Bo at Iditarod Creek

by Kirkpatrick Hill

  It was just too noisy in the dredge for them to take much in.

  “It feels as if the noise is making my brain stop,” Bo yelled into Jack’s ear.

  “Well, now you’ve seen one of the wonders of the world,” Jack yelled back. “Let’s go home.”

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS LATER, Jack told them at breakfast there was a surprise for them at the mining camp. The men who’d been in the kitchen when they visited the dredge had made swings for them. He’d take them after their chores were finished to see it.

  “Oh!” said Bo. She looked at Graf, wide-eyed. They’d only seen those men once. “That was very nice of them, wasn’t it, Papa?”

  “Funny place here, Iditarod Creek, with hardly any kids. Everyone gets homesick for kids,” said Jack.

  The swing frame was made of peeled spruce poles, still slick with sap, and had two beautifully sanded seats, smooth as velvet. It stood on the edge of a tailing pile, and you could swing way far out over the edge and look so far down that Bo felt a little dizzy.

  They were wonderful swings, and Jack showed Bo how to pump so she could go higher. They still had to push Graf, of course.

  There wasn’t much time in the morning for swinging, but often after dinner, Arvid took them to the dredge. The men who’d built the swing would come out of the bunkhouse and hunker down with their pipes and cigarettes and watch them play.

  Almost all of them took a turn on it, too. Bo thought that maybe swinging was something you didn’t get too old to do.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IDITAROD CREEK LADIES

  BUDDY AND WILL hadn’t been able to play for a while because their ma was doing spring cleaning, and she had a hundred things for the boys to do. Spring cleaning, Buddy said, was when you took every single thing in the house and put it in the middle of the floor and washed it and then you put it back.

  “And then when everything is washed, Ma don’t hardly want us around. Every time we come in the house, she yells, ‘Clean your feet!’” The boys hated spring cleaning.

  But finally their ma was finished, and the boys came bounding up to the door again. “Come on!” Will said, and they all followed him, running across the tailings.

  The boys were showing them what used to be the dance hall, all boarded up now, when a woman came around the corner of the building and called out to them. Will stopped so short that Buddy ran into him.

  “Uh-oh,” said Will under his breath.

  The woman made a come-here gesture. “Introduce me to your new friends,” she sang out brightly.

  Will and Buddy slid a horrified look at each other, but they stopped and took their hats off.

  She was Miz Forney, Will said. She wore a flowered dress, and her elbows, Bo noticed, were very pointy. She was pleasant and spoke very sweetly, but as she asked them questions, Bo could tell she knew the answers already.

  Will and Buddy had gone stony faced, stiff backed, and as soon as Miz Forney had finished her questions, they tugged their caps on again and got Bo and Graf out of there.

  After they were out of sight of Miz Forney, Buddy and Will made faces at each other. Bo and Graf watched them, bewildered.

  “Why did you take your hats off?” Graf asked.

  Will stopped and put his hands on his hips. “See, there’s Miz Forney and Miz Littleton and Miz Shelton and Miz Roberts and our ma. That’s what they call each other, too—Miz—because they think it’s bad manners to call people by their first names. It’s got to be Miz and Mister. And they say a man is supposed to take his hat off when he talks to a woman. Which is the most foolish thing I ever heard of. And Ma makes us do it.”

  Buddy nodded energetically. “Yeah,” he complained.

  Will was wound up now. “And they have a tea party every week, get dressed up. I hate it when it’s at our house. Ma cleans like a crazy woman and kicks us out and won’t let us eat any of the cake she makes, and when it’s over, she’s all hoity-toity with Pa and tells him he should change his dirty work shirt when he comes home so we’ll grow up civilized and not think it’s okay to be all covered with tailing dust and oil.”

  “Yeah,” Buddy grumbled.

  “They don’t like kids much, the Mizzes,” Will said, starting to walk on. “Ma’s the only one with kids, and she says we’re an embarrassment to her.”

  Bo and Graf were beginning to think that Will and Buddy had things pretty hard.

  They had come to the boardwalk, a long path made of wooden planks, which snaked between the tailing piles and ran down along the creek. The rough boards smelled good in the sun, the way the log cabins in Ballard smelled on a hot day.

  The boys pointed out Emma and Tom’s house, the first house along the boardwalk.

  “Tom’s the dredgemaster over at the Kilbourne dredge. He’s a really good guy,” Buddy said.

  “He’s got a prodigious big scar on the side of his face,” Will said, bragging, and he drew a long, crooked line with his forefinger from his hairline to his chin. Bo was very interested in that. She’d never seen anyone with a big scar.

  A soft-looking woman with a fat twist of pale biscuit-colored hair was hanging her wet laundry on a clothesline by the house. She waved at the boys and came to the fence.

  “Here’s the new kids,” Will said. Emma shook their hands. “Me and Tom were sure happy to hear we had some more kids in town,” she said fervently. “You come and see me anytime.”

  After they left, Buddy said, “Ma don’t like Emma because she used to be a good-time girl. But we like her.”

  They left the boardwalk and walked along on the edge of the creek, throwing in rocks as they made their way. Bo liked the perfect medium-size roundish rocks that made a good hollow, swallowed-up thunk when they hit the water and sank.

  Graf liked to watch the rings spread out in a circle, so any rock would do, but the other boys were only interested in finding the perfect flat rock for skipping. Buddy said the trouble with that was when you found a perfect rock, you had to throw it away.

  Will was the best at skipping. He made them all stop throwing rocks in the water while he did it. “Gotta have the water perfectly smooth,” he said. Once he made six skips, but he couldn’t do it again.

  Bo suddenly pointed. “What’s that?”

  There was an oily slick in the water, a shimmering rainbow.

  “Diesel. From the dredge pond,” said Will. “Leaks over into the creek sometimes.”

  “What’s diesel?”

  The boys looked at her pityingly. “That’s what they run the dredge with,” Buddy said, looking as if he couldn’t believe she’d asked that question.

  “Oh,” said Bo, feeling stupid. “In Ballard they used steam to run the boiler and the winch and things.”

  “That’s really old-fashioned,” Will said in a superior way. Bo felt hurt for Ballard Creek.

  “Well, at least steam doesn’t get into the water,” she said. She still felt stung. “Or make such a clang-clang-god-rotted-clankety-clank noise!” she said, thinking about what Arvid had called that sound. Both Will and Buddy stopped and looked at her, delighted. “Clang-clang-god-rotted-clankety-clank!” they said to each other over and over.

  After they left the creek bank, Will announced cheerfully, “Edna’s leaving on the mail plane with her ma tomorrow. Going back where they live Outside. Going early this year.”

  Bo stopped in her tracks and gave him a cross look. “I never even got to see her close up,” said Bo.

  “Well, if you had, she would have bossed you around right away,” said Will. “She’s the bossiest person I ever saw, even more than Ma.”

  “Yeah,” said Buddy.

  “But you remember that kid at Willard dredge we told you about? Dave—he’s a friend of our pa, works at the Willard mine—he was telling us about him last night.”

  “How old is he?” asked Graf. Graf was very interested in ages because he didn’t know his.

  “Dave said some older than me, maybe not much. Said they never see him b
ecause his pop makes sure he don’t hang around the boys much.”

  “What’s his name?” Bo asked.

  “Dave don’t even know. He never talked to the kid, and Dave said his pa’s strange. A grouch.”

  “I wish he could play with us,” said Bo wistfully. She’d never get used to having so few children around.

  “Not likely,” Will said. “Willard mine is too far away—that’s why you don’t see the miners from Willard very often. Got to be pretty important to walk the ten miles, five here and five back.”

  They were getting sweaty and dusty in the afternoon sun, so Will said it was a good time to go to the hotel. And, he said, there was always something there to eat.

  It was cool and dark inside the hotel. For a minute, Bo could hardly see after the bright sunshine, but when she could, she saw Nita sitting at a card table back by the bar with three ladies and an old man. They were all being very noisy, carrying on and insulting one another.

  Will laughed. “They’re playing five-card-stud poker. That’s Nita’s favorite game.” Will led them to a table nearby and introduced them to the old miner named Trolly and to the good-time girls, Carmen and Sadie and Little Jill.

  The girls teased Buddy and Will and made a big fuss over Bo and Graf, insisting that they all sit down and have a glass of Hardy’s strawberry Kool-Aid. Bo thought strawberry Kool-Aid was the most beautiful drink she’d ever imagined, but Graf took one sip and pushed his glass away. Bo looked a question at him, and he said, “Too red.” Whatever that meant.

  Little Jill had beautiful dark orange curls. “Your hair is the same color as one of my crayons,” Bo told her. “Burnt sienna.”

  Sadie was very different. She had jet-black hair cut very short in the back like the women in catalogs, straight shiny bangs across her forehead. They both looked fancier than Carmen, who had her hair tied back with a scarf.

  Bo thought Carmen was the nicest of all.

  It was the way her eyes looked when she listened, as if she was feeling things all the way down into her stomach. And the way she brushed Graf’s hair back out of his eyes and the way she buttoned Bo’s overall strap that was hanging loose. The boys had told her Carmen was the person everyone sent for if they got sick or if there was a broken bone to set. Bo could see that she was the kind of person who wanted to take care of you.

  “Tell us how you came to get your papas,” Little Jill said. So Bo told them the story—as much as she had patience for, because it seemed she’d been telling it a lot lately.

  Carmen tipped her head at the other girls. “We didn’t have much luck in the father department,” she said. “You’re very lucky kids.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  VISITORS

  A LOT OF THE BOYS from the nearby mines came to visit the papas when they were in town for one reason or another. Some had known Jack or Arvid at different diggings over the years, and there was a lot of talk remembering this and remembering that. What Bo liked best were the stories of the old gold rush days. Stig had a lot of them.

  Once when Jack was kneading the day’s batch of bread, Stig said, “Puts me in mind of the time all our flour got wet when we were rafting down the Stikine. All winter we had to take an ax to that flour and chop off a chunk and then we had to slam that chunk with the sledgehammer to powder it enough just to make some bannocks. I think about that every time I dip into the flour barrel to make bread.”

  “Why didn’t you just buy some more flour?” Bo asked.

  Stig laughed. “We was way out in the bush, nowhere to buy nothing, and even if we hadn’t been, we didn’t have no money, and even if we had money, we couldn’t buy flour because there was none left anywhere in the country. Too many stampeders came, everyone about starving. So we figured we was lucky, even if we had to pound on it to bake anything.”

  Everyone laughed, but Bo was thinking that if there was ever another gold rush, she wasn’t going to go.

  Will and Buddy’s dad, Ben, visited sometimes. Bo liked him because he laughed so much. And Emma’s husband, Tom, came one morning. He greeted the other men cheerfully and put his hand out to Bo and Graf. “My Em was very pleased to meet you,” he said.

  Bo and Graf had gone motionless, frozen, because there in front of them was the scar they’d heard about. It was purple and enormous, stretched all ropy from the top of his scalp, down the side of his face, under his nose, making his top lip a little wobbly, and down the other cheek where it ended just under his jaw.

  Tom smiled at them in an understanding way. “I always have to wait for someone to get their fill of this first,” he said, “before they’ll say anything to me. I used to be the most ordinary guy you ever saw, before I got this. Now I’m famous. Bet Em never would have married me if I’d had my ordinary face.”

  Bo remembered her manners and held her hand out to Tom. “It’s very nice,” said Bo, politely.

  “Did it hurt?” rasped Graf.

  Tom looked at Graf, surprised.

  “It did,” he said vehemently. “Hurt like a—” He stopped suddenly and darted an alarmed look at the boys around the table. “Like a really bad thing,” he finished lamely.

  They’d met four of the Charlies now. Charlie the Tram was their first Charlie, and three more had come to their house: Good-Time Charlie, who liked to dance; Charlie Hootch, who made whiskey; and Dago Charlie, which meant he was Italian, Jack said.

  Five more Charlies to go.

  * * *

  ONE DAY FRENCHIE asked Bo, “Ever see this kid out at the Willard mine?”

  “No,” she said. “Buddy and Will heard he was there, but they’ve never seen him either. Did you?”

  “Yeah, when I was hauling some pipe out to the Willard diggings. Kid just gave me a sideways smile and melted away, not looking for conversation, I guess. Guys at Willard’s say they hardly see him. Say his dad hired the kid out to the cook to split the wood, and he sleeps in the shed at the cookshack. It don’t seem right.

  “The cook says the kid’s polite, but don’t say much. Cook asks him why he’s so quiet, and the kid says, ‘My pa don’t like me talking to people.’ The guys say his pa sure don’t talk to anyone.”

  Bo and Graf looked puzzled at each other. Some-one who didn’t talk was not in their experience.

  * * *

  BO AND GRAF were finishing the supper dishes when they heard footsteps skittering in the gravel near their house. Buddy and Will for sure, though they usually didn’t come after supper.

  When Bo opened the door, she knew right away that the little curly-haired girl with them was Edna.

  “Oh!” Bo said. “I’m so glad to see you! I’m Bo, and this is Graf. We saw you on the day we came. You were riding in the house.”

  Edna tossed her head. “That was fun,” she said. “My ma had a fit.”

  She stared at Bo. “I have natural curly hair,” she said. “Your hair is straight.”

  Then she inspected Graf. “Your brother doesn’t look like you.” Bo and Graf gave each other an uneasy look. No one had ever told them that before. Was that good or was it bad?

  She pushed past Bo into the house and looked around.

  “This is a very small house. I remember when the Andersons lived here.”

  She wandered around the living room.

  “Our gramophone is much bigger than this one.”

  Arvid came out of the kitchen to say hello. Edna shook his hand briskly, then went behind him to examine that room.

  “Your kitchen is small too. Ours is much bigger. And we have prettier dishes than that.”

  She looked at the cookie jar. “What kind of cookies are those?”

  “Gingersnaps,” said Arvid. “Jack’s speciality.”

  “I don’t like those,” said Edna. “Don’t you have another kind?”

  Arvid gave her a sharp look and shook his head.

  Edna strutted around the house, picking up this and that, but nothing found favor with her.

  Buddy raised an eyebrow to show Bo what he
thought of Edna’s behavior.

  Will looked grim, too. “Want to come out?” he asked. Graf and Bo looked uncomfortable and didn’t answer, but Arvid saved them.

  “Too late,” he said. “Kids are just getting ready for bed.”

  “I told Edna that,” said Will. “But she wanted to come anyway.”

  Edna tossed her head again. “Well, I’m leaving tomorrow. We’re going back to our real home in Washington tomorrow. It’s a really big house, and we have an automobile—it’s a Packard 740, Dual Cowl Phaeton—and I’m going to get a lot of new dresses.” She looked at Bo. “Do you have any dresses?”

  Bo gave Arvid a warning look and said no, though she really did have two of them hanging on the pegs in their bedroom. She had a feeling that this girl was not going to like her dresses.

  When Edna had gone out the door, Will turned and made a face at Bo. “I told you she was bossy,” he whispered.

  When they were all gone, Arvid stood with his hands on his hips and a who’d-believe-it smile on his face. “Whoo-ee,” was all he said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  TWO KINDS OF WRITING

  THERE WASN’T TIME to do all their laundry, even if they’d had a washing machine, which they didn’t. So Arvid and Jack sent their washing to the laundry, like everyone else in town.

  They would stuff everything into burlap bags, and Bo and Graf would pile those bags into the wagon and pull it to the Japanese laundry next to the hotel. Billows of steam hissed out of the back windows of the laundry from time to time, and then the whole street smelled of steam.

  The Japanese men were amazed that most of the things in the burlap bags were not clothes.

  “How much your papas change sheets and towels?” they asked. Bo and Graf had no idea. The Japanese men were surprised to find miners so clean and fussy about sheets and towels.

  “It’s just Jack,” explained Bo. “Arvid doesn’t pay any attention to stuff like that.”