What Every Girl Should Know

by J. Albert Mann

  I turned around and started back. One tie. Two ties.

  The tracks visibly shook.

  Three ties. Four ties. Five ties.

  The train blasted around the hill.

  I wouldn’t make it. I couldn’t make it. This was a mistake. Everything was a mistake. I wanted to take it all back.

  The train hit the trestle. My foot wobbled. My arms shot up into the air.

  I was falling.

  My arm hooked a tie, my jaw cracking into wood. The smell of tar filled my nose as my legs swung out into the air high over the Chemung. The engine crashed toward me. The screech of steel against steel was louder than I could ever scream.

  I shut my eyes and hugged the tie with all my might.

  Would it slice off my arm and send me spinning down into the river? Would steam pour out and boil me to my bones? Should I let go?

  Car after car after car after car crashed over my head. The tie did its best to shake me free. I clung tighter. My arm was not sliced off. Nothing burned me. Hell was dark and loud and long. And still I hung on.

  The whistle sounded far off in the distance. My arms were numb against the wood and my shoes had long since spun away, but I continued to dangle in the dark. Until a force lifted me through the ties, ripping my arms from the railroad tie.

  “Open your eyes,” a man growled.

  I didn’t open them. I couldn’t.

  The strong arms shook me, hard. “I said open them eyes, now!”

  I obeyed, and was looking into the loose-cheeked, freckled face of Mr. Edder.

  “Does your father know where you are?” My thoughts were as numb as my arms, and all I could do was stare at him. “Well, does he?” he barked, his crooked yellow teeth inches from my face, his breath smelling like cooked rice. My chin dropped to my chest.

  He let go of my arms, and I saw his hands were trembling. “Go home,” he said in a hoarse whisper. Then he turned and walked away across the ties.

  I looked one last time at the other side. I shuddered as a thought crept up my spine: I could still do it.

  Shaky and weak, but focusing on the sight of the track ahead of me, I took a step and then, without even making a decision, I started to run, listening to the puck, puck, puck of my stockinged feet hitting ties.

  Until they hit dirt.

  Until I was across!

  I collapsed onto the riverbank. I had made it. I had done it. I had never felt more secure, more solid within myself than I did right then. I clutched at the earth, giddy to be lying on it and not down in the river broken to pieces. I would need to do this again. Several times. Maybe several hundred . . . before I could cross it fearlessly. But not today. Today, I’d done it.

  I dragged myself from the ground and slapped the dirt and leaves from my skirt, not looking back at the bridge or down into the fast-moving water of the Chemung. In my stockinged feet, I wandered through the apple trees bright with white blossoms, so potent they made me giddy. Every breeze brought a shower of petals. I held out my hand and caught some in my palm and then blew them off into the bright blue sky. When I’d finished sucking in the heavenly scent, I turned toward home, my long braid slapping against my shoulder.

  I reached down and untied the ribbon, but my hair stayed tangled in its braid, as if it didn’t know how to be unbound. I ran my fingers through the long, red strands, teasing them loose. My hair, liberated, blew about collecting apple blossoms.

  The Gloves

  A poor girl from Corning would become a poor woman from Corning. This was a truth I’d lived every day of my life. A poor girl from Corning becoming a doctor? It would take strength. Strength that I might not yet have, but I knew how to grow.

  My secret successes were mounting. I was slowly learning to control myself. My manners and conduct were impeccable because I had made them so. I dwelt inside a fortress of my own building, a place no insult could penetrate. Nor could anyone else’s idea of who I was—or was not—ever again find its way inside. Even Mary and Nan had noticed the changed me, and they’d bought me the most special gift: a pair of beautiful silk gloves.

  Creamy white, they hugged each of my fingers and slipped softly up my arms and around my elbows. I would have cherished them whether or not they’d come from Mary and Nan. But I adored them even more because they did.

  “Margaret Louise!”

  I kept them under my bed in their golden box where I pulled them out to try them on each morning before school, if only for a moment.

  “Margaret Louise!”

  I admit they were an indulgence. But they were such a lovely indulgence coming from my sisters, who had no money for such folly, but spent it anyway.

  “Margaret Louise!”

  My mother. Just shouting my name meant so many things. There are diapers to change. An ashpan to empty. Water to fetch. Chickens to feed.

  I waved good-bye to congenial imaginary people on a charming imaginary city street just to admire my gloves in action one last time before I needed to place them away for the day.

  “Margaret Louise!”

  “Coming!” I shouted, resisting the urge to shriek it.

  The only time she ever spoke to me was when she wanted something. Was a single peaceful moment alone with my beautiful gloves too much to ask?

  I sighed and then carefully removed finger after finger. Folding one on top of the other, I gently laid them on the silky paper inside their golden box. I replaced the lid, and slid the box under my bed. It was going to be a very long day without them.

  After I dumped the ash bucket, I headed out to feed the chickens. On my return trip, I passed my brothers hurrying off to work.

  “You left the chicken gate open,” said Joseph.

  “Close it on your way out?” I asked.

  “No time,” John said.

  “Some of us work for a living,” Thomas chimed in.

  I dropped the empty ash bucket at my feet and stomped back to the coop. I was sweating from both the heat and anger. But I said nothing, because I owned and commanded my inner self.

  Inside, I wiped Richard’s runny nose and released him from his high chair while Arlington screamed for my attention from his cradle.

  “Clio, can you grab him, please?”

  “I’m late for school,” he said, heading out the door.

  I wanted to shout that I was late, too, but I stayed calmly inside my fortress. That is, until I called for my little sister.

  “Ethel!”

  The fact that I was following in my mother’s footsteps by yelling for Ethel didn’t improve my morning.

  “Ethel!”

  “What, Maggie?”

  She’d been standing right behind me.

  “Change Arly, will you? I can smell him from here.”

  She didn’t move, and I saw her wondering if she could get out of it. She couldn’t, so she did as I asked while I cleared the breakfast dishes.

  Mother walked into the room, round with baby and white with exhaustion. “Leave those for me, Margaret Louise. Go get dressed for school or you’ll be late.”

  I put down the soap.

  “Arly’s clean,” Ethel said, plopping him onto the kitchen floor and handing him a candle snuffer, which he immediately began to bang on the floorboards.

  “Arlington . . . ,” my mother said, not having the energy to finish her sentence. Or even to keep standing. She sat heavily onto the chair at the table.

  Arlington kept up his banging.

  “Go on to school, Ethel.” I removed the snuffer from the baby’s chubby hand and he began to cry. “I’ll catch up.”

  I yanked the baby from the floor a little more roughly than I meant to and he stopped crying in surprise. Feeling badly, I gave him a big sucking, wet kiss on his fat neck, just the way I used to do for Henry, and he giggled.

  I carried him to the sink and propped him up on the sideboard. “Now sit still,” I warned him, “while I do the dishes.” And so he’d listen, I began to sing.

  “Oh, promise me tha
t someday you and I

  Will take our love together to some sky . . .”

  He played with a long strand of hair that had come loose from my braid. His chubby fingers felt so good tugging on my head that I kept singing, and washing.

  “. . . Where we may be alone and faith renew,

  And find the hollows where those flowers grew.”

  When I finished, I placed Arlington on the floor next to Richard and headed upstairs to change for school.

  “Margaret Louise?” my mother called, still sitting at the table.

  I turned around.

  “Thank you.”

  It was those two beautiful words that had me pull them out and put them on. My reward. My beautiful gloves.

  * * *

  I was so distracted by my hands and arms that I wasn’t even winded climbing the hill to St. Mary’s. Instead I was mesmerized by the flashes of white as my arms swung, one after another into view. I felt light, new . . . grown. And the best thing was, the gloves had whisked me so quickly up the hill that I doubted I’d be more than a minute late.

  A minute late.

  The thought had me forget about my gloves for the first time since Mary and Nan secretly gave them to me two Sundays past. Unlike Miss Hayes at Corning Public Union School, being tardy for Sister Greeley was a heinous crime. And between the joy of my mother’s gratitude and my marvelous gloves, I had completely forgotten about her. Although now her hard face was all I saw, and I took the last two blocks straight up State Street at a gallop . . . a fast gallop.

  The early May sun, not nearly so hot a few minutes ago, slowed me down. And I was sweating in my glorious gloves by the time I reached the front doors of St. Mary’s. But I didn’t stop. I flew inside and down the hall and swung open the classroom door all in one long motion. A motion too late.

  Sister Greeley looked up from her place in front of the class. Her mouth twisted into a cruel smile. My heart dropped so low it made me need to use the necessary. I thought about turning around and leaving, but her eyes held me to the spot.

  She waited until everyone had turned to look at me before she spoke.

  “Well, well, well, Miss Higgins, so your ladyship has arrived at last!”

  Laughter.

  Then . . . she noticed my gloves.

  “Ah, and I see you’ve worn your best gloves. I wonder that you even deign to come to school at all.”

  More laughter. Harder laughter.

  The sweet sweat from my run now mingled with the sour sweat of shame as she glared at me in triumph.

  After another moment where I couldn’t seem to move, I found myself in the cloakroom removing my hat . . . and my gloves. I heard the lesson get underway behind me and silently hoped that Sister Greeley would not look my way again today. My skin, which I’d thought as tough as shoe leather, felt as thin as a whisper. I took a deep breath of musty closet air and reminded myself I lived inside of a fortress, an iron fortress.

  But as soon as I walked out of the cloakroom, she began again.

  “And here she is, Queen Margaret of Corning.” She drew out the word Corning to sound hokey.

  The room wobbled and I fell into my seat, squishing down into it, hoping that I blended in with my classmates and the lesson would go on. It didn’t.

  “Is her ladyship ready now?” she asked.

  I wasn’t sure she wanted me to answer. If I did, maybe it would be worse because she’d believe I was thinking myself high and mighty.

  I said nothing. Instead, I tucked my chin to my chest and stared down at my desk, too addled to take out a book or pen or paper.

  “We wouldn’t want to rush a member of the important House of Higgins.”

  Now the laughter seemed to push at me from all sides. I tried to imagine myself somewhere else. The brook. Or in the old barn. Surrounded by every last one of my brothers and sisters.

  “Pipe down now, citizens,” she said, being sure to emphasize my father’s favorite word. And her cruel humor was not lost on its audience.

  Now I attempted to smile, too, as if I was in on the joke. As if this really was quite funny. But something happened to my mouth. It was stiff and I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t control my head either, or my eyes or feet or anything, and I just about slipped to the floor while all around me there was hooting and hollering.

  Sister Greeley clapped her hands to stop the merriment. “Let’s get back to work, everyone.”

  And then to me she said, “Out of respect for your poor mother, I won’t report the lateness . . . this time.”

  At the mention of my mother—my poor mother—I began to crack. I tightened my hold, struggling to stop myself from splitting open. But it was impossible. After all my strengthening tasks, I couldn’t hold that other me back.

  I stood, knocking my chair into the desk behind me. Sister Greeley, startled, said nothing. Her silence fed me, and I strode to the cloakroom where I stuffed my hat on my head and pulled on first one beautiful glove and then the other. I was nearly bursting out of my head with anger. Every height I’d crossed over, every insult I’d endured with a serene smile, they were all for naught.

  Outside the cloakroom, Sister Greeley had recovered, and I heard her yelling. “Miss Higgins. Miss Higgins!”

  Now even her voice spurred me on. She was losing control. It was wonderful. But I’d lost it first. And I was not about to regain it. I stepped from the cloakroom and met her eye.

  I let her speak first.

  “Don’t think you can just waltz out of here and then waltz back in,” she shrieked, blistering with anger.

  “Oh, I won’t be back,” I answered, allowing her to hear my rage.

  She had not expected this, and scrambled for something to say. I took advantage of the moment and waved her a beautiful white-gloved good-bye.

  It felt so very good before it felt so very bad. And although I despised that other Margaret—the Margaret who marched out of school—I admired her too, just a little.

  Nowhere

  The rest of spring and summer passed and I insisted on remaining a dropout. My mother accepted it. She had to. For one, I was not going back to St. Mary’s. And for another, she didn’t have the energy for a fight. She didn’t have the energy for anything. When she went into early labor in late August, she barely groaned through the delivery. She knew—as did we all—this was another who wouldn’t live, and she laid motionless in the bed not helping it along.

  Twenty-three hours later, Mary and I delivered her a red baby boy small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Mary washed and wrapped him gently in a clean rag and I tucked a violet between its folds before we buried him in the backyard without a marker. It was yet another birth my father missed.

  He worked at the glass factory now, thanks to the successful groveling of Joseph to Emma’s father. It was his last option after both local stonemasons barred him from their shops.

  Mary and Nan stayed the night.

  Mary cooked dinner. Veal pot pie. We sat at the table greedily eating Mary’s good cooking. Arlington was shoving the carrots and corn into his mouth, but digging out the lima beans and squishing them in his fists. I didn’t like the lima beans either.

  It felt like Christmas . . . although a quiet one. My mother was asleep and none of us wanted to wake her. Mostly because she might see how happy we were—all together, and not thinking about what was buried in the yard.

  My father sat in his chair and drank his dinner. Gone were the days where he held court at the marble-topped table—feeling our skulls for a glimpse into our futures and filling our heads with thoughts of freedom. The boys and he didn’t get along much anymore. I knew it was a choice I was making, to be happy with my brothers and sisters. To rejoice in them, and in Mary and Nan. I missed my sisters so much. Nan’s tinkling laughter made the air easier to breathe, while watching Mary’s movements from the cookstove to the dry sink to the cutting board was like watching a ballet.

  The windows and doors were open. The smell of warm eart
h beginning to cool wafted through the house. It was late, and we were still eating. Still talking.

  But in a lull, Nan sighed. And I knew exactly what was coming.

  “What will we do about Margaret?”

  It was my turn to sigh. “Nothing. There is nothing to do about me,” I said. “I won’t go back. I will not go back there. I will work at the factory.”

  The entire table shuddered.

  “You will get nowhere without an education,” Nan cried.

  Nowhere.

  The word stopped the conversation. We sat in silence. It was where they were: nowhere. It was where I was now heading. One after another, my brothers and sisters had dropped out of school and into hopeless jobs, all the while endeavoring to be the last of us to do this—the older Higginses sacrificing so the younger Higginses might avoid the smoke of the factory, or the backdoor service entrances of the houses on the hill. And here I was, stubbornly choosing them.

  I leaped to my feet and walked out the door and into the night. I got as far as the front stoop, where I lost my energy and flopped onto the wood steps. Walking out—it was an excessive emotional display I seemed to be perfecting these days. After all my struggles to strengthen myself, one moment in the presence of Sister Greeley and I was lost.

  If only I hadn’t stood quite so tall as I made my way out of the classroom. Hadn’t said I was never coming back, but maybe something like, I may never come back. I’d let the me I despised, the me I couldn’t control, ruin everything.

  Or maybe it had been ruined from the start. Maybe becoming a doctor had always been a silly dream. Ridiculous, even. Women became wives and mothers. Maids. Teachers. Didn’t I always know there were no protuberances, no freedom of thought, no vote . . . not even a lousy pair of pants? I’d be lucky if the factory employed me to package up glass for the rest of my life.

  My brothers and sisters filed out into the night, surrounding me.

  “I have a plan,” Nan whispered.

  I folded my arms tightly across my chest. “Absolutely no plan will ever make me walk back through the doors of St. Mary’s.”

  “Maggie?” Nan said.

  I didn’t look at her. I didn’t answer her. I was so sick of this conversation. How could they not understand how I felt? Even now, sitting here enveloped by my siblings, Sister Greeley’s thin-lipped grin heated my insides to an ashy white coal.