The Hope Chest

by Karen Schwabach

  “Here!” Mrs. Renwick waved to the candy butcher, who was coming down the aisle with his box-shaped tray strapped to his belly. “A Tootsie Roll for the young lady, please. No, make it two Tootsie Rolls.”

  The man gave Violet the candy and accepted a nickel from Mrs. Renwick. “Anything for yourself, ma'am?”

  “Oh no, not for me.” Mrs. Renwick's enthusiasm waned suddenly and she did the thing with her eyelids again. Violet looked hastily away. “I'm not well, you know.… Dying, in fact.…”

  But the candy butcher hadn't listened past “no” and was off down the aisle again calling, “Candy!”

  Violet bit into a Tootsie Roll and let the burned-chocolate taste run over her tongue. She looked at the dying Mrs. Renwick (whom she had politely thanked, of course) and thought that if growing up meant having seven children and wearing a dead bird on her head, Violet would rather have been born a boy.

  Meeting Myrtle

  THE TRAIN WAS STUCK FOR A LONG TIME IN Scranton because of some sort of trouble on the tracks. It was evening when it pulled into New York.

  The station was huge. Violet bid a hasty farewell to Mrs. Renwick and sped away, trying to look like she knew where she was going. She was conscious that other people had suitcases and even trunks, which colored men in dark uniforms and red caps wheeled along for them on carts. She had nothing at all but her letters from Chloe and sixty-seven cents pinned in a handkerchief inside her blouse. The train station went on and on, its stone floors and high, vaulted ceilings echoing with the voices of hundreds of people.

  Now what? It was hard to think straight with all this noise. New York was somehow much louder than Violet had imagined. Violet looked over her shoulder to see if Mrs. Renwick was still watching her, but Mrs. Renwick was gone. Violet was glad but also scared. She needed to ask directions, and she did not know how. A policeman in a blue uniform stood beside an iron pillar, swinging his stick. Speaking to adults was a dangerous business. One wrong word could get you sent to your room without dinner.

  How did you address a police officer? Girls weren't supposed to say “sir”—that was for boys and the Wrong Sort of People. You should call men “Mr.” something, but she didn't know the police officer's name. And speaking without being spoken to was always wrong.

  Violet took a deep breath. If she didn't break any of these rules, she was going to be stuck in this train station forever.

  “Excuse me, sir, can you tell me the way out of the train station?”

  The policeman leaned down and peered at her as if she were very small. “The exit's at the top of the stairs, little girl. Where's your mama?”

  “She's … my sister's waiting for me,” Violet said hastily.

  “Uh-huh.” The policeman looked suspicious. “Well, why don't you just stand right here with me, and we'll wait for your sister together.”

  Violet couldn't think what to do. If she ran away, the policeman might chase after her. She stood beside him, thinking fast—how was she going to get away so she could find Henry Street and Chloe?

  “What does your sister look like?” the policeman asked.

  “She's tall and … Oh, there she is!” Violet took off running, calling over her shoulder, “Thank you, sir!”

  Violet hadn't seen Chloe, of course. But it fooled the policeman. She ran up the stone staircase and squeezed into the brass-and-glass revolving door next to a young woman in a green hat topped with a tall upright ruffle of starched silk like a crown. She smiled up at the woman adoringly in case the policeman was still watching her.

  With a thumping swish, the revolving door dumped Violet out onto the sidewalk. It was much darker out than she'd expected. It was evening of a long August day, but the street was a canyon between high granite and cast-iron skyscrapers, and the sun didn't reach the bottom. Motorcars, streetcars, and horse-drawn wagons rumbled by, guided by electric or kerosene lamps mounted on the front. People pushed past Violet, and she stumbled back against the granite wall of the train station. New York was loud, and fast, and scary, and she didn't like it.

  “Hey!” A boy in knee britches pushed her. “This is my section. Shove off.” He picked up an armload of newspapers and threw himself into the crowd, shouting, “Extra! Extra! Red Army advances on Warsaw; Poland sues for peace!”

  The crowd tossed the boy around like a kernel of popcorn in a shaking pan until he popped back out. He bumped up against the wall and shook his fist at Violet. “I said get lost. Go find your own sidewalk.”

  He shoved Violet again, and she stumbled out into the moving crowd.

  Terrified, Violet struggled to stay upright. The crowd caught her and carried her along. She didn't know where she was going. She wanted to ask if anybody knew the way to Henry Street, but nobody even looked at her. Once she was knocked off the sidewalk into the street, and there was a squeal of brakes and the blast of a long, curled brass car horn. Violet scrambled hastily up onto the sidewalk and tried to stay closer to the walls. She felt like Dorothy caught up in the cyclone or Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

  Sometimes the crowd crossed streets—she could tell because the sidewalks beneath her feet turned to asphalt road and then back into sidewalk again. Violet could see nothing but the shoulders of men's coats and women's dresses and here and there the face of someone her own age. Unlike her, they seemed able to weave expertly through the people, going whichever way they wanted.

  After what seemed like hours, Violet found herself free of the crowd. It was dark now, or almost dark—it was hard to tell, because the massive iron bulk of the elevated railway covered the sidewalk and part of the street like a roof, and electric signs over shop windows turned everything an eerie orange. New York was huger than Violet had imagined, and she had no idea how she was going to find Chloe. She was beginning to wish she had never left Susquehanna.

  The sounds of ragtime music jingled from some of the shops, and men in loose-fitting suits and straw boater hats lounged around the doorways. From one shop with a sign out front that said Barbizon Wigs Best Quality, Violet heard a woman singing along with a nickelodeon tinnily playing a song that had been popular a few months ago:

  How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm

  After they've seen Paree?

  How you gonna keep 'em from disappearing,

  Jazzing around, and painting the town?

  How you gonna keep 'em away from harm?

  That's a mystery.

  As Violet passed a group of men lounging in front of a candy store, one of them reached out and grabbed her arm. “Hey, baby, come on in and dance with me. Let's shake a leg!”

  “Let go of me!” Violet kicked at his shins. She thought he smelled strongly of liquor, but that couldn't be. Alcohol had been illegal in the United States ever since the Volstead Act took effect in January.

  The stupid man just laughed, but one of the others shoved him and said, “Cheese it, Stan. That ain't no broad; that's just a kid.”

  Stan let go. Frightened and disgusted, Violet hurried away. After that, she stayed well away from the doorways, skirting inside the El's giant iron legs. She kept walking, fast. She didn't know where she was going, but she didn't like where she was.

  A train thundered overhead, making the iron frame of the El creak and the sidewalk under Violet's feet tremble. There was an enormous, crashing roar, as if the El were collapsing. Coal smoke filled her lungs and made her eyes smart. Violet stumbled blindly, unable to see but desperate to get out from under the crumbling Elevated.

  Panicking, she stumbled into the street and slipped on something. She skidded, flailing her arms, trying to stay balanced. Then she hit the pavement with a smack that rattled her teeth. It took her a moment to catch her breath enough to smell what she'd slipped on. Horse dung.

  A hand grabbed her arm. “Hey! Are you trying to get run over, or what?”

  Violet was ready to give up on New York. She had a confused idea that the easiest way to do that was just to stay where she was. Getting up was painful. She c
limbed gingerly onto the curb. Someone was brushing vigorously at the back of her skirt. “Now your dress is all dirty!”

  Violet turned to see who had pulled her out of the gutter.

  It was a black girl—colored, Violet corrected herself. Nice people said colored. The girl only came up to Violet's shoulder, but she was dressed in a maid's uniform—a blue-and-white-striped old-fashioned dress that came almost to her ankles, a white apron that tied behind with a big bow, and a quaint white mobcap that looked like it belonged two centuries in the past. One small braid had worked its way free from the cap. A badge on her dress said Girls' Training Institute.

  “Are you all right?” said the girl, who was still brushing Violet off.

  “Yes, I'm all right. But the El just collapsed. Was anybody hurt?” Violet looked around fearfully, expecting to see wreckage and smoke.

  The girl glanced over Violet's shoulder. “The El wasn't collapsing; it was just going by,” she said, sounding amused. Violet turned and saw to her embarrassment the dark outline of the El track behind her, apparently intact.

  “You must not be from around here,” said the girl, looking at Violet critically. “Where are you trying to get to?”

  “The Henry Street Settlement House,” said Violet.

  “Boy, are you lost,” said the girl. “Come on.” She took Violet's arm and led her down the street. “My name's Myrtle Davies. What's yours?”

  Violet had never been introduced to a colored person before, let alone introduced herself. She decided to say the same thing she had to Mrs. Renwick. “I am Miss Violet Mayhew of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.”

  “Susquehanna, Pennsylvania? No wonder you're lost,” said Myrtle. “I'm surprised they let you out on your own.”

  “You're out on your own,” Violet pointed out, irritated. Myrtle looked a lot younger than Violet.

  “But I know my way around,” said Myrtle. “And I'm city-born. I grew up in Washington, D.C.”

  Grew up, Violet thought, was an exaggeration. The girl couldn't be older than eight. “What are you doing in New York, then?”

  “I was sent here to attend the Girls' Training Institute.” Myrtle said the last three words in a high, nasal singsong that communicated quite clearly that she loathed the place. “We cross here—stop!” Myrtle grabbed the square collar of Violet's blouse just as a steam-powered automobile zoomed down the street.

  “What are they training you for?” Violet asked.

  “Nothing,” said Myrtle with a shrug, sidestepping a mound of horse manure. “I try not to spend too much time there, to tell the truth.”

  “Well, but is it a school?” said Violet, getting irritated again. “Or what?”

  “It's supposed to be a school.” Myrtle shrugged again. “It trains colored girls to be maids. They sent me here because the training institutes in D.C. won't take girls my age. I'm ten, and they said you have to be twelve.”

  “Who sent you?” said Violet, thinking that Myrtle barely looked eight, let alone ten. But she'd heard all her life that colored people were Different, so maybe they grew differently. “Your parents?”

  “My parents are dead,” said Myrtle. “The ladies at church sent me.”

  “Oh.” It was getting dark. They turned into a narrow street with wagons parked all along both sides of it. Some were unhitched; the dark shapes of horses fidgeted and stamped between the shafts of others. Buildings loomed overhead, and most of the streetlights were broken. Violet suddenly felt cold, even though it was an August night. This whole street seemed foreign and dangerous and smelled overwhelmingly of horseradish. To distract herself, Violet said, “Don't you want to be a maid, then?”

  “Would you?” said Myrtle.

  “Of course not,” said Violet. She had an odd feeling that Myrtle's situation was a little like her own—except that Violet had marriage looming in front of her and Myrtle had being a maid. But they were both caged in by other people's plans for them, with no hope of escape. Except that Violet was escaping.

  “I'm sorry about your parents,” Violet added belatedly. She thought about what it must be like to have both your parents dead. Father rarely spoke to her, and Mother was mostly in the business of handing out rules. They were never warm or friendly like parents she'd read about in books. Still, not having them would make the world a very strange place. Like a house without a roof.

  “Thank you,” said Myrtle with dignity.

  A sharp pickles-and-onions smell cut through the horseradish and manure, and Violet realized how hungry she was. She looked around for the source.

  There! Violet saw a pushcart on two huge wooden wagon wheels topped by a big canvas umbrella. A kerosene lantern hanging from the umbrella pole shed just enough light for Violet to make out the words painted on the side: Hot Dogs Lemonade.

  The warm light from the lantern made the street seem less scary. “Let's get a hot dog, Myrtle,” Violet said.

  “I don't have any money,” Myrtle said.

  “That's okay. I do.” Violet turned to the hot dog seller, a man in a long white apron and plaid cloth cap. “Two hot … er, how much are they, please?”

  “Five cents each,” the man said. He had a foreign accent. “Five cents for lemonade—you gotta drink it here, though, 'cause I only got the one glass.”

  Violet looked at the smudged glass, which he held out for her inspection, and at the open bucket of lemonade hanging on the side of the cart. She was thirsty, but …

  “Two hot dogs, please,” she said. The man took a sharp iron knife and slit two buns, then delicately plucked two red, spicy-smelling sausages out of the cart with his fingers. He slathered them with mustard and ketchup and forked sauerkraut and fried onions on top of them. “There you go, miss. Don't drop 'em.”

  Violet had always been taught that only the very lowliest of the Wrong Sort of People ate on the street, and Myrtle had apparently been taught the same thing. They walked for a minute in silence, breathing the delicious smell of onions. Violet's stomach growled.

  “In here,” Myrtle said. They stepped into a narrow alley crisscrossed with clotheslines overhead and gobbled the hot dogs out of public view. Violet thought nothing had ever tasted better.

  Henry Street

  THE HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT HOUSE had stone steps with wrought-iron railings. At the bottom of the steps sat a group of girls playing jacks and a woman rocking a baby in a baby carriage with her foot. Violet followed Myrtle up the steps to a heavy wooden door.

  “I think we just go in,” said Myrtle.

  Violet had a lifelong training in good manners, and it did not include going into other people's houses without knocking. She hesitated, but Myrtle pushed the door open and went in. Violet followed her with some trepidation. The house had an ordinary hall, with a carpet and an umbrella stand.

  Upstairs, some people were singing. Violet couldn't understand the words. They were in a foreign language.

  Violet looked questioningly at Myrtle. Myrtle shrugged. “I've never been inside here before,” she said.

  Violet went over to one of the doors and tentatively pushed it open.

  It was a parlor, rather like the one back home had been before it was turned into Stephen's recuperation room. There were some bookshelves, a mahogany table, and a sofa and some armchairs covered in red velvet.

  A man was sitting in one of the chairs, absorbed in a book. He had a thin, harried look, as if he hadn't gotten enough sleep in several years. Violet stepped hesitantly into the room. She could feel Myrtle following just behind her. “Excuse me …,” she began.

  The man started, although Violet noticed he closed the book on his hand to keep from losing his place, just as she would have done.

  “Good evening, ladies.” The man stood up, as if Violet and Myrtle were in fact ladies. “How do you do?”

  “Very well, thank you.” Violet curtsied, and Myrtle did the same. All this politeness was such a waste of time—she just wanted to see her sister! “I was wondering if you might know where
I can find Miss Chloe Mayhew.”

  As soon as she said Chloe's name, the man dropped the book.

  He bent to pick it up, examining it carefully for damage. Violet wondered if he was going to answer her. She studied him while he wasn't looking. He was about as tall as Father, nearly six feet, but much thinner, and was wearing a ready-made brown suit and a soft-collared shirt that Father wouldn't have been caught dead in. In fact, Violet wasn't sure she had ever seen a man out in public in a soft-collared shirt. He had light brown hair that was just a little longer than it should have been, but the strangest thing about his face was an angry white scar that ran from the corner of his left eye down into his bushy mustache. Violet found it difficult to keep her eyes off it, though of course she knew that good manners required her to do so.

  Finally he decided the book wasn't damaged. “I hope you ladies won't think me discourteous if I express some curiosity as to who might be inquiring for Miss Mayhew,” he said. “Won't you please be seated?”

  Violet sat down on the edge of the sofa that the man indicated. The cushion creaked as Myrtle sat down beside her. Violet wanted him to hurry up and go find Chloe for her. But of course it wouldn't be polite to say so, and Violet could see that this man was very polite. He spoke in the polite way that the boys had to talk to the girls at the dancing school that Mother made Violet go to, but unlike the boys at dancing school, he seemed quite comfortable doing it.

  Violet glanced at Myrtle, wondering what she was making of the stranger. Myrtle raised her eyebrows in a sort of facial shrug.

  “I'm Miss Violet Mayhew,” said Violet to the man. “I'm Miss Mayhew's sister. And this is Myrtle, um …” She had forgotten Myrtle's last name.

  “Davies,” said Myrtle.

  “And I am Theo Martin,” said the man, sitting down. “It's a pleasure to meet you.” He clasped his book between his thumb and forefinger, and Violet realized with surprise that those were the only two fingers he had on his right hand. She looked quickly away and saw Myrtle trying not to notice the missing fingers as well.