by Richard Peck
Mama paused and cast her eyes up. We went to the same one-room schoolhouse that Mama and Aunt Euterpe had once gone to. Mama continued:
While there is much at the fair and outside its gates that is not fit for a child’s eyes, I do not know when your brood will ever have such an opportunity if I do not provide it.
The prices beat anything you ever saw. But you will be spared the expense of a hotel or a rooming house by staying with me. The girls can share a bed as they no doubt do at home. We will find someplace to put the boy if you see fit to bring him.
Entrance to the fairgrounds is fifty cents a head, but this keeps out the riffraff. I will stand you the price of admission, and we will go as often as possible, for there is a good deal to see. I expect no thanks for this.
Enclosed in this envelope you will find your tickets for the Illinois Central Railroad in the chair car. Though I am not clear in my mind as to your children’s ages, I trust they are all still riding half-fare. I take it for granted that your husband is too busy to get away at this time of year.
The letter began to wind down. Mama was coming to the foot of the second page. Still Aunt Euterpe hadn’t made mention of Granddad. But then here it came:
Of course, Papa is out of the question. I expect that at his time of life, he would sooner keep to his own fireside.
As Aunt Euterpe surely knew, we didn’t have a fireside. We had a cast-iron stove to heat the front room. We took it down in the summer.
A strangled sound rose out of Granddad. He had wattles like a turkey. His Adam’s apple wobbled all over his neck.
Aunt Euterpe concluded:
Unless I hear word to the contrary, I will meet your train at the station here on the designated day and hour. You will know me from afar, as I am still in a widow’s weeds, Mr. Fleischacker having passed over just four years ago in the spring.
As ever, your sister,
Euterpe Fuller Fleischacker.
I was dizzy enough by then to pitch off the chair. Just because they were having a world’s fair in Chicago didn’t have anything to do with us. I didn’t dream we’d go. But my head spun like a top.
I could feel the vibrations coming off Buster. He was young enough to think anything can happen. In his head he already had his traps packed and was off down the road to flag the train at the Bulldog Crossing.
But not a peep from anybody around the table. Mama drew four tickets from the envelope and fanned them out.
Lottie pulled back and put her hands in her lap. We’d never been on a train. We’d been only as far as a horse could pull our Studebaker wagon. We’d been to Decatur once and got lost, and we’d been to Taylorville. We’d been to the Mt. Auburn Picnic. That was about the size of it. To hear him tell it, Granddad had been everywhere. But Aunt Euterpe hadn’t invited him to Chicago. I thought he’d say he’d already been up there and didn’t like it. But he was silent as the grave.
Mama spoke down the table to Dad. “Gideon, what have you to say about all this?”
Dad’s fist had been over his mouth, concealing a toothpick. He shook his head, speechless.
Mama sighed and folded up her spectacles. She was still looking past the cruet at Dad. “Are you easy in your mind about sending your wife and children to a place with a million or so people, most of them criminals, where we’re very likely to be robbed on the platform and murdered in the street?”
Dad pondered.
“Well, you would be much missed,” he said. There were crinkles around his eyes. He was very dry in his humor, and this wasn’t the time for it.
I knew not to blurt out “Can we go, Mama?” And I kicked Buster to keep him still. Across from me Lottie looked too deep in thought to speak. Then she thought of something.
“Aunt Euterpe sounds a hundred years old.”
“She’s five years older than I am,” Mama said. “She’ll be forty-four if she lives through the next hard Chicago winter.”
“She was born old,” Granddad croaked out. “And she married an old geezer because nobody else would have her.” Granddad’s feelings were hurt, and he was on his high horse. “She had to travel up to Chicago to find him, where they ain’t so particular.”
“Now, Papa.” Mama could be strict, and she was often at the end of her rope. But she had a kind heart.
Hurt though he was, Granddad couldn’t keep from sharing with us all he’d heard about the great Columbian Exposition at Chicago. “They’ve got a big wheel up there you can ride,” he said, recovering. “You set in coaches big as Pullman cars. Up you go.”
“How high?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Granddad said. “Hundreds of feet up.”
Buster’s eyes were saucers.
Mama didn’t mean to listen, and she was all ears. “Do you have to?”
“Have to?” Granddad blinked. “They likely charge you another fifty cents to go on the thing.”
“Ah well,” Mama murmured, “that’s all right then.”
“Of course, you can go higher than that,” Granddad said. “They’ve got a captive balloon on the fairgrounds. That thing will take you so high, you can see the curve of the earth.”
Smiling inside, Dad said to Granddad, “That high?”
“Oh, yeah.” With a sweep of his hand Granddad showed the curve of the earth.
“I don’t know what to do,” Mama said quietly, “and I don’t have anybody to advise me.” She looked around at us, at Buster and Lottie and me. She was thinking we were in dire need of all the education we could get. But there was fear in her eyes, fear of the far-off.
Then she seemed to settle the matter. “I’d as soon not be beholden to Euterpe,” she said. “I can’t have her laying out that kind of money for us.”
“Then you better stuff the tickets in an envelope and send them back,” Dad said. “Granddad here can take them in to the post office.” The tickets were still in Mama’s hands, and Dad was watching her.
All of a sudden Lottie leapt up. Her chair teetered behind her. “Oh, for pity’s sake,” she burst out, “it’s Wednesday night!”
So it was. And the table littered with dishes we hadn’t thought to wash up, and pans in the sink. It was Wednesday, and that was the night Lottie let Everett call on her. Regular, like clockwork.
It was time to bustle, and I was ready to clear the table. But I happened to glance at Mama. She was still at her place with the train tickets in her hand. And she was looking up intent at Lottie, studying her. I wondered all evening at that look on Mama’s face.
* * *
It was gray twilight by the time we’d rung out the dishrags. Lottie dragged two kitchen chairs out to the side porch for her and Everett. I’d noticed she hadn’t come to the point of sitting with him in the porch swing.
Granddad went to bed with the chickens. Dad was down at the barn. Buster had made himself scarce, so it was just the three of us in the kitchen, stumbling around a little because it wasn’t worth it to light a lamp.
Out of a clear blue sky Mama turned on Lottie. “Go up and put your shoes on before he gets here.”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. It was summertime. We didn’t put on shoes till Sunday.
“Mama,” Lottie said, “he don’t see anything but my feet, and he’s already seen them.”
“Doesn’t,” Mama snapped. “Not don’t.”
Lottie bridled. She didn’t like being ordered around, then or later. Or corrected.
“I don’t give two hoots for this Everett What’s-his-name,” Mama said, still snappish. “He’s here today and gone tomorrow, and I hope he will be. But you can put your shoes on for company, whoever it is. This is 1893, missy, and we’re not living in a log cabin.”
My land, I thought. But then, Aunt Euterpe’s letter had put Mama in a mood. I skinned out to the porch before she started in on me.
Presently from out there I heard the Sunday sound of Lottie stamping down the stairs in her shoes. Then she stalked onto the porch. It was my habit to sit with
her until Everett got there. We sat in the swing with the kitchen chairs looming up beside us.
Once in a great while Lottie and I burst into song out there on the porch, just to pass the time. In those days I sang soprano, and Lottie sang alto. Her voice held mine in the palm of its hand. We only sang the old songs. Where would we hear new ones? We’d sing “Silver Threads Among the Gold” and “Just Before the Battle, Mother,” old standbys like those.
There was no music in Lottie’s soul this evening. She simmered in silence, still raw over Mama ordering her into shoes. My mind was miles away anyhow. I calculated that Chicago lay in the direction of the smokehouse. I thought if I could just look over the curve of the earth, there Chicago would be. I knew it was on a lake so big, you couldn’t see across it. And of course, they were having the fair. I wondered if you’d be blinded for life if there were electric lights wherever you looked.
A small sound from under the porch interrupted my thoughts, a skidding sound over dry leaves. It might have been a snake uncoiling for a night’s hunt. But it wasn’t.
In a loud voice I said to Lottie, “What do you make of Aunt Euterpe’s invitation?”
“It’ll blow over,” she said. “Mama won’t do it.”
I elbowed her hard. “You never know, we might go,” I said, loud as before. “But Aunt Euterpe don’t—doesn’t want Buster. You could read that right there in her letter. We’ll have to leave Buster behind.”
A thump sounded right under our feet. It was very like a head cracking the underside of the floor. I expect Buster reared up right quick in surprise, forgetting he was hiding under the porch to spy on us—and on Everett later. Lottie stamped her heel hard, right about where Buster’s head was holding up the porch floor. We heard nothing more but a skittering sound, which might have been field mice, but wasn’t.
Then up the road came Everett in a borrowed wagon. He was no hand with a horse, which seemed odd to us. It was a good thing the horse knew more than he did, or they’d be in the ditch.
As he came up by the wind pump, Lottie nudged me out of the swing, and I made myself scarce.
* * *
Later on when Lottie and I were ready to turn in, we lit a lamp. As a rule we undressed in the dark. Tonight, though, we thought we’d better not. We slept in a big old spool bed, angled in the room to catch any breeze that blew. In the glare of the lamp Lottie eased her pillow off and examined under it. I did the same on my side. We shook out the pillowcases. Taking her time, Lottie folded the sheet down over the quilt. So did I. Slow and easy Lottie slid back the sheet, and I was just as watchful.
Halfway down the bed a big old bullfrog sprang out. It was a sickly pale green, and its hind legs looked a yard long. Lottie shied as it skimmed her shoulder on the way to freedom. We both shied, though we’d known something was sure to be in the bed. If it was in Buster’s pocket at suppertime, it was bound to be in our bed before we were.
With our backs to each other we undressed and pulled on our nightdresses. Lottie kicked her shoes into a corner.
The lamp didn’t make the room any cooler, but it was on her side, and Lottie didn’t turn it down. She sat propped up in bed with her cheek in her hand. It didn’t matter to me. I couldn’t see how I’d sleep a wink, with Aunt Euterpe’s letter going around and around in my head.
Lottie was going to have Mama’s figure, so she took up her full share of the bed. They both had fine big figures. I felt like the runt of the litter.
“Did Everett give you a squeeze?” I inquired.
“At your age,” Lottie replied, “I didn’t have such thoughts.”
“You didn’t have a big sister fixing to marry a drifter and a grifter.”
“Is that what I’m fixing to do?” Her chin was firm.
“You tell me.”
But she didn’t, so I said, “Mama thinks so. Mama’s worried you’ll run off with him.”
Lottie shrugged. “Mama’s getting crankier than the handle on a churn.”
“Aunt Euterpe’s letter stirred her up.”
“She’s not the only one stirred up.” Lottie eyed me over her shoulder. Her eyes were violet in the lamplight. Mine were hazel all the time.
“Listen to me, Rosie. You better dismiss Chicago and the fair from your mind. I’ll tell you right now: Mama’s not going.”
“Why not?” I said, trying not to whine.
Lottie sighed. “I suppose it’s too late for her. Mama’s too old. She wouldn’t know where she was up in Chicago. You saw it yourself. She’s scared.”
“You marrying Everett would scare her worse,” I said.
But then I had one of my brainstorms. It was a bolt from the blue, and it liked to knock me out of the bed. “Lottie, did you see how Mama was looking funny at you tonight, after she’d read out the letter?”
“She’s been looking funny at me for weeks.”
“No, it was different tonight. Lottie, I think we’re going to the fair. I think Mama wants to get you away from Everett. I watched her come to that conclusion. Besides, you’ve seen nothing of the world.”
Lottie’s eyes grew huge. “And I suppose you have?”
“I didn’t say so,” I answered in a puny voice.
I’d given Lottie food for thought. She sat in the bed, stroking her cheek, looking down at her bare feet. She had right good-sized feet. They gave her grief later when skirts were shorter.
“Wouldn’t you like to see the fair?” I said at last, still in a puny voice.
“It’d be a change, I guess. But they say it’s educational, and I don’t like the sound of that. I’ve had enough schooling.”
I didn’t much like the sound of Aunt Euterpe. “Why do you reckon she’s invited us anyhow, Lottie? She’s never said boo to us up till now.”
“They haven’t had a fair up till now,” Lottie said, weary.
“What do you reckon Chicago’s like?” I said. “It burned down once, you know, but they built it back. And the fair wouldn’t be in tents, would it? It’d be grander than that.”
But Lottie’d had about enough of me for one night. She was reaching for the lamp. “Rosie, I’ll tell you one more time. Mama’s dead set against going, so don’t build your hopes.”
Then in the dark she added, “Besides, what would we wear?”
CHRISTMAS IN JULY
As usual Lottie and I were up and running a little before five the next morning. The scent of coffee rose from the kitchen. Mama was breading pork cutlets for breakfast.
We scanned the table to see if the train tickets were still there. Or if she had put them in an envelope to send back. We saw nothing. Of course, the envelope could be in Mama’s apron pocket.
Dad and Granddad had already brought the milk up from the barn. Granddad helped with the milking, since he was up at that hour anyway. But then he figured he’d done his day’s chores. Today would be different, as he was soon to learn.
Mama turned from the range. “Papa, go to the cellar and strain and skim the milk. I’ve got other chores for the girls today.”
You should have seen his face. Woman’s work! He had a full moustache, white on top and yellow above his lip from his chaw. That moustache nearly twitched off his face. He started to answer, thought better of it, and tramped down the cellar steps.
We did a modest business in butter and eggs, and most of it was left to Lottie and me. There was a good bit of work to it. Butter-making’s a two-day process. Since we made butter every day, we were never caught up. You strain the milk, warm from the cow, into pans in the cool of the cellar. Then you skim off the cream and bring it up to the kitchen to ripen for churning. You have to stir at it off and on through the day.
In the afternoons Lottie or I would pour the ripened cream into the churn and churn it by hand. After the butter came, we’d take it out and pour off the buttermilk. Then we’d work the butter with salt and set it in the cellar. The next day we’d bring it up, work it with more salt, and put it into molds.
But something had come
over Mama today. She was making changes. And she was not a great one for change.
“Take the big pail for eggs,” she told me. “Lift every hen.” That meant she wanted extra eggs. I always gathered every one I found, but maybe some days I didn’t look as hard as I might.
The egg broker would come to you, but Mama sent butter and eggs into town with Granddad every other day or so. He sold them to the Oldweilers, who ran the store. They put them on the trains to St. Louis and Chicago for the hotels and the eating places there. City people had never tasted a fresh egg in their lives and didn’t even know it.
When I came back, dragging a bucket brimming with eggs, the kitchen was hot as hinges even this early in the day.
Lottie was at the drain board, slapping yesterday’s butter into molds. Mama banged a platter of fried cutlets into the oven to keep them hot. Then she turned to me. “Hurry on and give me some eggs,” she said, as if I wasn’t right there by her elbow. Mama was very short with us today, very abrupt in her movements. She was cracking eggs on the edge of the skillet like she was killing vermin.
As I was setting the table, Buster showed up. He sensed trouble and was willing to forgo breakfast in the circumstances. Mama spied him with the eyes in the back of her head as he was reaching for his air rifle.
She wheeled around from the skillet. “There’ll be no squirrel hunt today,” she told him. “A penny apiece for the tails! That won’t pay for the shot.”
Buster looked crestfallen.
“I want you and Rosie in the briar as quick as breakfast’s over,” Mama said. “I want every blackberry you find.”
Buster and I swapped glances. I liked roaming the timber, seeing what berries I could find. Picking blackberries in our briar, though, was too much like work.
Granddad rose out of the floor with two buckets of cream to ripen. “How does that cream smell?” Mama demanded to know.
