Ay vant to die, ja, ven yure not near.
Ja, ay yust ban missing yew, by golly, since Nowember
Val, yee whiz, ven ay ban tenk of yu
Vat gude skol visky be?
That perked Grampa right up. On Grampa’s bad days, he thought he was back in Aalborg as a young man, and on his good days, he was in Aalborg as a boy. The Norsk Nightingale somewhat penetrated Grampa’s deafness and he leaned forward over his zwieback and muttered, “Hvad laver de? Hvad siger de?” What are they doing? What are they saying? Relax, said Daddy, and he put his hand on Grampa’s. If Norma and Bill sang “Red River Valley” or “Beautiful Brown Eyes” or another song he knew, Daddy turned up the radio and sang, and if Whistling Jim played a square dance number, Daddy waltzed around the kitchen with Jodie or Francis standing on his shoes. Grampa said, “Ja ja ja,” and smiled down into his soup. Mother liked Leo and his jokes. “I can never remember a joke one minute after I’ve heard it,” she said, wiping her eyes from the last one, and sure enough she had already forgotten the punchline, and Francis had to remind her: “The lady says to Lena after church, you look like Helen Brown, and Lena says, I don’t look that good in blue either.”
At twelve-thirty, Dad Benson came back and read the news, and Daddy sat and sharpened his pocketknife on a stone, and then more Jubilee, and at one o’clock, it was Up in a Balloon, a boring show but better than school, and at one-fifteen Love’s Old Sweet Song, which Mother listened to, and Daddy if he was home. Daddy was an engineer for the Great Northern Railroad and worked the doghouse shift and ate his breakfast at noon.
Francis and Jodie got to hear those shows only if school was out or they were sick; they went back to school at one. It took a minute and a half if you ran. By the time the announcer said, “Don’t go away, friends! We’ll be right back!” Francis was already heading out the door, but of course the radio stayed tuned to 770, as nobody needed to remind Francis. Their dial was locked tight on WLT because of Uncle Art. WLT was their family’s radio station.
Uncle Art was his favorite uncle. He drove a brand-new Chrysler, two-toned. He wore a blue suit with a hanky in the pocket and smoked cheroots. He blew smoke rings that turned either clockwise or counterclockwise and sometimes turned both directions and folded into a figure-8, and he could make smoke come out of his ears. He shot billiards and bet on horse races. He could flip cards into a hat at twenty feet, one after the other, either face-up or face-down, and if you said “What card?” he would tell you as it flew, “Nine of clubs!” and it usually was. Art knew where every card in the deck was: he shuffled cards the way a postman sorts mail. He taught Franny gin rummy, whist, lowball poker and firehouse poker and German poker, and cribbage. He didn’t work as hard as Daddy. “Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after tomorrow,” was Art’s motto. He knew magic and made coins vanish and then come out of your ear and he made his hanky disappear and then turn up in your own pocket and when you pulled his pinky finger, he cut a soft little fart. You could count on this. Art did not miss a trick.
Uncle Art had had a chance to go to New York with Jack Benny who Art met when Art was the house manager at the Shubert Theater, but he stayed in Minnesota out of loyalty to his pals and missed his chance. “He could have had his own show in New York,” said Aunt Clare.
“No shows for schmoes,” said Art.
She said, “He has such a good personality and sense of humor and a nice singing voice—he coulda been up there with Jack Benny.”
“Jack Benny was not looking for a mandolin player,” said Art.
Knowing the Benson family personally as he did, Art knew what their homes looked like and what they did for fun, and Francis meant to ask him about this someday. Francis also wanted to know, “Can other families get on the air?” Once Art was Bessie’s brother Clyde on Up in a Balloon, the one who cast off the lines when the balloon ascended and called out, “Happy landings! Don’t take any wooden nickels!” and Francis imagined Bud and Bessie getting out of that balloon and the With family getting into it, but if they had their own show, what would they do about Grampa? He would have to be on the show with them but who could understand Grampa except his own family? A family with Grampa in it was going to have a hard time breaking into radio.
Upstairs, off the dark hall from the three bedrooms, was the sewing room, where Francis had his desk and sat and did his homework. Out the big window was the Sheyenne River, the Mindren Public School, St. Bonifacius Church, and the main line of the Great Northern. The Withs didn’t attend St. Bonny, Mother being Lutheran, otherwise the window contained most of the known world, the house and the black asphalt roofs of the stores in downtown Mindren, the chimneys poking up, and the hundred little houses around it. The population of Mindren was 439, and none of them were rich like Bud and Bessie or Mr. Hollister. So many rich people on WLT, like the heiress Mrs. Aldrich Bryant Colfax, who turned up in Johnson Corners on The Darkest Hour one January day suffering from amnesia caused by a terrible experience, her baby having been strangled to death when its little wool scarf was caught in the wheels of the baby carriage as Mrs. Colfax, oblivious, wheeled it along fashionable Fifth Avenue, window-shopping. Now she was incoherent, weeping, half-frozen, torn by grief over something, she couldn’t remember what, and had to be nursed back to health by Mildred, the minister’s wife, who knew the terrible story from a scrap of newspaper that fell from Mrs. Colfax’s purse. Finally, after weeks, Mrs. Colfax did recover, and she left a large legacy to the library, which stupid Mr. Hooley dropped in a snowbank the same day her playboy pal Emerson Dupont arrived to fetch her in a long black Packard, his nose full of vowels—and away they sped, and the money was lost, and nothing to do but wait until spring and hope for the best.
What if a rich man came to Mindren? Francis often imagined this. It would be very gaudy like the circus, and bands would play, and the man would laugh and hand out money on the schoolhouse steps, a hundred dollars for each person, and Francis would save his for college. But in fact the only rich man to come through Mindren was Myron Mindren himself, the man who arrived in North Dakota in 1884, bought a section of land from the railroad, platted the town and sold the lots for a tidy fortune, and hotfooted it to San Francisco.
If it were him, Francis thought, he would take his fortune to Minneapolis and use it to do good.
Mindren. The name was a mumble, impossible to say with any grandeur. It was said of Myron Mindren that he mumbled so badly, his buyers misunderstood the price of the lots and the terms of the deal: they thought Mindren had said that he would pay for the school and the park and the opera house, and there was talk of sending a posse to California to bring him back. But then came word that the fortune was gone, lost in the sinking of the Mary Jane in a hurricane, and that Mindren himself, having seen the bank men lock up his nineteen-room stone mansion on Nob Hill, had disappeared on foot, aiming for Alaska, leaving his immortality sitting on the North Dakota prairie, broiling in the summer sun, covered with dust, sitting out the long dark bitter winter. The opera house became Mindren Trucking & Transfer, the big Mack truck parked nose-first under what was left of the proscenium arch, a border of plaster leaves and fruit and a dusty angel and a shadow of Norwegian inscription: “Ej Blot Til Lyst.” Not Only for Pleasure.
If he were rich, Francis would buy a mansion in Minneapolis for the five of them, and a piano, and a pony. But they would stay good people, not become snooty like the rich people on WLT. The radio shows took place in small towns like Elmville, Lakeville, Park Rapids, Parkerville, but rich people often came there and got their comeuppance. A hard-hearted millionaire was stranded in For-estville by a flood that washed out the highway and swept away his roadster like it was a toy, and he learned the value of patience, on The Hills of Home, and learned that pain, when past, is a sweet pleasure. He sat in Mother Sundberg’s kitchen, wet and cold, wrapped in a blanket and drinking hot coffee, and took a deep breath and said, “Life was never so good to me as it is right now at this mome
nt, good people.” And he meant it. Bumbling nobility like the Duke of Worthington arrived in the middle of the night, in agony, suffering from terrible gout from stuffing himself with goose liver, and was helped over to Doc Winegar’s office and treated to a good talk about Tomorrow Is Another Day and how helping others helps to take your mind off your own troubles. “I reckon we don’t look like much to you, Your Lordship, a one-horse town with a passel of folks who don’t know much about books or plays or paintings, but people here sure know a few things about living,” and the Duke harrumphed and said, “I am deeply obliged, my good man.” Bigwigs were always taught a lesson by the good people, and usually they responded well, like the tycoon who learned the true meaning of Christmas and gave Fritz and Frieda a diamond as big as her knuckle. Then Babs dropped it on the ice as she crossed Lake Marcia and though they scraped the ice again and again, it was never found, and it sank in the spring melt.
“Oh, it was never meant to be!” Frieda cried. “We were never meant to be anything other than what we are.” The other folks arrived at the same conclusion. Better to be happy with what you have than to aim high and become vain and miserable. The highest branch is not the safest roost. As Dad said, “It’s awful hard to carry a full cup.”
CHAPTER 12
Daddy
On The Parkers of Parkerville, the Highball Express derailed in a howling blizzard and slid into a ditch, and the famous Hollywood producer Mel DeMille was awakened in his baby-blue Pullman bedroom by snow drifting across his face and was hauled out by pig farmers and dumped in a haywagon and covered with gunnysacks and carried to town. He stood shivering next to the stove in the General Store, griping and groaning —“Get me out of here! Call my office! Tell them to rent a plane, a car, I’ll pay anything, but I’m getting out and I’m getting out tonight! I’m not going to be stuck in this lousy two-bit tank town! I’ve got movies to make! I’m supposed to be in Louis B. Mayer’s office in eight hours! Mr. Mayer himself! Eight hours!”—“Shur,” said Mr. Ingebretsen, the mayor, “and it’s only a block from here, so take it easy, there’s plenty of time!” when in walked Dorothy, Pop Watkins’s lovely daughter.
“There’s a room for you at the hotel, sir,” she said, smiling in a way that made Mel DeMille’s eyes go out of focus. “Come, I’ll show you the way. It’s a nice big room. I made it up myself.”
“My dear girl,” Mel DeMille whispered, “who made you up?”
“I must have you for my next picture!” he cried. He took her little hands in his big paws. “A twist of fate has led me to you, to offer you a new life—no, not I—the American people are offering it to you, for they need the sunshine in your face, the laughter in your soul—Miss, whoever you are, wherever you come from, paradise or the planet Venus, you’re no hotel chambermaid anymore, you’re—a star.”
So when the storm stopped and the Highball was back on the tracks, ready to head for Hollywood, Dorothy was set to go. She had sewn herself a new dress and said goodbye to Bob, Ma, Pop, Spot, and her night job at the Hob Nob Bakery. They were all proud as punch, and she promised to never never forget them. “I owe it all to the people of Parkerville. You believed in me! And now my dream has come true. And now I go forth. But I carry you in my heart and in my prayers,” she told the crowd in the highschool gym on Dorothy Day. But the next morning Pop woke up sick with the grippe and took a bad turn and lay feverish, hallucinating, clinging to a pillow and moaning “Dorothy. . . . Dorothy. . . Dorothy,” and she realized how much they needed her and she tore up her movie contract. “No! No!” cried Mel as the train started to chugga-chugga-chugga. He stood in the Pullman door, pleading, “Dorothy, think of the American people!” as the train glided away, chooga-chooga-chooga, and he watched the platform where she stood, so lovely, so pure, waving, getting smaller and smaller. “Don’t cry,” she told her bedridden pop after the fever broke and he begged her to go and seek stardom.
“The Bible says to comfort the sick, not to go off and be a big shot. And I’d rather stay here with you and Ma than live in the biggest mansion on Wilshire Boulevard.”
All the Withs heard the Dorothy episodes except Daddy, who was working the overnight run to Bismarck. Jodie sat on the couch and wept when the Parkerville folks came and shook Dorothy’s hand and muttered that, gosh, it was good to have her back, and Dorothy said, “Be it ever so humble, there’s nobody worth being except exactly who you are.” But Francis thought it was dumb. When the bell rang and the steam hissed as the Highball pulled away, Francis knew that he would’ve gotten on that train with Mel right then. “Last call for the Highball Express, with stops in Riverside, Hill City, Big Lake, Lakeville, Center City, Wheatville, River Falls, Littleton, Parksburg, Green Rapids, Park Rapids, Greenville, and Hollywood. . . . Board!” Then the train pulled away, and soon the whistle blew away far away in the distance as it raced west. You were dumb not to go if you had a chance to. If you didn’t like it there, you could always come back.
Francis’s daddy died a few weeks later. October 5, 1939. He was killed in the crash of Engine No. 9, on a straight dry stretch of track near Tyler after he was called at 2 a.m. to go out and sub for Mr. Ratliff. He must’ve fallen asleep at the throttle and the engine jumped a switch and went down into a ravine and rolled over, bursting a boiler, and the crew was cooked in the hot steam so that the flesh fell off their bones. At school, a few days later, the children made up a song about it: Francis, Francis, your daddy died.
He was boiled, he was fried.
They poured water on him, a ton,
And now there’s soup for everyone.
Ya ya ya.
The news about Daddy came at dawn, via Cliff the night man at the depot who burst in the front door and stood at the foot of the stairs yelling, “Missus! Missus! Your husband’s dead!” Even when Mother ran out on the landing, Cliff yelled. “They’re all dead, missus, the train burned up! It’s horrible! Gene and J.L. went and looked, it’s just frightful. Your mister’s dead and all of them!”
The boy lay in his warm bed and listened to the bad dream. A person’s daddy did not just go off to work and die, it didn’t happen like that.
His mother shrieked. “Where is he! Where is Benny?”
“You can’t go there, missus. The district superintendent is driving over himself from Fargo. His name is Flynn, I think, or Finnegan, but anyway, he’ll see to it. You stay put. Dave just sent me down here to make sure you’re okay. Dave and me, we got the news about an hour ago from a farmer name of Pisek? the Piseks out around Tyler? He said he heard an explosion and looked down the hill, there was a fire on the tracks, and he heard voices screaming. He run down there and he said you could tell by the smell there were people in there, but it was so hot it burned his eyebrows off. So there’s no point you going over there. They’ll take care of it. You got any coffee, missus?”
The boy lay waiting for his dad to come clumping upstairs and end the dream. Francis’d close his eyes and his dad’d say, “You’re not asleep, you’re playing possum, you little skeezix,” and sit on the bed and Francis’d screw his eyes closed tight and wait for the first little poke in the ribs. His dad leaned down and he smelled of smoke and coffee. “You little squirt,” said the voice by Francis’s ear, “you bugger, you.” The boy started giggling even before the poke. Poke, poke. Then his dad gave him a hawkeye on the kneecap, put his arms around him, and gave him a big fat buzzer on the neck. “There. That’ll teach you to play possum with your old man, you skeezix. You gonna get up for breakfast now?” Yes, the boy cried, yes, yes, yes. “Oh no you won’t,” said Daddy and gave him another buzzer. Then he lay down beside him as the sky got light and told him about Grampa riding the train down from Winnipeg with his new bride, Mathilde, who he had met the day before. Grampa came on the boat from Aalborg many years ago. Grampa went to Mathilde’s father’s store to buy groceries, and Mathilde thought he was a Polack. She said to her father, “Han lugter lige som et stykke gammel ost, men for søren, hvor er han flot,” He smells just like
a piece of old cheese but damn he is handsome—and Grampa smiled and said, “Synes du det?” Do you think so? She was so embarrassed she ran out the back door and Grampa chased her, trying to comfort her. He stayed for dinner, and the next morning they got married. Grampa lived in his own room now and he only came out for breakfast and supper, he didn’t recognize anybody, he thought he was eight years old, living upstairs from his dad’s bakery.
Francis was not afraid, even when his mother called to him in a strange voice, it wasn’t real, it could still be changed, but then Jodie stood in the door, holding a kerosene lamp. She whispered, “Franny, Daddy is dead.” And that did it. That made it true. Her saying it, and the smell of kerosene.
Grampa came out and saw them in the kitchen, Jodie and Franny sitting with tight faces, their hot red eyes, waiting for Mother to come down and tell them something, and he said, “Hvor er Benny?” He knew something was up. He sat down and asked for a beer and Franny got him one, and a glass, and set it on the table in front of him. He motioned to wipe his mouth and Franny brought him a napkin. Even though he was crazy, Grampa still liked things to be just so. He poured the beer, which Daddy brewed in the basement for him, and drank half of it and carefully wiped his gray moustache. He folded the napkin and set it down, and put the glass on it, and set his big hands palms-down on the table, waiting.
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