Liddie nodded. She knew she wasn’t going. Why bring it up again?
“We haven’t forgotten,” Kate said. “And . . .”
“Kate has continued to press your case,” her mother added.
“You are talented.”
Liddie’s skin prickled. Was it still possible? “I don’t understand.”
“Your father and I talked before his accident. We decided it was the right thing for you, but when he died . . .” Her voice cracked again. Kate moved to speak, but Margretta held up a hand. “I couldn’t think about it then, but now . . . well, now there is no real reason not to.”
Liddie couldn’t believe her ears. “But Mrs. Tinker got another girl.” She pressed a hand to her chest. Her heart was hammering. “You said so.”
“Apparently, she did not work out,” Kate interjected. “I spoke with Mrs. Tinker. She could take you immediately.”
“But who will help you with the work, Mama? And what about the extra costs of me living in town?”
“We will manage. You needn’t worry.”
Liddie had held herself still on the edge of her chair, but as their words sank in, she could not contain herself. She leaped up and flung her arms first around her mother and then around her aunt. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!” She clasped her hands to her chest and beamed. “Thank you.”
“You need to be there on Monday,” Kate said.
“So soon?” The smile froze on Liddie’s face.
“Have you changed your mind?” Kate looked amused.
“It’s such a surprise.” Liddie shook her head like a dazed puppy. “Of course I want to go. I’m going to pack now.” She raced for the stairs. She would not let this chance slip from her hands again.
The table was set with her mother’s Bavarian floral china and the good silver, place settings that saw the light of day on only the most important occasions. Christmas Day. Weddings. Baptisms. Beading on the handles of the heavy silver flatware framed shells that made Liddie think of far-off lands. The equally ornate china was decorated with silver lattice, grape clusters, and flowers around the edges and a bouquet of blossoms in the centers. When Liddie finished packing and came downstairs for supper, the sight brought her up short.
“Mama?” she asked.
“This is a big day.” Margretta smiled as she moved around the table, straightening a utensil, repositioning a glass. “My daughter is going off to see the world.” She held one of the crystal cordial glasses up to the light. “G. W. would have lifted a glass of wine to mark the occasion. We will do the same.”
Liddie ran a finger around the rim of a glass. “Are you sure about me leaving, Mama? You’ll be alone.”
“Alone in a much smaller household.”
Liddie’s face fell.
“Don’t be thinking of that. I’ve already talked to Mrs. Sutcliff. Her girls will come help when I need it.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. Have you packed everything?”
“Mama, honestly.” Her mother had asked her that a dozen times through the day.
“You can’t expect me to stop being your mother!”
Liddie pecked her mother on the cheek, a gesture that brought a smile to her mother’s lips and tears to her eyes.
“Now stop dawdling.” Margretta cleared the tears with rapid blinks. “The boys will be in soon. Go see if Kate needs help with the pancakes.”
“Pancakes?” Liddie asked with genuine surprise. “On your china?”
“Well, they are your favorite. We can’t have just any meal when we’re celebrating.” Margretta laughed.
A wild mix of emotions swirled through Liddie’s chest. She had never spent one night away from family. Every day, she was surrounded by people she’d known her whole life. Her days were attuned to the rhythms of the farm, where even the changing seasons brought the same familiar tasks—planting the garden, canning produce, churning butter, baking bread, doing the laundry. She knew this story like the back of her hand.
Boarding in town, learning to be a seamstress, living on her own—those experiences were exotic. That’s how she thought of it. Her new life would be like a book she had not read—an adventure to discover. Even though Maquoketa was only ten miles away, her mother and aunt had taken to planning her departure as though she were embarking on a grand European tour. She could walk the distance home if need be. But ten miles or ten thousand, it was all the same to her. She would be on her own!
When Vern and Joe came to the table, scrubbed until their cheeks were red, hair slicked back, and dressed in clean shirts, she burst out laughing.
“Look at you,” she exclaimed. “All dressed up.”
“May I help you with your chair, miss?” Vern came to her side.
“Why, Vern! Thank you.” Liddie looked at him in astonishment.
“This is the way they do it in the city. Isn’t it, Margretta?” Joe asked, holding her chair as she sat.
“Indeed. Everyone on finest manners.”
“But only on the farm will you find a meal like this.” Kate placed a platter heaped with pancakes in the middle of the table.
“Oh, I will miss this.” Liddie breathed in the aroma of a large bowl of liver sausage.
“Before we eat, a toast. Vern? As the man of the house?” Margretta lifted her glass.
“Aw, Ma.” Vern looked painfully uncomfortable, but he cleared his throat and tilted his glass toward Liddie. “God knows why you want to go, but we wish you the best. Don’t go forgetting us.”
“To Liddie!” everyone chimed in.
Liddie inclined her glass to each person at the table. She wanted to say something in response, but her throat felt too tight. She could manage only “Thank you.”
“Enough talk. Let’s eat,” Kate said.
They had mopped up the syrup with the last bites of pancake and the sausage bowl was empty when Joe pushed his chair back from the supper table. “I hope I’m not spoiling a good celebration, but I have something to tell you,” he said. “I’m going to Canada. To homestead.”
Stunned, Liddie looked from Joe to the others at the table. The grim line of Vern’s mouth told her he’d known; Mama and Kate were as surprised as she.
“Oh, Joe. Do you have to go so far away?” Margretta asked.
“I tried to change his mind,” Vern said.
“A fellow in town told me claims are available,” Joe said. “If the holders don’t work their land, they lose the stake. I’ll have my own land sooner than I ever could in Iowa.”
Joe’s words bespoke enthusiasm, but Liddie thought he sounded as though he were trying to convince himself.
“You can’t plant now,” Margretta said. “And where will you live? Why don’t you wait until spring?”
“It’s better I go now. Get the lay of the land before planting time. There’s always work to be had. I could work a dray at the railroad. Make deliveries. Meet people. It’d help me settle in.”
“It’s a different way of farming,” Vern said. “Shorter season. Droughts.”
“If you work hard, you can make a living. Just like anywhere,” Joe responded.
“You never shied away from hard work,” Margretta said. “The Lord knows that.”
“And land is cheap. In a few years, I could have a spread that would . . . support me.”
Liddie knew he imagined a wife beside him, and her heart ached for him. He had been so happy with Catherine. She wanted that for him again.
“I won’t leave you shorthanded,” Joe said. “I’ll find someone you can hire on before I leave.”
“I’ll talk to the Engle boys,” Vern said. “They were good workers last harvest.”
“You can take some of those plums we canned this summer,” Kate offered. “And we’ll pack up a box of blankets.”
“I’m sure they
have food in Canada.” Joe laughed. “And blankets.”
“No need to spend money if you don’t have to,” Kate said.
“I won’t have family of mine going off without food to eat,” Margretta insisted.
Joe threw up his hands. “I give up! I’ll take any help I can get.”
“This table is going to seem empty with Liddie gone, and now you.” Margretta’s eyes glistened.
“Oh, Mama, we’ll be back. We won’t be gone forever,” Liddie said, looking to Joe for agreement.
Joe did not smile. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Of course you’ll come back. You’re family,” Liddie exclaimed. An image of Mama and Vern alone at the table flashed into her mind. She thought she might cry.
“Come now. Tonight is supposed to be a celebration,” Margretta said. “We had a toast for Liddie. We’ll have one for Joe, too.”
Vern stared at his mother. “Two glasses of wine? I’ve never seen you drink two glasses in one sitting.”
His words broke the tension and they laughed.
After the dishes were cleared, Liddie slipped out of the house and walked to the top of a hill where she could see for miles. The farm was changing. Papa gone. Amelia gone. Now Joe. She would be gone, too, but that was different. She was heading toward the future she’d always dreamed of.
Chapter 8
Alone in her room at the boardinghouse, Liddie sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly in her lap. “I won’t cry. I won’t cry. I won’t cry,” she whispered. A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye. She rubbed it away with the heel of her hand.
Her eyes were drawn to the address book and notepaper lying on the dressing table. Her mother had given her the packet of writing materials along with Amelia’s last letter. Liddie had not responded to the hope in her mother’s voice when she suggested Liddie write to her sister.
It had been weeks before they had heard that Amelia and Fred were married. That they’d gone to Wyoming to homestead. Her feelings toward her sister were so tangled, she couldn’t sort them out. She hadn’t written to Amelia at least in part because she didn’t know what to say.
When she had hugged her aunt good-bye that morning, she’d seen Joe watching them. He’d stood there, his hands stuffed in his back pockets, smiling at her. She felt herself blush and wound up fixing her eyes in the middle of his chest, where a button hung by a thread. Who would fix his clothes in Canada? When he asked her to write, she promised she would. As soon as she had his address. Another tear now trickled down her cheek.
Here she was alone for less than an hour, and she felt the rest of her life stretching out before her like an endless empty road. If she wrote to her mother, what would she say? That she was sitting here feeling sorry for herself after they’d given her exactly what she wanted?
Doing something is better than doing nothing. Papa’s words popped into her head. I will do something, she thought.
She stood and looked around the room, hands firmly on her hips, her head tilted to one side. The room was similar in size to the one she and Amelia had shared, yet it felt so different. So sterile. Functional. Nothing more. The washstand held a plain white pitcher and basin. A white hand towel hung precisely in the middle of the dowel rod. Besides the bed, a straight-backed chair offered the only place in the room to sit. A kerosene lamp on the dressing table would light the room at night. A pine chest of drawers completed the furnishings. Even the wallpaper, with its pattern of washed-out green flowers and leaves against an ecru background, did nothing to liven the mood.
The faded bedcover unsettled Liddie the most, as it was such a contrast to the crazy quilt on her bed at home. A riot of shapes, colors, and fabrics, the quilt had been pieced together by her mother and aunt before Liddie was born. When she was supposed to be asleep, Liddie often told herself stories about the clothes each piece must have once been. She could smell her father in the wool, see her mother in the silk, hear the rustle of taffeta at a dance. In the dark, she would trace her fingertips along the feather stitches decorating each seam, each bit of cloth from her family.
A dizzying wave of homesickness washed over her. She pushed her knees into the edge of the bed, steadying herself until the queasiness passed.
Liddie forced herself into action. She pushed the dressing table into a corner where the mirror caught the light from the window. She maneuvered the washstand over to the wall by the door. Immediately, her mood improved.
Just then, she heard a rap on the door. Worried that the overly attentive landlady had heard her moving furniture, Liddie wondered if she might be thrown out before she spent her first night. Drawing a breath for courage, she opened the door and was relieved and surprised to see a girl with deep-blue eyes and dark, curly hair that fell to her shoulders.
“Hello!” The girl stuck out her hand. “My name is Minnie. Wilhelmina, actually. Everyone calls me Minnie. My last name is Holter. I have the room across the hall. What’s your name? May I come in?”
Liddie was so taken aback at the girl’s breathless speech that she stood aside and gestured her in.
“You just got here. I saw you and your mother with Mrs. Prescott. That was your mother, wasn’t it? And was that your brother driving the buggy?” She didn’t wait for responses. “I wanted to give you time to settle in before I came over. Then I heard you moving furniture and thought you might like help. What did you say your name is?”
“I didn’t say. I didn’t have time!” Liddie failed to stifle a laugh.
“I’m sorry.” Minnie looked abashed. “When I’m nervous, everything rushes out like water over rapids.”
“You’re nervous? Why?” Liddie asked. “Oh, and my name is Lydia Mary Treadway. Please call me Liddie.”
“I’m so pleased to meet you, Liddie,” Minnie said. “You’re the only person living here who’s my age. I’m eighteen. I have been unutterably lonely. I thought perhaps we could be friends.”
“Maybe we can be,” Liddie agreed, thinking that someone who would be so forthright as to suggest friendship on first meeting, let alone use the word unutterably in everyday language, was an unusual person indeed, and someone she’d like to know. “I don’t know anyone here in town. You’re the first.” She did not tell Minnie she had turned seventeen only a week ago.
Liddie looked around, at a loss for what to do with her visitor. At home, Mama invited guests to sit in the parlor and offered them something to eat. She had no experience as a hostess and nothing she could offer for refreshments.
“Would you like to sit?” she asked. “I only have one chair. You’re welcome to it.”
“Thank you.” Minnie sat.
Liddie had no choice but to sit on the bed. She had just been sitting in this very spot, near tears, and now here she was entertaining a guest. At least her guest wasn’t a man. Mrs. Prescott had been adamant: no men. She giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Minnie asked. “Did I do something?”
“No. Not at all.” Liddie didn’t want to talk about the landlady and grasped for another topic. “I’ll be apprenticing with Mrs. Tinker. She’s—”
“I know Mrs. Tinker,” Minnie jumped in. “She comes into the store.”
“Store?”
“Fisher’s Dry Goods. ‘Two stores, two floors,’ you know. That’s where I work. As a clerk. I keep my eyes open for lace and ribbon and notions she’ll be interested in. Mrs. Tinker is lovely. You’ll like her.” Minnie’s hair bounced as she nodded her head. Minnie popped up from her chair. “I’ll tell you what. The weather’s so nice, let’s take a walk before dinner. We don’t want to be late for meals, as I’m sure Mrs. Prescott told you. We can get a treat at Becker’s Bakery. Have you been there? Mrs. Becker makes the best cakes. If you want to, that is.”
“That would be nice.” Liddie stood, too. “Vern drove us around before we came here, but it was quic
k.”
Actually, Liddie had been intimidated as Vern turned the buggy up Main Street. The wide cobblestone street was crowded with buggies and automobiles; the sidewalks bustled with people on shopping or business errands. From Main Street, Margretta directed him to drive past Mrs. Tinker’s home, which was in a residential area on the south side of town, and finally to the boardinghouse, which was on the north side of town.
Though she’d been to Maquoketa any number of times with her family, she’d never paid particular attention to what was where—beyond the dry goods store where they bought fabric. The town was the center of commerce and government for Jackson County and, as such, boasted a wide range of establishments in the two- and three-story red-brick buildings that lined Main Street: grocery, hardware, and furniture stores; an opera house and a picture theater; jewelry and drugstores; four bakeries, banks, billiard halls, the cigar store Liddie’s father frequented, and tailors. Parallel streets were home to the Carnegie library, the courthouse, the jail, lumberyards, livery stables, and the undertaker.
As she thought about navigating all this on her own, Liddie had been momentarily fearful. She would welcome returning to Main Street with Minnie. She added, “By the time Mrs. Prescott showed us the room, Vern was ready to get back to the farm.”
“Is Vern your beau?” Minnie asked. “I saw him help you from the buggy. And then you hugged him . . .” Minnie blushed. “I’m sorry. It sounds as though I was spying on you.”
Liddie thought it amusing the girl was digging for information. “My beau? No, you were right the first time. He’s my brother.”
Minnie looked relieved. “I thought so. You bear a resemblance. He’s quite handsome. So tall. Like you. And he looks ever so strong.”
Liddie didn’t know how to respond to that. Vern was tall. He was strong. But handsome? She would never have said that of him any more than she would have thought herself beautiful. Her slender waist was her one feature of note. “So, a walk?”
“Yes.” Minnie moved toward the door. “Oh, and you can fix the room up. Mine was like this when I moved in. It’s ever so nice now. I even have a new quilt. Since you sew, you could do so many things. Pillow covers. A dresser scarf. Mrs. Prescott won’t be offended.”
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