“The railroad guards got into a pretty big argument with her,” I said. “I saw it from here.”
“Everyone saw it!” Mr. Orenbach said. “They are going to be talking about it all up and down the line!”
“Good heavens!” my mother said. “What on earth did her handbills say?”
Mr. Orenbach pulled a crumpled paper from his pocket and handed it to my mother. She read it, a little crease nesting between her eyebrows as she did. She pursed her lips, but said nothing.
“She can’t do this. She’ll ruin me!” Mr. Orenbach said.
“Surely not,” my mother said, handing the paper back to him. “It’s a public platform. It’s nothing to do with you.”
Mr. Orenbach shook his head. “Every day the papers are saying how Germans shouldn’t be in vital jobs like the railways.”
“But you’re not a German. No more than the Schmidts!” I protested. Sure, he had a faint trace of an accent, but he was proud to have become an American citizen, and he’d been in Como all my life.
“Wilhelm Orenbach isn’t exactly an American name, Pearl,” Mr. Orenbach said. “When Phoebe Crawford hears of this, she’ll be writing the governor.”
“Don’t worry about Phoebe, Mr. Orenbach,” my mother said. “There’s plenty of folks in this town who would vouch for your character and your loyalty to this country.”
Mr. Orenbach was glaring out the window. “But there’s those who wouldn’t,” he said. I followed his gaze to see Josie Gilbert herself, striding angrily up the street. Russell was beside her, trying to talk to her, but she was ignoring him. I hoped the two of them would pass on by, but I was having no such luck today.
CHAPTER 13
Josie stomped straight up to our front door and right on through, looking madder than a wet cat. She tried to slam the door behind her, but Russell caught it before it closed and followed her in.
“Dagnabbit, woman! If you won’t talk sense, you durn well better listen to it!” he exploded. Then the room fell silent. Russell snatched his dusty cowboy hat off his head and looked at my mother sheepishly.
“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Barnell,” he said.
My mother jumped to her feet. “We’re all out of our lunch specials, but I’ve got bacon and eggs. Sit down and I’ll go fry them up. Pearl, pour everyone a fresh cup of coffee, would you?” She seemed to think anything could be fixed with coffee and a hot meal.
“Thank you, Mrs. Barnell. I’d be glad of a cup of coffee, but I’ve already had my lunch.” Russell gave Josie a sharp glare before continuing. “I was mending fences just outside of town when I heard rumor that this stubborn old mule had gotten herself into trouble with the railroad. I came in to see if I could talk some sense into her. Should have known better than to try.”
“Yes, you should have,” Josie said, whirling to face him. “You are not my keeper!”
“Who’s fault is that?” he muttered under his breath as he took the cup of coffee I filled for him.
I held a second cup out to Josie, but she only gave her usual donkey snort and plopped herself down at a table across the room from where we were sitting. Mr. Orenbach continued to glare at her.
My mother still stood by the table, looking from one to another of the folks in the room. “I’m sure this is all just a misunderstanding. I’m sure everything can be cleared up.”
“Are you, Maggie Barnell?” Josie said. She had no right to talk to my mother in that sarcastic tone, but I held my tongue, knowing better than to get into the middle of this.
“You can’t be causing trouble at my station like that,” Mr. Orenbach said. “I won’t have it!”
“It’s not your station, and I didn’t cause trouble. It was your railroad men that caused the trouble.”
“You can’t be saying those things there,” Mr. Orenbach said. “And especially not when the train is filled with new soldiers. It’s not right.”
Josie straightened with self-righteous dignity. “I may not have the same rights to vote as you under the Constitution, but it seems to me I have the right to exercise my speech freely.”
“Not in war time, I’m afraid,” Russell said. “You know that good and well, Josie Gilbert.”
“It’s sedition!” Mr. Orenbach said. Splotchy pink patches appeared on his cheeks in his otherwise pale face. Sedition was a word that scared him, but it seemed to have no impact on Josie.
“Defending the First Amendment is sedition, Mr. Orenbach?”
Mr. Orenbach started to puff and bristle like an old porcupine, and my mother stepped between them.
“Perhaps, Mrs. Gilbert, if you worded your informational leaflets more—more gently?” my mother suggested.
“I will not whitewash the truth!” Josie said.
“I didn’t mean whitewash, I just meant . . .” Mother searched for words, and Russell stepped into the void.
“She means you could be civil, like everyone else. You don’t have to be spoiling for a fight every minute of every day. You might even get a few folks to listen to you if you made an effort to be sociable now and then. Decent manners wouldn’t hurt either.”
“Manners!” Josie scoffed. “Oh yes, manners. Like Pearl here, she’s got fine manners. All ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and not saying a word against things she disagrees with. No thank you!”
“I am proud of Pearl’s manners,” Mother said, smiling at me.
Mother’s support took a little of the sting out, but not much. I couldn’t believe Josie would drag me into this and insult me for what everyone else said I had to do. It was not my place to speak, though, so I bit my tongue and kept to myself.
“Too many women are silenced by their manners, and for their sakes, I will not be,” Josie said.
“Mrs. Gilbert, no one’s trying to silence you,” Mother said.
“Oh yes they are!”
“Mr. Orenbach is worried for his job. He’s from Germany,” Mother said. “If the railroad or the government hears rumors of seditious activities at the Como depot, he could be blamed. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“Of course I don’t want that. I’m just fighting to better our country.”
“And our country is fighting a war!” Mr. Orenbach exploded.
“What about a compromise,” my mother suggested. She was the only one in the room still able to speak in a calm voice. “Mrs. Gilbert, you could promise to stay away from the train platform and to not give out your handbills to soldiers.”
“You call that a compromise?” Josie said.
“You can come in here instead. We serve most of the passengers off the train. You can give out your papers in here so you won’t be associated with Mr. Orenbach.”
My mouth fell open. How could Mother invite Josie to campaign daily in the café! And at our busiest time! And when Mrs. Crawford might be writing to the governor!
“That’s a very generous offer, Mrs. Barnell,” Russell said.
Josie snorted again. “Yes, very generous to give an old woman the right to speak her mind in public.”
Russell rolled his eyes. “Oh, yes. Such a poor old woman.”
Josie gave him a nasty look, but then she glanced toward me and a little smirk came over her lips. “Very well, Mrs. Barnell, I’ll stay away from the depot and I’ll come in here instead.”
Now it was my turn to glare. I suppose she was thinking that I’d never get her out of the café now that my mother had given her permission, but I didn’t see that it changed anything. It only hardened my resolve to prove my story right and win the bet. And soon, before Mrs. Crawford found out about my mother’s bargain with her.
Josie turned to Russell. “As for you, you can be satisfied I’m properly tethered and corralled and you can go back to tending your other cattle, thank you very much.”
“Gladly,” Russell said. “They aren’t nearly so thick-skulled and stubborn as you, woman.”
“Well, they will just have to try harder then,” Josie answered.
Russ
ell stomped out of the café, no calmer than when he’d arrived, and Mr. Orenbach soon followed. That left Mother, still standing in the middle of the room, me, still holding a lukewarm cup of coffee, and Josie, still sitting by herself at the corner table. She looked up at my mother.
“So?” she said. “What about that bacon and eggs?”
I washed plates and held my tongue as long as Josie remained in the café. I hoped that if I stayed out of sight, maybe nothing worse would happen. Already today I’d been roped into kissing strangers, been embarrassed in front of George, and seen two good people threatened just because their ancestors were German. I now had Josie Gilbert planning to campaign even more in the café, after I’d been working to get her out. And on top of all that, I’d worked twice as hard as usual to serve the lunch crowd and hadn’t made a cent. Meanwhile, Willie and Frank were off somewhere whiling away the hours in the sunshine, not a care in the world.
“Well,” my mother said cheerfully when she joined me in the kitchen after Josie went home. “Never a dull moment, is there?”
“Why did you tell her she could campaign in here, Mother?”
“I had to do something. You don’t want Mr. Orenbach to lose his job, do you? Things can get bad for a German accused of sedition.”
“And what if we get accused of it instead?” I said.
“I don’t think anyone will pay too much attention to what’s said in a small café in a small town. And we aren’t German.”
“George will pay attention. And what if Mrs. Crawford writes the governor—”
“Why would she write the governor?”
“Mr. Orenbach said she might. And you saw what she did to Mrs. Schmidt,” I said.
Mother frowned. “Yes. We’ll have to do something to show our support for the Schmidts too.”
“I don’t think we should get involved. It’s bad enough you’re letting Josie campaign in here so everyone will think we agree with her.”
“Pearl, think about what you are saying! The Schmidts are our friends and neighbors. They’d help us in a fix, and I intend to do the same for them.”
“And what about Josie?” I said. “She wouldn’t do a thing for anyone else, and yet you’ll let her come in here saying things she shouldn’t.”
“I doubt she would agree with you on that, Pearl. She’s trying to get the vote for women everywhere. She’s trying, in her own way, to do something for every woman in this country.”
“But what about business?” I said. “The locals won’t come in if Mrs. Crawford decides to cause trouble for us. And if folks off the train see Josie campaigning in here, they won’t come in either.”
Mother sighed. “That’s their choice, I suppose. I’m not going to deny Josie her rights, Pearl, wartime or no. Sometimes standing up for something, or someone, is more important than a few dollars’ worth of business.”
“What about our rights?” I was almost shouting with frustration now. “It’s not fair, Mother. We did our patriotic duty and fed all those soldiers for free, and now we’re going to risk losing customers so she can speak her mind? When do our rights—our needs—count?”
My mother stopped wiping plates and stared at me, but not in reproach. “Oh, Pearl. Patriotic duty had nothing to do with why we fed those young men. I thought you understood that.”
“Understood what?” I asked, feeling foolish.
“I fed them because I know that every one of them is some mother’s son.”
The catch in her voice made me stop washing and look into her face. I had never seen my mother cry—not when Father left for the Lucky Fork mine for the summer, not even when she burned her whole arm with cooking grease. But there were tears in her eyes now.
“If it were my son, I would hope that somewhere out there other mothers would remember this is my precious child, and would help him remember it too.”
I thought of Willie, and my heart went cold with fear. “But it won’t be, right? It won’t be your son. Willie’s not old enough to be drafted, and you won’t let him enlist, will you?”
“Who knows how long this war will go on. He’s seventeen this summer. In another year—” Mother stopped and took a deep breath. “There’s so little we mothers can do past a point, but I’ll do everything I can when the chance comes. Those young men needed a mother’s love.” She went back to her chores, but I did not.
My heart seemed to have frozen, and my whole body with it. “Do you really think Willie will have to go to fight in the war?”
“We can only hope and pray he doesn’t,” my mother said. “But I can’t bring myself to deny him a moment of his childhood this summer. I know that makes things harder on you, Pearl, but I just can’t.”
I thought again of Willie and Frank enjoying a sandwich in a sunny meadow while I was stuck here in this hot kitchen—but this time, like my mother, I couldn’t begrudge them a minute of it.
CHAPTER 14
When the dishes were clean and put away, I thought I would finally have a quiet moment. I didn’t want to think about the picnic or Josie or young men going to war, so I decided to think about Silverheels and winning my bet. I hoped Willie and Frank would find the person who was caring for Buck Wilson’s grave! Thinking of the grave didn’t conjure romantic visions for me this time, though. Instead, I found myself seeing the faces of the soldiers at lunch. How many of them would die young and alone, far from home? And what about Willie?
The eastbound train arrived at the station to refill water and coal, as it did every afternoon. Hardly anyone ever got off that train in Como, so I paid no attention. If I had, I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised when Robert and Annie appeared at the café door and banged on it. Despite the CLOSED sign, I hurried to let them in.
“Where’s your mother?” Robert demanded as he stormed in. Annie followed, wringing her hands.
“Now Robert—” she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.
“I told you, Annie, I’ll handle this.”
I was so surprised I just stood blinking and staring at them.
“Well?” he demanded. “Are you deaf? I asked where is your mother? Or better yet, your father.”
This time I didn’t have to answer him. His bellowing brought my mother out of the kitchen.
“Where’s the boy?” Robert demanded as soon as he saw her.
“The boy?”
“My brother, Frank,” Annie said.
Mother’s smile warmed once again. “He’s gone fishing with my son, Willie.”
“Fishing where?”
“Up the Tarryall, I suppose. Or maybe up at the beaver ponds on Buckskin Creek. There’s plenty of good holes around here.”
Annie glanced out the window, looking worried. “I hope they haven’t gone too far. It’ll be dark soon.”
“I don’t think they were planning to come back yet tonight,” my mother said.
“What?!”
“Oh, don’t worry. Willie’s an experienced camper, and they took everything they need. They will be perfectly comfortable and will be back for breakfast.”
The color drained from Annie’s face. “Robert! There are wild animals out there! There are bears!”
A little laugh escaped me, but Robert’s glare silenced it quickly.
“How dare you send him out into the wilderness alone!” he said.
“He’s not alone; he’s with Willie. They are perfectly fine,” my mother said. She was no longer smiling, but she was still calm and polite. “He was on his own here, so it seemed he had a right to choose what to do. Willie camps all the time. He knows how to stay safe.”
“You cannot expect Frank to spend the night off in the woods,” Robert said.
“Please, ma’am,” Annie said, her pale brow knotted, “I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to Frank after I left him here. He’s never been out alone in the mountains like this.”
My mother smiled again. “As I said, miss, he’s perfectly safe with Willie.”
“But they’re
just boys,” Annie said.
“And we should be on the morning train,” Robert added.
“I’ll see what I can do to get word to him that you’re back in town,” Mother said. “He didn’t expect you back until tomorrow. Go on back to the hotel, and I’ll let you know if there is any news.”
Annie thanked my mother and pulled a still-muttering Robert toward the hotel.
Mother went back toward the kitchen.
“What are you going to do?” I asked, following.
“The boys were planning to camp at Buckskin Joe, so I suppose someone will have to go retrieve them. Maybe after supper you could ride up with Russell or Orv. I know you were anxious to get up there yourself.”
This was the first good thing that had happened to me all day. I was glad when Russell arrived for supper and agreed to go, and I was impatient for the café to empty and for mother to say she could spare me. As soon as she could, I swept the depot for Mr. Orenbach, and I was free. Dusk was gathering as we rode out of town, me on a borrowed horse from the livery, Russell on his big bay.
The ride was pleasant. The twilight air felt cool and fresh on my skin after the whole day inside. The deer were moving out into the meadows to graze and we saw more than one doe standing watch over frisky fawns. Dusk in June was the perfect time to be out in the mountains, whatever city folks like Annie might think.
It was fully dark by the time we arrived in Buckskin Joe, but we had no trouble finding Willie and Frank. They had a bright campfire crackling away just across the creek, not far from the cemetery. They were hungrily watching two trout sizzling in a cast-iron skillet on the edge of the fire as Russell and I dismounted. Frank looked up from the skillet and his face burst into a big smile.
“Pearl! You came after all. Now I know we’ll see Silverheels tonight!”
I was glad he was happy to see me, but I knew he wouldn’t be when he found out why I’d come.
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