Fair Weather

by Richard Peck

  Again Granddad looked injured. One time the cows had walked through the fence and got into the mushmelon patch. They ate their fill, and for days afterward the cream smelled like mushmelons. We had to slop it to the hogs. But it only happened once.

  “It smells like cream,” Granddad growled. “Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.” He meant Mama, though he was never a ray of sunshine himself before breakfast.

  When Dad came in, he’d already done a day’s work and was wet through. As we lit into our meal, I saw him glance up the table to see if the train tickets were there. I caught his eye and shook my head, and got away with it.

  We finished off in the usual way, with pie—sour cream apple. At the time I supposed everybody in the nation topped off their breakfasts with a big slab of pie. I wondered if we were going to bake today, since we’d be awash in eggs and blackberries.

  We were all poised for flight when Mama said in a high, hollow voice, “Papa, I want you to take us to town today.”

  We all blinked, and Granddad stared. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles down his nose and looked over them, not through them. He was not a great reader.

  “Take who?” he said.

  “These children,” Mama said, “. . . and me.”

  “Can’t be did.” He clamped his jaw. “You’d be too big a bunch for the buggy. And I won’t leave Tip behind, or he’ll pine and get off his feed.”

  Fat chance of Tip missing a meal is what Mama was thinking. But she said, “There’ll be room for us all and Tip too, and the butter and eggs.” She glanced at Buster and me. “And the blackberries.”

  “You tell me how,” Granddad muttered.

  “Hitch Lillian up to the wagon.”

  Wherever we went, we hitched one or both of Dad’s draft horses to the Studebaker wagon. They were a pair of big chestnut Belgians with white manes. For some reason they were called Fancy Pants and Comet. Of course we couldn’t use them today. They’d be with Dad in the field.

  “Nosir!” Granddad’s fist hit the table. “Draggin’ that monstrous big wagon with you and them overgrown kids would put a strain on her. She’d keel over. I won’t have it!”

  “We won’t need to hurry,” Mama replied, very calm now. “You run Lillian too hard, Papa. You break her into a gallop on the straightaway. We won’t do that today.”

  Granddad’s breath was coming fast. “I don’t go to town this early,” he said. “The post office don’t open till—”

  “We’ll go at your usual time,” said Mama, cool and firm.

  “I ain’t stayin’ all day,” Granddad declared. “I ain’t got the time for that.”

  “Neither do we,” said Mama. They argued on, and Mama won.

  Picking up and going off to town on the spur of the moment was as big a bolt from the beyond as Aunt Euterpe’s letter. We went to a country school and a country church. About the only things farmers went to town for in those days were salt, sugar, flour, and baking powder. And we had Granddad.

  Being young, we kids liked going to town, but Mama didn’t care about it. She was shy among strangers. I didn’t know what to think. And before I knew it, I was out in the briar with Buster, fighting the stickers to get to the blackberries.

  We went to town that day. But it was a rush and a struggle to get ready. I had to scrub the chicken manure off the eggs before I could pack them in straw, never my favorite chore. Lottie got the cleaner task of scalding the milk pans and setting them outside. Buster had to box up the berries and winnow out all the leaves and twigs, which he didn’t like doing.

  Out in the lot the air was blue around Granddad as he backed Lillian Russell into the wagon shafts. She kept looking around at him like he’d lost his mind. I gave the cream a quick stir, and we were off down the road to town, our minds swept clean by the novelty of it all.

  I picture us yet, rolling along on the crown of the road with all the world we knew fanned out around us. Tip sat on the seat beside Granddad. Mama and Lottie and I rode standing up in the wagon bed, holding on to the sides and each other. We had on fresh aprons to say we were going to town. Mama’s had pockets in it. She didn’t carry a reticule or a pocketbook. I don’t think she owned one. We all wore sunbonnets, the starchy ones we wore away from home, with the strings ironed. We all had on our shoes, except Buster. He rode with his bare feet dangling off the tailgate and his head in the clouds.

  Oh, that glorious morning, and we away from our work. When we came to the level Bulldog Crossing with a shanty for a depot, the telegraph wire hummed over us. It was sending its messages we knew not where.

  The farms of our neighbors nestled in walnut groves like islands in a sea of grain. The men were in the fields, cutting wheat and oats and barley. They’d wave as we passed, and Mama would nod. Granddad stared straight ahead, mortified on Lillian’s behalf. Beside him Tip grinned at the universe. Tip didn’t mind how he got there, as long as he got to go.

  The men looked up when we passed the Shattuck place, where Everett worked as a hand. Whether he was one who waved, I couldn’t see. Whether Lottie took particular notice, I couldn’t tell. You could hide much in the depths of a sunbonnet.

  As we came up on the town, the houses stood one after another, which made Mama feel crowded. When we stopped in front of the grocery store, Granddad wouldn’t tie the horse where there was no shade. Besides, his regular business was elsewhere. He waited with folded arms on the seat while we unloaded the wagon. As Mama climbed down, he looked back narrow-eyed at her. “Anything you want took to the post office?”

  Mama walked along the wagon to him. Without a word she pulled an envelope from her apron and handed it up to him. Then she sailed past the hitching rail and into the store.

  Oh, the dim mysteries of Oldweilers’ store—the coal oil lamps burning through the day, the mingled salt and sawdust scent, and sometimes in a keg, oysters I couldn’t imagine swallowing.

  Buster tacked toward the penny candy jar. Mama gathered her courage to do business with Mr. Oldweiler. He looked relieved to be dealing with her and not Granddad. That may have left him unprepared. Mama wanted three cents more the dozen on eggs. And she had him over a barrel with the butter. Nobody had better butter than ours.

  Lottie and I traded looks behind Mama’s back. What was she braving town to raise extra money for? said Lottie’s expression.

  Mine replied: For Chicago. I told you we were going. But Lottie shook her head, sure that Mama had just now sent the tickets back.

  Mr. Oldweiler mopped his forehead with a blue bandanna. In doing business Mama was very ladylike, and that made her harder to deal with.

  “Blackberries, Mrs. Beckett?” he said. We hadn’t sold him blackberries before. He reached for one and ate it, which was a point in our favor.

  “The Almanac calls this a bad year for berries.” Mama gazed sadly down at ours like they were the last.

  Lottie popped her eyes at me. Mama didn’t believe a word in the Farmer’s Almanac. She said it was folklore.

  When it was time to settle up, I’d never seen so much money change hands. “You can take out for a stick of candy,” Mama said. Then Mr. Oldweiler gave us three for a penny. One for Buster and two for Lottie and me, just to see us blush.

  Outside, Lottie found her voice first. “Well, Mama, you drive a hard bargain.”

  “It’s not in my nature, though,” Mama said quietly. “I’d sooner be home.”

  I thought we were headed there now. Mama would want to get this much money straight into her mattress. We began to stroll instead, our heels ringing on the wooden walk. Buster lagged behind.

  We went by the hardware and turned our bonnets to the street past the barber shop. Mama surprised us by swerving into the dry goods. It was the biggest store in town and a different world from Oldweilers’, though as dim and mysterious. Thin, high-collared women you never saw anywhere else worked in there. One sat in a cage at the back to take your money.

  A dress dummy stopped us dead just inside. It wor
e a stiff straw hat like one of Granddad’s, with a grosgrain band. Its white shirtwaist was starchy and laid in flat pleats. Its belt buckle was two hands clasping. The gabardine skirt, a pale cream, just cleared the floor. The toes of the shoes came to perfect points, and they were snow white.

  Lottie’s shoes were black. Mine that had been hers were brown. We stood there in awe. I was still in short skirts, showing a length of leg between my high-top shoe and my skirt tails.

  One of the women who worked there came forward. She wore a pencil in her bun, a tape measure around her neck, a pincushion on her wrist. She observed our sunbonnets.

  “Is that what they’re wearing now?” Mama said in a low voice, as if to spare the dress dummy’s feelings.

  The salesclerk nodded, looking away, though we were the only people in the place.

  “That hat.” Mama nodded at the dummy’s head. “It’s very mannish, isn’t it?”

  Mama didn’t wear hats, but the one she was wearing in her mind right now had flowers on it. Lilacs, I expect, her favorite.

  “Simplicity is the keynote this season,” the saleswoman said.

  “Then I take it that’s why there’s no machine lace on the collar of that shirtwaist.”

  The woman nodded. “Did you want to look through the pattern book?”

  You bought very little ready-made in those days. You bought the yardage and you cut it out from a pattern at home. In your button box you already had plenty of buttons. I liked looking through the pattern book, though the outfits were always for occasions that never arose.

  “The pattern book?” Mama said. “Indeed not. We haven’t time to make anything up. Would an outfit like that do for the fair?” She was bolder about the dress dummy now, pointing right at it.

  “The state fair?” the saleslady said, because our sunbonnets would do for that. “In Springfield?”

  “Certainly not,” said Mama, grander than I’d ever heard her be. “The Columbian Exposition at Chicago.”

  The wind went out of me. But now we knew, or thought we did. I’d been right: We were going to the fair. The letter Mama had handed to Granddad told Aunt Euterpe we were coming. The saleslady turned for a larger size in everything for Lottie, a smaller size for me.

  My first thought was a big one. I’d be in long skirts at last. My skirt for the fair would brush my shoe tops, and there’d be no going back from that. I supposed there was wear left in the shoes we already had. But I saw Mama eye the dummy’s polished pair, white for summertime. My heart jumped over the moon.

  Now Mama turned back for Buster. He hung just inside the store, suspicious. The place was a quagmire of yardage on bolts, quilting frames, and a notions counter spiky with crochet hooks. Worse, corsets were laid out where you could see them. Buster shied from it all.

  Mama summoned him. Another saleslady was called for. Come to find out, Buster needed knickerbocker britches, an Eton jacket, and a wide collar to his shirt, with a flowing, artistic black sateen cravat, and a sailor hat. And long black ribbed socks to go with new high-top shoes. His feet had grown a size since he’d last had shoes on.

  Buster sagged.

  * * *

  Later, much later, we staggered outside, loaded like pack mules with paper parcels tied in twine. It was more Christmas than we’d ever had—in July. We were too stunned to gibber, and Buster was speechless with rage. Mama had spent all she’d gotten off Mr. Oldweiler and more she’d brought from home.

  To our everlasting shame we hadn’t given her a thought. “Mama,” I said, “you didn’t get anything for yourself.”

  “I’ve got plenty laid back I never get to wear,” she said, looking away.

  “Well, Mama,” Lottie said, “you don’t have white shoes.”

  “Yours won’t be white long,” Mama replied. “They say the Chicago streets are filthy as a hog wallow.”

  She turned us down the boardwalk. There we came upon Granddad staring in the window of the pharmacy.

  We expected to be complained of for taking up so much of his valuable time. But he was drinking in a big poster showing a fine-looking man in a western hat.

  In fancy letters the poster read:

  Granddad’s old eyes traced the colonel’s every detail: the fringe on his buckskin coat, the elegant curve of his longhorn moustaches, and the tilt of his hat. Granddad was lost in admiration.

  But when he sensed us there, he snorted. “That wasn’t in no way how we dressed when we was settlin’ this part of the country. All we had to wear was denim britches put together with rivets. And—”

  “We was happy to have them,” we all chanted under our breath.

  But Granddad could hardly tear his eyes away from the poster, though he was ready for home. We walked a good long way to where he’d tied Lillian to a shade tree. Granddad didn’t deign to remark on all our parcels. You were never sure what he noticed. But he saw the black cloud hanging over Buster.

  After he’d turned the horse in the street, he called back to him. “Boy, climb up here and ride shotgun for me and Tip.”

  So Buster tramped past us and hauled himself up between Granddad and Tip. We were in open country when we heard Granddad say, “What’s got stuck in your craw?”

  Sulky, Buster said, “They’ve tricked me out like a circus pony. They want me to wear a thing around my neck like a girl’s.”

  Granddad looked down at Buster over his specs. “Women,” he said.

  “I ain’t going to wear any of it,” Buster declared.

  Granddad considered. “Well, boy, you can’t go nekkid in Chicago. The wind comes right off the lake.”

  Then he handed Buster the reins, and Lillian Russell took us home, jaunty all the way under the blue dome of heaven.

  FASTER THAN A GALLOPING HORSE

  For a week we worked like beavers to make up for the time we’d be away. We put up peas and beans. We cooked down enough berry preserves and strained enough jelly to see us through to the Second Coming. The sticker scratches glowed on my arms.

  A pan of melting wax was always at the back of the stove, for sealing the jam jars. We’d have pickled peaches if we could have talked them into ripening in time.

  We were still at it by lamplight every night. Then Wednesday came around, and Mama wanted us out of the kitchen before Everett came to call on Lottie. He was never invited over the threshold, but Mama was particular about us clearing out of the kitchen. It was hard to fathom her thoughts. Maybe she didn’t want him to think we were spying on him.

  I was in the porch swing when Lottie came out wearing her new white shoes under the fresh apron she always put on for Everett. She said she was breaking in the shoes. She was showing them off to see if he’d notice.

  Then right away there he came, all over the road, so I went on in the house. As I made my way through the darkened front room, I fell over Mama.

  “Hush,” she whispered. She was bent to the window, watching Everett trying to turn the wagon into the lane. She was spying, if you ask me. If Buster was under the porch, we made quite a crowd.

  “Did you notice how pale and spindly he was earlier in the summer before the sun got to him?” Mama said in my ear.

  Even in the evening at a distance he had a better color. And he was looking broader across the shoulders from heavy work. He was not bad-looking, though I didn’t point this out to Mama.

  “I have an idea he’s been in jail,” she whispered. “That’s why he was so pale. They get that way.”

  My land, I thought.

  “But he’s a talker,” Mama murmured. That was true. We didn’t know what they found to talk about. But we could hear the mumble of their voices every Wednesday night, and he did more than his share. He’d bring a book sometimes and read it to Lottie.

  “I hope it’s not the Bible,” Mama remarked, “because I have a feeling he’s not a Methodist.”

  But I didn’t think it was a revival meeting Lottie and Everett were conducting out there on the porch.

  Mama muttered, not
for the first time, “We don’t know a thing about him.”

  “I guess we could ask,” I said, being pert.

  “I’d sooner nip this in the bud,” said Mama.

  * * *

  On the night before we were to leave, Lottie and I sat upright in the bed like birds on a branch. Our new getups were laid out around the room. We were to wear them to make a good impression on Aunt Euterpe, if such a thing was possible. At the foot of the bed were two egg crates packed with the rest. We had nothing resembling valises.

  We were all set to go. We were cocked and primed. But something fearful was coming over me. I had some shyness in me that may have come from Mama. Of course, at that age I didn’t know what I was, because I had a history of spunkiness too. And a scrap or two in the schoolyard to prove it, in years past. I’d even gone on the stage once, for a minute.

  They were having a school program where the families came. Lottie had tricked me out in a costume and made me memorize a song. I couldn’t have been more than six, and too dumb to fight her about it. They pushed me onto the stage, and I held out my skirts and sang:

  When first I stepped upon the stage,

  My heart went pitty-pat,

  And I thought I heard somebody say,

  “What little fool is that?”

  That was all of the song I could remember, so I naturally burst into tears and had to be led off. It would be many a year before I sang another solo.

  Now I wondered if that school program had marked me for life, because flouncing off to Chicago liked to scare me out of my skin. Staying tucked in right here at home, safe from a world full of complete strangers, began to look good.

  The lamp burned beside Lottie, and she was staring into space. We supposed we were too tired to sleep. In fact, we were worried to death. I was.

  Even so, I couldn’t leave Lottie be for long. I began to pluck the petals off an imaginary daisy, chanting:

  He loves me,

  He don’t.

  He’ll have me,

  He won’t.

  He would if he could,

  But he can’t.