I gathered the last few dirty dishes and cups from breakfast and wiped down all the tables. In the kitchen, I set to washing the dishes. I paid no attention when the bell on the door clattered, figuring it was Josie leaving. I was surprised, however, when it rang again a few minutes later. Usually we had these few hours between breakfast and lunch to ourselves. When I heard the bell a third time, I dried my hands on my apron and went out to the front. Josie was still at the counter, mopping the last of the syrup off her plate with her spoon and licking it off.
Townswomen were arriving in small groups—Mrs. Schmidt, the butcher’s wife, with her two little boys, and Mrs. Johnson from the livery; Mrs. Engel from the millinery and yard-goods shop in one of her fine hats, with the postmistress, Mrs. Abernathy. I moved among them and took orders—coffee or tea mostly, but a few wanted coffee cake or bread and jam. Josie huffed a complaint about the crowd and left as six or seven of the railroad workers’ wives arrived. They settled near the window with their knitting where they could watch their children playing in the street. Even a few of the ranch wives showed up in a wagon driven by Mrs. Larsen, who owned the meadow where the Fourth of July picnic always took place.
“What is going on?” I asked Imogene when she arrived with her mother.
Mrs. Sorensen raised her eyebrows. “You mean you don’t know?”
“Should I?”
“Mrs. Crawford called a meeting. She’s in charge of the Fourth of July picnic, and she wants it to be special, what with the war and all. I assumed since the meeting is here, she had talked to your mother about it,” Mrs. Sorensen said.
I shook my head. I had heard nothing about a meeting.
Mrs. Crawford herself waited until every other woman in town had arrived before she made her grand entrance. She came striding into the café with crisp, purposeful steps, wearing a straw hat festooned with red, white, and blue ribbons and carrying a clipboard. George held the door for her, then stepped into the café behind her, looking as good as ever. His eyes danced around the crowd for a moment before alighting on Imogene and me. Then, with a dazzling smile, he winked at me.
“Mercy me!” Imogene said under her breath. I smiled back at George and hoped he couldn’t hear my heart racing from across the room.
Mrs. Crawford’s eyes also landed on me, but without any warmth. “Where is your mother, Pearl?” she demanded, as if I had misplaced her.
“Um—in the kitchen,” I said, still reeling from George’s wink.
“Well, go get her. You can fill the orders. We need her.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said politely. I didn’t see what right she had to boss me or my mother around in our own café, but I did as I was told.
“Mrs. Crawford is having a meeting for the Fourth of July picnic out front, and she wants you,” I told Mother.
“Right now?” she said. She was rolling out pie crusts, getting ready for the lunch business that we relied on to make a living. “I’ve got to get these in the oven first. You go, Pearl. Tell her I’ll be out when I can. Tell her I’ll do whatever she needs.”
I went back to the front room and relayed my mother’s message.
“The rest of us are here, Phoebe, and we don’t have all day. Let’s get on with it,” said Mrs. Sorensen.
Mrs. Crawford stiffened her back in displeasure, but she started the meeting.
“Very well. I’ve called you all together to plan the Fourth of July picnic. It’s only two weeks away, you know. We need to get busy.”
“Busy with what?” asked Mrs. Johnson. “We always have it in Larsen’s Meadow, and it’s never taken any planning before. We all just show up.”
“But this year we have the war and our boys over there to consider. In honor of them, we are going to make this the most stirring patriotic event in Park County. This year we will be raising money for the war effort,” Mrs. Crawford continued. “As you know, we are selling Liberty Bonds at our store. We’ve just received them. And Scotty Merino’s store down in Fairplay has challenged all the stores in Park County to see who can sell out first. I shouldn’t need to tell you that Mr. Crawford and I have taken that challenge. I think Como can outshine Fairplay any day of the week!”
There were some murmurs of approval and scattered applause. Then Mrs. Johnson asked, “What do Liberty Bonds have to do with the picnic?”
“Good question, Harriet. I know most of you will contribute, but there are some ne’er-do-wells in the county who won’t, and folks who don’t get to town very often. They will all be at the picnic. I propose we make the picnic a big fair. We will set up booths, and all the proceeds will go toward our Liberty Bond drive. Subscriptions are fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars!” said Mrs. Abernathy. “No one around here has fifty dollars to spare.”
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Crawford. “But it’s a subscription—you don’t pay it all at once. If everyone who runs a booth puts her proceeds toward her initial payment, you will have that much less to pay in the remaining months. You have till January to pay in full. George, here, will keep track of how much everyone has paid toward their goal. If we put our backs into it, ladies, we can make enough money at the picnic to pay it out much sooner. I’m sure everyone will have good ideas about how we can do that. To begin, I think we should have a bake sale. Pearl, your mother can bring pies. Say, a dozen?”
A dozen pies sounded like a lot, but my mother had told me she’d do whatever Mrs. Crawford wanted, so I nodded my head. Mrs. Crawford slid the clipboard to George and he wrote the contribution down.
“I’ll bring my pepparkakor,” Mrs. Sorensen said. There was another stir of approval. We had all had her spicy Swedish cookies at Christmas time, and everyone loved them. George wrote and Mrs. Crawford nodded and looked around. “What else?”
At once other contributions were called out—breads and cakes and cookies. George busily recorded them all. I thought everyone in the room was being very generous, but as the offered contributions died down, Mrs. Crawford shook her head.
“This isn’t going to raise enough money to fulfill your subscriptions.”
There was a moment of silence. “We’ve been knitting socks and mittens,” said one of the railroad workers’ wives. “We could sell our knitting.” The other women at the table nodded in agreement.
“And I’ve got fine new summer hats in at the millinery shop,” said Mrs. Engel. “We could raffle one off. A quarter a chance.”
“Excellent,” said Mrs. Crawford. “Every little bit helps. What else, ladies?”
“How about a kissing booth,” Imogene piped up. “Pearl and I can run it.”
All the women laughed and twittered at the idea.
“Imogene, I can’t!” I whispered.
“Oh, come on, Pearl, don’t be so strait-laced. It will just be a few pecks on the cheek,” Imogene said.
“Yes, we will make sure it is perfectly innocent. A quick kiss on the cheek, no more,” Mrs. Sorensen agreed.
“But George asked me to the picnic!” I whispered. I couldn’t possibly let other boys kiss me at the picnic when I was going with George.
Imogene’s face lit up. “Oh, Pearl!”
“Fine,” Mrs. Crawford said. “George, put down Imogene and Pearl for a kissing booth. Say, a nickel a kiss.”
“I—I’d have to get permission from my mother,” I stammered.
“Nonsense, Pearl. It’s a fine idea, and perfectly innocent. Your mother will approve. I will see to that personally,” Mrs. Crawford said.
“And I’ll make sure George has a pocketful of nickels,” Imogene said, plenty loud enough for the whole room to hear. My face felt so hot I thought it must be steaming.
I glanced at George. He gave me another wink and a grin.
“I should have a new batch of strawberry jam by the fourth,” Mrs. Larsen said. “I don’t know how much, but I’ll bring some jars to sell. And my boys could run a horseshoe toss.”
All the ranch wives started chiming in with similar offers.
“I’m sure Fritz could bring some of his fine frankfurters for folks to roast in the evening,” said Mrs. Schmidt, the butcher’s wife. “They fetch a good price.”
Mrs. Crawford had been looking around the room, encouraging donations, but now her eyes narrowed as she turned toward Mrs. Schmidt. She smiled a stiff, icy smile.
“I don’t think we can use frankfurters, Mrs. Schmidt,” Mrs. Crawford said, pronouncing the name Schmeedt, and biting the t off sharply at the end, as if she were the kaiser himself. “After all, we’re not in Frankfurt, are we? It’s our boys we’re trying to support, not the Huns.”
A few women around the room drew in sharp breaths, but no one said anything. None of them seemed to be able to look at Mrs. Schmidt, or Mrs. Crawford either. Instead, they stared into their coffee cups, or at their knitting, though their needles had gone still.
I stole a glance at Mrs. Schmidt. She had gone white and her mouth was open. It seemed to take her a try or two before she could speak. “I— I didn’t mean—”
“I don’t think we want anything from Schmidt’s for the Fourth of July event,” Mrs. Crawford said.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Phoebe,” Mother said from the kitchen doorway. I didn’t know when she had arrived, but she had heard enough of the exchange to know what was going on. “A wiener roast would be a fine addition to the picnic.”
“I don’t think so,” Mrs. Crawford said, her voice so cold that the temperature in the café seemed to drop a few degrees.
Mrs. Schmidt stood. Her face, which had been so white a few minutes before, now flushed with color. “Never mind, Maggie, it’s all right,” she said. She fumbled in her pocketbook for a few pennies to pay for her coffee and set them quietly on the table. Then she whispered, “Excuse me,” and taking her little boys by their hands, hurried out the door, her head down. The brief silence that followed was broken by Mrs. Crawford.
“Well, there’s one in every crowd, I suppose,” she said in a superior tone.
“There certainly is,” Mother said, and she disappeared back into the kitchen. Mrs. Crawford shuffled her papers, ignoring Mother, but George stared after her disapprovingly. My cheeks were burning. Why couldn’t Mother have just stayed quiet, like everyone else in the café? I hoped George wasn’t regretting having asked me to the picnic.
“Now, where were we. Ah yes, entertainment,” Mrs. Crawford said.
The meeting continued, but subdued now, the excitement and fun gone. Mrs. Crawford told people what they would do and they quietly agreed. No one dared not to.
When the meeting finally broke up a few minutes later, the café emptied quickly. George didn’t look my way as he accompanied his mother out the door.
Imogene volunteered to help me gather up dishes—her excuse for staying behind until everyone left so she could hear when and how George had asked me to the picnic.
“You’ll be the envy of every girl there, showing up on George’s arm,” she said. “Every girl except me, that is. George is very good looking, but I prefer an older man. Speaking of which, where is Willie? I sat through this whole boring meeting because I thought he’d be here. He’s only got two weeks left to ask me, you know.”
My mood darkened another shade or two. “He and Frank went camping. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”
“Well, at least he’s gotten Frank out of town.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Honestly, Pearl, use your head. It was okay making George jealous to get him to ask you to the picnic, but now that you’ve got him, you want to hold on tight to George.”
She flounced out of the café, knowing she was right. It was bad enough that my mother had just insulted his mother in front of half the town. I didn’t need anything else to which George might object.
I began washing the dirty dishes and daydreaming about showing up at the picnic on George Crawford’s arm. I would bring the most delicious picnic in the world for him, and after lunch . . .
My fancy, which had been taking flight, came crashing back to earth. After lunch, I’d work the kissing booth. My first kiss would be to whoever paid a nickel for the privilege—not exactly the way the daydream was supposed to go. Unless, of course, George stole a kiss before the kissing booth, and that wasn’t likely with the whole town in Larsen’s Meadow. No, my fist kiss wasn’t going to be sweet or romantic. It was going to be my patriotic duty for the war effort. Real romance, it seemed, had left Park County, right along with Silverheels.
CHAPTER 12
By the time I had the café tidied up from the meeting, there was no chance for me to get away. The lunch train was due at the station in only half an hour, and my mother was scrambling to get ready. I sliced bread and made sandwiches until I heard the approaching whistle. Then Mother sent me out front with silverware and napkins to get the tables ready. Across the street the train chugged into the station. It released its huge, hissing clouds of steam and the doors opened. Passengers began to emerge.
I paused in my work and stared. These weren’t the usual lunchtime tourists and travelers. From every car it was the same—young men in uniform.
“Mother!” I called.
She stuck her head out of the kitchen. “What is it now?”
“Look. The whole train is soldiers!” I said, pointing through the window.
Mother came up beside me. As she gazed, her hand went to her heart, not in a patriotic salute, but more as if to ease an ache there.
“Oh!” she said.
She stood like that, watching as they spilled off the platform into the street. The first wave of soldiers had almost reached our front door when my mother crossed to it and threw it open.
“Come in, welcome, come in,” she said in greeting. “Your meal is on us today, gentlemen. Eat your fill, it’s on the house.”
“What?” I said in surprise from my place by the window.
“They’re to have anything they want, Pearl, and you are not to take so much as a penny for it.”
Soldier after soldier trooped inside, each taking off his hat and bobbing his head toward my mother with a “thank you, ma’am.” Then they rushed to the seats, cheerful and boisterous—and hungry!
For the next hour I was scrambling more than usual, with the tables packed full and so many men at the counter that they stood two between each stool. I had no time or energy to think about anything but getting plates to the right table, refilling coffee cups, cutting pies, and wiping up spills. I got plenty of thank-yous, but collected nothing else, even refusing those who offered money. I had no time to dwell on it, though. The very moment I set down a load of plates in front of one group of soldiers, another group was calling out for more.
I was in the kitchen lifting the last pieces of fried chicken out of the grease when I heard a shout and a loud burst of laughter. Afraid trouble might be starting, I snatched up the plates and hurried up front to see what was going on. A big crowd had gathered at the window watching the scene unfold at the depot.
Josie Gilbert was standing on the platform, clutching her stack of new leaflets and shouting into the faces of two railroad security men. They were both shouting back. Even from this distance and through the wavy glass of our front window I could see the spittle flying.
One of the guards tried to take Josie by the elbow. She jerked free, a little flurry of leaflets scattering as she did. Another wave of laughter broke through the café crowd. I stood rooted, watching with the rest of them, the loaded plates forgotten in my hands.
The guard grabbed for Josie’s arm again, and this time as her arm jerked away, whether by accident or intent, she caught the man with a right hook, square on the jaw. Another burst of laughter and a little applause sounded along with a collective “Ooh!” from the occupants of one table.
There was a pause of three blinks as the security guard recovered from the surprise punch. Then both
men lunged for Josie. The stack of leaflets exploded from her grip and scattered across the platform as the men grappled for her arms. In short order they pinned them to her sides and marched her, still struggling, from the platform.
The show over, the still-laughing men returned to their places, and I remembered what I was doing. I took the plates to their tables, but I suddenly found I couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Josie had ruined everything. Here I was, doing my patriotic duty, working without a penny’s pay, but that’s not what they would remember of our small town. They would leave here remembering the crazy suffragist with the fierce right hook, as one fellow at the counter was already saying. And to make matters worse, I was actually worried about Josie!
More than ever, it was a relief when Mr. Orenbach came through ringing his handbell, and the crowd began to thin. When the final whistle blew, the stragglers grabbed their hats and their half-eaten sandwiches and scrambled away. I let out a huge sigh. There had been no further sign of Josie, but the last group of soldiers to leave were still talking about her. They were still laughing, too.
Silently, I began to stack up plates, saucers, and cups. My mother came in to help me. She didn’t know what had happened. She had been busy in the kitchen and had only heard the buzz of conversation and laughter. I did not tell her either. I just kept gathering the dirty plates and carrying them in heavy stacks to the kitchen.
There was very little food left, so Mother sliced a rasher of bacon and scrambled a big mound of eggs for us. She made extra, knowing that Mr. Orenbach would be along. The coffeepot was down to the gritty dregs, so I refilled it and set it on the stove to percolate while the bacon sizzled in the skillet. Sure enough, Mr. Orenbach arrived from the station just as we carried out the platter of eggs and bacon from the kitchen.
He was not his usual cheerful self. In fact, he looked like he was about to boil over.
“Why, whatever is the matter?” Mother asked.
“That troublemaker Josie Gilbert has a new handbill. It’s downright seditious, that’s what it is. And she had the nerve to stand there on the platform, shouting her “votes for women” slogans and handing them out to all those brave young men being shipped off to war. The nerve! To soldiers!” He popped a forkful of eggs into his mouth and chewed angrily.
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