Brothers Far from Home

by Jean Little

  I saw Mary Beth and Mabel smirking and whispering about us. I pretended not to be listening, but I think they meant me to hear. “Birds of a feather flock together,” they were saying. And something like “Miss Google Eyes.” I suppose they call Cornelia that because of her spectacles being so thick.

  Dear Reader, I will confess I longed to turn my back on her and run away and not go near her again. I am not like Cornelia Webb. She is not only peculiar in her appearance, she is backward. Think of being thirteen and still having trouble repeating “Father William.” She is so stout too and her face has broken out in spots. I heard Mary Beth and Mabel singing “The Ballad of Lydia Pinkham” at recess. Everybody but Cornelia laughed. I don’t think she understands that Mary Beth is mocking her.

  Do you know the song, dear Reader? It goes:

  Let us sing, let us sing of Lydia Pinkham.

  A benefactress to the human race.

  She invented her Vegetable Compound

  And in the papers, they published her face.

  The compound is supposed to cure everything, even pimples, but I don’t think it works. Corny’s are really bad and her father is a doctor, so he surely would get her some if it would do the trick.

  The song goes on and on with funny verses, and Mary Beth and Mabel between them seem to know every one. Nobody looks at Cornelia. Wait until Mary Beth’s face breaks out! I’ll make up a new verse just for her.

  How can they call Cornelia and me “birds of a feather”? We are not a bit the same. I am very good at reading and arithmetic and spelling too, not one bit like poor Corny.

  Evening

  When I got home from school Mother said that Richard has been officially reported as wounded. Maybe the other girls will be kinder to Cornelia now. Father went to pay a pastoral visit but was turned away at the door. Dr. Webb said, “There is no God, sir.”

  I would have been furious, but Father feels pity for him. I heard him telling Mother that the man looked eaten up with despair.

  Friday, January 5

  Belle turned five today. When she first got up we said, “Happy Birthday, Belle,” and she said “Happy Birthday” back to us. It was hard not to laugh at her. She’s quaint. At breakfast she suddenly said, “When will I be five?” We all stared at her. “You are five now,” Father said, smiling. “Now!” said Belle. “You mean, I am five right this minute?” “That’s it, you silly baby,” Charlie grinned. She looked down her tiny nose at him. “Five-year-olds are not babies, Charlie,” she said. “I can write my whole name and Mother said you could not do as well when you were my age.”

  Everyone laughed and Charlie blushed. She is so different from the Twins. (Mother calls them the rowdy rapscallions.) Most of the time Belle is serious and sweet. Her eyes are so round and blue and solemn. Her hair is so fair it is almost white and it curls all over her head. Hugo calls it her “halo.” (Susannah’s hair is chestnut. It is always in a wild tangle. Charlie’s matches except it is shorter, of course. )

  Verity and I put our Christmas money together to buy Belle a doll for her birthday. She has named her Belle Anna after herself and Mother. She nurses her as if she were a live baby, and can hardly leave her long enough to eat.

  At first Verity thought we should give her a book of Children’s Prayers. Can you believe it? It is the sort of gift you expect from your great aunt. “Belle would rather play than pray, and you know it,” I said. My big sister actually laughed and gave in at once. Maybe she was just teasing me. But I do not think so. Verity is not a tease. She does not even get other people’s jokes, let alone making any herself. Even when you have explained a joke to her, she just gazes at you and says, “Oh,” in a voice that tells you she does not understand at all. I can’t imagine being like that. It must feel like not being able to taste food or having no ear for music. It must feel, dear Reader, as if everyone else spoke one language and you just knew enough of it to get by.

  Thank goodness all the birthdays are over until spring. I am as poor as a church mouse. I suppose in any family of seven children, birthdays are going to clump together sometimes, but so many right at Christmas are hard to finance.

  Saturday, January 6

  Nothing much happened yesterday. The War news must have been bad because Father ate his scalloped potatoes without a word. He usually complains when we have them. He calls them “sloppy” and mutters about the roast potatoes his mother made. Mother never gets them right.

  Moppy came back from visiting her family over New Year’s. I should have mentioned her since she has lived with us ever since I can remember. She came to work for Mother when the Twins were born and she has never left. Her real name is Miss Constance Miller, but she is always mopping or sweeping and she ended up being called Moppy. Even Father calls her that. Grandmother, when she comes, does not. She says Miss Miller. Moppy scolds us, but everything is easier when she is here because Mother does not have to do all the housework herself and Verity and I don’t feel so guilty when we forget to lend our hands. Mother never has to remind Moppy to use elbow grease and make the dirt fly. She does it automatically.

  It is nice to be back at school but it is also nice to have the weekend free.

  Also I finished Eight Cousins and Mother gave me Rose in Bloom as a surprise. I don’t like it quite as well. I loved it when Rose was being surprised by everybody.

  Sunday, January 7

  When Father prayed for the families of all those fighting in the War or suffering because of it, and did not pray that the Kaiser get struck down with lightning or something worse, I could feel the congregation tightening their mouths and giving him cold looks. I wish he would pray for God to be on our side and for us to win. The Germans are such vile beasts, killing those Belgian babies and sinking the Lusitania and using mustard gas. Father wanted Hugo to stay in school and wait until he was older before he joined up, but the day the news came about the sinking of the Lusitania, Hugo went straight to the recruitment office to enlist.

  I remember when we first heard about the Germans sinking the Lusitania. That was a terrible day. So many little children were on that ship. Susannah dreamed about them and woke us all up screaming that they were in the dark water holding out their arms to her and begging her to save them. After she sobbed it all out, I was afraid to shut my eyes in case I had the same dream, but I think Susannah is more sensitive or something, because I never did.

  Charlie says that a boy at school said that the Germans toasted babies alive and ate them. Father got extremely angry and roared at him that Germans are mostly just ordinary people like us. I don’t understand how he can say such a thing. He says war is wicked. He is right, of course, but we did not start this wicked war. I am proud of our soldiers. They are so brave and handsome when they march past with the bands playing “Rule Britannia.” The Twins stand at attention and salute and I do too. Two weeks ago we were singing Onward, Christian Soldiers and, all at once, I had to blink hard to keep back the tears. Knowing real soldiers were marching off to a real war, where there are real shells and people getting wounded, changes the feeling of the song. Before it was just a jolly march. Now it is not jolly at all.

  Yet it still has a grand sound.

  War is confusing. One minute you are excited. The flags are flying and the march music makes you stride out. You can feel your eyes sparkle and your arms swing to the thumping of the drums or the drone of the bagpipes. (Father says the right word is “skirl” but I am not so sure and this is my journal.) Then you hear about the wounded men and you see the lists of missing and dead. I cannot understand how it can all be part of the same thing. Why were Hugo and Jack in such a hurry to go, as if it were all a huge adventure, when it might end so terribly? Is it the flags flying and the band music and the uniforms? God could not let anything terrible happen to Hugo or Jack or Rufus. He won’t.

  Monday, January 8

  Once again, Verity caught me — almost. I heard her calling my name from the top of the stairs and I froze, hardly breathing, waiting for
her to leave. Trust Verity Susan Bates not to give up that easily. When I heard her starting down I flung myself into the coal cellar. It is so dark and dirty in there that I thought I’d be safe. I thought she would think she heard rats. She is terrified of them and Charlie teases her by saying he has seen them down here. It worked. But after she gave up searching and I came out, I found I was covered with coal dust. I looked like Tom in The Water Babies after he’s been sweeping chimneys. I was at a loss what to do. Thank goodness I had had enough sense to bundle the journal up in my skirt and it was not badly smudged. I hid it away, holding it with my petticoat, and then crept up the stairs to listen. There was no sound. I ran back down and went out the cellar door and through the hedge to Cornelia’s.

  I knocked and then walked in quick. How Mrs. Webb shrieked when she saw me! But they actually helped me have a bath. They have indoor plumbing. They have two bathrooms! We have one and ten people to use it. That is why we still use the privy during the day. They have hot water coming to both bathrooms. At our house, more than one person uses the same water and, if we want it hotter, we heat up the big kettle on the woodstove and add it. We take turns too and you have to go in order. Saturday Bath Night is a Shakespearian extravaganza with “its exits and its entrances.” Father said that. What luxury at the Webbs! And they ran the tub half-full just for me. They don’t use Lifebuoy at the Webbs’ for all it is supposed to be so healthy. Their soap smells of lavender.

  I borrowed clean clothes from Cornelia. She has a dress almost the twin of my brown flannel and it hangs loosely so it does not matter that I am thinner. And Mrs. Webb is going to return my clothes to me in secret. She is a real brick! I wonder what my mother would have done if Cornelia had gotten black with soot and fled to her for help. I could not explain I was hiding from Verity, but they seemed to guess. They never asked awkward questions. Best of all, True was out and missed the whole thing. She has become such a bosom friend of Verity’s that she would have told, you can bet your bottom dollar.

  I am going to make a cover for this journal so Verity cannot see what book it is, and then I can write in it more openly. I found some oilcloth I can use. I got Moppy to say she’d make me a book cover and not tell anyone. I have to help with the dishes without complaining for a month. It is a lot to ask. I so enjoy complaining.

  Tuesday, January 9

  The Webbs have had more news about Richard. (I should have mentioned it before.) He is in hospital in England. Cornelia’s father has gone over to see him. He is a surgeon so they might let him bring Richard home. I don’t know what exactly is the matter with him. He is not blind, though, and he has not lost an arm or leg. Susannah asked. I was embarrassed but also glad to know. Children come in handy sometimes.

  Moppy told me today that she can see my grown-up self in my face sometimes now, and she thinks I may be a lovely looking woman. I think she is trying to comfort me for my straight hair and eye trouble, but maybe I am wrong. Look at Anne Shirley. Her hair turned auburn by the time she went to college.

  My brown hair may grow darker. I would like it to be dramatic like Belle’s or Rufus’s. Not much chance, I fear.

  Mother says I must help with the war effort now I am twelve. I was pleased until I found out she is going to make me learn to knit socks! I feel all thumbs when I knit. And I cannot pick up stitches when I drop them. Mother says I just have to keep my mind on what I’m doing and not go off into a brown study. But she has a plan which may make all the difference. One person will read aloud while a bunch of us knit. Maybe I could be the one who does the reading.

  Thursday, January 11

  The war news must be bad again. Father looks sad and Mother is pale and anxious. Father has a big map of Europe in his study and he has little coloured pins marking the troop movements he reads about in the newspaper. There are pins marking where battles have been fought — the Somme, Festubert, Givenchy, St. Eloi — names I never knew before the War.

  It seems so far away. If we knew where the boys were, it would be different. Verity listens to every word the adults say as though she understands, but I think she is just being a good daughter the way she said in her resolution.

  I had to go to Prayer Meeting tonight. Children don’t go but Mother says I am no longer a child. I yearn to be older at times, but not when it comes to Prayer Meeting. Two women bring their knitting to church but Mother does not approve. I think she thinks they are showing off. I watch them and they don’t ever look up when Father says something surprising. Mrs. Thorpe does not shut her eyes when Father prays either. I told Mother. “How would you know that, my dear Eliza?” she asked in a teasing voice. Just in time, I realized what I was about to confess. “I noticed just as I was closing mine,” I said quick as a flash.

  “She must have closed hers one second later,” Mother said. “Old people’s eyelids move more slowly, you know.”

  Then she laughed out loud, something she does not do often lately. I felt pleased with myself.

  Saturday, January 20

  The Bates family has a dog! We cannot believe it. We have begged for one for years. I never thought Mother would agree to such a thing. Susannah came screaming in to tell us some big boys were drowning a puppy in the horse trough at the corner and Belle might get killed saving it. Charlie took off like a bolt of lightning. I ran after him. Susannah and I got there just in time to help Charlie and Belle and little Ellie James from Belle’s Sunday school class beat off the boys and haul the puppy out of the freezing water. They had smashed the crust of ice and were plunging him in headfirst when Belle saw them. She screamed to Susannah who was out sweeping the snow off the front porch and then raced to start the rescue. For a little girl who is supposed to be frail, she fights like a tiger.

  It was Belle, of course, who finally talked Mother around. When she and Charlie brought the puppy in, dripping ice and blood from scrapes, and limp with shock, I didn’t have to put in my two cents worth. Charlie’s battered appearance worked wonders. And poor Belle was blue with cold and shaking with outrage and misery.

  “How could they?” she kept crying. “How could anyone?”

  It would have taken an inhuman person to look into her big wounded eyes and say, “Put the little beast outside and let it take its chance.” Mother is entirely human.

  Our hero Charlie has a cut lip and two black eyes, and the dog, whose name has yet to be decided, has no deep cuts but is battered and bruised. We thought he might die at first, dear Reader. He just lay there and shook and shivered. But he is like Belle, tougher than he looks. He has recovered his spirit. He’s full of true grit and he’s comical looking. One of his ears stands up and one falls down. He has a circular whip of a tail which has a double curl when he is happy. He carries it high over his back. But, dear Reader, between you and me and the gatepost, the tail itself is terribly skinny and, except for the curl, not impressive. It can wag so fast, though, that it is almost a blur.

  An hour later

  His name is Isaac.

  Mother called him that because she had maintained for twenty-three years that she would not have a dog and now the Lord has sent her one. She says she feels like Sarah in the Bible, who was so old when she found out she was going to have a baby that she burst out laughing. Isaac means laughter.

  “Your mother is irreverent, but that is certainly a laughable dog,” Father said.

  Isaac adores Mother. He knows where the little treats will come from.

  Susannah says it’s a perfect name because that Bible Isaac was almost killed and then was saved by a kid. “Charlie is a kid,” she pointed out.

  Of all the Bible stories, that is the one I hate. I asked Father if he would sacrifice me if God told him to. He said his God would never tell him to do such a daft thing.

  Then he saw he had hurt my feelings so he said quickly, “God knows I could not manage without my Eliza.”

  Father is good at wiggling out of theological discussions. Now he has announced our dog is named after Isaac Watts, which is onl
y fair after all the family emphasis on the Wesleys. (Except for Jack, of course, who was named after John Knox, John Calvin and John Wesley.) Jack is “short for” John but it doesn’t make sense because John is just as short. I asked Mother if she knew why.

  “It has been that way forever. Little Jack Horner was an abbott whose real name was John. It is just the way it is,” she said.

  I don’t like explanations that don’t explain a thing, but once you get started on names, there seems to be no sense to it. Hugo, by the way, is named after one of Father’s boyhood friends.

  Isaac is a dear little dog and he cheers us all up. Hugo will love him. I’ll write him the whole story in a letter tonight before we go to bed.

  Friday, January 26

  Dr. Webb has seen Richard. He is shell-shocked and gassed. His nerves have broken down and he is in “a deplorable state.” That is what Mother heard from Mrs. Webb.

  “She couldn’t say more,” Mother told Father.

  Mrs. Webb must be like Cornelia. I did not like to ask her what that part about “nerves broken down” means exactly. I already know Cornelia does not like talking about anything too real. She would not even look at Isaac until he became presentable and healed up. Belle told me she was there that day and saw the boys and just ran away. We have never mentioned it. But if Isaac upset her that much, talking about Richard would upset her dreadfully.

  True talked to Verity but she had nothing new to add. They are going to let Dr. Webb bring Richard home. I wonder what he will be like. Charlie thinks he will have stories of battles to tell, but Father says he is not to ask Richard for stories.

  “He will be in no condition to spin yarns,” Father began. “Poison gas is evil.” Then he sounded as if he might cry and went into his study and shut the door hard. Susannah said she did see tears in his eyes. He did not come out for ages.