Ruby & Roland

by Faith Sullivan

  What a to-do the day the machine arrived. Because the wooden crate was large, Kolchak’s Dray and Livery picked it up at the Milwaukee depot and brought it out to the farm. And since Henry was an important customer, Arnie Kolchak drove the truck himself, with a shy young helper along to assist.

  When they turned into the long drive from Cemetery Road, Teddy ran down to meet them, barking as if we’d been invaded by the Kaiser’s army. Even after Kolchak pulled up to the gate and turned off the engine, the dog kept running around, barking and raising more dust than the machine had. While Henry put Teddy in the horse barn, Emma and I left off our weeding and headed into the house to pour glasses of iced tea and set out generous slices of devil’s food cake on the “good” plates. “They’ll want a break when they’re done,” she said, adding with a wink, “Nice-looking boy Kolchak’s got with him. ‘Hilly Stillman,’ Kolchak said.”

  Having worked up a sweat setting up the new wash machine and carrying out the old, Kolchak, Henry, and the boy sat down at the kitchen table. “Warm day,” Henry observed, wiping the back of his neck with a bandana.

  “Sticky too,” Kolchak offered.

  “Ring around the moon last night,” Henry said. “Wouldn’t be surprised if we got rain.” And so the timeworn conversation went, two men at ease with one another.

  Later, Kolchak and Hilly rose, donning their caps and thanking Emma. We all followed them out to the gate. As they climbed into the truck, Henry called out, “Fourth of July, there’s a picnic and dance at the Grange Hall, over by Burmeister’s farm. Free beer. Pack a picnic and come. Mr. Stillman, you’re welcome too. Starts around four.” He turned to Emma. “About four, right?”

  This was the first I’d heard about a picnic. Surely Roland would be there. Weeks had passed since I’d seen him, weeks of wondering if he still felt the same as he’d expressed in the note. I ached to touch him. At a picnic, a touch was all I could hope for, but that was better than days of nothing.

  No hard frost sneaked in to spoil the garden. The bean and pea vines were flinging themselves upward, clinging to chicken wire; the carrot and radish tops bushed out, greener than money; and the other vegetables, not to be outdone, grew apace. When we spotted an incursion by rabbits or moles, we plugged up their opportunities. I toted pails of water from the horse trough till I thought my arms would come loose at the shoulders.

  The morning of July Fourth, the peas and beans weren’t ready, but I pulled up young carrots, onions, and radishes. From the storm cellar, we picked over last year’s potatoes—shriveled and hairy with eyes—selected a few, and cleaned them up for potato salad. Emma killed two hens and we fried them. A jar of watermelon pickles went into the laundry basket, along with gingerbread. “We’ll need extra for Roland and Moses,” Emma said, adding oatmeal-and-black-walnut cookies to the hamper.

  My heart stuttered.

  In warm weather, a big galvanized tub leaned against one of the apple trees. If you wanted a real bath, you carried water from the outside pump to fill it. If you drew it early in the day, it warmed up enough for comfort. In the early afternoon I carried a flannel rag, a towel, and soap out to the tub and bathed, leaving no corner unscrubbed. In my room, on the bedside table, was a box of scented talcum and a powder puff I’d bought at the pharmacy. After the bath, I patted myself liberally, trailing the perfume of French Roses through the house as I descended in my best daisy-sprigged muslin dress, a folded note tucked into my pocket.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The late afternoon was as thick and golden as a jar of honey. Larks soared skyward in bursts of song while mourning doves, in the dense growth hugging the fences, cooed dolefully, recalling old losses.

  Serena once told me that after a storm, mourning doves cannot fly until their wings have dried. In this helpless state, they are often attacked by predators, though they huddle together for protection, wings wrapped around one another.

  I shrugged these images. No storms threatened the tidy white Grange Hall. Someone, perhaps Moses or Jake or Dennis, had mowed the long grass beneath the giant cottonwoods that shimmied in the breeze. In the purple clover growing deep along the road, bees hummed and hovered, and from all around, cicadas whined. Beyond the fences girding the Hall on three sides, fields of knee-high corn sibilated dryly, and altogether the July afternoon moved and spoke in its own language.

  The gentle picture I have painted had been rent by the snort-bang-bang of Henry’s automobile as the Schoonovers and I drove up to the Fourth of July picnic. Dennis, Jake, Moses, and Roland were to follow in the sedate old wagon.

  Two other automobiles were parked along the road, one Arnie Kolchak’s, the other politician John Flynn’s. Two horse-drawn wagons, less noisy and without fumes, were allowed to turn in at the gate. The first carried the Harvester Hooligans, a musical group consisting of a fiddle, accordion, saxophone, and comb. The second was adorned with a handsome scroll reading, “Reagan’s Saloon and Billiards.” The beer had arrived.

  Behind the hall, a game of horseshoes was in progress. Old men with hard-won expertise winked slyly to one another, challenging striplings, callow and cocksure of their youth.

  Families were making their way on foot into the Grange Hall yard, carrying blankets and baskets of food. These were soon arrayed beneath the trees, woman calling to woman, man hailing man. Little would an outsider guess that as recently as the previous Saturday these same folks had met on Main Street to jaw, trading opinions about rain, rye, corn, and politics.

  Four o’clock of a summer afternoon is a pitcher of promise. What but good can pour out? I helped Emma to spread our two quilts side by side on the ground and to unpack picnic gear, but what I wanted to do was dance—polka in the perfume of newly mown grass, run with the children, somersault, sing silly songs, and jump off the Grange Hall steps until someone called, “Now stop that before you break a leg.”

  At last the hired men arrived from the Schoonover farm. Standing at the open gate, hands in the pockets of their clean overalls, they studied the scene. When I saw Roland, my limbs went watery. I had read of this phenomenon in novels and had figured it was the reaction of flimsy-mimsy girls. Well, I am not the flimsy-mimsy type, and yet my limbs did go watery, so much so that I remained planted on my quilt lest they refuse to support me.

  Roland and Dennis sat down on my quilt, Jake and Moses on Emma and Henry’s. “On our way, we seen Harold Schoonover and his family coming from the east,” Jake told them.

  “That’s quite a distance for them, just for a picnic,” Emma said, bringing out the plates and flatware.

  “Maybe they have news,” Jake ventured.

  “You’d think they’d send a postcard and save themselves the trip,” Emma said, a note of chafe in her voice.

  “Speak of the devil.” Henry pointed to the gate where his brother and his brother’s family stood as the boys had done minutes earlier, surveying the crowd until they spied us.

  Waving and calling, they came on, spreading quilts directly across the lawn from us. The tall sons and two little girls wandered off to join other youngsters playing tag. From their quilts, Harold’s wife, Hermione, waved a handkerchief as Harold crossed to us.

  “Hermy’s expecting,” Harold said. “It’s early days, but she don’t like to go out after she starts to show, so we decided to come while we could. And, by gum,” he said to Henry, “I wanted to tell you how glad I am you came over that day to talk about ordering an automobile. We got to thinking we should too. Kolchak says it’ll be here in maybe three weeks.”

  Henry was standing now. “That so?”

  Emma leaned toward me, hissing, “Hermy could be carrying triplets, and it’d never show.” Emma was upset. Harold had gone right out and bought an automobile after Henry had. “Jack Spratt and his wife.”

  Indeed, Harold, like Henry, was as lean as a hoe handle. Both men were attractive in a weathered sort of way, like Emma. It was, I’d decided, a special kind of beauty—like that of things hard-used but strong and carved right
down to their foundations.

  Beneath her breath, Emma said, “I’spose we’d better go say hello, since she’s not going to get up off her tuffet.” She took my hand and we stood. “Hermione,” she called to her sister-in-law, without enthusiasm.

  “Emma,” Hermione returned, her voice likewise lacking a note of happy expectation.

  Drawing close, Emma said, “Hermione, this is our hired girl, Ruby. More like a daughter.” Without letting go of my hand, Emma held me at arm’s length, putting me on display. “Pretty as a picture,” she said and drew me back again. “Harold tells us you’re expecting. When’re you due?”

  “Around Christmas, Dr. White says.” In a preening gesture, Hermione smoothed a strand of hair into the nest of fat curls on her head. “Number five.”

  “You’re feeling good?”

  “Like a million dollars. Harold says I’m bloomin’.”

  “Hoping for a girl or boy?”

  “Well, naturally we’d like another boy. Helpful on a farm.”

  “Tell you the truth, I wouldn’t trade Ruby for half a dozen boys. Brains. It takes brains to make a farm run good.” Emma gazed off toward a horizon of slim hopes. “Well, I expect we’d better get food laid out for the men. Nice to see you, Hermione.”

  We returned to our side of the yard, Emma saying, “I do dislike that woman. Why is that?” Then, “And don’t you dare tell me why, Ruby.” She laughed at her own naked need. She so wanted a son.

  Roland lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, the breeze ruffling his hair. A pain in my chest warned me of I knew not what.

  He smiled a smile that said, “We have a secret,” and I returned it, but knew that in mine there was sadness I could not filter.

  “Roland, may I fill a plate for you?” I asked, keeping my voice light.

  “Anytime. Anywhere,” he said, his voice teasing, but his look intense.

  When I handed him a plate, I passed him the note from my pocket as well. Darling Roland, it read, I love you with all my heart. I long to touch you. Yours, R. With a slight nod, and without opening it, he slipped the note discreetly into one of the pockets on the front of his overalls.

  For a while, the seven of us sat eating and chatting, though truthfully, I didn’t do much of either. When we had finished, Emma and I rinsed off the plates at the pump beside the Grange Hall steps. Descending those same steps was a gentleman with a look of well-being, even affluence. His sleeves were rolled above the elbows, and his collar was loosened. He smiled at us and when he reached the ground, he removed his panama hat and made a slight bow to Emma. She set down the plate she was rinsing, wiped her hands on her skirt, and offered her hand to him.

  “Mrs. Schoonover,” he said, “Keeping well?”

  “Very well, Congressman. And you?”

  “Never better.” Surveying the picnic, he said, “Grand gathering. I don’t have many opportunities to see old friends these days. I was darned pleased when Henry invited me.”

  “Congressman, this is our good hired girl, Ruby Drake.”

  He took my hand, saying, “An honor.”

  “Have you eaten?” Emma asked. “We’ve got plenty.”

  “Thank you, but I ate before I came. More time to visit.” He cast a look around. “Henry’s here?”

  “By the beer wagon, I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “I’ll say hello.” He took Emma’s hand once more, then returned the hat to his head and moved away from us.

  “John Flynn,” Emma explained to me. “Congressman. The only Democrat Henry votes for.” Our dishes rinsed, we returned to the quilts to find the men had indeed wandered off to the beer wagon, while the Harvester Hooligans were tuning up as twilight crept over the scene.

  Since it was the Fourth of July, the Hooligans launched the evening with “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” bravely rendered, considering the limitations of their four instruments. Much whistling and clapping followed. Immediately the quartet settled into “My Wild Irish Rose,” and we women and girls sang along.

  And now it was “Down by the Old Mill Stream.” Babies on their blankets grew drowsy while older brothers and sisters, at their mothers’ scolding, found quiet games to pursue.

  The evening star emerged in the pale sky, then another and another. In the deepening dusk, larks continued erupting into the air, like gentle fireworks, enjoying lyrical last hurrahs. For a moment, their song undid me. “What is it?” Emma asked.

  I shook my head. “Nothing. Just the larks.” Emma didn’t inquire as to my meaning. She was the kind of woman who could nod and let it go.

  A number of men, borrowing a couple of tables from inside the Grange Hall, set up card games beyond the beer wagon. All around the yard, women hung kerosene lanterns on fence posts, each casting a gay circle of light. I felt trapped between the good cheer of the lantern glow and the darkness of the universe.

  Possibly to lift my spirits, Emma told me, “Pretty soon there’ll be dancing, out there in the middle of the yard. I expect you’ll be asked.”

  I remembered how Serena and Denton had loved to dance. It required only a scrap of music to get them on their feet—Mrs. Bullfinch launching into “Vilia,” or the band in the park playing “Meet Me In St. Louis, Louis”—and Denton would grasp Serena’s waist and whisk her away, her long skirt eddying around her legs.

  We had no carpet in our dining room so Denton swept Serena round and round the dining table while I lay on the sofa watching, enchanted. They were a prince and princess, and the Palace Ball was whirling giddily across our dining room, Denton’s eyes shining, Serena’s cheeks glowing.

  More and more I missed them, Serena especially, as they floated away from me on a stream of passing time. Never had I felt more alone than in this pale blue hour, in the midst of human company and “Down by the Old Mill Stream.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  At nine, the sky was loath to relinquish the last remnants of day. In the semidarkness, some couples had begun dancing in the center of the yard, others indoors where the windows were thrown open. Between these windows, a handful of old women sat straight-backed along the walls, observing and nodding, even as they tatted or knitted caps and mittens for the coming winter. Ahead, always, the long winter.

  In the yard, I found my way past the blankets and quilts to the back of the building where four old men, as wrinkled as raisins, still hurled horseshoes with some accuracy despite the gloaming. Two outhouses beckoned, each with a lighted lamp.

  When I returned to the Schoonover quilts, Roland was dancing a schottische with Emma. An awful jealousy seized me.

  When they returned to our quilt, Emma’s hair coming undone, and when the music struck up again, Roland approached me and held out his hand. I rose as the saxophone eased into the third or fourth bar of “Moonlight Bay.”

  The song was slow enough that we had breath to talk—or, rather, Roland had. I had neither breath nor words, only a suffocating physical need.

  “I wish we could be alone,” he said.

  I nodded. Finally, I said, “I … I want to swallow you.”

  Now he nodded.

  “That way, you’d always be with me.”

  “I wish I had good words,” he said. “At night in bed or … when I’m out in the field, I think of things to say. But when I see you or write a note, the words go away.”

  “Your words are lovely. They’re yours.” I squeezed his hand. He tried to pull me closer, but we could not dance that way, not here in front of people who knew us. “Oh, God, oh, God,” I whispered and started to cry.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The question was so silly, I laughed. What was wrong? I shook my head. “So many things.”

  He gripped my waist tightly, and then “Moonlight Bay” was ending, almost before it had begun.

  Back at the quilt, Henry was telling Emma, “They’re talkin’ war at the beer wagon. Flynn says he’s against it, but he ain’t sure it won’t happen.”

  “War with Germany? Oh Lord, no. I
hate the thought of it,” Emma said, twisting her hair tightly back into its usual knot high on her head.

  Returning from his own trip to the beer wagon, Dennis overheard. “I wouldn’t mind cleaning the Kaiser’s clock,” he said.

  “Oh, don’t talk smart,” Emma scolded. “I don’t want to think about you going over there.”

  “Well, my dad says it’s a sure thing, and it won’t matter how Flynn votes, it’s gonna happen. Look what they did to the Lusitania.”

  “Yes,” Emma admitted. “Those poor Lundeens.” She shook her head.

  With his “smart” talk, which was not at all like him, I wondered if Dennis had enjoyed one too many jars of beer. He moved soberly enough, and he didn’t slur his words, but when he asked me to dance, his eyes were bold. If I refused him, though, it would look strange. Tread lightly. Emma was no fool.

  The accordion wheezed into “By the Light of the Silvery Moon” and Dennis grabbed my hand. He danced well, not like someone tipsy. But then he said, “You were making googly eyes at Roland.” Those words had required Dutch courage.

  I felt the starch go out of me. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like … you like him.”

  I stiffened. My insides pushed up against my spine. I tried to sound casual. “I do like him. I think he’s nice, don’t you?”

  “He’s all right.”

  “Just ‘all right’?”

  “Well, don’t you ever wonder about that wife of his, why she doesn’t show herself? What’s that about?”

  “What do you think it’s about?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t treat her right. Or maybe she thinks he’s … straying, and she’s embarrassed.”

  “I think she hasn’t gotten over losing the baby.”

  “After all this time?”

  “Losing a baby must be a terrible thing for a woman.”

  “Then it’d be a terrible thing if he was straying.”