boy tripped over a railroad tie. He sprawled facedown in the gravel.

  Fred groaned.

  The boy jumped when the train’s whistle blew. The brakes began squealing. With a sigh of relief, Fred saw the train wasn’t on the same track as the boy.

  Before the boy could even get to his knees, the detective was beside him.

  The incoming train cut off Fred and Anna’s view of the boy and the detective. Disappointed, Fred turned from the wall. “We’d better get inside. That might be Addy’s train.”

  “I’d forgotten all about Addy!” Anna hurried along beside him. “And I’m so excited she’s coming home!”

  Once again, Fred and Anna wove their way through the crowd in the station house until they reached their families. They watched the gate eagerly, waiting for their first glimpse of Addy.

  “Do you think we’ll recognize her?” Anna asked.

  Fred shrugged. “I don’t know. Three and a half years is a long time.”

  Anna giggled. “Maybe she won’t recognize us.”

  Fred didn’t answer. He was staring at the gate. Passengers were standing aside while the railroad detectives directed the hobos from the train shed into the station house.

  All about them, people stopped their conversations to point at the hobos and whisper. Fred saw one woman step back, holding the skirt of her dress back, too, as if she was afraid one of the hobos might brush against her and get her dress dirty. The hobos did look like they could use baths, Fred admitted, and their clothes were rumpled.

  When the boy they’d seen earlier walked past, Fred’s chest felt like it would explode. The boy’s cheeks were red and dirty. Is the dirt from when he fell? Fred wondered. He was pretty sure the red cheeks were because the boy was embarrassed. The boy was looking straight ahead, ignoring the whispering people who watched him. His dark eyes looked stormy.

  A minute later, the crowd closed in where the hobos had been, and train passengers began entering the station house.

  “There’s Addy!” Aunt Esther called out. She waved eagerly. “Addy! Over here, Addy!”

  A tall girl with curly dark-brown hair and a huge smile waved back. She had sparkling green eyes like Aunt Esther’s.

  “I guess we didn’t have to worry about recognizing her,” Fred said to Anna. “She looks a lot like she did before she went away, only older.”

  Anna nodded. “And prettier.” She was waving at Addy.

  Soon Addy was surrounded by family. Uncle Erik and Aunt Esther were trying to hug her at the same time. Everyone was laughing because they were so happy to see her.

  Something drew Fred’s glance across the room. He could see the back of the boy and one of the detectives as they left the building. The happiness he felt at seeing Addy clouded over.

  The boy had received quite a different welcome to Minneapolis than Addy had.

  CHAPTER 3

  A Surprise Encounter

  I didn’t know people could eat dandelions!” Anna said to Dot the next week when the girls and Fred were in the park.

  “Oh, yes.” Dot pulled green dandelion leaves from the ground and dropped them into the basket beside her. “Sometimes Mother cooks them in bacon grease, and sometimes we have them for a salad. They’re really very good.”

  Fred wrinkled his nose, making a face at Anna behind Dot’s back. I sure wouldn’t want to try them, he thought. He squatted down beside Dot and began helping her pick the dandelion leaves
.

  “We’ve learned to eat all kinds of things since Father lost his job,” Dot said.

  “They even turned their front lawn into a garden,” Anna told Fred.

  “We couldn’t grow very much in our backyard.” Dot giggled. “Father says it’s no bigger than a postage stamp.” Her face grew serious. “Last night, someone stole all the green beans.”

  “Stole them right out of your front yard?” Fred couldn’t imagine someone being so bold.

  Dot nodded. “Mother said from now on, she and I and Aunt Wilma will have to take turns staying up at night and watching the garden. We don’t want to lose any more food.”

  Fred saw something small and round in the grass and reached for it.

  “What’s that?” Anna asked.

  “I think it’s a walnut,” Fred answered, “but it’s not ready to eat yet.”

  Dot jumped up and stared into the tree’s branches. “A walnut tree! I’ll have to remember that. In September, I can come back and collect nuts.”

  Dot isn’t anything like the spoiled, selfish girl she was before her father lost his money, Fred thought. He rather admired her. “You sure have learned a lot about how to get food without paying money for it, Dot.”

  She shrugged, and her cheeks grew pink. “We had to learn. It used to embarrass me, but now so many people are out of work and poor like us that I’m not embarrassed anymore.” Her eyes sparkled. “Guess what Aunt Wilma and I did yesterday?”

  “What?” Anna and Fred asked at the same time.

  “We went fishing in the Mississippi River!”

  “Did you catch anything?” Fred asked. He always liked fishing.

  Dot nodded. “The fish were pretty wiggly. Aunt Wilma took them off the hook for me. The worst part was catching night crawlers.” She shuddered and made a face.

  Fred and Anna laughed. Fred couldn’t imagine Dot out in the dark looking for night crawlers to use as bait.

  “Oh, look at the rabbit!” Anna pointed to a brown rabbit that was chewing some grass nearby.

  It wiggled its ears. Its eyes darted about. Then it took off toward a clump of bushes. After a few hops, it stopped to look around. Then it started off again. Suddenly in the middle of a hop, it fell, landing on its side.