“Just look where that got Oliver,” I’d grumbled, put out at how Weaver always seemed to be able to bend the world, just a little, to his will. Just because he dared to.
I rushed to the warming oven, got a basket down off the top of it, and lined it with a clean napkin. I burned my fingers getting the hot rolls. My eyes teared, but I didn’t dare let on.
“Henry! Heat these up, will you?” Cook shouted. And then three metal cans went sailing over my head, one after another.
“Vas is?” Henry yelled.
“Sweet milk. For a caramel sauce,” she shouted back.
“Obnoxious,” Weaver said, suddenly beside me and scooping rolls into a basket. He stuffed a corn dodger into his mouth, then yowled, as Cook, passing us on a return trip to the oven from the icebox, cuffed his head.
“Bumptious,” I said, giggling.
Weaver had a reply, but he couldn’t get it out because his mouth was full. “To the death, Mr. Smith,” I said. I blew on my finger like it was a pistol stock, hoisted my tray, and headed for the dining room.
It was my first full day at the Glenmore, and though it was only about six miles from my house, it was a whole different country to me, a whole new world—the world of tourists. Tourists are a race of people who have money enough to go on vacation for a week or two, sometimes a month or even the whole summer. I couldn’t imagine it—not working for a whole summer. Some of them were quite nice, some were not. Mrs. Morrison was bossy and Cook was a bear, but I didn’t mind any of it. It all seemed like a grand adventure to me. I wasn’t quite as nervous as I’d thought I’d be. Fran, who was head waitress, had explained things to me.
I placed the rolls and butter down on table ten. A family was dining there. A father, mother, and three young children. They talked and laughed. The father rubbed noses with his little girl. I stared at them until the mother noticed me and I had to look away.
Table nine was a party of four burly sporting gentlemen up from New York City. They’d gone fishing with a guide in the morning and planned to go back out at dusk. I thought they would empty the entire kitchen. I brought them cream of green pea soup. Three baskets of rolls. A plate of sweet gherkins, radishes, olives, and chowchow. The trout they’d caught, fried and served with Sarah Bernhardt potatoes. Chicken livers sautéed with bacon. Entrecôtes of beef. Dishes of spinach, stewed tomatoes, beets, and creamed cauliflower. And for dessert, coconut layer cake sandwiched together with custard and covered with pillows of boiled icing.
Table eight was a single woman. She was sitting quietly, sipping lemonade and reading. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. “I’d kill for a dress like that,” Fran said as she passed by me. But it wasn’t her dress I wanted, it was her freedom. She could sit by a window and read, with nobody to say, “Are the chickens fed? What’s for supper? Have the pigs been slopped? The garden hoed? The cows milked? The stove blacked?” I thought she was the luckiest woman on the face of the earth. She had a small appetite and ordered no starters, only the trout. But she wanted it poached, not fried.
Cook grumbled, but she poached the fish. When I brought it out, the woman wrinkled her nose. “It smells off,” she said. “Would you please tell your cook that I like my fish fresh?”
I returned to the kitchen and went up to Cook with the plate in my hands, thinking that my life would surely end right then and there, but she just grumbled, took the lettuce and tomato garnish off, flipped the fish over, put on a new garnish of spinach leaves and carrot coins, then told me to wait five minutes and take it back out again. I did. The woman pronounced it perfect.
Table seven was two young married couples. They had maps with them and were planning a buckboard tour of the area. The men wore light wool suits and had smooth, clean hands and all their fingers. The women wore cycling skirts and striped waists with silk bow ties at the collar.
“Say, Maude, maybe our little waitress here will know!” one of the gentlemen said as I prepared to take their orders.
“Do you know where I can find Indians?” the woman named Maude asked me. “I’m here in the Ho De Ron Dah and I want to see Indians.”
“Beg your pardon, ma’am,” I said uncertainly, “but this is the Glenmore.”
The entire table burst into laughter. I felt stupid and I didn’t even know why.
“Ho De Ron Dah is an Indian word, dear. It’s Iroquois. It means ‘bark eaters.’ It’s what the Iroquois called their enemies, the Montagnais. The Montagnais hunted here in the mountains, but if they couldn’t catch anything, they ate roots and twigs. The Iroquois found that terribly gauche. White people, however, pronounce the word Ad-i-ron-dack. You know, the Adirondacks? Where you live!”
I live in the North Woods, I said silently. The Adirondacks was a name the travel brochures used to lure summer people. It was pretty and clever, like the tricked-out fishing flies Charlie Eckler sold to the tourists. The ones no guide would be caught dead using.
“So, tell me,” the woman said, “where can I find some Indians?”
I cleared my throat nervously. I didn’t want to say something else stupid and have them laugh at me again. “Well, ma’am, there’s the Traversys. And the Dennises. They’re Abenakis, I’m told. They weave sweet-grass baskets and sell them in Eagle Bay. At the railroad station . . .”
The woman wrinkled her nose. “Those are faux Indians. I want the real thing. The noble savage in the wilderness. Primitive man in all his glory.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t know. . . ,” I started to say, miserably awkward.
Weaver was suddenly at the table refilling the water glasses. I had no idea how he got there, and I wished he hadn’t. He had that look in his eyes. The one I knew too well.
“You want to see Mose LaVoie, ma’am,” he said. “He’s a full-blooded Saint Regis. Lives up past Big Moose Station. In a tepee in the woods.”
My mouth dropped open.
“There you go, Maudsy!” the gentleman said.
“How exciting!” the woman said. “How will we know him?”
“He’s hard to miss, ma’am. He wears buckskins. Though that’s only when it’s cold. This time of year, he just wears a loincloth. And a bear-claw necklace. And feathers in his hair. Just go up to the Summit Hotel and ask for Injun Mose.”
I nearly choked. Mose LaVoie was an Indian, but he certainly did not live in a tepee. He lived in a log house and he wore a shirt, trousers, and suspenders like every other man. He was nice enough if he knew you, but he had a temper and it came out when he drank. He’d take a swing at a locomotive if he thought it was looking at him the wrong way. He’d put out the windows in the Summit on more than one occasion, and he was certain to knock the head off any fool tourist who called him Injun Mose instead of Mr. LaVoie.
“A genuine redskin! Imagine that! He’ll be the perfect guide to the real Ho De Ron Dah!”
Weaver grinned from ear to ear. “Yes, ma’am, he sure will,” he said.
I caught up with him at the coffee station. “You’re going to have four murders on your conscience, Weaver Smith. I hope you’re all right with that.”
“They shouldn’t laugh at you,” he said. “And they shouldn’t call me colored.”
“Oh, Weaver, they didn’t.” He hates being called that word, colored. He says he is a person, not an Easter egg.
“They did. Last night when they arrived and again at breakfast. Ever seen Mose LaVoie when he’s mad?”
“Only from a distance.”
“Me, too. And I reckon this ought to make us just about even.”
Table seven was bad, but table six was the worst of all. The very worst. It was a single man. A Mr. Maxwell. He was small and slight. Balding. And sweating, too, even though it wasn’t terribly warm. One must always steer clear of men who sweat when it isn’t warm. He held the menu on the table and bent his head toward it, squinting and mopping his brow with his handkerchief as he studied it.
“I’m afraid I’ve left my glasses in my room,” he finally said. “Would you m
ind reading the entrées for me?” I thought his eyes must be very bad indeed, because he looked at my bosom as he spoke, not my face.
“I’d be happy to,” I said, just as green as a frog. I leaned over him and started reciting. “Baked ham, broiled spring chicken, boiled tongue . . .”
Just as I got to the veal in aspic, he pulled his napkin off his lap. Under it was something that looked rather like a frankfurter. Only no frankfurter I’d ever seen stood at attention.
“I’ll have the veal in aspic,” he said, covering himself again.
My face was flaming as I went back into the kitchen. It was so red that Cook noticed it immediately. “What have you done?” she barked. “Did you drop something?”
“No ma’am, I. . . I just stumbled, that’s all,” I lied. I couldn’t bear to say what really happened. Not to anyone.
Fran, picking up an order, heard us. She came up to me. “Table six?” she whispered.
I nodded, looking at the floor.
“The dirty dog! He did it tome yesterday. You should drop something, all right. A jug of ice water. Right in his lap! Don’t go back there, Matt. I’ll get Weaver to take the table.”
“Fran! Where are you?” Cook bellowed. “Pick up, pick—”
She didn’t get to finish her sentence, because just then, the kitchen fell under attack.
There was an explosion. Louder than the Old Forge town cannon on the Fourth of July. Worse than anything I’d ever heard. Ada screamed. I did, too. “Oh, mein Gott!” Henry yelled. Shrapnel went whizzing through the air and hit one of the gas lamps. Glass came raining down. Ada and I ducked behind the cold station, clutching each other. There was another explosion, and another. There was more screaming and more glass. I chanced a look up; the ceiling was dented in half a dozen places. More lamps had been smashed. A window was broken.
I felt a wetness on my face. It was hot. “Ada!” I said frantically. “Ada, I think I’m bleeding.” Ada raised her head and looked at me. She touched my cheek. I looked at her fingers, expecting to see crimson, but instead I saw white. Ada sniffed it. “Smells like milk,” she said. We stood up cautiously, still holding on to each other.
Fran and Weaver were peering out from behind the icebox. Bill was crouched under the sink. Two more waitresses and another busboy had hidden in the cellar way. I saw the door open a crack and their eyes blinking from the gloom. The kitchen was a complete disaster. The mess was breathtaking. The same sticky goo that was on my face was dripping from the ceiling. There was glass on every surface—on the plates, in the cutlery trays, on the serving platters, all over the floor. A cake batter, three pies, a bowl of biscuit dough, a pan of gelatin, a pot of soup, four trays of cookies, and a crab mousse were ruined.
I heard a moan coming from under the big plank worktable in front of the stove. It was Cook. She was lying facedown on the floor. Ada and I ran to help her up. She looked all around, shaking her head at the devastation.
“Where’s Henry?” she gasped. “Where the devil is he?”
Henry came out from the pantry. He was ashen and trembling.
“You put those cans right on the stove, didn’t you?” she yelled at him.
“You . . . you try to kill me!” Henry shouted at her. “You tell me heat milk, then Blam! Blam! Blam!”
“In a pot, you jackass! In a pot! You can’t heat cans; they explode. Don’t you know that? What kind of godforsaken ass-backward caveman country do you come from?” she roared.
“You try to kill me,” Henry insisted. Obstreperously.
“Not hard enough,” Cook said. She picked up a carving knife. Henry bolted out through the screen door. She was right on his heels.
Half an hour later, she was back at her stove, wiping it clean, and Henry was nowhere to be seen. The rest of us were busy washing and mopping. I was at the sink, rinsing out my rag, convinced I’d come to work at a lunatic asylum. Only here, the lunatics were allowed to roam free, blowing things up or threatening to kill one another. I remembered what Pa had told me: He’d come after me, or get Royal to, if I wanted to go home. I remembered what he’d said about low-down jacks taking rooms in fancy hotels, too, and wished I could tell him what table six had done. Pa would settle that man’s hash for him, but then I’d be on my way home whether I wanted to go or not, hearing “I told you so” the whole way. And then Weaver came up to me and pressed something crinkly into my hand. A whole dollar bill.
“What’s this?” I asked him.
“Your tip. From table six.”
I shook my head. “I don’t want it,” I said, trying to hand it back. “Not from him.”
“Don’t be stupid. It’s the easiest money you’ll make all summer. Hell, the old duffer can flash me for a dollar.”
Fran appeared with a bucket of dirty water. “I’d give it another look for a quarter,” she said, giggling.
Both Fran and Weaver jollied me until we were all three laughing, until I took the dollar and put it in my pocket along with the dimes and nickels I’d collected from my other tables, until Cook—seeing us idle—picked up her knife, pointed it at us, and said, “Stop loafing and start working before I tell Mr. Morrison to dig three more graves right next to the one he’s digging for Henry.”
So we did.
li • mic • o • lous
Everyone in Big Moose and Eagle Bay and Inlet and the whole North Woods knew that it was bad luck to sharpen a tool after dusk. Everyone, it seemed, but Henry.
It was evening, about eight or so, and Cook had sent me down to the boathouse, where the guides were giving a fly-casting demonstration, with a tray of sugar cookies and a pitcher of lemonade. When I came back, there was Henry—sitting on the kitchen steps, sharpening a filleting knife. Cook had got it out of him that his so-called apprenticeship in the finest kitchens of Europe had consisted of mopping floors and emptying garbage pails. He was in disgrace and had to do all the menial jobs, like cleaning fish, and making stock from bones and peelings, and sharpening knives. She would have liked to send him packing, but she couldn’t. The season was under way and help—good or bad—was hard to find.
“Henry, don’t do that!” I scolded. “It’s bad luck!”
I could do that now—scold Henry and tease Bill and joke with Charlie, the bartender, and the guides—for I’d been at the Glenmore a whole week and had received my first wages, and I belonged now, too. Just as much as they did.
“Vat luck? No luck but luck vat you make,” Henry said stubbornly, keeping on with his task.
Well, he made some luck all right. Bad luck. And not for himself, either.
I thought of that knife, and of the sharpening stone, the second I saw Weaver’s face. It was maybe half an hour later and Cook and I were hanging out dishrags on a line near the back steps when John Denio brought him to the kitchen door. We gasped at the sight of him, then hustled him inside as fast as we could, hoping the Morrisons and Mr. Sperry wouldn’t find out. But they did.
“Weaver, why can’t you ever stay out of trouble?” Mr. Sperry shouted, storming in from the dining room. “I send you to Big Moose Station on a simple errand—to help John pick up new arrivals—and look what happens. One of the guests said there was a fight. Were you in it?”
Weaver lifted his chin. “Yes, sir, I was.”
“Damn it, Weaver, you know my policy on fighting . . .”
“It wasn’t his fault, Mr. Sperry,” I quickly said, dabbing witch hazel on the cut below Weaver’s eye. “He didn’t start it.”
“But he could have stopped it,” Cook said, wiping blood from Weaver’s nose. “Could have stepped aside and let the trash blow down the sidewalk, but no, he has to run his mouth.”
“What happened?” Mr. Sperry asked.
John Denio answered. All three of us—Cook, Mr. Denio, and myself—knew better than to let Weaver do the talking.
“He was attacked,” John said. “In front of the station. The train was late. I went to talk to the stationmaster and left Weaver in the wagon. Three men cam
e out of the Summit Hotel. Trappers. They were drunk. They said some things. Weaver answered back. One of them hauled him out of the seat and all three of them beat him. I heard the noise, ran out, and broke it up.”
“Three to one, Weaver? For God’s sake, why didn’t you just keep quiet?”
“They called me nigger.”
Mr. Sperry took Weaver’s chin in his hand and grimaced at the damage. A cut eye that was already blackening. A nose that might well be broken. A lip as fat and shiny as a garden slug. “It’s just a word, son. I’ve been called worse,” he said.
“Beg your pardon, Mr. Sperry, but you haven’t,” Weaver said. “I’m going to the justice of the peace tomorrow,” he added. “I’m telling him what happened. I’m pressing charges.”
Mr. Sperry sighed. “You’re just bent on kicking skunks, aren’t you? From tomorrow on, you’re to stay in the kitchen. You can wash dishes and mop floors and do whatever else Cook can find for you until your face heals.”
“But why, Mr. Sperry?” Weaver asked, upset. He wouldn’t earn tips working in the kitchen.
“Because you look like you fell into a meat grinder! I can’t have you serving guests with a face like that.”
“But it’s not right, sir. I shouldn’t be called names. Shouldn’t catch a beating. Shouldn’t have to stay in the kitchen, either.”
“How old are you, Weaver? Seventeen or seven? Don’t you know that what should be and what is are two different things? You should be dead. Luckily, you aren’t. You think on that the next time you decide to take on three grown men.” He stormed back out. Cook went after him to ask about a delivery, John returned to his horses, and the two of us were left alone.
Limicolous, my word of the day, means something that lives in the mud. I thought it was a very good word to describe the men who beat Weaver, and told him so. Weaver had other words to describe them, though, and it was a good thing Cook didn’t hear them.
“Hush, Weaver, just let it go,” I said, wrapping up a chunk of ice in a towel. “A few days in the kitchen won’t kill you. It’s better than losing your job. Here, hold this against your lip.”
A Gathering Light Page 19