“Hello, gentlemen,” she said. “So this is my new student. Are you ready for school, Benjamin?”
“Just watch this.” Keast wrote some arithmetic problems on the board, then stood back as Benji completed them.
“Perfect,” Miss Ladu said. “Benji, I think you’re a star pupil already.” She bent down to study Benji’s somber face. “Don’t mind if the big boys tease you,” she said. “They always do that.”
“He won’t mind,” Frank said. “He’s tough.”
“Is that so?” Miss Ladu gave Keast a private smile that said they understood this boy in a way Frank did not; they would be allies on the lad’s behalf.
Mother Pinkerton gave him his lunch pail and Benji started off to school, walking slowly down Plum River Road. Maybe if he walked slow enough, it would be over by the time he got there.
In the ditches at the sides of the road were red and blue flowers; butterflies darted and drifted above them. Butterfly, Papa-san had said, Cio-Cio. Mama would be glad he was going to school. Benji is one smart boy, she had taught him to say, his first English. She said he would be a rich man in America but that first he would go to school and learn everything American.
He sat down for a while at the edge of a ditch and played a game with the butterflies. If one lit on his finger, Mama was thinking of him. An orange and black one dipped near him but did not land. That meant she was thinking of him a little bit.
He took the small wooden horse from his pocket. It was dark brown with legs raised like it was running. Dr. Keast had whittled it for him as a present for going to school; it was the best thing he’d ever had except for Mama’s ball.
A wagon rattled down the road behind him. It was Mr. Case, on his way to the creamery with his jugs of milk. “Hey, boy.” Mr. Case stopped the wagon. “Ain’t you going to school?” Benji stood, dusted off his pants. “You’d better get in here.” He gestured toward the seat beside him. “You’re going to be late. That teacher will tan your hide.”
Benji shook his head and started walking again, in the ditch, so Mr. Case could drive on.
After a while he moved back to the road, walking in the dust from the wagon. He walked down the hill, then on the flat part for a long way, and up another hill. His stomach hurt. Maybe he was sick and would have to go home.
Soon he saw the schoolhouse. The walk seemed shorter than yesterday. There were no children outside, so school must have started already. He would have to walk past all the big children on the way to the front.
But he was a strong boy. Mama had said that too. No one would know what he didn’t like.
He trudged up the steps and opened the door a crack. There was a mumble of voices. Miss Ladu came over, smiling, and led him down the aisle between the desks. “This is Benji, a very bright boy from Japan. He’ll be in the first grade, but you second-graders had better watch out!”
Everyone was too quiet while Miss Ladu showed him his desk, the same one where he’d sat yesterday, and gave him a book. “Your first reader,” she said. At the desk beside him was a girl in a red dress and a bow in her hair. She stared at him.
“The third-graders are reciting a poem,” Miss Ladu said. “Continue, please.” The children lined up near the blackboard started talking again, all together.
After the third-graders went back to their seats, Miss Ladu wrote an arithmetic problem and waved Benji forward. He felt shaky as he walked to the front, like crossing a skinny log over the river.
She put chalk in his hand. It was an easy problem, but the chalk squealed when he wrote the answer.
For the rest of the morning, children who came forward to recite turned to look at him. Benji pretended not to see; he stared at the grain of wood in his desk.
Miss Ladu rang a bell and the other students jumped up, pushing and talking as they headed for the door. “It’s time for lunch,” Miss Ladu told Benji. “Go on out with the others. You’ll have fun.”
Outside, Benji looked for Eli but didn’t see him. A girl with long brown braids smiled at him, so he sat down on a rock next to her. She didn’t have on a fancy dress or shoes like the girl with the bow, and there were freckles under her eyes. “My name is Flora,” she said. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he took out his horse to show her.
“It’s pretty,” she said. He put it on the rock beside him to show how it could stand up even though two legs were raised.
Two big boys came over, grinning down at Benji; one of them snatched the horse.
Benji leapt for it, but the boy dangled it over his head. He had mean little eyes and a missing front tooth. Another boy grabbed Benji between his legs.
“Give it back, Marvin.” Eli stepped into the circle and shoved the boy who was holding the horse. Marvin dropped the horse in the dirt for Benji to pick up.
“Let’s play Osage ball,” Eli said, motioning to Benji.
Benji followed him to the other side of the Osage orange hedge where a group of boys were yanking green, warty-looking balls from the thorny branches. When they divided into teams and Eli chose Benji, some others yelled, “Eww. Don’t pick me.”
“Shut up,” Eli said. “Benji can throw better than any of you.”
“They just don’t want to be on a Jap’s team,” Marvin said.
Benji hadn’t heard “Jap” before but it sounded bad. “I’m Japanese,” he said.
“That’s what makes you a Jap,” Marvin said. “Jappie Jappie Jappie,” he chanted, and others joined in.
Benji shoved Keast’s horse in his pocket, grabbed an Osage orange and aimed it at Marvin: The ball splatted on his forehead. Eli and a boy named Jonas cheered.
Marvin ran at Benji and pushed him down. “Say ‘Jap.’ ” He sat on Benji’s back and scoured his face into the dirt. “Say ‘I’m a Jap.’ ”
Benji tasted dirt and blood and his nose hurt, but he wasn’t going to cry and he wasn’t going to say “Jap.”
Eli kicked at Marvin, but another boy tackled him. They were all scrabbling on the ground when the school bell rang. Marvin jumped up and ran inside with everyone else, except Benji and Eli.
“Don’t tell Miss Ladu,” Eli said.
She was waiting at the door. “What happened?” she asked, bending down to look at Benji.
“I fell down.”
She frowned. “Was someone picking on you?”
He shook his head.
“Go wash up at the pump then and come to my desk for a writing lesson.”
All afternoon Benji sat at his desk writing lines of the O Miss Ladu had taught him to make. He filled in one of the O’s, making it big and lumpy until it was Marvin’s liver, and drew a kappa eating it. Marvin would cry and beg for Benji to make the kappa stop and then he’d die. Benji ground the chalk on his slate until the girl with the bow said stop or she’d tell the teacher. When Miss Ladu said it was rest time for the first-graders, he put his head on his desk and felt in his pocket for Keast’s horse. A leg was broken off. He took it out and held the leg in place. Tears came to his eyes, so he rested his head again and put the horse away.
When school was over, Benji walked away fast, then ran down Plum River Road. In the woods beyond the Cases’ farm, he ran at a small tree, tearing at the branches and letting his screams out. He kicked up moss and threw chunks of it in the river and hurled rocks at the trees, pounding them into Marvin’s face.
He sat on the ground and took out Dr. Keast’s horse and looked at it for a while, trying to stick the leg back on. It was ruined. He lay down on the ground, holding the horse, and went to sleep.
When he got home it was almost dark. Father Pinkerton was at the table, and Mother and Grandmother Pinkerton were putting out food.
“Where in Hades have you been?” Father Pinkerton said. “You think just because you’re a scholar you can ignore your chores? I did the milking and mucked out the stalls myself.”
“Look at him!” Grandmother Pinkerton said. “He’s black and blue.” She and Mother Pinkerton put down their dishes an
d came over to him.
Mother Pinkerton pushed back the hair from Benji’s forehead. “You’re all scraped up. And your nose …” She touched it with a finger. “Does that hurt?”
“No,” he said, although it did.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I fell down.”
Grandmother Pinkerton and Mother Pinkerton looked at each other.
“Mighty hard fall,” Grandmother Pinkerton said. “It was some of those sorry town boys, I’d wager. They deserve a good whaling.”
“Don’t mollycoddle him,” Father Pinkerton said. “He has to handle it on his own, just like I did. Come here, boy.” Benji went to stand beside him. Father Pinkerton took him by the shoulders and gave him a little shake. “Remember that your mother’s people are samurai. That means warrior, fighter.”
“He’s too small to fight,” Mother Pinkerton said. She took his hand and led him into the kitchen. Her eyes were nice while she washed his face and put on some smelly medicine that stung.
At supper, Mother Pinkerton and Grandmother Pinkerton kept telling him to eat, but everything tasted like dirt, even the lemon pie.
The next day, Eli and Jonas, who wore a knit cap pulled down to his ears, walked Benji to school.
“You don’t have to worry about Marvin,” Jonas told Benji. “He’s just a stinking bully. He calls me Wormie.” He pulled off his cap to show his head, bald because of ringworm, then put it back on. “I’m gonna put a poison snake in his desk.”
“And cow plop,” Eli said. Eli and Jonas laughed about how Marvin’s face would look when he reached into his desk.
“Then we’ll beat him up,” Jonas said. “Three against one. We’ll smear him into the ground.”
Benji’s stomachache got worse. He saw an orange butterfly and tried to think about Mama, but she wasn’t there.
At school, Miss Ladu had made a big map of Japan and propped it on the blackboard. “We’re going to have a special lesson on Japanese geography and culture,” she said, “for every grade.”
Some boys in the back made shuffling noises with their feet. Miss Ladu stared at them and they stopped. “Any boy who misbehaves will be punished,” she said, “and I will visit their parents.”
She took up a long stick and pointed at the map. “Japan is comprised of four islands,” she said. Benji hadn’t known that; he repeated the names of the islands in his mind after Miss Ladu said them: Ho-kaido, Hon-shoe, Shi-ko-ku, Kew-shoe. There was a red star at the bottom of Kew-shoe. “This is Nagasaki,” she said, “where Benji was born. It’s the most interesting city in Japan. Many foreigners live there …” She turned to look at the class. “In Japan, Americans are foreigners. Many of the Japanese people in Nagasaki are Christians. The notable trades of Nagasaki are shipbuilding and manufacturing.” She took down the map and began to write on the board. “And there are several well-known arts: cloisonné—which is a kind of metalwork—turtle-shell jewelry, kites, and glassware. These words are tomorrow’s spelling homework for third-graders and up.”
She held up a book about Japan and showed them pictures: farmers in rice fields; a statue she said was famous; and a family—mother, father, and children in kimono—sitting at a low table. “Japanese people are known for their intelligence, hard work, and peacefulness,” she said. “What is peacefulness?”
The girl next to Benji raised her hand. “No fighting,” she said.
“That is correct. And we will have no fighting in this school.”
At lunch Jonas and Eli played jump board while Benji watched. He was too small to play; he couldn’t make his side stay down. Benji glanced at Marvin playing marbles, across the school yard, then sat near Flora to eat his lunch.
“Japan is nice,” she said.
“So is America,” he said, and then couldn’t think of anything else.
On the way back inside, Marvin walked close to Benji and whispered, “Why’s your hair yellow, Jappie?”
Benji pretended not to hear, but all afternoon he thought of things he wished he’d said: Why does your hair look like cow plop? Why do you smell like manure? Why don’t you sit on a nail? He imagined Marvin without any clothes on, sitting on a chair full of sticking-up nails.
After school, when he and Father Pinkerton were milking, Benji asked why his hair was yellow. “Is it because your hair is yellow?”
“Don’t talk like that,” Father Pinkerton said. “You mention that again and you’ll be in big trouble.”
Why? Benji wanted to ask, but Father Pinkerton looked too mad.
The season of 1897 looked to be prosperous. By the Fourth of July, when Frank drove his family into Stockton for a holiday celebration at the Moores’ house, the corn was flourishing, field after field of green regiments marching to the horizon. If the farm turned a profit this year, he could make up for last season’s shortfall and perhaps even afford some of the improvements to the house that Kate was so set on. She was still after him about a servant girl, and she wanted a new buggy, too—essential, she said, if they were to be accepted in local society. By “society” she meant the ladies of Stockton, and particularly that Moore woman, who was causing him no end of expense, as his mother had pointed out. His mother was wearing her usual church costume, but Kate had bought a new dress and hat for the party, and she’d wanted Frank to be measured for a white suit. An extravagance, he’d said; he could wear his white naval dress uniform, though in the outdoor light he could see that it was dingy in spite of Kate’s best efforts and had a small, urine-colored stain on the left breast.
Kate had also ordered an impractical white shirt and new knickers for Benji, both already streaked with grime. He had run off just before it was time to leave; Frank found him in the hayloft with that cat and gave him a spanking. Now he was sulking in the backseat of the buggy beside Frank’s mother, not responding to her descriptions of firecrackers and sparklers or the promise of ice cream.
Butterfly would judge him too hard on the boy; the Japanese spoiled their children. This is America, he wanted to tell her; he has to learn to behave here. He stared out at the corn, imagining her face tight with disapproval. He’d seen her angry only once—when he told her he had to leave Japan—but afterward they had made love with abandon, her silky hair brushing his chest as she sat astride him. Perhaps Benji had been conceived that day.
“Well?” Kate said.
He glanced at her; she’d said something.
“I’m sorry, dear. What is it?”
“Never mind—a trivial matter. ”
He looked at her profile, her regal expression. “Your dress is quite fetching,” he said. “Though you look beautiful in anything.”
She rewarded him with a smile and he took her hand, cool in spite of the afternoon heat. She was nervous about the party, he realized. “You’re lovely as an angel,” he said. “There will be no one to rival you.”
The Moores’ grand white house, which dominated the central block of Maple Street, was studded with stained-glass windows and crowned with a turret. Designed by an architect from Chicago—so Kate had told him several times—it was said to have an indoor privy and a porcelain bathtub with running water, the first such facilities between Chicago and Galena.
In the yard were snowball bushes and a sizable planting of elephant ears. A boy in someone’s idea of a sailor suit was sitting astride an iron elk, pretending to whip him with a stick. There were other children in the distance, playing croquet. When they alighted from the buggy, Frank pointed out the children to Benji, but the boy shadowed Frank’s mother into the house.
Aimee Moore, a dark-eyed beauty with a generous bosom, greeted them effusively and, before flitting off to her other guests, introduced them to the Stockton pharmacist Louis Hill and his bilious-looking wife.
“Hello, little boy,” Mrs. Hill said, bending down to Benji. “I understand that you’re from Japan. Look at this.” She unfurled a painted silk fan and held it out before him. “From your country. Mr. Hill bought it for me at the Expos
ition in Chicago five years ago.”
“Isn’t it pretty, Benji?” Kate said.
“Very pretty,” Frank’s mother said, to reinforce Benji’s nod.
“Those Japanese are darned clever,” Hill said, scratching his beard. “Edna and I went into one of their quaint houses with the sliding doors made out of paper. Quite something. Must be mighty cold in the winter, though.”
“And so empty,” his wife said. “Hardly a stick of furniture. Is that how they live in the country itself?” she asked, looking at Frank.
“I’m no expert,” Frank said. He could feel Kate measuring his answer. “I was stationed there for only a short time.”
Kate led Benji off to the croquet game, and Mrs. Pinkerton headed for the dessert table. Frank excused himself and threaded through the crowd, looking for a familiar face.
Aimee Moore materialized. “I’ve been quite neglecting you,” she said, pressing a glass of lemonade into his hands and smiling up at him. She had sloe eyes and her skin was olive and pink. Italian? He glanced at her neck and shoulders. “I hope someday you’ll tell me about your adventures,” she said. “I’m partial to travel, but my excursions have been quite tame.” She touched his arm before moving away. He felt a little spurt of pleasure; he still had a way with the women.
Red Olsen, proprietor of Moresville’s general store, was on the porch with a corpulent man sporting a red, white, and blue hatband in honor of the day, the two of them drinking from a flask and discussing the rise in railroad tariffs. Red—still with the mischievous devil-may-care glint in his eye that Frank remembered from their days as school-yard chums—introduced Frank as a naval officer and man of the world, presently a gentleman farmer. The beefy man was Austin Burdett, new president of the Stockton Bank and Trust.
“Ever see any action, Captain?” Burdett asked, offering him the flask.
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