Keep Smiling Through

by Ann Rinaldi

  Amazing Grace untied the string and took off the lid. Then she gasped. "Mary Janes! Why Mary Janes?"

  Mary was getting the tea out of the pantry. "Easter is coming. She's a little girl."

  Amazing Grace scowled. Her mouth dropped at the corners. Her eyes went narrow. "You begged Mary for these, didn't you?" she said to me.

  I didn't answer.

  She grabbed me by the arms then and shook me. "I'll give you Mary Janes," she said angrily. "Your father works so hard. I give up so much. And you think you're going to wear Mary Janes?"

  But I couldn't answer, she was shaking me so hard.

  "Who do you think you are that you should wear Mary Janes?" She growled it at me. Like Rex the dog.

  "Mother, don't!" Mary cried. "It was my fault, not hers."

  "Go clean out the refrigerator!" she ordered.

  Mary did so.

  "Who?" Amazing Grace screamed it.

  "Nobody." I got the word out finally. "I'm nobody."

  Satisfied, she released me and slammed the cover down on the box. "Mary, you're to take these shoes back. Next Saturday. And get brown oxfords. Do you hear?"

  "Yes, Mother," Mary said meekly.

  "Go set the table for supper!" Amazing Grace shoved me.

  I went, sobbing. How could the beautiful bubble that had been my afternoon have broken so? Worse yet, how could I have been deceived by it, and think it wouldn't?

  CHAPTER 6

  Things started to go real wrong from that Saturday on. And I guess Queenie was right. I never should have gotten those Mary Janes. Bad things would happen if I did.

  First, Tony turned up missing. There was no real connection between him and my shoes, but the way I was thinking, I figured there must be.

  It happened Monday after school. Amazing Grace was napping; Marie was in the kitchen preparing supper. I went into the dining room to join my brothers at the radio.

  "Where's Martin?" I asked Tom.

  "Collecting scrap for the scrap drive."

  "Why aren't you helping?"

  "I've got to milk the cow as soon as our programs are over."

  "I thought that's Tony's job now."

  "He's hiding."

  "Why?"

  "He chased me around the barn with a knife this morning."

  I just stared at my brother. Sometimes he made things up, like I. did. Listening to our radio programs all the time, it wasn't hard to make things up. "You're lying," I said.

  "I'm not. He's hiding because if Daddy finds out, he'll lose his job."

  "Why did he chase you?"

  "He was starting to milk Daisy. I went out to see if everything was okay. It wasn't. He was hitting her in the face because she wouldn't stand still for him. I told him to stop."

  "Poor Daisy! What did you do?"

  "I yelled at him and made him stop. Then I ran. He chased me with the knife and warned me not to tell Dad."

  "Are you going to tell?"

  "I don't know," he said. "I don't like the way he treats Daisy, but I'm sick and tired of having to get up so early to milk her all the time. If he stays, I don't have to."

  I sat under the table thinking. Gosh all hemlock. Mrs. Leudloff said my father shouldn't leave us unsupervised around Tony and Marie. She'd known something! How? Was it because she had a shortwave radio?

  Would Tom tell my father about Tony? I knew he had to get up awfully early to milk Daisy. But it wasn't right she should be hit like that. She was a good cow.

  Then it came to me that Tom could have been killed, if Tony had caught up with him with that knife.

  Tony was a dangerous person to have around. Madmen were not only the Japanese and the Germans, but sometimes right here in the middle of us all. Sometimes they were Americans!

  What would Tom do?

  I didn't hear half of Hop Harrigan, for worrying about that. Finally I set my cup down on the floor, curled up on the rug, and went to sleep under the table.

  Tonto's voice woke me. "Me, Kemo Sabe," he was saying to the Lone Ranger.

  Then came the Lone Ranger's voice, deep, calming. "You've been a faithful friend to me, Tonto."

  The Lone Ranger is tough and hard, with an iron will and an unswerving sense of justice. What would he do about Tony?

  Well, I knew that. He'd bring justice to Tony all by himself. Everything would be all right when he got finished.

  "Me and Martin sent Wheaties box tops and a dime each for pedometers from the Jack Armstrong show," Tom told me.

  "Where did you get a dime each?"

  "From our allowances."

  The boys got fifteen cents each, every week, for an allowance. I wasn't old enough yet.

  "What are the pedometers for?"

  "They can plot the location of hidden caches of rifles. Or keep you safe when you're trekking through Africa. They're magic."

  "I want a luminous bracelet, like Betty wears."

  "One of us will let you borrow our pedometer. Do you know that you have to say the Pledge of Allegiance at the Farmers Cooperative meeting tonight?"

  "Who said so?"

  "Amazing Grace. And you've got to wear the new jumper she made you."

  Amazing Grace couldn't sew to save her soul, as Queenie had once said. Nothing she made turned out right. She either put ruffles on everything or made me look like a nun. The last dress she'd made me was navy blue taffeta with a high neck and long sleeves. It made me look as if I was going to a funeral.

  The new jumper was bright yellow flannel with ruffles on the shoulders. It was trimmed with blue rickrack. It was overdone and ridiculous. She'd patterned it after something Judy Garland had worn in a movie.

  "I can't get up there in that jumper. I'd rather wear my school uniform," I said.

  "You have to, or she'll be hurt," Tom said.

  "I'll look silly. Everybody will laugh at me."

  "I'll cloud their minds, like The Shadow does. So they won't see the jumper."

  I laughed. "You can't do that."

  "Yes, I can." He stood up and put on his jacket. "I clouded Tony's mind. How else do you think I got away from him?"

  I wondered if I should worry about Tom. He was getting almost as bad as I was over our radio programs. Boys weren't supposed to be that way. Sister Brigitta said that people who wanted to be like movie or radio stars were confused about life.

  I didn't have to think much to know why we were confused. It was because we'd lost our mother. But not only that, we were never allowed to speak of her. It made Amazing Grace crazy if anyone so much as mentioned her name. There were no pictures of her around anywhere.

  "Are you going to tell Dad about Tony?" I asked Tom as he got ready to leave.

  He zipped up his jacket. "Yeah."

  "Why? Then he'll fire Tony. And you'll have to get up early and milk the cow again."

  He grinned. "Yeah, I know. But at least I know Daisy won't be hit in the face by Tony anymore. I have to think of that, too."

  I decided that I didn't have to worry about Tom. He wasn't confused. I didn't know if he could cloud people's minds tonight so they wouldn't see my awful jumper. But his own mind wasn't clouded, I knew that much, for sure.

  CHAPTER 7

  Even though he went to New York every day to work in an insurance company as an executive, my father considered himself a farmer.

  Our big, rambling, thirteen-room house sat on five acres. About a quarter of an acre was a vegetable garden every summer. Everybody had vegetable gardens, on account of the war. They called them victory gardens. But my father didn't have his garden for victory. He had it and our farm so that he could go to regular meetings at the local Farmers Cooperative, where he could talk about things like crop rotation and how to get rid of potato bugs and the right way to keep chickens.

  I liked going to these meetings because they had soda and cupcakes for the kids. I didn't like wearing that yellow flannel jumper, though. Everyone stared at me in it. Most of the schoolgirls had plaid skirts, white blouses, and Mary Janes.r />
  "And now," said Mr. Murphy, the president of the cooperative, as he quieted the people in the hall, "Kay Hennings will say the Pledge of Allegiance."

  My knees shook as I walked up to the stage. I hope you can cloud their minds, Tom, I thought. Then, just as I got to the stairs, there was a commotion to one side of the hall.

  Two men were arguing. "Don't you ever say a thing like that in my presence again!" said a tall man with glasses.

  "I only said the war has made my egg business better," said a short one with bald hair and a patch over one eye.

  Up on the stage I could see over everyone's head. And I gasped at what I saw.

  Mr. Vineland was coming near to blows with Mr. Schoenfeld, who wore a patch over his eye.

  "My son is serving on an aircraft carrier!" Mr. Vineland was shouting. His fists were clenched. Two other men had to hold him back. "And my daughter Beverly's fiancee is a paratrooper. I don't want to hear what money you're making on the war!"

  "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Mr. Murphy walked over to them. "Let us remember that we must pull together, here on the home front."

  "Daddy, Daddy." Beverly Vineland ran up to her father. "Come on, Daddy, don't." She was crying.

  Mr. Schoenfeld looked pale. "I just lost my eye in the war effort."

  "You lost your eye because you're stupid," Mr. Vineland told him. "Because you don't know how to work with lime."

  Mr. Schoenfeld was shaking. "Before the war," he told Mr. Murphy and the others, "his son didn't have a job. Now he has a chance to travel and is learning to be a radio operator."

  "I'd rather have my son home!" Mr. Vineland shouted. "What do you know? You have two daughters!"

  "Get my coat, Leonora," Mr. Schoenfeld said. "We don't need to stay and be insulted."

  His wife got both their coats. Beverly and Mrs. Vineland sat down with Mr. Vineland. Mr. Murphy was running after Mr. Schoenfeld, begging him to stay. But they left.

  A murmuring went through the crowd.

  "Kay, say the Pledge of Allegiance," Mr. Murphy directed, striding back to the stage.

  I said it, but nobody was paying me much mind. Oh, they stood with their hands over their hearts. But they were not looking at me or my ridiculous yellow jumper. It was the furthest thing from their minds. I don't even think they heard my voice at all.

  Grateful, I walked off the stage and back into the audience.

  The crowd sat down, and the murmuring began again. All night they talked about the argument between two good Farmers Cooperative members.

  They talked about it at tables where sample cakes, made with little or no sugar, were set out. They talked about it as local high school students recited how they were learning Junior Red Cross first aid or going into the Junior Air Reserve.

  They talked about it when Mrs. Burton got up and told the women to be extra brave and proud and to have faith, even as they did away with the fripperies in their lives.

  "Ladies," she finished, "plan your meals carefully. Don't forget, darling dresses can be made out of feed bags. Keep your courage high and your lipstick handy."

  Everyone gave her a round of applause. Then they went back to talking about the fight.

  Was Mr. Vineland right in saying that making money on the war was wrong? Or was Mr. Schoenfeld right? He had stepped up his egg production to keep up with the war need.

  The Lone Ranger would know, with his unswerving sense of justice; I was sure of it. But the Lone Ranger wasn't here. Only our plain, ordinary neighbors and my family were here.

  As we put our coats on, Beverly Vineland came up to us. "Please don't think harshly of my father, Mr. Hennings. He worries so about Harry. And my Al."

  "Does it matter what I think, Beverly?"

  "Yes. Everybody in the neighborhood looks up to you. You've got the biggest house and the best job. You go into New York every day. You know what's going on. We're sure you have some answers."

  She was looking at him as if he were the Lone Ranger. He doesn't have any answers, I wanted to yell at her. You should see how confused things are in our house!

  Still, my father got all puffed up and important looking when she said that. Elizabeth would say it was his executive look. "Well, I'll tell you one thing that's going on, Beverly. Every day in Penn Station I see young boys going off to war. I see them saying good-bye to their families. It's awful," my father said, "just awful. And you're a good girl to stick up for your father. From now on we buy our eggs from Mrs. Leudloff."

  She got tears in her eyes. "Thank you, Mr. Hennings. You've always been a good neighbor."

  "What do you hear from Al?" my father asked.

  "He's well, and they're shipping him to a different place. But he doesn't know where. And did I tell you, Mrs. Hennings?" She looked at Amazing Grace. "When he comes home, he's bringing his parachute. I'm going to have my wedding gown made out of it."

  "That's nice." Amazing Grace sniffed. "Did you see the jumper I made Kay?"

  "Yes," Beverly said weakly.

  "Nobody even noticed it." Grace's nose was out of joint.

  "Well, golly gee willikers," Beverly said, "everybody's making their own clothes these days. Tell Mary I've got some new Glenn Miller records. And I'm on day shifts next week. So we can listen to them, evenings." She worked for the telephone company.

  "I'm going to make Kay a dress out of feed-bag material. She'll be wearing it to the next meeting," Amazing Grace told her.

  My heart fell inside me. The bags our cow feed came in were a kind of strong muslin, printed with flowers. Now I have to have a feed-bag dress?

  I knew why. Amazing Grace couldn't stand to be bested by anybody. If Beverly could make her wedding gown out of her boyfriend's silk parachute, Amazing Grace would make me a feed-bag dress. Well, I wouldn't wear it. Everybody knows feed-bag material when they see it. It means you're poor and can't afford to buy fabric, I don't care what they say about being patriotic.

  I knew my father wasn't poor. Stingy, yes, but not poor.

  In the worn backseat of our '38 Oldsmobile, Martin nudged me. "You've got to go back to the old Nazi spy now for eggs. Just because Mr. Schoenfeld bragged how much money he's making on the war."

  "I heard it," I said.

  "I told you I'd cloud their minds when you got up to say the Pledge of Allegiance, didn't I?" Tom whispered.

  "You're right, Tom." I answered. "You did real good. They hardly even looked at me."

  CHAPTER 8

  All that spring I went to Mrs. Leudloff for eggs. It had nothing to do with Mrs. Leudloff herself. I was sent because Mr. Schoenfeld and Mr. Vineland had had a fight. Mary said it was because our father had to show his support for Mr. Vineland, whose son was fighting the war.

  I thought it strange that we should support the war effort by buying eggs from a German lady instead of a Jewish man. But that year everything seemed strange. And kept right on getting stranger.

  The morning after the Farmers Cooperative meeting, Tony still couldn't be found. Neither could my jar of sugar.

  Because there was such a shortage of sugar, in our house we each had our own jar with our name on it. Every month the jar was filled up. It wasn't a big jar, either. So if you used too much on your cereal, you went without until the next month's supply came through.

  All the jars were kept in the kitchen pantry.

  My jar was missing. Along with Tony, who hadn't showed up for chores since he chased Tom with the knife.

  That did it for my father. That plus the fact that Marie had broken a pink glass dish in the china closet the night before. Nobody ever said so, but I think those dishes belonged to my own mother. Amazing Grace doesn't like them. She never uses them. And once she and my father had a fight about keeping them there in the china closet. She wanted them out. He said they stayed. And they did.

  That morning my father told Marie that she and Tony would have to leave.

  "Wherever we go it is always the same," she said. "My man gets into trouble."

  I felt
sorry for Marie. But I just sat there at the table, staring at my Wheatena and wondering how I would eat it without my sugar. Wheatena was good for you; it was hard to take without sugar.

  "Maybe your brothers and sisters will help out until we get next month's supply," my father said as he went into the hall to get his coat and hat.

  They did. They each gave me two precious spoonfuls. They filled half my new little jar.

  Amazing Grace didn't offer any of hers.

  When my father came back into the kitchen with his fedora hat and coat on, he looked pleased. But he didn't stay that way long. He never did. Soon enough, he looked serious.

  "I have an announcement," he said.

  We all got quiet.

  "Your mother needs help with the house. And no one seems to be working out. So we're going to have Nana and Grandpa come until the baby arrives. And for a while after."

  Everybody started talking at once then. Elizabeth said Nana was too old. Mary said, "Now Kay will have to move into our room." She didn't seem pleased about it.

  Martin said Grandpa would teach him to play poker. Tom said, "Well, I guess I'll have to keep milking Daisy. Grandpa won't do that."

  My father looked like the Germans were in our apple orchard. He couldn't wait to catch the 7:35 and be out of there.

  I ran into the little back hallway as he left. "Daddy."

  He turned. "I'm late now. What is it?"

  "Do I have to wear a dress made of feed bags?"

  "If your mother makes it, you'll wear it, Kay. She's doing her best. We all are." And he went out the door.

  Nana and Grandpa are Amazing Grace's parents. They live in a little rowhouse in Brooklyn. It has a sunporch where a bird in a standing cage lives, a parlor with a piano, a small dining room and kitchen, and an even smaller backyard.

  To get there, we have to take the train to New York first, then the subway that goes miles underground. The cars shake and screech and bang. The lights go off and on. Then suddenly we come out into the bright sunlight of Brooklyn, where we have to take a bus, then walk about four blocks.

  I like going there. Brooklyn has neat little houses. Nana sends us out to the corner deli for cold cuts for lunch and makes pot roast for supper. We can make faces at the kids next door and they can make faces at us.