A Stitch in Time

by Daphne Kalmar

  “Hey, you okay?”

  She opened her eyes. They were facing the shore and Tiny was twisted around looking at her.

  “It’s your pops, isn’t it? Want to head back?”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  They sat quietly for a minute, rocking a little in the waves. Donut dipped her hand in the water. “Shoot, might as well be frozen solid. It’s that cold.”

  “Should we try it out?” said Tiny softly.

  Donut picked up her paddle and slapped the surface of the pond. “You bet. Now that we’re launched I’m gonna name her: the Nehi. Let’s see how she handles.”

  They dipped their paddles on opposite sides and eased around and forward, doing a little zigzagging until they balanced out their strokes.

  “Why the Nehi?” asked Tiny.

  “After Pops, her inventor. You know—soda pop. And he always drank peach Nehi and she’s about knee-high sitting up on land. It all fits.”

  “Peach. That’s right.”

  Donut nodded, taking a quick breath at the thought of it.

  They rested the paddles across their laps and drifted out over the deepest part of Dog Pond. Donut peered over the side, past the blue-green into the deep where the sunlight couldn’t reach, a place full of secrets, where big fish lurked in the cold mud. A dark stillness rose up to the surface, the same forever stillness of the mouse she’d wrapped in red flannel and stowed in her mother’s hope chest just a few hours ago.

  Tiny whistled softly. “Deep water’s so darn quiet.”

  “Yeah.”

  Donut pulled back from the water and clutched the paddle in her lap. She checked the latches holding the cedar plank across the fold in the boat and gazed up at Tiny’s back. Too bad he was so big. If he was a puny kid like Artie Bellevance, the Nehi would float higher in the water. But Artie talked too much and never said anything interesting. If she was gonna sit in the Nehi over that deep, dark spot, she’d take Tiny any day.

  The paddles dripped. A crow flew overhead, cawing his disapproval. Donut’s feet had gone all pink-and-white splotchy from soaking in the icy water in the bottom of the boat.

  On the far side of Dog Pond she could just make out Chanticleer, Marcel’s cabin, tucked among the cedars. If she did run away it would be the perfect hideout. She’d been there once when she was only six or seven. André, her pops, Sam, and Marcel had all sat around the table playing poker, telling tall tales about the big fish that got away, the shot that went wide when the six-point buck leaped through the cedars. They’d hiked home in the moonlight, her pops holding her hand, both of them listening to the night noises.

  Donut tucked her head down low and curled her toes up in the icy water.

  “Let’s head back,” she said. “Feet are cold.”

  “Mine, too,” said Tiny.

  They paddled toward shore, moving quickly through the water, rocks and reeds and mud now visible below. With a final stroke the boat ground up on land. They both had a good feel for the Nehi now—where her center was, her touchy spots. Tiny got out without much trouble and Donut followed. They dumped the water out, folded the boat up, pulled on their socks and boots, and carried the boat back to the patch of raspberry canes.

  “Nice little boat,” said Tiny. “You could fish for perch in her, little stuff, but you couldn’t be out in rough weather. Good thinking boat.”

  “It is,” said Donut. “He wasn’t done with it, you know. Called this his model A. Fold it up, strap it to the running board of your automobile, and when you saw a good fishing hole you were ready to go.”

  “Turned out better than I thought,” said Tiny, giving her a friendly punch.

  On the path back to the road they walked single file, Donut in the lead. She smiled. They’d done it—paddled right to the middle, proved her pops’ invention wasn’t some pipe dream, a drowning bucket like Mr. Daniels had claimed.

  “Hey,” she said, “how the heck is Sam going to get that moose out of the parlor when he’s finished?”

  “I asked him. All he’d say was ‘One step at a time, my boy.’”

  “Kinda working himself into a corner.”

  “Yeah,” said Tiny. “And he’s gotta get it finished and all crated up and delivered to that millionaire’s mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, in a couple of weeks.”

  “That big old moose is gonna scare those flapper-ladies silly.”

  “That’s something I’d pay a nickel to see.”

  “Me, too,” said Donut. “He’s bound to start swinging his big rump when the jazz band gets to playing, catching his antlers in the chandelier.”

  Tiny laughed. “Not much of a rump so far.”

  “Skinny, headless thing,” said Donut. “He should call him Ichabod Crane. The one who got spooked by the headless horseman in that story.”

  “Ichabod. That’s just about the perfect name.”

  They were both quiet as they continued down the path, jumping over tree roots and puddles. Back on the road, Tiny picked up a few throwing stones and they walked on side by side.

  Tiny side-armed a rock at a mossy boulder in the brush. “You got to figure out a way to keep your auntie here.”

  “First thing is to find her a job so there’d be something to live on,” said Donut.

  “Not many of those in the village.”

  “Mrs. Brochu at the Metal Works is older than mud.”

  “Can your auntie do that kind of work?”

  “She manages that school in Boston with Aunt Jo. I bet she’d have Mr. Daniels’ place running smooth as soap.”

  “It’s worth a shot.”

  “I could bring up Mrs. Brochu and her arthritis and the job in an offhand kind of way.”

  “That’s a plan,” said Tiny.

  Donut kicked at a rock. Aunt Agnes was the last person in the Northern Hemisphere she wanted living in her house. But there was no question about it—having a disagreeable auntie around sure beat moving to Boston and losing everything.

  6

  Donut knew she had to make up with her auntie before she casually mentioned the perfect job for her at Mr. Daniels’ Metal Works. It wasn’t easy. With an ill-tempered horse it was best to let them know you were coming and hold out a sugar cube or carrot to get things started. But when Donut got home from Dog Pond there weren’t enough carrots in the whole county to settle Aunt Agnes down. So, for what was left of a perfectly good Saturday she delivered up apologies and did extra chores to smooth her auntie’s ruffled feathers concerning the bent-hairpin remark and the kicked chair.

  Sunday morning Donut dried the last of the breakfast dishes and sat down at the kitchen table across from Aunt Agnes, who was reading another one of Aunt Jo’s letters. They sure had a lot to say to each other. What with her auntie reading up on the latest news from Boston, the timing still wasn’t right to bring up Mrs. Brochu and the Metal Works.

  “Auntie,” said Donut, “I’m going to go visit Sam, see how he’s coming along with his moose.”

  “A moose in the parlor.” Aunt Agnes shook her head. “Remarkable.”

  “He’s an artist, really,” said Donut. “Worked at the Museum of Natural History in New York City.”

  “Well, I suppose there is an element of artistry in the final product, but my word, it’s gruesome.”

  “I’m going now. The woodbin’s full and I emptied the ashes in the fireplace.”

  “Don’t be in such a rush,” said Aunt Agnes. “Let’s visit awhile.”

  “Sure.” Donut forced a smile. She figured she’d better pitch a question or two across the table to keep her auntie happy. “What’s Aunt Jo got to say in her letter?”

  Aunt Agnes smiled back. “It might interest you—a thorny issue at the academy.”

  “What’s so thorny?”

  “The older girls are so distracted by all this flapper nonsense—bobbing their hair, sneaking cigarettes in the park.”

  “Sounds like Doris Barclay.”

  “Who’s Doris?”

  “G
us and Hank’s sister. She’s fourteen. Reads True Confessions and bobbed her own hair. Came out awful crooked. The only flapper we’ve got in the village.”

  Aunt Agnes sighed. “All my life I’ve fought for women’s rights and these girls … Well, we didn’t march in the bitter cold and go on hunger strikes in jail cells so they could hem their skirts a few inches higher.”

  “You were in jail?” Donut stared at her aunt.

  “Just the once. We were arrested in Washington, D.C., during a peaceful protest back in 1917. The Silent Sentinels, we were called.”

  “Why were you protesting?”

  “We were trying to convince President Wilson to support the women’s suffrage amendment.”

  “Wowie.” Donut stared some more. Aunt Agnes had been in jail, fought for the vote for women. It was hard to square what she was hearing with the auntie she knew in flowered dresses, knitting socks.

  “So what are you going to do about the girls sneaking cigarettes?”

  “What do you think we should do?”

  “Miss Beebe would give them a good whack with her ruler.”

  Aunt Agnes sat up straight and shook her head. “Absolutely not. We don’t believe in corporal punishment.”

  “Gee,” said Donut, “then I don’t know.”

  After some small talk about the weather Donut untangled herself from the visit with her auntie. Carrying her taxidermy tools and supplies in a leather satchel, she headed down to Sam’s.

  In her stocking feet she watched from his parlor door as he climbed up and down a stepladder. He’d packed clean straw on the rump and midsection of the moose and was wrapping carpet thread around and around the belly to secure it.

  “Excellent timing,” he said. “Just stand up here and I’ll hand you the spool. Too much climbing for an old man.”

  “Sam, I’ve got a name for your moose—Ichabod,” said Donut. “Skinny and headless, both.”

  “Ichabod, like in the Headless Horseman, Washington Irving’s story.” Sam nodded. “I like it.”

  They worked quietly, handing off the spool of thread, laying down a neat spiral around Ichabod’s belly. Up on the ladder, she’d lean over the moose’s broad back and drop the spool into Sam’s hand, he’d line up the thread, draw it tight in a half hitch, and hand it back on her side of the moose.

  “He’s gonna be beautiful,” said Donut.

  “Nice to be working on a large subject for a change,” said Sam. “And my fee for Ichabod here will pay the bills for a good while. I’ll have more time for my bird-watching.”

  Donut handed him the spool and he tied it off. She climbed down off the ladder.

  “Sam, did you know Aunt Agnes was a suffragette? She was in prison.”

  “Yes, during the Wilson presidency, I think. Your pops said Agnes and Jo were a formidable pair.”

  “But Aunt Agnes in jail? Hard to imagine.”

  “Most people have stories that would surprise you.” Sam sat down on the bench next to Ichabod. “Your pops minded his p’s and q’s around the Boston sisters, as he called them.”

  Donut turned away from Sam. So what if Aunt Agnes was some kind of hero. It didn’t change anything.

  “I’m going to work on my blackbird.”

  “Good, good.”

  Donut sat at the small bench Sam had set up for her in the corner of the parlor under a large window. She was working on a red-winged blackbird that Bangor the cat had delivered up to Tiny. Sitting in her chair, staring out the window at the green hills encircling the village, calmed her down some.

  This had been her special workspace since she was six and she’d brought Sam her first dead mouse and asked him to show her how to fix it. She’d always come here to Sam’s after school, until her pops came home from the Metal Works.

  Watching Sam work was like going to a magic show. When she was six he’d carried the body of a great horned owl into the parlor. It was enormous—feathers scruffed up, head tipped back over Sam’s arm, one wing hanging loose, almost sweeping the floor.

  “What happened to him?” she’d asked.

  “Marcel found him, dead in the snow. Pretty well starved. Wing’s broken, poor fellow.”

  “Arthur, call him Arthur,” she’d said.

  And over the next few weeks she’d watched as Sam worked his magic. Now Arthur the great-horned owl sat on the shelf in the mudroom. When she gazed up at him, Donut still wondered what had happened. But perched high on the shelf in a cloud of silence, Arthur held his story close—the story of how he broke his wing, went hungry, and died in the snow.

  “Remember, make the body smaller than the original,” said Sam, busy packing straw around Ichabod’s thick neck.

  The skinned blackbird lay on its back on the bench. Donut stroked the velvety feathers. All hollowed out, he needed fixing. She balled up a handful of dry grass and began winding thread around it, as Sam had shown her. In the background she could hear him whispering to Ichabod. He always talked to his animals. She smiled.

  This is where she should live. Right here in this house with Sam. He could whisper to her about the history of her pops and she’d whisper back. To earn a living they’d work on more Ichabods together, and she could keep an eye on her house up the road—sweep up the dust, keep the cobwebs down. When she was old enough she could move right back in.

  Donut tied off the thread. It was never going to happen, since Sam didn’t know how to live with another person. Beryl, Mrs. Lamphere’s daughter, walked up the hill from the village a few times a week to help him with the housekeeping. But she always got an earful if she moved a book or a hat or one of his pipes. Half the time he’d tell her to go on home because he didn’t want the noise of brooms and pots and pans disturbing his work. “There’s no sorting me out,” he’d say.

  Over the years Donut and Sam had come to an understanding. If she stuck to her workbench and didn’t meddle with any of his jars and collecting nets, he didn’t mind her much. But often Sam would forget she was sitting right there on her stool in the parlor. “Oh. Hello,” he’d say, looking up with a start. His all-alone habits were worn into this house like the hollows worn into the stone steps at the town hall.

  She let out a long, quiet sigh to push away the sadness of it and set the straw body down on the bench next to the blackbird’s skin. Red-winged blackbirds were noisy things, swooping in, ten or twenty of them together, perching in the reeds, chattering back and forth. “It’s not right that you’ll be all alone on your perch when I’m done,” she whispered. “You’re not like Sam. You’re gonna get lonely.”

  “What’s that?” called Sam.

  “Nothing,” said Donut. She stood up and walked over to Ichabod. “I’m working on a plan to stay.”

  “A plan?” Sam wrinkled up his forehead and gave her a look.

  “I’m not gonna poison her or anything. Maybe I can get her to settle here.”

  “Well, glad to hear there’s no poison involved.” Sam chuckled.

  Donut went back to her workbench and wrapped up the blackbird and its new body. “See you later.”

  In the mudroom she stopped and gazed up at the great horned owl. “I guess I know how you felt, Arthur,” she whispered, “with your broken wing and all. Wish me luck.”

  7

  In the house Donut found Aunt Agnes in the parlor, knitting. The click-clack of the needles was particularly loud. It was now or never.

  “Auntie.”

  “Yes?” Aunt Agnes kept knitting. Click-clack, click-clack.

  “I was thinking…”

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Brochu, at the Metal Works, runs the office, takes care of orders and letters and keeping the ledger straight. Her arthritis has really slowed her down, and I bet she’d be thankful to move in with her daughter in Greensboro and have a rest.” Donut swallowed hard. “I’m sure Mr. Daniels would hire you on the spot.”

  Aunt Agnes set her knitting down on the side table and looked up at Donut. “I have a job, thank you very muc
h, and I certainly have no desire to work at a furnace factory.”

  “What’s wrong with the Metal Works? Pops worked there.”

  “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it.”

  “Auntie, you just don’t understand. I can’t leave. Tiny, Sam, the whole village.” Donut chewed at her bottom lip to hold back the tears.

  Aunt Agnes shook her head. “I know it’s difficult, but you’ll adjust.”

  Donut stared at the ball of gray yarn on the side table. She could wrap it round and round Aunt Agnes like the thread she’d wound around the handful of grass on her workbench at Sam’s. She’d find a kind, understanding auntie, stuff this one inside, and sew it up tight. The new Aunt Agnes would surprise everyone in the village by taking over Mrs. Brochu’s job at the Metal Works. They’d plant peas in the garden in May, beets and carrots would follow. Tiny would start coming for a second breakfast again before school.

  “I’ve got lessons to finish,” she said, and left the parlor.

  Donut sat at her desk with the Rand McNally World Atlas, second edition, opened up to the map of Minnesota. She pressed her fingertip down on the town of Bemidji, where the Mississippi got its start. The state had so many lakes it looked like a moth-eaten sweater, with all the dots and blobs of blue ink. Minnesotans probably got taught to swim at a young age or they’d all be drowned in no time. She’d be better off in Bemidji. Her pops had taught her to swim. If she had to leave Cobden, she’d adjust to life in Minnesota much better than to a life stuck with her two aunties in Boston.

  Donut slammed the Rand McNally World Atlas, second edition, shut. She couldn’t sit here in her house one more minute with her auntie filling up the parlor. She ran down the stairs and through the kitchen.

  “Going up to see Tiny,” she said as she stomped into the mudroom.

  “Be back before dark,” said Aunt Agnes, perched on the wingback chair.

  Carrying her fishing rod, Donut headed up the hill to Tiny’s. She knocked on the door of the Patoines’ farmhouse and pulled it open. The warm air brushed her cheeks.