by Ann Tatlock
Aunt Sally saw it, too. "Don't worry so, Lillian," she said. She blew a strand of hair out of her eyes as she worked. "You look as though he's going off to war."
Without turning to look at Aunt Sally, Mother said so softly that I could scarcely hear, "It's just that I have a bad feeling...." But she didn't finish her sentence, and her voice trailed off.
As she stood there with her hand upon the screen, I recalled Mother telling me that years ago she wrote "Will and Lil" all over her school books, and I think for the first time I understood that my mother and father were together not because that was how it had to be, but because they had chosen it. She was as far from romantic as a person could be, but Mother did love Papa. And Papa loved her. It was not the stuff of Hollywood, the land of happy endings, but the stuff of real life, in which a part of loving meant you had something to lose.
I went to Mother and put my arms about her waist. Her hand dropped from the screen and rested against my back. We watched together as the Buick rumbled through the alley and disappeared.
I remember it was the Fourth of July because Rufus and Luke brought firecrackers and sparklers home from somewhere, which we lighted that night after dark. In those days the city didn't plan a fireworks display, but anyone who felt so inclined shot off Roman candles and whatnot from their yards, which meant an odd assortment of lights littering the sky at any one time, as well as an inevitable number of accidents taking place on the ground. Very often Papa was called upon to take care of minor burns. The greater mishaps, such as hands left without fingers in unexpected explosions, went directly to the hospital.
American flags waved from front porches all up and down our street. I saw the patriotic gesture as ironic--people had been complaining about our country all year long, but now that it was Independence Day, they went right ahead and celebrated as usual. Maybe it wasn't hypocrisy that led to the flags and the fireworks. Maybe it was hope. Hope that prosperity would indeed return in spite of all the indications that the economy was continuing to worsen.
Papa had come home whistling late that afternoon after being down at the camp for only a few hours. He announced that he had helped deliver a healthy baby girl, which I thought was a fine thing. Ever since Claudia and Molly were born, I believed all babies should be girls. I'd been eight when Claudia arrived, ten when Molly came--old enough to remember what it was like to hold them when they were only minutes old. To me they were the most miraculous things I'd ever seen, all pink and warm and perfect. I wondered what the newborn down at Soo City looked like. I pictured her tucked into a cradle just like the one my little sisters had been laid in, dressed in a tiny hand-stitched gown and covered with a homemade quilt. But then I realized there was probably no cradle, no hand-stitched gown, no quilt. That child's house, according to Papa, was made from an odd assortment of wooden boards and sheets of corrugated tin. Fancy baby items had no place in a home like that.
"Is she a pretty baby, Papa?" I asked. We sat together on the porch swing after the fireworks and sparklers had fizzled out and all the others had gone inside to bed or to get something cold to drink. I hoped none of our neighbors had burned a hand or otherwise injured themselves, because I didn't want Papa to be suddenly called away.
"Cute as the dickens," Papa answered. Then he looked sideways at me and smiled. "Of course, not half as pretty as you were when you were born."
I wrinkled my nose to say I didn't believe him, but secretly I hoped he thought I'd been the most beautiful baby he'd ever seen.
"Were her mama and papa happy?"
"Oh yes, certainly," Papa replied. Then he added, "But it was a happiness mixed with a little sadness too. When you have a child, you want to feel you can give her the best of everything, but--well, these parents won't be able to do that. Not for a while, anyway. These aren't the best of times to be raising a family."
Papa's comment weighed on me and pulled my brow into a frown. "But, Papa," I remarked, "you're raising a family in these times." I looked up at him with something akin to fear in my eyes. The thought occurred to me, probably for the first time, that my brother, sisters, and I might be a burden to Papa.
My father understood my unspoken words. "Yes," he said, smiling kindly as he patted my short hair. "But, you see, we're a little better off than some. I've never given much thought to money, certainly never had any desire to be rich, but I can't deny that life is better when you have enough money for the things you need. It frees you up from the terrible burden of worrying about the basics--like where your next meal is going to come from and whether or not you're going to have a bed to sleep in."
I thought about how it was Mother who kept the books and tried to collect delinquent payments, and how she always said we'd all be in the poorhouse if it weren't for her.
Papa paused and pushed the swing slightly with the ball of one foot. My own legs were long enough that with both feet planted on the porch my bony knees stuck up like twin snow-capped mountains every time we swung forward. I thought about how Papa and I had been swinging together on this porch swing ever since my legs were so short that my feet barely hung over the edge of the seat.
Papa continued. "We're very blessed, Ginny, and that's something I never take for granted. I know how fortunate I am to have all that I have--and the best that I have is you and your brother and sisters."
Papa's words relieved me of my momentary guilt. Papa saw me as a blessing, not a burden, and that was a wonderful thing. Had I been more mature I might have wondered why our family was so blessed when others suffered, but at the time I simply took our good fortune for granted.
"And you're glad you have Mama, too, aren't you, Papa?" I asked.
"Oh yes." Papa smiled. "Very, very glad."
"We're just about the best family in the world, aren't we?"
"If not the best, then we're pretty close," he agreed.
That settled, my mind wandered back to the family so recently expanded down in Soo City. "The little baby that was born today--does she have any brothers or sisters?" I asked.
"Two brothers."
"Then it's especially nice that she's a girl."
"Uh-huh," Papa agreed absently.
"Do you know what they named her, Papa?"
"I believe they named her Caroline Sue. Yup, that's it. Caroline Sue Everhart."
I mistook the spelling of her middle name. "Did they name her after the Soo line, Papa?"
Papa chuckled mildly. "I don't believe so, though that might have been appropriate after all. She came into the world just as the three-thirty-five to Chicago passed by the camp. Her first cries were all but drowned out by the train's whistle." He chewed his cheek a moment and cast a distant glance somewhere far beyond the porch rails, reflecting. "She must have thought the world an awfully noisy place, poor thing."
We swung in silence for a moment, looking out over the dark street and listening to all the night songs of nature mingled with distant radios and the rumbling of our neighbors' voices as they gathered on their own porches to talk.
"Think her family will have to live down by those tracks for long?"
"I don't know," Papa said. "I hope not."
"Mama says no child should have to be in a place like that."
"No child and no woman--no man, for that matter. Someday I hope such places won't exist."
"Do you think so, Papa?"
"Yes, I think so."
"I hope by the time little Caroline knows she's alive, she'll be in a nice house with pretty curtains and a big front porch and a yard with a flower garden and everything."
"I hope so too, Ginny."
For a moment I sat quietly, pondering the makeshift city in which Caroline had begun her life. "Is it very awful there?" I asked. "Down in the camp, I mean."
Papa considered my question. Then he said, "Pretty awful, yes."
"Mama doesn't like you going down there."
"No, I'm afraid she doesn't."
"Why not, Papa?"
"Oh, I guess she worries ab
out things."
"What kinds of things?"
Papa pushed his glasses farther up his nose and scratched his thinning hair. "Things she doesn't need to be worried about," he answered.
He didn't know I'd heard his conversation with Sheriff Dysinger, and I didn't dare ask him anything directly about Communists in the camp. I chewed my lip a moment while I thought of how to phrase my next question. "Are there--do you think there's any bad people down there by the river?"
Papa shook his head slowly. "No, no bad people. Just people down on their luck."
"Then Mama shouldn't worry so much?"
"No, she shouldn't worry so much."
"And there's nothing to be afraid of?"
"Of course not," Papa said, patting my shoulder. "There isn't anything to be afraid of."
I wanted to believe Papa, but I couldn't reconcile his assurances with what I'd heard the sheriff say. If there really was no danger, why would Sheriff Dysinger warn Papa not to go down there? And too, there was the sheriff's final unanswered question nudging at me as though it hung still in the air around the porch swing: "What's in it for you, Will?"
"Papa?" I asked.
"Hmm?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Why do I do what?"
"Why do you want to go to an awful place like Soo City?"
Papa took off his glasses and polished them while he thought. He put them back on his nose and tucked the handkerchief in his shirt pocket. Then he said, "Did I ever tell you the old story about the Jewish rabbi who was given a special tour of heaven and hell, with God himself as the tour guide?"
Papa had told me many things about the Jews. He said they were God's chosen people. He said the first Christians were Jews, and that if we traced the roots of our faith to the very beginning, they would go all the way back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He said the Jews were to be respected for their special place in history and in the unfolding of God's plan for the world. But I couldn't remember Papa ever telling me about a rabbi getting a tour of heaven and hell.
"No," I said. "I don't think you told me about that."
The cicadas sang. A lone car passed in the street. Papa followed its taillights with his eyes until the car turned a corner and disappeared. Then he said, "Well, it seems God took this rabbi down to the netherworld first to show him what it was like. It wasn't a place of fire, as you might expect, but just a regular room where a lot of people were sitting around a big round table. It was obvious to the rabbi that the people were famished, even though in the middle of the table there was a huge pot of stew with more than enough for everyone. Seems the problem was that the only eating utensils the people had were spoons with very long handles--so long that once a person scooped out a bit of the stew he couldn't reach his mouth with the end of the spoon. The rabbi could see that these people were in a terrible predicament and were really suffering.
"Then the Lord told the rabbi that he wanted to show him heaven. Turns out God took him into another room that was exactly like the first one. There was the large round table and the pot of stew and the long-handled spoons. But the people sitting around this table were plump and happy. They were talking and laughing and just having a good old time. The rabbi couldn't understand it. He scratched his head and tugged at his beard and just about turned blue in the face trying to figure out why this place was different from the first. `It's simple,' God finally told him. `These people have learned to feed each other.' "
Papa and I swayed together in the swing. I waited for him to continue, but he remained silent. Finally I figured he was finished, that this story was the answer to my question, though I couldn't quite make the connection. I didn't much like it when grown-ups answered my questions with parables. Not only did the use of parables leave room for errors in interpretation, but it also meant that I had to think harder than otherwise.
Finally I said rather hesitantly, "So I guess you're feeding the stew to the people in Soo City."
Papa nodded. "Something like that."
I wasn't satisfied. Maybe he had uncovered the riddle of the long-handled spoon, maybe he knew what he was supposed to do with that strange utensil, but what was he getting in return? Who around that shantytown table was feeding Papa? It was supposed to be a mutually beneficial deal, after all, and I could only imagine that Papa was getting slighted.
My father, it seems, could sense my uncertainty. "Don't you understand, Ginny?" he asked kindly. "There's nothing noble about what I'm doing. I go down to Soo City simply because it makes me happy."
Made him happy? To work in that filthy place and not get a dime for his efforts?
Sometimes I thought Papa a little odd. This was definitely one of those times.
Chapter Eleven
Charlotte was laid low with a cold, so I was entertaining myself by dancing and singing along with our floor-model Philco radio on the afternoon Papa announced he was taking me with him to Soo City. "Happy Days Are Here Again" was coming in over the airwaves, and I was flapping my arms and singing so loudly I didn't even know Papa was in the parlor with me until the radio went dead. I stopped in midtwirl and discovered my father with his hand on the radio knob. Before I could apologize for the noise--I was sure he was there to tell me that all the patients in the waiting room were complaining--he said, "Put your shoes on, Ginny. I'm going down to Soo City to make my rounds, and I want you to come along."
My surprise left me as immobile as Lot's wife when she turned into a pillar of salt. With arms still suspended in midair, I could only manage to mutter, "You do?"
"You've been wanting to see the baby, haven't you? Well, she's three days old now, and it's time I got back there to check up on her and her mother."
At once an odd combination of fear and curiosity seized me. I didn't particularly want to go traipsing through a place that Papa himself described as awful, and I was still decidedly leery of the people who populated the camp. If Sherman Browne, the man who had rushed into our yard while I was pinning up clothes, typified the citizens of Soo City, they weren't a group I wanted to mingle with. Besides, what about Mother's dread of disease and her whispered premonition of disaster? What about the sheriff's warning of Communist organizers getting the men all riled up to no good? Papa's assurances that there wasn't anything to fear somewhat assuaged my anxiety for his safety, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to test the waters myself.
And yet a morbid inquisitiveness drew me to observe firsthand these people living in squalor down by the river. I found myself facing an opportunity not open to the other neighborhood kids. Think of what I would have to tell Charlotte.
Before I could make a move to run upstairs and get my shoes, Mother rushed into the room, wiping her hands on her ever present apron. "William!" she exclaimed. "Did I hear you say you were taking Virginia down to the camp with you?"
Evidently my parents hadn't discussed this matter between themselves. I don't know whether Papa had been thinking about it for a while or had decided to take me on the spur of the moment. He was generally a predictable type, but sometimes he had his whims.
"I see your ears are as sharp as ever, dear. Yes, I'm taking Ginny down to the camp with me today." In a lower voice, he continued. "I think it'll do her good."
Mother cast a worried glance in my direction, then indicated with a nod of her head that Papa was to step with her out into the hall. Their slight change of location, however, didn't keep me from overhearing their conversation.
"What do you mean, it'll do her good?" Mother asked anxiously. Ironically, I was pondering the same question myself.
"Just that," Papa replied simply. "Ginny's growing up."
I acknowledged my father's words with gratitude that someone had noticed I was growing up--even if that person generally couldn't remember to call me Virginia. "It's about time she was introduced to those less fortunate than herself."
"But, William," Mother protested, "that camp is no place for a young lady."
"I can't think of a better place for our d
aughter to learn a few facts about the harsher side of life. I won't have her pampered, Lillian. Besides, I could use her help."
"Doing what?"
"Oh, this and that," Papa remarked evasively. "Whatever the situation warrants at the time."
"I'm sorry, but I just don't think this is a good idea. It's bad enough that you insist on going down there yourself, but to take Virginia--"
"Trust me, Lillian. Everything will be fine. She'll be with me every minute. I promise not to let her out of my sight. Not that any harm could come to her anyway, even if she were to wander the camp by herself. It's no more dangerous than the streets of our own neighborhood."
"But--"
I stepped to the doorway between the parlor and the hall in time to see Papa lay one finger gently across Mother's lips. He smiled. "I appreciate your motherly concern, Lillian. I love you for it. But I'm Ginny's father, and I have some idea, too, about what's good for her. Now, have I ever steered you wrong?"
Mother took Papa's hand from her lips and said quietly, "No, William."
They both turned to look at me. "Don't worry, Mama," I said. "I want to go. I want to help Papa if I can."
Mother sighed resignedly. "Run and get your shoes, then."
A few minutes later, with the tinny radio tune still echoing in my brain, I was sitting with Papa in the Buick as we headed for the camp. Since we lived in a neighborhood on the edge of town, our house wasn't far from the spot on the river that the hobos had long inhabited. I'd estimate the distance was between two and three miles. We didn't say much on the way. Papa's only comment, delivered with a chuckle, was, "Sometimes your mother worries overly much."
I didn't know what was ahead, but I decided to try to enjoy the brief ride until we got there. Our car was a 1929 four-door sedan, olive green with wooden spokes on the wheels. The seats were real leather instead of cloth, which was pretty grand for those days, perhaps even a bit highfalutin. The fact was, though, that Papa bought the Buick secondhand and had gotten a good deal. The previous owner had had possession of the car for only nine days when the stock market crashed and wiped out the man's modest fortune. The hapless victim returned the car to the dealership, left the keys on the front seat, and simply walked away from it. The equally hapless salesman was glad to sell the car to Papa at a greatly reduced price just to get it off his hands. Even though most of the other doctors in town drove sleek black Packards, we were all proud of that Buick--except for Papa, who saw it only as the quickest means for making urgent house calls. When it came to possessions, Papa was strictly utilitarian. As for me, I always felt like the Queen of Sheba whenever I rode around in our car because, though it may not have rivaled the transportation of other doctors, it was undoubtedly the nicest automobile on our block.
