The Root Cellar

by Janet Lunn

  Susan woke up. They found that, for ten cents, they could have a wash basin and a toilet, so they squeezed themselves into one small booth and helped each other wash off the dirt from the day before. Then they went looking for breakfast.

  “Two dollars and fifty cents is a terrible price,” the woman behind the counter of the buffet apologized. “I don’t think it’s right, but with butter fifty cents the pound.…”

  “We can’t pay no two dollars and fifty cents for breakfast,” said Susan, and Rose, as anxious as Susan to make their money last, looked hungrily at the sizzling eggs and beef and bacon but did not argue.

  They found out that the train for Washington left the Jersey City station at eight o’clock and that they could take the six forty-five ferry from the Liberty Street dock. There was a horse car, but they decided to save the money and walk. They had a quick cup of coffee and a bun, which they bought at a stand near the entrance. Rose turned to Susan and announced firmly. “So the thing to do, Susan, is to get going.” And Susan said, “That’s so, Rose,” and they set out.

  To Find a Brother

  It had rained in the night, and the morning sun shined up the cobbles on the street and made the iron knobs of the hitching posts that stood in a row in front of the depot look like polished ebony sticks. The mingled odors of fresh rain, horses, coffee, and cooking from the food stalls was strong and not unpleasant. Sparrows were twittering and hopping along the street after the horses; pigeons strutted, one eye always on the lookout for crumbs. Already at six-thirty hawkers were shouting their wares and beggars clinked their tin cups.

  Rose looked around her apprehensively. The fear that had overwhelmed her in the night still threatened. She wanted and she didn’t want to know what the city was like. As they hurried along the streets, she tried not to remember the Chambers and Greenwich and Liberty streets she knew, that were like dark tunnels smelling of garbage and exhaust fumes from the cars and huge trucks that were always squeezing past each other. She concentrated instead on the wagons and carts and carriages that rumbled past the office buildings, stores, hotels, and private homes—none of them over six stories high. She did not let herself think about East 68th Street. When they reached the ferry docks, bells were clanging, the whistle was tooting, the huge paddle wheels were churning up the water. There was nothing to remind her of the docks and the boats she knew; out on the river, the great sailing vessels, the barges, and the steamboats were so different from anything she could remember that it seemed like a different harbor. When they had docked and made their way to the big, dingy railroad depot in Jersey City she was relieved, because she had never been there before, so there was nothing in her memory to compare it to.

  By this time the girls were seasoned travelers. They bought their tickets, two sandwiches, and a square of gingerbread for their lunches, and found their train in short order. With the trauma of New York behind her, thoughts of Will came rushing in again. They were nearing their journey’s end and fears assaulted her, fears that could be kept remote while there were still many miles to travel, and the traveling itself could occupy all thought. Would they find him? Would he be terribly changed? Would he be wounded? Sick? What if they could not find him? She could not bring herself even in her own mind to form the question: Would he be dead? She looked over at Susan sitting silently in the seat beside her, her eyes closed, and wondered if she too was afraid. She did not want to ask.

  It was not long before exhaustion had taken over and Rose put her head against the windowsill and slept. When she woke the train was pulling out of a station and Susan was nudging her anxiously.

  “I ain’t sure where we are.”

  Rose rubbed her eyes and, sitting up, saw a row of tidy houses with painted shutters and polished white steps, then a long, open vegetable market. In the distance was a tall bell tower. “What did the conductor say it was?”

  “He said something that sounded like Filaleldelf.”

  “Philadelphia?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, if he didn’t say Washington I guess it isn’t time to get off.”

  “Rose, you know I couldn’t ever have done this without you.” Susan smiled at her warmly. “I think you’re wonderful brave.”

  “No, I’m not. Really, I’m not,” Rose answered, surprised.

  “Yes, you are. You was brave to come and you was brave to stick when things got bad. I expect you could have gone back to wherever you come from any time you wanted, and you didn’t. You worked for that awful blacksmith and then, in New York, you never said nothing about losing all your things.”

  All Rose could think was how she had spent their last twenty cents in Albany, how she had wanted to leave in the Chambers Street depot, how mean she had been. “I wish I hadn’t spent the money,” she said.

  “I wish I hadn’t have left the grip with your things in it on the train.”

  “I don’t care about them any more. You lost all your money. Susan, are you still angry with me?”

  “Oh, Rose, after all you done!”

  “But are you?”

  “No, I ain’t.”

  “Then I’m glad about everything else.” Rose smiled and fell asleep again.

  Susan woke her at the outskirts of Washington. The land was low and flat and they could see the Capitol dome rising above the church spires in the distance. As they approached the city, they passed several acres of tents. The conductor told them they were army hospitals.

  “Last year there were tent cities almost clear back to Baltimore,” he said. “There are a few regiments still here because of the President being shot, but most are gone. Even the hospitals are dwindling fast. Soon as a feller can walk, he goes home—unless, of course, he ships off to Arlington.”

  “Arlington?”

  “Robert E. Lee’s old estate, the new government cemetery, miss.”

  The conductor moved on, leaving the ominous sentence hanging in the air.

  It was early evening when they reached the depot. “I ain’t sleeping on no train station bench tonight,” declared Susan. “And what’s more, I want a wash up. We got enough money for a room if it ain’t too dear.” They asked the ticket agent where they might find a place.

  “Well, you turn out to be a pair of lucky youngsters,” he told them. “It just so happens that my sister, a good Christian woman from Massachusetts, runs a boarding house over on Seventh Street. The widow Fiske. Her house is right behind Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel over near the stage and steamboat office. You can’t miss it.” In case they could, he repeated the directions three times and finished by saying, “Tell her Harold said you should come.”

  They had about half a mile to walk to Mrs. Fiske’s boarding house. Washington was unbearably hot, even in the evening, and it was damp and full of flies and mosquitoes. Washington did not frighten Rose the way New York had, but it felt strange—alien. The trees had all been cut down, and the dirt streets were crowded with people, dogs, cats, cows, chickens, goats, and pigs. The dust flew up in all directions with every passing carriage and cart.

  “At least it ain’t that awful black coal dust,” said Susan, wiping her face with a filthy cloth that had been a clean white handkerchief only a day earlier.

  “What difference does it make?” asked Rose. “I didn’t know a person could get so hot and dirty and still be alive. There’s coal dust and dirt in my teeth still. There’s coal dust and dirt in my hair. I bet there’s coal dust and dirt in my belly button, and I know there’s coal dust and dirt right through my skin and in my veins. I can’t tell anymore if I’m a white person or a black person.”

  “Shsh! Rose! They’ll hear you! There’s so many of ’em. I thought there was a lot when we was in Syracuse, but here there’s hundreds.”

  “Hundreds of what?”

  “Shsh! Black people. Where did they all come from?”

  “From the south, I suppose. They were probably slaves and they came here to be free when Abraham Lincoln gave his Emancipation Proclamation. Wh
y don’t you ask?”

  “Rose!” Susan was shocked. She grabbed Rose’s arm and hurried her on.

  By this time they were turning into Pennsylvania Avenue. The White House with its deep lawns was away to the south. As they turned north to go up the hill, the Capitol building was in front of them, its dome gleaming in the late sunlight. Rose remembered her one visit to Washington with her grandmother, a fuzzy memory of vast white buildings, wide tree-lined streets, parks, and the huge statue of Abraham Lincoln. This Washington, with its dirt streets, animals roaming untended along them, and raw ugly tree stumps along the avenue, was like a dream turned inside out. She shivered and felt again that edge of dark fear.

  “It’s nice,” Susan was saying, not realizing how Rose felt. “Them palaces is beautiful, but the rest looks a sight more homely than New York. But there ain’t been so many soldiers any other place.”

  So many soldiers—soldiers everywhere they looked. Like Susan, Rose peered anxiously into every face, hoping that by some lucky chance one might turn out to be Will’s. The soldiers, so many of them disfigured, without an arm or leg, made her shudder. In their weary eyes she saw the pain and hardship of the war they had just fought.

  They did not find Will, but they did find Mrs. Fiske’s boarding house. Mrs. Fiske herself came to the door, a tall woman with black hair done in a tight knob on the top of her head. Sharp black eyes stared down a long nose at them. Her mouth looked to be permanently pursed in disapproval. She wore a black dress with a white apron over it, and when she talked she jingled the keys that hung from a chain pinned to her apron. They told her they had come to look for their brother Will.

  “Well, don’t stand there.” Her voice was shrill and a bit nasal. “If Harold says I should take you in, then I’ll take you. Lord be praised, I’m not a one to shirk my Christian duty. Follow me!”

  She turned a brisk back, and Rose and Susan followed it down a long dark hall that smelled of old cabbage and something they found out later was okra. They were led out through a back door into a yard where two black people were mixing dough and husking corn.

  “You, Sally, and you, John,” said Mrs. Fiske. “Fetch up water for a bath and laundry.” At her words, they put down their work and went swiftly into the house.

  Mrs. Fiske turned to Rose and Susan. “The Lord don’t like dirt. You’ll have to scrub and scrub good. You brother and sister?”

  “Yes,” said Rose.

  “Then you can have the same tub. When you’re done, you wash up them dirty clothes. I’ll get you clean ones to use while they dry. Then come to me in the kitchen. You can leastways make yourselves useful. Charity can only go so far.”

  “We ain’t charity,” said Susan stiffly.

  “We’re orphans,” interrupted Rose. “We’re not used to charity, but we thank you very much.”

  Mrs. Fiske’s glance barely softened as she looked at Rose. “You seem to know how to be grateful for the Lord’s bounty, son,” she said. “Now scrub up smartly.” She turned and went back into the house.

  “Why’d you have to say that?” whispered Susan fiercely as soon as Mrs. Fiske was out of sight. Her face had turned bright red and she looked very angry. “We ain’t charity. We got money.”

  “We don’t have that much money, Susan. She’s horrible, but she’s going to let us have a bath and clean clothes and a place to sleep.” Rose knew how to reach Susan. “And what if, when we find Will, he hasn’t got any money?”

  “That’s so,” said Susan, and they sat down on the grass and waited.

  In a very few minutes, John and Sally came out of the house carrying a huge boiler between them.

  “Y’all come along here with us.” John nodded in the direction of a little wooden hut at the back of the yard. Inside was a large wooden tub in the middle of the floor, and a bench along one side. After Sally and John had poured the steaming water into the tub and enough cold water from the well out in the yard so that they would not scald themselves, Sally gave them a large chunk of soap.

  “There, now,” she said with a big smile. “Y’all take off them filthy clothes and give ’em to me. I’ll scrub ’em up for you, and Mrs. Fiske ain’t never gonna know who done it.”

  They thanked her, and after Sally and John had gone outside they peeled off their clothes. “Black people is nice,” said Susan, and they got into the tub, gasping at the shock of the hot water. It smelled of steam and wet cedar wood and strong lye. When they were both sitting down, all squinched up together, their weight pushed the water so high only their heads stuck up above it.

  Rose sighed. “I think this is the most blissful thing I’ve ever done in my whole life,” she murmured. “If I die right here in this old tub full of hot water, I won’t care.”

  They washed their bodies and their hair and emerged from the blackened water like two new pink babies. They dried themselves on the large cloth Sally had left and put on the clean clothes they found in a pile outside the door.

  For Rose there was a pair of worn, slightly too-small britches very like the ones she had taken off, only made of washed-out gray cotton, and a white shirt, much patched, a little big and still smelling of the iron. For Susan there was a dress, made of the same dull gray cotton, but neat with a small round white collar, and underdrawers. They found no stockings, so they put on their shoes without. There was no comb or brush, so they smoothed out their hair as best they could with their hands and went to look for Mrs. Fiske.

  The kitchen smelled of roasting chicken. In the center there was a large table covered with vegetables in various stages of preparation. Mrs. Fiske looked the girls over briefly, praised God for their new-found cleanliness, and handed them each a pile of plates with instructions to put them at either end of the big table in the dining room—and be smart about it. For half an hour they carried plates of food to the twelve non-charity boarders, while Mrs. Fiske carved meager portions from two chickens.

  When the boarders had finished, Mrs. Fiske sat Rose and Susan down at the kitchen table, handed them each a small plate of vegetables, and recited a long blessing over them. “Now you be quick about eating as there’s washing up to do.” She left the kitchen.

  As soon as she had gone, Rose jumped up and went over to where the remains of the roast chickens stood on a small side table and, without saying a word, picked over them until she had a handful of bits and pieces for the two of them.

  After supper they washed the dishes for the twelve boarders. (Mrs. Fiske came in once to put away the remains of the chicken, looked at them very suspiciously, and put it in a cupboard with a lock on it.)

  It was after midnight when they finally got to bed in a little hot dark room over the kitchen. But they were up before the first sunlight and out of the house. They could hear humming from the kitchen and found Sally there getting the day started. She and John, it turned out, did not live there. They came every morning at five to start work.

  “Where y’all goin’, honey?” she asked, and they told her about Will. Sally got out two extra large chunks of corn bread and found some cheese. “Now you hush up about this,” she warned. Then she told them as much as she knew about the hospitals in Washington and set them on their way with good wishes and prayers for their success.

  They tramped the length and breadth of Washington that day. First they went out to Eighth Street to the hospital that Mrs. Heilbrunner on the Oswego train had told Rose about. They talked to the adjutant there. No, he didn’t know of any boys from the 81st regiment.

  “Not too many leave here except to go to the cemetery,” he told them, echoing the train conductor’s words. “I’m sorry to have to say that, but it wouldn’t do you any good for me to lie. Perhaps you’d better check at Arlington before you wear yourselves out looking in hospitals.”

  “I ain’t going to.” Susan was adamant. “I ain’t looking first in no graveyard.”

  The adjutant passed them on to the matron who told them they could search through the hospital because there were soldi
ers there whose memories had gone, whose names no one knew.

  They walked up and down the rows of cots looking into suffering, sick, and dying faces, bearing the smell of medicine, rotting flesh, and bad food as long as they could. Will was not there. When they left, Rose vomited behind the building.

  At the hospital they had learned the addresses of others. They went to all of them. No one knew Will or Steve, though they asked wherever they could, walked through long hospital wards, forcing themselves to look into each face. No Will, no Steve. By the time they had been through the third hospital, Rose longed to stop, longed never to look again into those faces, never to set foot inside one of those places of misery. Nothing that had happened to her, nothing she had ever imagined was like this kind of suffering. She was on the verge of telling Susan that she could not bear it anymore, but one look at Susan’s white face, the grim determination in her jaw, and Rose swallowed back the words, took Susan’s hand, and went on.

  The heat was overpowering. Outside, the flies and mosquitoes were thick as the dust. Away from the stench of the hospitals, the air stank of sewage and catalpa trees. The heat shimmered on the roads. They stopped once to buy “ice-cold water” from a street vendor—but it was not, it was warm as bath water. Rose developed a large blister on the heel of one foot but she said nothing—about that or anything else. They were silent and resolute the whole day.

  They took a horse car to go out to the tent hospitals, four in a row, and no word of Will or Steve there either. One man from upstate New York was delirious and raving about mayflowers. Susan leaned over him and brushed the hair back from his forehead. “It might be Will,” she said quietly.

  “It isn’t Will.”

  “It’s someone’s Will.”

  They took the car back into town. When they reached Mrs. Fiske’s, she already had dinner on the table. She fed them bread and thin soup in the kitchen.

  “The Lord’s great bounty has to be worked for,” she told them severely and prayed over them for half an hour while the soup got cold, that they might be forgiven their selfishness when the Lord’s work was waiting to be done. They said nothing to her, washed the dishes, and went to bed. Early the next morning they found that Sally had left their own clothes on a bench in their room. They changed, crept down to the kitchen, helped themselves to two large corn muffins, and sneaked out the front door.