“He married Mama,” Carly said. “Mama was the prettiest girl in the county and she could have married dozens of people, but she picked Father. That was one good thing that happened after he came home.”
Aunt M. nodded very slowly. “Did he tell you that?”
“No. Mama did,” Carly said.
“I see. Well, yes, your mama is a very beautiful woman. There’s no doubt about that. And she’d been the adored and pampered only child of the wealthiest family in town. But then her father died suddenly and it turned out he’d gambled on some bad investments and most of the family’s money was gone. But still, when Anna and Ezra were married, the future must have looked very bright to them. He’d just accepted the position of principal of the high school and it looked like they’d a fine life ahead of them, but somehow things didn’t go well. There were misunderstandings with the school board and some of the parents, and at last he lost the principalship. And he was too proud to accept the teaching position that he’d been offered instead.”
“And that’s when you wrote to ask him to come here.”
“Yes. And I’ve often wondered if things wouldn’t have been better for everyone if I hadn’t. I sometimes think it was selfish of me. Tearing Ezra and Anna and their five little ones away from the life they knew. And however many problems Ezra might have had as an educator, he was at least better prepared for that type of work than he was for managing a ranch in California. Your father is a very brilliant and well-educated man and it’s hard for him to deal with people who are…well, like the Hawkinses, for instance. I’m afraid that Ezra just doesn’t have it in him to be patient with people who are so proud of their own ignorance.”
“But I was wondering if maybe Emma was right when she said that Mr. Quigley wouldn’t have kept you out of the company if Father hadn’t been so…cussed.”
Aunt M. snorted. “Well, now. I don’t know about that. Don’t forget I had a little set-to with Alfred myself, first time he came pettifogging around here with his ‘generous’ offer for Edward’s land.”
Carly grinned. “I know. I’ve heard all about it from Woo Ying.”
They both laughed and said “Aiiii!” in perfect unison. Carly, however, didn’t laugh for long. “But you get into set-to’s with people all the time, and the next thing you know everybody’s laughing and forgetting all about it. I don’t know…”
What she didn’t know was why it wasn’t that way with her father. Anyone who’d been in a set-to with Ezra Hartwick didn’t forget about it, and they didn’t laugh about it either.
Aunt M. sighed and shook her head. She got up slowly with her hand on her back and went to the bay window. She looked out into the deepening night for several minutes before she came back to stand at the foot of Carly’s bed. “I just wonder sometimes if they’d been better off to have stayed in Maine. There’s been times, in the past, when I almost wished I hadn’t asked them to come.”
“But they didn’t just come because you needed them. They wanted to come to California. Father says he came because he thought the climate would be good for Mama,” Carly said.
“And your mother?”
“She says she came because Father needed a new start.”
“Ummm!” Aunt M. said. “And, of course, no one could have known that poor little Peter was going to die, or that your mother would be so ill and—”
“Aunt M.,” Carly interrupted, “Emma said that everyone says that Mama’s illness is all in her head. Do you think that’s true?”
Aunt M. made the harrumphing noise that meant she was really angry. “And that just takes the cake,” she snapped. “Just about breaks Tildy Hawkins’s record for stupid remarks—and that’s going some, because she’s certainly set records before in that department. Never in all my life—”
“Aunt M.,” Carly broke in. “It wasn’t Tildy who said it. It was Emma.”
“I know, Carly. But you can be sure it came from her mother. It’s not the kind of thing a child, particularly a dull-witted little thing like Emma, would think up on her own. No, it was Tildy, all right. It sounds just like her. Did I ever tell you about the time that Tildy Hawkins misunderstood something the parson said and went around telling people…”
She had told it before, so after a moment Carly stopped listening. When Aunt M.’s story was over, she asked, “Then it’s not true?”
Aunt M. didn’t answer for a moment. When she did, her voice was very slow and soft. “No, child. I’m afraid it’s not.”
It was just at that moment that Carly remembered to ask about something very important. “Tiger!” she said suddenly. “What about Tiger—may he live here too?”
“Yes. Yes, of course,” Aunt M. said. “I don’t see any reason why not.” Then she came around the bed and kissed Carly good night, pulled the blankets up around her shoulders, told her not to read too long, and went out of the room. She needn’t have bothered mentioning the reading. Carly didn’t read at all that night, and for quite a long time it seemed as if she might not be going to sleep either. For what seemed like hours and hours she lay wide awake, staring into the darkness, thinking and wondering and asking herself long, complicated questions that had no answers and no endings.
Some of the questions had to do with the things Emma had said, and some of them had to do with the fact that she would now be returning to live at Greenwood. It was while she was thinking about living again at Greenwood, asking herself why it had happened and what it would be like now that she was eleven years old and used to being on the ranch with the rest of the Hartwicks, that she suddenly remembered about Woo Ying and his mysterious celebration.
Of course—that was it. Woo Ying had known that she was coming back to live at Greenwood and he hadn’t understood that Aunt M. didn’t want it mentioned until later. Thinking about the good china and linen and the huge bouquet that he had arranged for his “very happy celebrate” made her smile, and the smile turned into a yawn that made her jaws pop. It seemed like only a few minutes later that she was waking up and it was morning and the sunlight was streaming in the bay windows of her old room at Greenwood.
Chapter 27
EVERYTHING HAPPENED QUICKLY after that. Within a few days most of Carly’s clothing and personal belongings, including her books and journals and costumes, and of course Tiger, had been moved to Greenwood. Charles had even managed to get Tiger’s doghouse into the buckboard and then set up again in a lovely spot under the drooping fronds of the huge old palm tree that grew beside Aunt M.’s barn.
Tiger seemed pleased when the doghouse arrived. He watched with obvious approval as Charles got it off the wagon and, with Woo Ying’s help, moved it into place. As soon as the job was finished he went inside, sniffed around, and lay down briefly as if testing to see if it still felt right. But as it turned out, he didn’t use it nearly as much as he had on the ranch. At Greenwood, for the first time in his life, Tiger became an indoor dog—a lawful and legitimate indoor dog, without the need to be tiptoed upstairs in the dead of night.
It began on the very first night he was there. Since Charles hadn’t yet delivered the doghouse, Aunt M. told Carly to fix Tiger a bed in the tack room. The tack room, cozy and tidy and smelling pleasantly of horses and saddle leather, was one of Carly’s favorite places, but Tiger didn’t seem to feel the same way. Even though she made him a comfortable bed from an old saddle blanket, he gave her one of his most accusing stares, with his head dropped low and his eyes rolled up under twitching eyebrows. And not long afterward he began to complain. After he’d barked and whined for about an hour, Aunt M. told Carly to “go get that silly creature and bring him into the house.”
Carly was surprised. Up until then she’d just naturally supposed that the Greenwood rules about the proper place for animals would be the same as they were at the ranch house.
“Mama doesn’t like animals in the house,” she told Aunt M. “I thought you probably didn’t either.”
“Your mama’s absolutely right,” Aunt M. said
, scratching Tiger under his whiskery chin. “No animals in any house of mine, ever. But of course that doesn’t include present company. It’s perfectly obvious that Tiger is only dog on the outside. Anybody with half an eye could see that this gentleman is a lot more human than many of the two-legged creatures I’ve known in my day. Isn’t that right, Mr. Tiger?”
Tiger rolled his eyes delightedly and wagged his tail so hard it seemed to be going in a circle.
Of course Woo Ying didn’t approve. “Greenwood not animal house,” he said, shaking his head and pursing his lips. “Woo Ying not keep house for animal. You want live with animal, why not bringing also Chloe and Dolly-cow. Also chickens. If Greenwood animal house, why not bringing all animals?”
At least that’s what Woo Ying said on the first day, and not just once either. As a matter of fact he said it regularly three or four times an hour and he and Aunt M. had several shouting matches about it, and Aunt M. finally yelled that if he mentioned Chloe and Dolly one more time he could just go out and live in the cowshed himself. And Woo Ying said all right he would. Right after dinner he would go out and live in the cowshed. He didn’t, though, and by the second or third day he was patting Tiger’s head when he thought no one was looking, and slipping him chicken tails and ham trimmings.
That first week at Greenwood went quickly. Carly continued to see Lila briefly on the way to school. It hadn’t been easy to talk Lila into stopping by for her. It was true, just as Lila said, that the grammar school was a very short walk from Greenwood, but Carly had other reasons for wanting the morning ride in the Hartwick road cart.
“So I won’t be so homesick,” Carly told Lila. “So I can at least see you and Venus every day and hear all the news from the ranch and everything.”
“News?” Lila said. “News from the ranch? I can’t imagine what you think there’ll be to tell. How many eggs the hens laid yesterday, and how many pints of tomatoes Nellie put up?”
“Yes,” Carly said enthusiastically before she realized that Lila was being sarcastic. Then she said, “Yes,” again—defensively. “Why not? I like to hear that kind of news. And how Arthur’s doing at the store, and how Mama is.”
Lila shrugged, and then relented. “Well, all right. But be sure you’re ready when I come by. Particularly after school. I hate sitting out there in front of everybody in this disgraceful old rig.”
“I know,” Carly said, grinning and petting Venus’s nose just above her evilly lifted lip. “In this disgraceful old cart pulled by this disgraceful old lop-eared Venus. Don’t worry. I promise I’ll be ready.”
So Monday through Friday it was Greenwood and Aunt M. and Woo Ying and school, with only a few minutes twice a day with Lila and Venus to remind Carly that she was still a Hartwick. But the reminding seemed important. Without it, it was as if Greenwood mornings at the kitchen table with so much talking—most of it by Carly, since both Aunt M. and Woo Ying were always asking questions—and evenings in the parlor with Tiger stretched out on the Chinese rug while Carly read or did homework and Aunt M. read or crocheted—and the little bedtime treats that Woo Ying always had ready in the kitchen—and trips with Aunt M. to the shops and library while Woo Ying went off to visit his Chinese friends on Second Street—and all the constant talking and arguing and shouting and laughing—with all of those things filling up Carly’s time and thoughts, it was easy to forget to think about the ranch house and the people who lived there and who were, after all, her real family.
But on Saturdays everything changed. Every Saturday morning Carly and Tiger got up at six o’clock and walked out to the ranch. They usually arrived in time for Carly to help Nellie fix Mama’s breakfast and carry it upstairs. Ever since her bad spell in August, Mama hadn’t been coming down for meals or even to spend part of the day on the parlor sofa as she had always done before.
“I rest better here,” she told Carly one Saturday as she ate a tiny bit of the toast and poached egg Nellie had fixed for her. “And Doctor Dodge says I shouldn’t climb stairs until I’ve gotten over these dizzy spells.”
Carly had read about dizzy spells. In Aunt M.’s subscription magazines and Sears, Roebuck novels such afflictions were usually symptoms of mysterious illness. Although they seemed quite common in stories and novels, she had never experienced one herself except for the kind brought on by twirling in circles, which probably didn’t count.
Curled up in the big rocking chair by the window, Carly thought about dizzy spells and other interesting symptoms and watched Mama reclining in the big old sleigh bed. Cradled in a great nest of pillows, with her long dark hair loose around her shoulders, she looked exactly like one of those beautiful but tragic heroines. In the novels the women in question were usually suffering from broken hearts or other tragedies, just as Mama suffered over Petey's death and the loss of her family and friends in Maine. But in the novels no one ever suggested that such illnesses were “only in her head.”
A lump came up in Carly’s throat and her eyes flooded with tears, hot tears that were more angry than sad. If those Hawkinses could only see Mama now, so pale and weak in her nest of pillows, they would surely take back their insulting comments. Well, never mind that bunch of cackling geese. Swallowing tears and anger, she began to ask questions of the sort that usually started Mama talking and helped to cheer her up. But this time the questions went unanswered, at least for quite a while.
Carly began by asking about the old days in Maine. After each question she watched carefully for Mama’s eyes and voice to brighten as they always did when she talked about her childhood. But today she only nodded weakly, leaned back among her pillows, and let her eyes fall shut. But then Carly remembered to ask about the Mayday party.
“How many children do you have to have to weave a Maypole?” she asked, and at last Mama opened her eyes and began to tell about the Mayday party her parents had given for her on the huge lawn that stretched from their grand brick house all the way down to the river. And how all the children had danced around the Maypole weaving lovely pastel ribbons in and out to form an elaborate pattern of pinks and blues and pale yellows. Mama was looking much less weak and sad by the time Nellie came in to take away the tray with the half-eaten breakfast. But Nellie didn’t mention the improvement. Instead she only insisted that Carly should come downstairs and let Mama rest.
After Nellie went out, Carly stopped at the side of the bed to kiss Mama good-bye. As always Mama turned her cheek and closed her eyes for Carly’s kiss, and afterward she kept them closed. She looked very fragile and beautiful with her thick lashes dark against the feverish flush on her thin cheeks. Carly felt a hollow kind of ache and then a strange rush of anger.
“Mama!” she said sharply. “Look at me.”
Mama’s eyes opened. “Yes?” she said. “What is it, child?”
Carly wanted to say it again. Look at me. At me, Mama. But instead she only sighed and bit her lip. After a moment she said, “I liked hearing about the Maypole.”
Mama nodded. “That’s nice. Now you run along, dear, with Nellie. I’m feeling very tired.”
Nellie was not in a good mood that day. She continued to be distant and preoccupied as Carly helped her pick string beans and tomatoes in the garden and a few late peaches from the kitchen orchard. Whenever Carly asked a question, her answer was brief and impatient, as if she had more important things on her mind. Sometimes, when she didn’t know Carly was looking, a sudden grimace twisted her face, making it look pained and sad. If it had been Lila, Carly would have thought instantly of doomed romance and star-crossed lovers. But with Nellie it didn’t seem likely that tragic love was involved. As far as Carly knew, there was only Clarence, and while he did have those unfortunate teeth, there wasn’t anything really tragic about him.
After dinner, during which Father discussed women’s suffrage and what a mistake Finland was making in allowing women to vote, and Arthur disagreed and started an argument, Carly went to bed in her old room. It was always a strange feeling to be ther
e again after a whole week at Greenwood, and she woke up often with odd bits and pieces of uneasy dreams floating rapidly away into oblivion. That particular night it was even harder than usual to get to sleep, and at last she got up and tiptoed downstairs to get Tiger.
Now that his doghouse was at Greenwood, Tiger had to sleep in the barn on Saturday nights. But that didn’t prevent him from hearing the back door open, just as he always had, and in just a moment he was in her arms and being tiptoed upstairs. With his warm little body a comforting weight on her feet, she finally fell sound asleep and barely woke up in time to sneak him down and out the back door before Nellie arrived in the kitchen.
Chapter 28
THE HOT, DRY month of September ended and midway through October the first of the winter rains fell, a steady downpour that turned the brown hills to fresh, new green, and filled the deeper canyons and barrancas with lush growths of fern. In between the sudden drenching rains the weather was warm and the air a clean, sharp blue. It was soon after the rains began that Carly started to ride Chloe, Aunt M.’s bay mare, to the ranch on Saturday mornings.
Chloe was saddle-broken and gentle but eager and frisky and a lot more fun to ride than old Prince. Especially since Aunt M., who thought sidesaddles were dangerous and silly, let Carly use her Princess saddle, which was made for ladies who, like Aunt M., rode astride. Carly had ridden Chloe before when she was visiting at Greenwood but she was really surprised when Aunt M. suggested she could use the mare for her Saturday trips to the ranch.
“Won’t you need her here?” she asked.
“Not a bit,” Aunt M. said. “I’m not much of a Saturday-night gadabout anymore. And Woo Ying never uses the rig when he goes in to visit his friends at the laundry. I worry about you going all that way alone every Saturday morning. That road’s a quagmire this time of year, and besides, I hear there’s been some more trouble with hydrophobia out Fillmore way. Little girl on her way to school was bitten by a rabid skunk. I’ll feel better with you on horseback. You just be sure to get back here in time for church on Sunday mornings.”
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