Lillian’s parents weren’t the only ones to notice her demeanor that night, and she found that out soon after climbing into bed. Arlene had been in bed for fifteen minutes and began singing a poetic song she made up during that short time.
“Lil-lian’s in love,—My sis-ter’s in love.
“His name is Mar-cus,—And she made such a fuss.
“Lil-lian’s in love,—My sis-ter’s in love.
“He’s a real hand-some lad,—And she loves him so bad.
“They hugged each other tight,—All through the night.
“With Lillian on his knee,—They were K-I-S-S-I-N-G
“Then along came Ar-lene,—And along came Le-o-na.
“Saying: If you go too far,—We’ll tell ma and she’ll tell pa
“Now our sister Lil-lian,—Is lying in her bed,
“Looking so angry,—And turn-ing so red.
“So we bes’ stop talking,—And lie quiet in our bed.
“Or surely next morning,—We’ll both wake up dead.”
“Fun—nee!” Lillian said, causing Arlene and Leona to break into laughter.
“Stop that!” she yelled. “And go to sleep right now, or you will wake up dead.”
Her sisters immediately stopped laughing, and she was greatly relieved. Arlene was thankful that Lillian couldn’t tell that she and Leona each had a huge smile on their face, or that they were softly giggling under their blankets. Arlene did so for only a couple of minutes, but Leona did so on-and-off for over ten minutes, until she finally fell asleep feeling warm inside because of the love she felt for her sisters.
Chapter 16
Little Wally
On April 29, 1915, three days after the nearly disastrous ferry ride and almost exactly five years after Leona was born, the Haleys had their fourth and final child. This time it was a boy they named Wallace Murdock Carver Haley; however, everyone called him Wally, a nickname he carried from his first day on Earth to his last.
It wasn’t clear whether Margaret’s plunge in the cold water of the Penobscot had anything to do with the baby’s early arrival, but her doctors suspected that it did. Regardless, the baby boy was remarkably healthy and everyone in the Haley family was excited when he arrived: the parents because they now had a son, and the girls because they finally had a little brother. Leona was particularly delighted that her brother was born only three days after her own birthday. Indeed, she was as enamored at having a baby brother as Arlene and Lillian had been at having a baby sister, and, as one might expect, she was extremely protective of little Wally, treating him as special as her sisters had treated her.
“Can I hold him now?” Leona asked her mother, two weeks after he was born.
“Okay, dear, but be real careful,” the concerned mother instructed Leona. “Wally’s little bones are still fragile, especially with him being born three weeks premature. It’ll take a few more weeks for his bones to become strong enough where we won’t have to worry. Come right over here, sweetheart, and sit in my rocker.”
Margaret handed the tiny baby to her 5-year-old.
“Okay, now gently put your arm under Wally’s bottom and hold his head like this; his little neck isn’t nearly strong enough to support his big noggin, just yet.”
“He’s so soft,” Leona said, her face all aglow.
She began rocking the baby, and after only a few minutes Margaret heard her daughter scream at the top of her lungs.
“Yuck! Wally just upchucked all over my dress. Oh, it smells gawd awful!”
Murdock laughed after seeing the comical expression on his daughter’s face.
“What’s the matter, Leona? Little Wally get the best of you? I thought you wanted to hold him.”
“I did, Papa. But I didn’t want him spitting on me. What did I do to deserve that?”
Margaret took the baby and passed him to Murdock. Then she took Leona to the bathroom and applied cold water to a washcloth to clean the smelly mess off her distressed girl’s dress.
“Now go change into your pajamas, young lady, and you can hold Wally again if you want to.”
“I’m not sure I want to,” Leona said.
But of course she did; and the Haleys soon found that out when the pajama-clad youngster came running back into the living room and climbed into her mother’s rocking chair.
“Okay, Papa. Can I hold him now?” she giggled excitedly.
Murdock nodded and placed the baby boy on Leona’s lap, saying: “You can rock him for another half-hour, but after that you have to go to bed. Okay, Leona?”
“Yes, Papa.”
It was nine o’clock on the nose when Leona saw her father walk back into the living room.
“It’s time for bed, Leona.”
“But I’m not tired, Papa. Can’t I.…”
“You heard what I told you before. Now, stop your hemming and hawing, and get to bed.”
“Do as your father tells you, Leona,” Margaret yelled, “and in the morning you can help feed Wally.”
—1—
Leona woke up early the next morning, earlier than usual. She could hardly wait to feed her new baby brother. Realizing that, Margaret showed her youngest daughter how to hold the baby, and then readied a bottle of milk for the feeding.
“Now hold out your wrist, dear, and I’ll show you how to test the milk to make sure the temperature is just right.”
When she did, Margaret squirted some milk from the bottle onto her daughter’s wrist.
“Ouch, that’s hot,” Leona cried.
Margaret tested the milk herself and agreed with Leona.
“When it’s hot like that, all we have to do is place the bottle in a pot of cold water for about a minute and then retest it,” Margaret said. She did that and this time squirted the cooled milk on her own wrist first. “It’s just right now, Leona. Here, let me show you.”
Remembering the pain from the hot milk, Leona reluctantly held out her wrist and flinched when her mother again squirted milk onto it. Margaret was amused at the uneasy expression on her girl’s face.
“It’s warm, Mama.”
“Good, that’s the way it should be. Not too hot and not too cold.”
Leona proceeded to feed Wally his milk, and burped him after he was done feeding. This time, however, she had a white towel draped over her shoulder when the baby spit up. The smell that she at first hated no longer bothered the young girl; and, in fact, the baby’s more pungent odors were eventually negated by the warmth Leona felt inside when she held her cuddly baby brother in her arms. Of course, the talcum powder her mother used to help mask the odors didn’t hurt either.
—2—
After a few weeks Leona was excited to learn that she was going to be the first to teach Wally how to eat solid foods. While giving Wally his bottle of milk, she watched her mother opening a small jar.
“Here, Leona, you can feed this to Wally too.”
“What is it?”
“It’s applesauce. Here, try a taste.”
Leona loved applesauce, so she eagerly tasted it.
“Yuck! What’s wrong with it? It tastes awful!”
“I know, dear, but it’s supposed to taste good to babies.”
Leona wasn’t so sure about that when she saw the sour expression on her baby brother’s face after she fed him his first spoonful.
“Wally doesn’t like it either, Mama. He’s spitting it out, all over his bib.”
“Just keep feeding it to him, dear; he’ll get used to it. It tastes funny because it contains special ingredients that babies need to grow properly.”
After feeding the baby, Leona took Wally into the living room and rocked him to sleep in her mother’s chair near the far window looking out onto Palm Street, while her parents sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee. Leona loved the feeling of Wally’s soft,
warm little head resting gently in the crook of her neck. Every now and then Margaret gazed at the living room and more often than not she spotted Leona with a smile on her face, giving her brother a kiss on his soft, nearly-bald head.
“Look how good Leona is with Wally,” she said to Murdock.
“I know. It’s hard to believe that she could be so patient with him. I think you have a helper for life, Maggie.”
“I think you’re right.” Margaret said, and then quickly changed her mind when she heard Leona yelling.
“Mama! Mama! Help me! Quick! Wally peed on me. And he did something else too. Oh! It smells wicked awful! Somebody open the window quick. Please hurry! It smells sooooo bad.”
Margaret and her husband laughed as they rescued Leona from her dilemma. Murdock opened a window and Margaret took the baby from Leona’s arms. Even with the malodorous smell still emanating from her brother’s diaper, Leona held her nose and followed Margaret to the nearby couch to watch her mother change little Wally, at a reasonable distance, of course.
“Leona, why don’t you go over and help your mother?” Murdock cajoled his daughter.
“No way! Wally smells somethin’ terrible—even worse than the outhouse. Maybe we shouldn’t feed him apple sauce anymore.”
Her parents laughed. After the smell subsided, Leona gradually worked her way over to her mother and watched her up close trying to put a clean diaper on a squirming Wally.
“What’s that?” Leona asked, pointing toward the baby.
“That’s his little tail, dear.”
“What’s it for?” Leona asked again, while leaning over her brother to get a better look.
Suddenly, it squirted straight up into the air, barely missing Leona and causing her to jump back startled.
“That’s what it’s for, Leona,” Margaret laughed. “Now go fetch me another diaper.”
—3—
It took a few days, but Leona eventually got used to the baby’s new smells and to his annoying peculiarities. As the days went on she got better and better at helping her mother care for little Wally. Luckily the baby came along at a most propitious time for Leona because her older sisters, now 8 and 11 years old, had friends of their own and no longer had much time, or inclination, to spend it with their younger sister. Of course, that didn’t matter now because Leona had her own little friend to occupy her time, even if he sometimes seemed to be more trouble than he was worth.
Like all toddlers, Wally was a handful and got into his share of trouble. Indeed, a disaster of one type or another seemed to lurk just around the corner. The first big one nearly happened when he was 6 months old. Margaret and Murdock were sitting at the kitchen table, and Leona was in the living room playing Jacks. Margaret yelled to her daughter as little Wally crawled from the kitchen into the living room.
“Keep a close eye on your brother tonight, Leona. He’s in one of his hyperactive moods.”
“How can you tell, Maggie?” Murdock joked.
“Oh, he’s not that bad, Murdy; nothing like my brother’s little one, thank God. Wally’s just a normal little boy. Wait ‘til he’s two if you think he’s bad now. I suspect he’ll be no different than Mae’s 2-year-old son is now; and you know how he is. Fortunately, Maude lucked out; if her firstborn had been a boy, next year, when he’d be two, she’d wish she had waited another seven years.”
“I’ve heard of the terrible twos when it comes to boys,” Murdock said, “but now I’m not sure I wanna see ‘em.”
“You will, Murdy, in only eighteen months time. Then you’ll wish you had your little one back.”
What Murdock heard next made him wonder if his wife was right or not.
“Stop that, you little bugger!” Leona said to the 6-month-old child crawling on the floor.
“What’s he doing now, dear?” Margaret asked.
“He’s trying to pull the tablecloth off the dining room table.”
“Oh no! Get him quick, Leona! If he breaks my mother’s antique bowl, I’ll spank him so hard he won’t be able to sit down for a month.”
“I’ve got him, but it was wicked close. The bowl was only six inches from falling on the floor.”
—4—
Margaret was happy, indeed grateful, to have Leona around to help care for the baby. Although not one to complain, she had been under the weather for quite some time now; indeed, long before she became pregnant with Wally, a fact that she tried to keep hidden from her husband and her children. Like Eunice, Margaret had never been one to complain when she was in pain. She was a typical Mainer when it came to that. In addition, she once heard her mother say: “Women have a high tolerance for it.”
As time went on the stoic woman had more than enough opportunities to prove that to herself, because her pain became more and more frequent. In fact, there were many days where she experienced excruciating pain. Fortunately though, it only lasted a few minutes. But the pain wasn’t the worst part for Margaret: it was knowing that her stamina wasn’t what it used to be. She went to a local physician to see if he could diagnose her problem, but it was to no avail. Each time she had an appointment to see him, her symptoms were gone. It got to the point where the doctor thought that she had to be a hypochondriac. Of course, Margaret knew she wasn’t.
“I’m wasting my time seeing that doctor,” she told Mrs. Murphy. “What good is Dr. Wills if he doesn’t even believe I have a problem. Why would he think anyone would not know if they are sick or not? I have enough to do without wasting my time in that quacks office.”
“Why don’t you see Dr. Gifford, Maggie?” Mrs. Murphy said. “He’s been my doctor for over four years, and he’s as good as they get.”
But after her frustrating experience, Margaret decided instead to stop worrying about herself and to just think positive thoughts, thankful that she had Leona around to help with Wally.
Leona idolized her ailing mother and would do anything to help her, and caring for Wally was the thing she liked to do most of all, no matter how much trouble he was. Even at the age of 5 Leona was able to help Margaret feed, change, and bathe her baby brother; and for all practical purposes she became a surrogate mother to him.
In time Leona became quite adept at changing his diapers and, despite the hazards of caring for a small baby, she never tired of caring for Wally. Leona never tired of playing with her brother either. She especially enjoyed getting on her hands and knees pretending to be a ferocious animal chasing little Wally through the house. She had been doing that ever since he was old enough to crawl, and she enjoyed it even more when he became old enough to walk and run. Although her knees would hurt afterwards, to her it was worth it to see the little boy scamper away, all the while laughing and screaming as he tried to avoid being caught by the scary animal: his older sister. Sometimes he even climbed on Leona’s back and she would do her best impersonation of a horse while giving him a ride around the house.
Leona would even sing Wally to sleep, and later in life read bedtime stories to him, as her mother had done so many times for her. She was so taken by his excited reactions whenever he discovered something new that she couldn’t wait until his first Christmas so she could see Wally’s little eyes light up and hear his excited reaction when he first saw the Christmas tree sparkling with colorful decorations. But most of all she wanted to see her baby brother when he opened his first present on Christmas morning. Until that time arrived, Leona was content to chase the skinny, bow-legged boy around the house, making him laugh hysterically each time she caught and twirled him high in the air. And whenever Wally tried to so something that was wrong or possibly dangerous, Leona was right there to correct him. Of course, she left the discipline to her mother and father, mainly because she couldn’t bear to see her little brother cry. In fact, she ran and hid anytime her father needed to spank Wally, so she wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes or hear his heartbreaking cries.
/> Chapter 17
The Three Musketeers
Even though Leona spent most of her time playing with Wally, she was still dependent on her older sisters and often sought them out for guidance and moral support. As luck would have it, she needed their support more than ever on June 3rd of 1916, when for the first time in her young life the 6-year-old did something that got her into big trouble with her parents. Margaret was cooking supper while Murdock sat at the kitchen table reading the Saturday Evening Post magazine, something he had done for years and would do for years to come.
“Maggie, come take a look at this Post cover,” he said. “It’s a painting by Norman Rockwell of a little boy putting on a show for his friends. He’s dressed up as a circus strongman and he’s wearing long johns stuffed with something to give him muscles. It’s so funny.”
Margaret walked over to the table and leaned over to see the Post cover.
“That is funny, Murdy. Look at his face. That’s so cute. And look at the little boy dressed as a circus barker. I hope Rockwell paints more covers like that for the Post.”
“Me too. He sure draws humorous scenes. I.…”
Just then a rock came flying through the window, scattering glass all over the floor, and Murdock almost fell out of his chair. Both he and Margaret were scared half out of their wits.
“What in tarnation’s going on?” Murdock said.
“I don’t know, but I think one of my nine lives is gone,” Margaret said. “My heart feels like it’s gonna burst out of my chest.”
While playing outside, Leona had set an empty can on a tree stump near the house and was throwing rocks at it, trying to knock it off the stump. She had become quite skilled at doing just that and was beginning to feel good about herself. However, her feeling of achievement quickly turned to a feeling of panic when one of the rocks she threw missed the can and ricocheted off the tree stump. Leona’s heart nearly jumped into her throat as she watched the rock heading for a window in her parents’ house. Then she heard a cracking sound and immediately saw the window break into a thousand pieces.
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