Mother shook her head. “This is impossible,” she said. “I thought we were going to talk about our choices . . .”
“We were, but I had to move fast, before another family was picked to take the Reillys’ place. Clio, honey, there’s nothing left for us here. How else will we get our way paid to a place where there is a new life waiting for us?” He brushed the back of one finger along her cheek to wipe away a tear.
Mother tightened her jaw and blinked back more tears. “One year,” she said. “I’ll give it one year. If we haven’t made a go of it by then, we’ll come home and move in with my mother in Madison.”
“One year is not enough time for the land to prove itself,” he said. “The first summer will probably be stump pulling. Give it until the first full harvest, at least. That’s just four months past the first year. Give it a fair test. That’ll still get the girls back to Madison in time to start school in the city if that’s the way it goes.”
Mother looked up at the ceiling as if looking there for advice, or patience from heaven to live another year with such a fool-headed, stubborn man as Mr. Johnson.
“All right,” she said. “Until September after next.”
In six and a half minutes, they were lined up with teeth and hair brushed and in clean underwear. Matthew wailed from all the to-do. Tigger the cat rubbed around Terpsichore’s legs with a worried meow.
Terpsichore grabbed the cat. “Does Tigger have to be inspected too? She is going, isn’t she?”
Her father looked at the clock. “We’ll worry about that later. Come on now, line up like ducklings.”
The exam was over in five minutes. Terpsichore still had the taste of the wooden tongue depressor in her mouth. The doctor had listened to her lungs right through her spring dress. Her heart was beating so fast and hard she didn’t think he’d need a stethoscope to hear it.
On the way back home, Terpsichore stumbled along behind the rest of the family like a chicken that kept moving even when its head was cut off. The day after tomorrow they would leave for Alaska. If they froze to death in Alaska it would be her fault.
CHAPTER 6
Packing Up
AS TERPSICHORE ENTERED THE LIVING ROOM TO TELL HER parents good-night, they were still arguing over what to take. Her father said it was crazy to take records when they wouldn’t have the electricity for a record player. Her mother said it was crazy to move anywhere that was so uncivilized it didn’t have electricity.
Whenever Terpsichore woke up that night, she heard drawers sliding open and thunking shut as her parents sorted through everything in the house. When she woke up for breakfast, she halted at the kitchen door, agog at the mess. The table was stacked with dishes and silverware and Great-grandmother’s pitcher and Aunt Katrin’s flowered vase and all the things that had history enough to want to keep.
Mother was on her knees, wrapping teacups in old newspapers and fitting them into boxes.
“Teacups are hardly what we need most,” Pop said.
Mother looked up. “They hardly weigh a thing, and I’m not giving up every vestige of civilization, Mr. Johnson.”
Terpsichore cleared a path through the piles of pots and dishes that her mother had pulled out of the cupboards and piled on the floor so she could see everything she had to make choices about.
To their mother’s piles, the twins added their Shirley Temple bowls and mugs. They had eaten box after box of Wheaties to get them and they weren’t going to leave them behind.
Using some of the last of the flour, Terpsichore whisked in eggs, milk, and a dash of salt, poured the mixture into a greased cast-iron frying pan, and slid it into the electric oven for a puff pancake.
While it baked, Terpsichore surveyed the mess again. How could they be ready to leave by tomorrow? They could take a ton of stuff—literally a ton, two thousand pounds—to Alaska. But her father’s tools and the furniture he had built were heavy. Their books and records were heavy.
After eating, Pop whistled as he built crates out of scrap lumber for everything they were taking to the railroad station the next morning. Terpsichore hovered over her father as he worked on Tigger’s cage. He screwed hinges and a metal hook and eye latch to the front, and lined the bottom with wood shavings.
Once she was sure that Tigger would have a sturdy crate for the trip, she headed to Eileen’s house. Her feet moved slowly. If she had done nothing, she would be staying in Little Bear Lake with Eileen, at least until one of their families had to move. Why had she meddled in grown-up business?
The Reillys’ front door was open, so she climbed up the ladder to the attic. Eileen was sitting on the edge of her cot.
“Hi,” Eileen said. Her voice was flat.
“I’m sorry,” Terpsichore said. “I was trying to keep our pinky promise . . . I didn’t mean . . .” Her throat was too tight to let out any more words.
Eileen shrugged. “We wouldn’t have been together here for very long anyway, even if you were staying. We’re moving tomorrow morning to Uncle Patrick’s place in Chicago. Da says as long as we are packed we might as well go right away.”
“So I guess this is good-bye, then,” Terpsichore said. Her voice was raspy.
Eileen nodded. Then she looked up, and like a true friend, tried to cheer up Terpsichore, even though she was sad herself.
“Remember when we played Little House in the Big Woods last summer? Now you won’t have to pretend to be a pioneer. You can be a real pioneer in Alaska and you can write and tell me all about it.”
“Of course I’ll write. I’ll tell you everything.” Terpsichore sidled up to Eileen for a super hug, one that would last. “And you write and tell me everything about life in the big city!”
• • •
Still feeling the pressure of Eileen’s arms around her shoulders, Terpsichore ran home to fill her crate with her personal treasures, mostly books: the Anne of Green Gables series, Black Beauty, The Little Lame Prince, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret of the Old Clock, and, of course, Little House in the Big Woods and Farmer Boy. When she had read and reread the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, she’d daydreamed about what it would have been like to live sixty-five years ago in pioneer times. Just like Eileen said, she was about to find out.
As she opened the kitchen door, her mother slapped her forehead with a howl. “My mother! I haven’t called her. She doesn’t even know we’re going!” She held out her hand toward Pop. “I need all your change—quickly!”
Pop emptied his pockets of quarters, nickels, and dimes, and Mother darted out the door.
“Where’s Mom going?” Cally asked.
Pop closed the door Terpsichore’s mother had left open. “The phone booth by the post office, I expect.”
• • •
When her mother returned, Terpsichore greeted her with a cup of mint tea from the mint-patch-that-would-not-die. Before she went to bed that night, she dug up mint roots, wrapped them in damp newspaper, and put them in a tin can. If mint tea had calming powers, they’d better have a ready supply. They’d all need it up north.
By eleven o’clock that night, everything they were taking but didn’t need until Palmer was crated and boxed up, ready to deliver to the train station in the morning. Tigger had hardly left Terpsichore for an instant all day, rubbing her shins and meowing questions about her future. That night, Tigger curled on Terpsichore’s chest to make sure she went nowhere without her. Terpsichore slept—or tried to sleep—on a bare mattress on the floor. May 12, 1935, would be her last night in Little Bear Lake.
CHAPTER 7
By Land
TERPSICHORE’S FOOTSTEPS ECHOED AS SHE WANDERED through the empty house one last time. As she closed the screen door, she tried to remember the exact sound of the squeaky hinge. She fingered the pumpkin seeds in her pocket, the seeds of the biggest pumpkin she’d grown last fall. She’d kept those seeds separate from the
other seeds she and Pop had packed so she could keep them close to her.
Half the town—or what was left of it—showed up at the railway station to say good-bye to the Johnsons.
Terpsichore kept Tigger’s crate next to her on the bench on the station platform and periodically slipped her fingers through the slats to rub Tigger behind her ears. “You’ll have to be cooped up by yourself on the trip, but I promise I’ll never abandon you. It’s an adventure, Tigger. Pretend you’re like one of your ancestors, sailing off on a Viking ship.”
Tigger licked Terpsichore’s hand, as if she were comforting Terpsichore instead of the other way around.
Mother clutched Matthew, the twins clutched their mother’s coat, and Pop tapped his foot, held his watch to his ear, and leaned toward the southbound track to be among the first to see the train when it arrived.
Everyone on the platform turned from the tracks to the road at the sound of a bold car horn. Terpsichore stood on the bench and squinted toward the noise. It was a 1928 Pierce Arrow. Only movie stars, business moguls—none of whom lived in Little Bear Lake—and Grandmother VanHagen had a Pierce Arrow.
The car careened into a signpost and jolted to a stop. Grandmother VanHagen herself was at the wheel! She flung open the door, stepped from the car, and ran toward the tracks. Grandmother—running—instead of her normal stately glide. She wasn’t a movie star, but with her elegant silk dress, she looked more like a movie star than anyone else’s grandmother.
People parted for her as she made a beeline to Mother.
“Mercy sakes!” Grandmother said. “Thank goodness I made it in time.”
Mother, stunned, said, “You drove all this way yourself?”
“Yes, the chauffeur taught me before I had to let him go. And good thing too, since you wouldn’t listen on the phone last night,” Grandmother said.
“I ran out of nickels; I didn’t hang up on you,” Mother said.
“But I knew if I could talk to you in person I could save you from a disastrous mistake. It was bad enough that your Mr. Johnson dragged you here—two hundred miles from me and civilization—but Alaska is the back of beyond . . .”
Mother raised her eyebrows at Pop.
Grandmother continued, “Please, Clio, do us all a favor and move in with me.”
Pop approached now. “We’ve decided—”
Mother interrupted. “Actually, it was you who decided, Mr. Johnson. But I did agree that we’d give Alaska a try through the first big harvest.” Mother and Pop locked eyes and Pop nodded his head.
Mother turned back to Grandmother. “If it doesn’t work out by next September, we’ll take you up on your offer to live with you in Madison.”
“Then I imagine I will have to go up there to get you when you admit you’ve failed,” Grandmother said.
When the conductor shouted the all aboard, Grandmother’s face crumpled and she hugged Mother so tightly that Matthew, squished in between them, squeaked. “I’ll miss you, you know.” She pulled back and touched each Johnson with her eyes, even Pop. “All of you.”
• • •
Mother sat by the window so she could wave good-bye to Grandmother. Pop sat next to her on the aisle, turning his hat over and over in hands he could not keep still. On the seat facing Mom and Pop, Cally and Polly squabbled for the spot next to the window and Terpsichore clutched the side of her seat to keep from falling into the aisle as the train started rumbling down the tracks toward Seattle. Baby Matthew was lucky. He got his own padded box on the floor between their seats, and seemed so stunned by all the changes in the last few days that he didn’t even cry.
After everyone got used to the swaying of the train car, some folks played checkers or cards to pass the time. The twins left their seat to chum with a girl who had a genuine Shirley Temple doll. Older girls huddled over movie magazines, mooning over Clark Gable and Errol Flynn. Boys passed around ragged copies of Amazing Stories and the Sunday funnies.
She overheard one young child complain about being cooped up on the train.
“Hush, now,” said her father. “Only happy girls get to go to Alaska.”
“Tell me a story,” the girl said. “Tell me a story and I’ll be a happy girl.”
Terpsichore strained to hear the story, but she couldn’t make out the words, only a low, comforting murmur as the father told his tale. Only happy children get to go to Alaska? He must have heard President Roosevelt’s speech too, about being cheerful and optimistic. No matter what happened, she would try to be happy too.
She alternated between looking out the window and, despite the jostling of the train, rereading Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods.
At the one long stop that first day, the train picked up more Alaska-bound passengers and Terpsichore jostled for room at sinks in the ladies’ lounge to get fresh water for Tigger, who was in the car reserved for pets.
As she entered the animal car, a dozen dogs barked, ducks quacked, and a bird cooed from a sheet-draped cage. Tigger cowered at the back of her cage, but crept forward when she saw Terpsichore. “There, there, kitty, I haven’t forgotten you.”
She nudged bits of sausage, left over from the free lunch in the diner car, through the slats and unlatched the door to slide in fresh water. “You’ll like Alaska. Just dream of all the mice you’ll catch once we get you out of this cage.”
A boy about Terpsichore’s age popped up from behind a crate at the other end of the car. “Actually,” he said, “your cat is more likely to catch a red-backed vole, Myodes rutilus. Besides eating your plants, they sometimes even eat each other. They’re cannibals, you know.”
Yuck! Who wanted to know about cannibal voles?
The dog at the end of the boy’s leash lunged toward Tigger, tail wagging.
Tigger leaped to Terpsichore’s shoulders and dug in her claws.
“Don’t be scared,” the boy said. “She’s just a puppy and wants to play.”
“Well, Tigger doesn’t want to play. Can you please control your dog?” As she stood, she looked more carefully at the boy’s mouth instead of his dog. “What’s that on your teeth?”
He wrangled his dog back into its crate, then turned and smiled to show off his mouth hardware. “Orthodontia. My father’s a dentist, and he’s practicing on me to learn about teeth straightening.”
The boy acted like metal brackets on his teeth were a privilege. Terpsichore thought they looked like torture.
The boy reached in his dog’s cage for a parting pat. “In Alaska, I’m going to train her to be a sled dog.”
“Ow, Tigger!” Terpsichore reached to her back to untangle her cat’s claws from her sweater.
“Her name is Togo.”
“That’s nice,” Terpsichore said.
“You know, like the dog who raced the longest part of the relay with the diphtheria antitoxin from Anchorage to Nome. Balto gets all the credit, but it was Togo who ran the longest.” He reached through the slats to pat his dog as if she had made the heroic run herself.
“Did you know that seventeen of the twenty highest peaks in the United States are in Alaska?” the boy continued.
“Yes, I . . .” Terpsichore started. After all, she had studied Pop’s atlas and the World Book article about Alaska at the library.
“And did you know that the Yukon River is nearly two thousand miles long, and is the third longest river in the United States, and Alaska has more than seventy volcanoes and has three million lakes and is twice as big as Texas?”
“Yes, I—” Terpsichore tried to answer again.
“. . . And in 1915 the highest recorded temperature in Alaska was one hundred degrees at Fort Yukon, so it’s not true that Alaska is all glaciers, although there are at least one hundred thousand glaciers in Alaska.”
That was one fact Terpsichore had not known, but Tigger was squirming in her arms and co
uldn’t wait another minute to get outside to do her business.
As she left, she heard the boy prattle on, something about the number of species of spiders in Alaska. She hoped Alaska was big enough that she wouldn’t have to listen to that boy again.
CHAPTER 8
By Sea
AS SOON AS THEY CROSSED THE CASCADE RANGE, MOTHER took the still-damp diapers down from where she had hung them on the overhead luggage rack and started repacking. Everyone wanted to be the first ones off the train to see Seattle, but a nurse boarded the car and made everyone line up so she could check for signs of measles. Anyone with fever or spots would have to stay in Seattle and wait two weeks to come up on the next boat.
Luckily, none of the Johnsons had spots.
Terpsichore was awestruck at the hubbub on the train platform. Young women dressed in yards of fluffy tulle, like princesses, held up a banner: Welcome to Seattle! Boy Scouts lined up to help carry the Alaska pioneers’ luggage to the Frye Hotel for the evening before their ship would set sail.
Mother sighed when Pop closed the door of their hotel room. “What a relief to see real beds again!” she said.
Cally and Polly bounced on the other bed until they noticed Terpsichore unloading an enormous basket of fruit and candy on top of the dresser. They raced to the dresser. “Trip, is all this for us?”
Terpsichore batted away their grasping hands. “Terpsichore! It’s Terpsichore! And there’s enough for one apple, orange, and banana for each of us.”
“And Snickers bars!” That was Cally.
“And Tootsie Roll Pops!” That was Polly.
“Clio, they’ve thought of all of us,” Pop said. “One of these drawers has a whole stack of clean diapers for Matthew, and in this drawer . . . a flannel nightgown! There’s even something for me.” He picked up a can of Hills Bros. Coffee and pretended to smell the coffee right through the tin.
Sweet Home Alaska Page 3