“Let me see your hands, Hildemara Waltert. Still chewing your nails, too. It’s a disgusting habit. You’ll get worms.” The children around Hildie twittered. “Hold up your arms. Don’t put them down until I tell you.” Hildemara kept her hands in the air, her face burning with shame as Mrs. Ransom pointed. “Look at this, children. When you wash your hands, wash your arms as well. I don’t want to see rivulets of dirt.” She shook her head at Hildemara. “You can put your arms down now. Next time, don’t just splash a little water on yourself in the girls’ bathroom and call it a bath!”
“The Walterts live in a tent down by the irrigation ditch, Mrs. Ransom.”
“I know where they live, Elizabeth, and it’s no excuse for being filthy. If she bothered to use a little soap with the water, she might earn a silver star.” Mrs. Ransom moved on to the next child. Betty Jane Marrow received a gold star every day.
Hot tears burned and Hildemara struggled to keep them back. She bit her lower lip and kept her hands clenched in her lap. She could feel Elizabeth Kenney looking at her, but wouldn’t look back. A boy behind them leaned forward and yanked hard on Hildemara’s hair. Elizabeth swung around. “Stop it!”
Mrs. Ransom turned and pinned Hildemara with her eyes. “Go sit on the stool in the corner.”
Elizabeth gasped. “She didn’t do anything!”
“All right. That’s enough. Let’s get to work.”
When recess came, Hildemara went out to her bench. Elizabeth Kenney left her friends and approached her. “May I sit with you, Hildemara?”
Hildemara shrugged, torn between resentment and admiration. Elizabeth had a whole row of gold stars on the class chart. The only one who had more was Betty Jane Marrow. Elizabeth looked plump and pretty. No one told her she looked skinny as a rail and pale as a ghost.
“I live on Elm Street. It’s not far. Just across the road and down a few blocks. You walked by my house once. I saw you through the window. My house is just a few doors down from the library. Do you know where that is? You can come to my house before school, if you like. We have hot water and . . .”
Hildemara’s face flamed. “I wash every morning. I’m clean before I come to school.”
“It’s a long walk from where you live. I’d be covered with dust and dirt, too, if I had to walk to school every day.”
“How do you know where we live? Did Bernie tell you?”
“My mother brought Christmas dinner to your family. She brought you and your sister dolls.”
“Did she make the rag doll?”
“No. It was from the church rummage box.” Elizabeth’s friends called for her to come back. Elizabeth said she’d come in a minute. “My mother says Mrs. Ransom treats you badly because her brother got killed in the war. Your father is German, isn’t he? That makes you German, too.” When her friends called again, Elizabeth stood. “I guess I’d better go. Would you like to play with us, Hildemara?”
“Elizabeth!”
Hildemara looked at the other girls. They called for Elizabeth, not her. Did they think of her in the same way Mrs. Ransom did? Throat tight, Hildie shook her head. When Elizabeth walked away, Hildie watched Bernie playing marbles with his friends on the other side of the playground. Why didn’t anyone care that he was German? Everyone liked her brother. Mrs. Ransom would probably like him, too, if he were one of her students.
Mama made her and Bernie do homework every afternoon when they got home. “You have to do it now before it’s too dark to see. The sooner you get it done, the sooner you can go out to play. Now, read it again.”
Bernie protested.
“You’ll never get anywhere in the world if you can’t read better than that, Bernhard. Read it again.”
After two months, Mrs. Ransom pinned a note to Hildemara’s sweater. Mama unpinned it and read it. “She says you’re a slow reader. You’re not a slow reader. What is this note all about? She thinks you’re stupid. No child of mine is stupid! Bring your book home tomorrow.”
When school ended the next day, Hildemara took a reading book from the shelf.
“Where do you think you’re going with that book?” Mrs. Ransom blocked the doorway.
“Mama wants me to bring it home.”
“Stealing! That’s what you’re about!”
“No!” Blubbering, Hildemara tried to explain.
“I don’t care what your mother wants, Hildemara.” She snatched the book back. “Tell her to take you to the library. These books are expensive and paid for by American taxpayers. You don’t have a right to it.”
When Hildemara came inside the tent without the book, Mama wanted to know why. “Mrs. Ransom wouldn’t let me have it. She said you should take me to the library.”
Mama’s eyes went hot, but she calmed down by the end of dinner. “We’ll go to the library on Saturday.” She put her fingers beneath Hildemara’s chin and made her look up. “Try to make a friend. One friend can make all the difference as to whether you will be happy or miserable with the world. Rosie Gilgan is my friend and has been since the first day of school. She comes from a wealthy family who owns a hotel. I was a tailor’s daughter. She lived in a large house. Our family lived upstairs from the shop. I could share my thoughts and feelings with Rosie and never fear she would tell tales or make fun of me. Rosie was always kind, a true Christian, and I knew I could trust her. You find someone like that, Hildemara Rose, and you will be a much happier girl than you are right now.”
“Did you name me after your friend, Mama?”
“Yes. I did. I hope you’ll grow up to have her fine qualities.”
Hildemara imagined Rosie Gilgan had been fearless like Mama and popular like Elizabeth Kenney, with no worries about how others might treat her. Hildemara cried herself to sleep. She wished she could get sick like she had on the train. Maybe then Mama would let her stay home from school. Maybe then she would never have to go back and face Mrs. Ransom.
No amount of crying and begging changed Mama’s mind, even on Saturday, when Mama found out she couldn’t borrow books until the family had a permanent address.
Papa leaned close to the lamp and translated a story from his German Bible every evening. One evening he would pick from the Old Testament, the next from the New. Bernie liked to hear about warriors like Gideon and David and Goliath or the prophet Elijah calling down fire on the altar and then killing all the priests of Baal. Clotilde didn’t care what Papa read. She crawled into his lap and fell asleep within minutes.
Hildemara liked the stories of Ruth and Esther, but tonight she didn’t want to get into a squabble with her brother and sister after being picked on all day by Mrs. Ransom. She had heard Mama and Papa arguing earlier, and she didn’t want to add fuel to Mama’s temper by complaining about anything.
“No warriors or war stories tonight, Bernhard.” Papa tweaked Clotilde’s nose. “And no love stories. You’re going to hear Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.”
Papa read for a long time. Bernie usually sat cross-legged, eager to hear. Tonight, he flopped on his cot, his hands behind his head, half-dozing. When Clotilde fell asleep, Mama tucked her into her blanket sack. Hildemara poked the needle through the sampler Mama gave her. No matter how hard she tried, she made a mess of the stitches. Mama took it and plucked at the knotted thread. She handed it back. “Do it again.” Hildie hung her head, wanting to cry. Even Mama didn’t approve of her efforts to do things right.
Papa kept reading.
Hildemara didn’t understand most of it. What did it mean to be salt and light? Why would someone hide a lantern under a basket? Did they want to start a fire? What did adultery mean? When he started reading about enemies, Hildemara took slower, more careful stitches. “Love your enemies,” Jesus said. Did that mean she had to love Mrs. Ransom? Mrs. Ransom hated her. Surely that made her an enemy. “Pray for those who persecute you,” Jesus said. “What does persecute mean?”
Mama stabbed a needle through one of Papa’s work shirts. “It’s when someone treats you cruelly,
when they spitefully use you.”
Papa left the Bible open in his lap. “Jesus was treated cruelly, Hildemara. When He was nailed to the cross, He prayed for the people who put Him there. He asked God to forgive them because they didn’t know what they were doing.”
“Are we supposed to do that?”
Mama gave Papa an angry glance. “No one can be as perfect as Jesus.”
Papa didn’t look at her, but spoke to Hildemara instead. “God says if you love only those who love you, then you’re no better than those who are cruel to you. If you are kind only to friends, you are no different than your enemy.”
Mama tied a knot and snipped it. “That doesn’t mean you let people step all over you. You have to stand up—”
“Marta.” Papa’s quiet voice held a note of warning that made Mama press her lips together. Papa put his hand on Hildemara’s head. “It takes someone very special to love an enemy and pray for someone who is unkind.”
“She’s not Jesus, Niclas.” Mama tossed Papa’s shirt onto his bed. “And if she was, she’d end up like Him, too. Nailed to a cross!” She went outside the tent, arms crossed against the cold night air.
Papa closed the Bible. “Time for bed.”
Lying on her cot, Hildemara heard Mama and Papa talking in low voices outside the tent wall.
“One of us should go and tell that—”
“It’d only make things worse, and you know it.”
“She’s having a hard enough time without you telling her she has to put up with people walking all over her. She has to learn to stand up for herself.”
“There are different ways of standing.” Papa’s voice lowered even more.
Hildemara muffled her crying in her blanket. She didn’t want Mama and Papa arguing about her. She prayed Mrs. Ransom would stop persecuting her. She prayed Mrs. Ransom would be nice tomorrow. She thought about what Elizabeth Kenney had told her about Mrs. Ransom’s brother. Hildemara knew how sad she would be if anything bad happened to Bernie. Just thinking about Bernie dying made Hildemara feel even worse. Hildemara hadn’t done anything to deserve Mrs. Ransom’s hatred. Maybe Mrs. Ransom was just like those people who killed Jesus. Maybe Mrs. Ransom didn’t know what she was doing, either.
All the way to school the next morning, Hildemara prayed quietly. Bernie told her to stop mumbling. “If you start whispering to yourself, people are gonna think you’re crazy!”
The rest of the way to school, Hildemara thought her prayers instead of saying them aloud. When Mrs. Ransom led the children into the classroom, Hildie thought a prayer for her. Jesus, forgive Mrs. Ransom for being so mean to me. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.
The prayer didn’t change anything. In fact, everything got a whole lot worse. When the hygienic inspection was over, Mrs. Ransom grabbed Hildemara by the ear and dragged her from her seat. “Come up here, Hildemara Waltert, and let the other children have a good look at you!”
Heart thumping, Hildemara tried not to cry. Mrs. Ransom let go of her ear long enough to grab her shoulders and spin her around to face the class. “Hold up your hands, Hildemara. Show these children what I have to look at every morning.” Hildemara closed her eyes tightly, wishing she could become invisible. Mrs. Ransom slapped the back of her head. “Do what I tell you!” Trembling, face on fire, Hildemara held up her hands. “Look, children! Have you ever seen such disgusting fingernails? She’s chewed them down to the quick.”
For once, no one laughed or even twittered.
“Go to your seat, Hildemara Waltert.”
When Papa finished reading the Bible that evening, Hildemara asked if he had fought in the war. He frowned. “Why do you ask such a question?”
“Mrs. Ransom’s brother died in the war.”
“I was in Canada when it started.”
Mama interrupted before he could go on reading the Bible. “Had your papa been in Germany, he might have been killed, too, Hildemara. Hundreds of thousands died: Frenchmen, Englishmen, Canadians, Americans, and Germans.”
Bernie asked who started it.
Papa closed the Bible. “It’s too complicated to explain, Sohn. One angry man shot a royal and two countries went to war. Then friends of those countries took sides, and soon the whole world was fighting.”
“Except Switzerland.” Mama went on sewing. “They were smart enough to stay out of it.”
Papa opened his Bible again. “Yes, but they made plenty of money on it.”
Hildemara couldn’t make sense of it. “Did anybody you know die, Papa?”
“My father. My brothers.”
Mama’s eyes went wide. “This is the first I’ve heard of them.”
Papa gave her a sad smile. “I wasn’t hatched, Marta. I had a mother and father and brothers and sisters. My mother died when I was Hildemara’s age. My sisters were much older and married. I don’t know what happened to any of them. I’ve written letters.” He shook his head, his eyes moist. “Only God knows what became of them.”
When Hildemara got up the next morning, she asked Mama if there would be another war. “I don’t know, Hildemara.” She sounded angry and impatient. She finished braiding Hildemara’s hair and turned her around. “Why all these questions about the war? The war is over!”
Not for some people. She didn’t want to tell Mama what Mrs. Ransom did to her every day because Mama would get mad, and if Mama got mad, Mrs. Ransom would have all the more reason to be angry with Germans.
Hildemara felt sorry for Mrs. Ransom. She must be very sad to be so angry all the time. Hildemara prayed Mrs. Ransom would find another way to get over her brother’s death, and not take it out on her.
Mama tipped Hildemara’s chin. “Who told you Mrs. Ransom’s brother was killed in the war?”
“Elizabeth Kenney.”
“Well, it’s no excuse. God says not to hold a grudge. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” When Mama’s eyes grew moist, she stood abruptly and turned away. “Don’t forget your lunch bucket. You’d better hurry, or Bernhard will be halfway to school before you catch up.”
When Hildemara looked back, she saw Mama standing outside the tent, her arms wrapped around herself, watching. Hildemara ran down the road.
18
A few days later, Papa came home, his blue eyes bright with excitement. “I’ve found a place for us.”
Mama stopped stirring the stew over the outside cookfire and straightened. “Where?”
“It’s west of Murietta, about two miles outside the town limits, across the big canal. Mrs. Miller lost her husband last year. She needs someone to work the place until her daughter finishes high school. She said she might sell the place then.”
“How long before the girl finishes school, Niclas?”
“Four years, I think.”
“You didn’t sign a contract, did you?”
“Well, I—”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“Only two years. You told me to get experience! This is the best way to get it!”
Mama walked off toward the irrigation ditch. Papa followed her. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she shook him off. He talked for a long time, but Mama kept her back to him.
Bernie stood by Hildemara, watching them. “I hope Papa wins. At least we’d have a roof over our heads instead of living in a leaky tent.”
The one house on the property belonged to Mrs. Miller and her daughter, Charlotte, but Mrs. Miller gave Papa permission to build a temporary shelter on the property, with conditions. She didn’t want a shack. Mama wanted to speak to the woman herself when she heard Papa had to pay the expenses of building the structure, but Papa ordered her not to go near “the big house.”
Over the next few days, Papa built a wooden platform, half walls, and a framework over which he and Mama stretched tent canvas. The canvas sides could be rolled up on warm days, and rolled down in an attempt to keep rain and wind out. Cold air and water still managed to seep in. Papa stacked bricks and made a lean-to where Mama could cook
without jeopardizing the tent-house.
Mrs. Miller and her daughter had running water inside the house, but Mama had to use a hose near the barn and carry it bucket by bucket for tent use. Mrs. Miller also had an indoor bathroom, but Papa had to dig a deep hole and build an outhouse over it. Mrs. Miller also told Papa the children were not allowed near her flower garden. “She has prize roses and shows them at the fair each year.” The widow didn’t want the children near the house. “She doesn’t like noise.”
“Mercy, Niclas, what does she expect?”
“Peace and quiet.”
“Why don’t you ask her where our children can play?”
Papa winked at them. “Anywhere out of sight of the house.”
Bernie climbed almond trees and caught frogs in the irrigation ditch and horned toads in the vineyard. Clotilde played with her pretty china doll. Hildemara stayed close to the tent-house and Mama.
The mulberry tree provided shade, but dropped fruit on the canvas roof, staining it with red and purple splotches. Mama grumbled about living like a vagabond. It seemed the bigger Mama’s belly grew, the more her temper soured. She had no patience with anyone. Even Papa couldn’t soothe her temper.
Summer came early. Mama gave Hildemara the broom and told her to keep the platform swept. Too uncomfortable to stoop, she showed Hildemara how to peel and cut vegetables, how to fry meat, how to make biscuits. Summer boiled and the ground dried up in the heat.
Mama sewed the tent seams tighter, but short of keeping the sides down all day, which made the tent like an oven, she had to leave the canvas rolled high, which allowed dust and sand to blow in all day. Buzzing flies flew circles around Mama, who sat with a swatter in her hand waiting for them to land. Hot August nights had everyone sweating on their cots.
When the baby started coming, Papa had already gone out to work the harvest. Mama called out softly. “Hildemara, go tell Mrs. Miller I’m having a baby. Maybe she’ll show some compassion.”
Hildemara ran to the back door and pounded. “Stop that racket!” Mrs. Miller peered out through the screen without unlocking it. “If your father needs something, tell him he’ll have to wait until it cools off. I’m not coming out in this heat.”
Marta's Legacy Collection Page 19
