Children of Liberty

by Paullina Simons

  “I don’t dance with just him even when he does come!”

  “Yes, but at least he is present. He is there. There was a dressage competition last week. Why didn’t he come to cheer you on?”

  “I didn’t need him to be there, Mother.” They resumed walking, though a little slower. Alice was spent from fighting. “I won without him. And he is in his last year at Harvard. You know how hard he works.”

  “He has time to go with Ben on Thursday nights, doesn’t he?”

  “He is allowed to have friends, or would you like to inform him that he must spend every second of his spare time with me?”

  “I have a good mind to say a few things to him this Sunday.”

  “Mother, I will forbid you to come to his father’s house,” said Alice. “All his father does is embarrass him. You want to be that person too? We are trying to get him to be your son-in-law one day. You think humiliating him in front of his father is the way to go about that?”

  “Clearly for one reason or another,” Irma declared, “he won’t make up his mind.”

  “All right, but … let’s give him until graduation. Let him concentrate on his studies; I know we don’t think much of them, but you know how important they are to him. I don’t want to be a shrew before he even asks Daddy for my hand. I’d like to wait until just after. Would that be okay with you? And maybe you can wait to be a shrew until just after also? All right, Mother? A plan?”

  “You’re being impolite to your mother,” Irma said.

  “I do apologize,” Alice said. “But please, Mummy, stop talking.”

  They got to the corner of Commonwealth and Dartmouth. “Consolations are waiting for me,” Alice said. “My recital is at noon at Copley Hall. I’ll see you there.”

  Without waiting for a reply, she kissed her mother on both cheeks, gave her a little squeeze and walked up the stairs and inside, taking care at all costs not to slam the front door behind her.

  6

  Salvo had been having a hard time finding steady work and it grated on him. Every morning he got up at six not knowing if he would find work that day or make money—and all the while his mother cleaned the Prospect Hill houses and his sister somehow did a load of nothing yet always brought home money. Money, bags of uncombed wool, paper cones. Cotton thread, linen. She sewed skirts and sold skeins and made money! Even her English was progressing.

  It’s not that Salvo didn’t try. He got hired for a shoveling project for two weeks, but he and a dozen men worked so hard that they were done in eight days and were released without so much as a bonus or a handshake for a job well done.

  He spent a few days painting, another day or two pretending he could pass as a cabinet maker—just like Gina pretended she could be a wool sorter. He fooled the glaziers into keeping him for nearly a month, but this morning he was taking a train to nearby Andover because he had read in the local paper that a sawmill was hiring twenty men and paid well. If it didn’t pan out, he would have to find restaurant work. It was all he wanted to do anyway. Having a steady trickle of cash was better than this hardscrabble subsistence. He wasn’t able to save anything for his dream, and to make matters worse, his baby sister was giving Mimoo money every week, sewing skirts for herself to wear and even putting a few dimes into the glass jar on which she had painted the words SALVO’S DREAM. She was infuriating.

  At the sawmill gates, Salvo found himself standing with forty other men, all stronger than him, bigger than him—and clearly more experienced, the way he overheard them talking about board feet and mitred edges, running measurements, lathe lumber and panels. Hundreds of logs were piled two stories high and a block wide on the ground near the gates. They clearly needed help.

  “How many spots are there?” he asked a relatively friendly-looking man standing to his right. The man instantly became less friendly. “Just eighteen,” he grumbled, stepping away. “Eighteen experienced men.”

  They’re going to need more than eighteen men to move all that lumber, Salvo thought, anxiously hoping that would be true.

  It was a woman who unlocked and opened the gates and came out to inspect them as if they were bat blanks or carving stock. They all tried to hide their shock, including Salvo. It was a drizzling misty Wednesday, and she was dressed for the weather, in high rain boots, a long dark overcoat, a wide brim hat. But her hair under the black hat was nearly white, her face pale, and her eyes very blue. She covered herself but Salvo could tell she was donna molto attraente, there was no hiding it. He pushed himself to the front of the crowd, moved his cap jauntily off his face, and stood still, hoping she’d notice him.

  He shouldn’t have pushed. He just angered the other men, and the bella donna asked them all to stand in one line anyway, walking up and down, appraising them. In a refined, high-class voice she informed them that she wasn’t looking for boomers, or short-termers who worked and then quit. She was looking for good, hard-working men who wished to be compensated well for loyalty and long hours. She asked those who thought that sawmill work was nothing more than snoose and mulligans to turn and walk away. No one moved, even though Salvo knew for a fact some of the men were definitely in it for the short term: the sawmill was hard work in bad weather. He wasn’t going to snitch on them—unless she didn’t pick him.

  The woman was all business and unsmiling, and he heard some of the men muttering uncomplimentary things when she walked by without selecting them. When she came to Salvo, he cocked his head, looked at her a half-second too long and smiled politely. She frowned at first, stood quietly, then crooked her finger at him. Now he really heard some choice words from the men she had not picked. He flipped them the bird as he sauntered through the gates, following her inside the yard.

  On the job he learned quickly. That had always been his number one skill. Maybe not as quick as his sister, but enough to blend in and not look too green. Mainly he had to listen to someone else and then follow along like a semi-trained monkey. At first he was put on a job that required barely any skill at all: cutting off the branches. Salvo limbed with aplomb. But once he was moved to decking, or sorting the tremendous logs by species, size, and end use, his day got harder and he made mistakes. It all looked like wood to him, he couldn’t tell the difference between the bark of a pine and a fir, or between a maple and an oak. How his sister could fake knowing the difference between soft wool and extra soft wool, he would never know. His boss saw he was struggling and moved him over to debarking, which was tedious but simple. At the end of the long day they lined him up as the off-bearer for the head sawyer. Establishing a jovial rapport with the man, Salvo asked casually about the blonde woman who had hired him.

  “She is no one,” said Don McKay. “Absolutely no one. No one for you to ever think about, ask about, no one for you to even glance at.”

  “I’m just asking a polite question,” said Salvo. “Can’t I get a polite answer?”

  “Mind your own fucking business, that’s my polite answer,” McKay said. “You want me to get less polite? Because I can, and I will.” McKay paused. “Just keep your head down and work and don’t think and don’t ask. Capito?”

  It was his friend Bario who told him as it neared closing time that the woman was the owner’s daughter, and the one unspoken rule at her father’s mills was that no worker was allowed to even acknowledge her presence. “It’s a sackable offense,” said Bario, as if it weren’t clear.

  Salvo had worked like a brute and by the time the train brought him back to Lawrence, it was so late that his dinner had gone cold. He ate it anyway. Gina was not home. She had been staying with Verity a few nights a week.

  Salvo slept like a thick piece of lumber, and the next morning was back at the yard early. He wanted to make a good impression on the fine-looking owner’s daughter. But he saw her only briefly that day, and from a distance. She had overseen another large shipment that had come into the yard, hired ten more men, and disappeared. It didn’t matter. His charm with the fair sex was legendary around Belpasso,
or as Gina called it, “famigerato.” Salvo would keep his head down, work hard, and wait for an opportunity to present itself.

  7

  “You know my name means truth?” Verity said to Gina, watching her change into new garments at St. Vincent’s before they boarded the train on Thursday.

  “Really?” said Gina, putting on a flared skirt and a white cotton lace blouse. “I thought your name meant friendship.”

  Usually the boys got there early and saved them a seat. But on this Thursday in early November when the temperature had dropped and the leaves had all gone, Gina and Verity not only had to sneak in the side door but had to stand the entire meeting because Harry and Ben did not save them a seat. The girls stood for over an hour, listening to the evils of going to war with Spain and the massive protest demonstration the League was organizing just before Thanksgiving right in front of Old South, on the site of the Boston Massacre. Gina listened with only half an ear, because she was too busy wondering about the prim woman sitting between Harry and Ben, with her elaborate hat and proper purse. Gina watched her in profile, her straight nose, her refined demeanor. At first she found the woman’s extravagant hat amusing; it was so dramatic and perched so high on one side that it blocked the view of people for three rows behind her. But then Gina’s mood darkened. The woman seemed too familiar with both Harry and Ben. Gina touched her own hat, which had cost her twenty skeins, a wide brim hat with a short crown, neither silk nor fancy. She wished she could take it off.

  At last the torture was over and the meeting adjourned. Gina waited anxiously for the two men to make their way to them, but they didn’t. Instead they walked forward to the podium to speak to Ellen and a group of women. The high-hatted woman went with them, and was obviously quite familiar with Ellen also. Gina stood silently at the back, observing it all with a darkened gaze.

  “Let’s go say hello,” said Verity, who had no ulterior motives. “The meeting ran so long, we’re going to have to get going. The train is in less than forty-five minutes.”

  “How are you always so mindful of the time?” Gina muttered. Clearly she didn’t think this was a virtue.

  “Someone has to be. Or we’d never get anywhere.” Verity pulled on Gina’s reluctant white sleeve. “Come on, let’s go, say hello, goodbye, and be on our way.”

  “We can’t leave yet,” whispered Gina. “We just got here.” Verity had to nearly drag her to the front of the hall.

  “Oh, hello,” Ben said formally, as if it were completely normal that he didn’t come to say hello, or save them a seat. It seemed fake, put on. The woman in the billowing hat decorously but instantly swirled around to see who Ben was speaking to. Gina thought that was quite impressive of easygoing Ben to engineer such a swift response in someone who a second earlier seemed to be paying no attention whatsoever to him. The woman had been talking to Ellen and a group of other women and couldn’t immediately disengage herself. The only thing she did was to focus her eyes unblinkingly on Gina. Suddenly Gina felt keenly the poverty of the third-grade cotton fabric which comprised her lacy smock. The woman was dressed in finest gabardine.

  Harry was more reserved than usual, barely even nodding in greeting.

  “Sorry we couldn’t save you a seat,” Ben said. “You must be exhausted. We were late ourselves. Esther, Harry’s sister, is here with us.”

  Gina’s face broke into a relieved smile. “Oh,” she said, trying not to sound high-pitched and thrilled. “It’s your sister.”

  Harry nodded. “It’s my sister.”

  Presently the sister came over. Harry calmly introduced them. But he was always calm, and this time Gina couldn’t interpret it. “You’re Harry’s sister,” she said smiling, sticking out her gloved hand. “So nice to finally meet you.” She was proud of her black silk gloves. They cost her seventeen cents and had only two previous owners. And they hid her hideous hands from Esther who Gina was certain had never in her life touched unclean raw wool with plant matter in it.

  Esther nodded to her, glancing disdainfully, but did not shake Gina’s proffered hand. It must be a breach of etiquette. Young girls didn’t offer their hands to adults. Esther wore a dark navy pintucked suit, plain with a bit of lace, but custom tailored and exquisitely pressed. Though she had been sitting down, she didn’t have a wrinkle on her clothes. Stepping between Ben and Gina, Esther spoke to the girls as if from a great height. “You two are interested in imperialism?” Her voice was skeptical. Gina didn’t want to wear her clothes like Esther, stiff and severe. She wanted to dress for elegance, for flair. But oh, did she love the expensive fabric.

  “Anti-imperialism,” Gina corrected her. “But yes, very much so.”

  Esther said nothing in reply; not a hair on her eyebrow moved. From behind Esther, Ben grinned at Gina. Esther, her manners impeccable, remained supercilious, eyeing Verity, intensely eyeing Gina and the impassive Harry. “You have an accent,” she said.

  “Not me,” Verity said. “I was born here.”

  But Esther was not speaking to Verity.

  “Yes. I am from Italy,” said Gina.

  “Where in Italy?”

  “Sicily. It’s down south—”

  “I know where Sicily is,” said Esther. “Do you live in one of my father’s apartments?”

  “No,” Gina said. “We stayed for one night only.”

  “And now?”

  “We live in Lawrence.”

  “Lawrence,” Esther said. “I don’t know where that is. And who is we?”

  “My mother, my brother.”

  Verity pulled on her. “We need to go, Gina. The train.”

  “Oh yes,” echoed Esther. “You don’t want to miss your train.”

  Ellen came over. “Hello girls. Where were you two hiding tonight? I was looking for you. I’m having a small reception. Nothing fancy. Ben’s Aunt Josephine is here. Will you join us for a few minutes?”

  “We’d love to, Mrs. Shaw,” said Verity. “But you know we have to catch the 8:45.”

  “Oh, for shame. Not even for a few minutes? We have fresh lobster as a treat.”

  “Ellen, they probably need to hurry,” said Esther. “Do they even have trains to Lawrence this late at night?” She shrugged. “I have never traveled by train. I wouldn’t know.”

  “I hadn’t either,” exclaimed Verity. “Until Gina started bringing me to Boston. They do have trains—and even a subway that runs late.”

  “A subway. You don’t say.”

  “Harry,” Ben said. “Why don’t you stay here with your sister. Eat some lobster. Placate my mother.”

  “Nothing will placate her,” said Harry. “Not after you just told her you’re continuing to work for Mr. Preston, also known as the devil incarnate.”

  “I know. But do your best. She likes you. Est, I’ll see you later. Girls, shall we go?”

  Moving away, Esther took Harry’s arm.

  “It was nice to meet you, Esther,” Gina called after her. Esther did not reply.

  “Goodbye, Harry.”

  “Yes, good evening,” said Harry.

  Esther turned around—to watch Ben walk out of the meeting hall between the two girls.

  “Who does that impertinent child think she is, calling me Esther,” Esther fumed to Harry. “Like we’re old friends. These immigrants have no manners, none whatsoever. Why didn’t you tell her to call me Miss Barrington?”

  Harry shrugged. “I was using my manners, Esther. I didn’t want to embarrass her by correcting her. Also, they call us Harry and Ben. I didn’t want to age you.”

  Pivoting slightly away, Esther continued to complain. “It’s simply scandalous. Why, I don’t think that girl was wearing a corset.”

  “Perhaps,” offered Harry after a considered pause, “she wasn’t wearing one because she doesn’t need one.”

  They made their way to the food tables. As they took their plates, Esther spoke. “That’s the girl, isn’t it?”

  “What girl?”

  “The girl Ben
keeps talking about.”

  “When does Ben talk about a girl? In between bananas?”

  “Yes, every Sunday since August. The immigrant girl from Lawrence.”

  “I don’t remember,” Harry said. “And I thought you’d never heard of Lawrence?”

  “Don’t be obtuse.”

  “Not me. I honestly don’t pay attention, you know I don’t.”

  “Oh, you pay plenty of attention—just to the wrong things.” Esther critically cleared her throat. “She seems worryingly young.”

  “Worryingly? I have no opinion.”

  “Is she in school?”

  “I know nothing.” In the vast and spacious great hall, the crowds thinned out. Harry wanted to get himself a drink. He asked Esther what she wanted.

  She waved him off. “I wonder if they go to school.”

  “Esther, a drink?”

  “I don’t know. A glass of sherry. Is she pretty?”

  He left without replying and in a few minutes brought his sister some white wine. “They didn’t have sherry. Who is pretty?”

  “Harry, why are you being so unpleasantly dense?”

  “Not deliberately. I’m hungry, cranky, and thirsty, not necessarily in that order.” He drank down a glass of beer. “Less thirsty now. But the lobster is all gone. I had an eight o’clock class this morning in Faustian Philosophy, or Kantian Cryptology, or Darwinian Dialectics, I don’t remember anymore. Last night I was studying for my Socialism and Communism exam until three in the morning …”

  “Oh, you’re not actually taking such a ghastly course, are you?”

  “That’s amusing. And this was after going to a charity function with Alice and only narrowly escaping joining her in a ten-mile-long trail ride. What was your question?”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “She is barely out of grammar school. I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Has she even had any schooling at all? And are you protesting?”

  “Yes, Esther, she is the most beautiful elementary school girl I’ve ever seen. I don’t know why she is interested in politics and not beauty pageants.”