One night when Mrs. Mandeville was out of town, Teresa slipped into the living room where Mr. Mandeville sprawled in his favorite chair, the only one in the house big enough to hold him comfortably. She wanted to call Jess and see if he’d like to go to the band concert with her and Irene. She and Jess were friends. They didn’t exactly date, but he was often at her side when she and Irene hung out with his crowd.
She cleared her throat, “May I use the phone to call Jess?”
Mr. Mandeville looked up from his newspaper, a toothpick hanging from his lips. Removing it, he rolled his eyes and asked her, in the slang of the day, if Jess was her boy friend: “This Jess, is he your sweet green onion top?”
Teresa froze. She knew what rolling eyes meant. Here it comes. He will want to grab me. But Mr. Mandeville didn’t. Instead, he looked at Teresa strangely for a moment and nodded at the telephone, “Go ahead.” Then he plopped his toothpick back in his mouth, a habit Mrs. Mandeville couldn’t break, shook out the newspaper, and resumed reading.
Teresa studied Mr. Mandeville for days, but he never bothered her. Weeks went by, but still he didn’t pursue her. Gradually she learned to trust him, although she didn’t trust many men.
•
Now a sophomore, Teresa attended Hays High half days and performed well in all her classes except geometry. She simply couldn’t figure out those triangles. “When it comes to angles,” she told Irene, “I’m definitely obtuse.”
That year, students voted Teresa the second prettiest girl in the school.
Soon after the announcement, Teresa spotted Agnes striding across the lawn, headed right toward her. Agnes, a trim, tall girl, expected to win, but she didn’t place in the top three. Teresa wasn’t surprised. Agnes was too tall and willowy to be a serious candidate in a school where boys were crazy about little girls. The boys considered “cute” only girls who measured five foot two or less. Indeed, the girl who won, short with curly hair, looked a lot like Teresa.
Agnes, frowning, stopped in front of Teresa. “None of the girls voted for you. You’re small and your hair’s curly, but if the boys looked at your face, they’d see you’re not pretty.”
Teresa agreed. She couldn’t understand why anyone voted for her. She didn’t mix with students, she never had time for school socials, and, except for the dress Mrs. Combs bought her, she didn’t wear stylish clothes. So she smiled and shrugged, “Maybe you’re right.”
In May, three years after she completed her first year of high school, Teresa finished her sophomore year. She earned good grades, in part because she dropped that pesky geometry course. She wanted to stay with the Mandevilles, but she needed money, especially for clothes, so when Mrs. West of West Dairy Farm offered her $7 a week plus room and board for helping in the dairy, she accepted.
•
That June, Mrs. West drove Teresa one mile east of Hays to the dairy farm. Within days, Teresa saw that the work wasn’t taxing. She loved the furry brownness of the cows, their warmth, and the way their jutting pelvic bones shaped their skin. She noticed that Mr. West, a meek man with snow-white hair, seemed content to let his wife run the farm, which she certainly did.
The only problem Teresa encountered was Udolf, Mrs. West’s repulsive-looking brother who worked there. Udolf seemed smitten with Teresa. He pestered her from the time she left her room until she went back. He followed her so closely she had to hurry and slam the door to her room or he would come right inside.
Finally, Teresa spoke to Mrs. West. “Can’t you tell your brother to stay away from me? He frightens me, the way he follows me everywhere.”
“Oh, that’s because he likes you so much. Can’t you be nice to him?”
“No.”
Teresa hoped her “no” would settle the matter, but Mrs. West didn’t stop her brother.
In order to avoid Udolf, Teresa spent her spare time in her room, sometimes pacing like a caged animal.
By midsummer, Teresa spotted another problem. Her salary. She never received it. Each time she asked Mrs. West about it, her employer had some excuse for not paying her yet.
“You need clothes more than you need money,” Mrs. West said when Teresa inquired again. “I’ll buy you some clothes with your wage money.”
This offer excited Teresa, but on shopping day, Mrs. West took Teresa to the Classic Store, a high-priced, high-powered clothing store in Hays owned by a Mr. Bissing.
Inside Teresa saw stylish dresses that cost more than any dress she’d ever owned. She felt like an imposter. Unable to resist Mrs. West’s enthusiasm, Teresa tried on several. She liked none of them. They were old lady dresses, nothing she’d choose for herself. Nevertheless, Teresa let Mrs. West select a mottled green dress in a shade she’d never wear; it turned her face sallow. She listened while her employer told Mr. Bissing that she’d assume responsibility for the debt. However, a few weeks later, Mrs. West handed Teresa a bill from the Classic Store. “Here. You can pay for this out of your wage.”
When Teresa noticed that the store had made out the bill to her, not to Mrs. West, a sober truth hit her: I’m never going to draw my wage. She retreated to her room and sat erect on her bed, her door locked against Udolf’s urgencies. Here I am, dogged by this creepy man, worse than broke, owing money but having none and not likely to get any. And owning an expensive dress that I hate. What a mess!
Convinced that Mrs. West would never pay her, Teresa left West Dairy Farm. Fall was coming, and again she had no idea how to return to Hays and enroll in school. Local farmers, now harvesting, were eager to hire workers to help feed harvest hands. One such farmer, Mr. Blender, hired Teresa and paid her, but not nearly enough to retire her debt.
After she worked for the Blenders a few weeks, two young men and three women asked her to join them for a dancing party. The following Sunday night, they drove to an isolated spot on the prairie that belonged to one young woman’s family. A blond man, who reminded her a bit of Gilbert, stroked his fiddle, and there by the light of the harvest moon the young bodies swirled and stepped. One schoolgirl knew the Charleston, so she taught them the swift-stepping dance. What a silly dance, the way you grab your knees and knock them together! Teresa was in her element. She danced nonstop until they headed home. Then she was appalled to discover the hour: nearly midnight. I’ll have to sneak in. However, when she tried, the dogs barked, waking up the Blenders and their workers. She rushed to bed.
A short time later, an intense abdominal pain woke Teresa. She moaned until Mrs. Blender walked into her room. “You come home late and wake up everybody, and now you keep us awake with this groaning. I don’t think anything’s the matter with you.”
Teresa swallowed her moans, but her pain didn’t diminish. Near morning, Mrs. Blender looked in again. “I think you really are sick.” She called Dr. Middlekauf, the county doctor.
When he saw Teresa, he rushed her to his car and headed to Hays. Teresa screamed with each bounce of the doctor’s auto. At Saint Anthony’s Hospital, strong hands carried her into the emergency room. Barely conscious, Teresa didn’t notice the surgeon, Dr. Charles H. Jameson. She did feel a mask settle on her face, and she smelled the sweet scent of ether. Then she counted backward—ten, nine, eight—until the world turned black.
The next thing she knew, she swam up out of ether’s night. To her surprise, she heard a voice that she recognized as hers cry, “I’m all alone. I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
7
A Marriage of Convenience
The next morning, Teresa lay immobile, hoping to avoid the pain that whacked her abdomen if she moved. Her eyes closed, she heard someone enter her room and stand by her bed, but she did not stir. She recognized the women, friends of Coach Mandeville, by their voices. They think I’m asleep.
“It’s too bad the little girl can’t die,” Mrs. Weidlein said.
“Yes,” “Zippy” replied. “She has no one. No one cares.”
Teresa concurred. She knew no one cared.
After th
e women left, Zippy’s voice rang in her ears.
Dr. Jameson brought her appendix that afternoon. Teresa stared at the limp pink worm floating innocently in a container. The doctor set it beside her, and then took her pulse. “You gave us quite a scare.”
“I’m sorry.” Tears rushed down Teresa’s cheeks, spiking spasms in her belly. “I don’t know how I’ll ever pay you.” The indignity of her debt for that putrid green dress overwhelmed her and now a hospital bill, so large, no doubt, she’d scrub floors the rest of her life to settle it.
“Don’t worry.” The doctor checked her heart as Teresa lay stiff under his intimate hands. “I’ll see the hospital doesn’t charge you. But where will you go when you’re well enough to leave?”
“I don’t know.” Teresa’s shoulders shook, agitating her stitches. What if they send me back to Judge Gross? “You must know I’m an orphan.”
“I tell you what.” Dr. Jameson patted Teresa’s hand. “Why don’t you stay here until you’re healed?”
“Oh, could I?”
“You could and you shall.” The doctor folded his stethoscope. “Now get some rest.”
Teresa sniffled and blew her nose, although blowing her nose was an agony. Her spirits lifted as she realized someone did care for her: Dr. Jameson. She didn’t know why he did, an intelligent educated man like him. It made no sense, but she basked in the knowledge that she had a secure place to convalesce.
As Teresa mended, she made friends with a good-looking young actor, Ben Dunscomb, who was in the hospital with a cast on his leg. He traveled around the country for Laugh More Comedy Company, a stock show, leading an adventurous life that appealed to Teresa. She laughed when he showed her how he could pretend to be angry or stupid, happy or bereaved.
A short time later, Jess Binder visited Teresa, his head awkwardly tilted to one side, as usual. Seeing Jess in the hospital surprised Teresa. She hadn’t expected anyone to call on her, but his presence proved Zippy wrong. Someone did care. Besides the doctor.
Teresa inched along with Jess to a hospital balcony bench where they sat side by side, leaving a polite space of about a foot between them. Then Ben spotted her, hobbled over, and plopped down right between them.
“The nerve!” she said to Jess after Ben left.
She was joshing but he seemed angry. “That Ben’s nothing but a goddamn patsy.”
During her hospital stay, both Ben and Jess proposed to marry her, but she declined. Both were good friends, but she loved neither. Besides, she was too young to get married. She needed to finish high school first and then marry someone she truly loved.
A few days later, the Wooters, a couple in their thirties, visited Teresa.
“We’ve heard a lot of good things about you,” Mrs. Wooter said. “Why don’t you come live with us in Fellsburg? It’s not far, only eighty miles south. The work isn’t hard, just taking care of the baby and cleaning the dishes.”
Mr. Wooter nodded. When he took off his hat, Teresa saw that the top of his head was white but his face ruddy from the sun. “We’ll pay you with room and board plus time off to go to Fellsburg’s high school.”
School’s fine. But no money. And I’ll have to wash those despicable diapers. Since Teresa lacked any other offers, she accepted the job.
In the Fellsburg high school, Teresa performed commendably in all her classes except geometry, a class she was required to repeat since she’d dropped it at Hays High. She hated geometry with a passion. No matter how hard she studied, she couldn’t seem to grasp it.
Since Teresa was a conspicuous new girl in the tiny school, many boys asked her out. One young man treated her to a boat ride; another took her dancing. Having so many dates delighted her. She loved being popular.
At home, the Wooters treated her decently, but they disapproved of her dating. Soon they told her not to date at all. Not date? What was she supposed to do: just sit and grow old? If I stay with the Wooters and go to school, I’ll have to study geometry, which I hate, and I can’t have dates. Stuck in the house night after night.
Then another possibility crossed her mind. Both Ben and Jess had proposed to her. Why not marry one of them and become a housewife? But which man should she marry? Good-looking Ben who could pretend to be happy or sad? Or truck driving Jess with his mouth full of profanity? She had no romantic feelings for either, though perhaps a few more for Ben, but neither affected her like Heinrich and Gilbert had. Deep down, Teresa wasn’t sure she deserved a good-looking confident man like Ben. But Jess, with his crippled back and neck, he probably isn’t so popular with the girls. He’ll be so grateful to marry me that he’ll let me do whatever I want.
Having decided, Teresa wrote: “Jess, if you still want to marry me, come and get me. I have no fun here. If you let me run around and do as I please, I will marry you.” Teresa hedged her acceptance because she didn’t want to be bossed around like Grandma.
Once she mailed her letter, Teresa wavered. Sometimes she could hardly wait for Jess to say “yes,” but at other times, she yearned to hear his “no.”
Before long, Jess, wasting no time, drove to Fellsburg to collect Teresa. She hastily packed her belongings, but before she stepped in the car Jess had borrowed to pick her up, she said, “Now, Jess, I won’t go unless you promise to let me run around and do as I please after I marry you.”
He agreed. Satisfied, Teresa climbed into the car, and the young couple left for Hays.
However, from the beginning, Jess ignored their agreement. Being Catholic, Teresa expected to be married in the Catholic church, but Jess wanted the nuptials in his Baptist church. They fought vehemently until they agreed on a civil marriage. At least we’ll be married in the eyes of the law, and maybe later I can arrange to have a priest bless our marriage. Teresa struggled not to think what Sister Gertrude or Sister Rosina would say about marrying outside the church.
A few days later, on October 28, 1924, Jess’s brother, Al, and his wife, Nora, drove the couple to nearby Russell, Kansas, where a justice of the peace married them in the courthouse. Jess was twenty-two; Teresa, eighteen. The ceremony was short, a far cry from a Volga German wedding that might last two or three days. After the quiet ceremony, the marital party ate at a local diner. This impressed Teresa. She had rarely eaten out.
On their wedding night, Jess sat on the edge of the bed and watched Teresa burrow in her satchel for the nightgown given to her by Saint Joseph nuns in Abilene. She seldom wore it, but her wedding night seemed to call for it. Using the nuns’ system for undressing privately, Teresa put her nightgown over her dress, and then removed her dress so adroitly that Jess never saw a stitch of her body even though he stared. When she finished, he said, “Damn! I didn’t know a person could do that.”
“Do what?” she said, unconscious of anything unusual.
•
Teresa enjoyed being married to her hot-tempered foul-mouthed Jess, partly because his earnings as a driver for Felten Dreyline seemed a fortune. The most money she’d ever held was $5 she earned working for the Blenders, and she held that only a short time. When a harvester said, “I’ll take care of that for you,” Teresa handed it over and never saw it again. But Jess earned what seemed a huge amount: $24 a week. So when they inspected an East Eighth Street apartment and the landlady asked $6 a month rent, Teresa said, “You have lots of money, Jess. You can pay $8.” Jess elbowed her too late. When they rented that place, the $8 a month stuck, even though they used an outdoor toilet.
A few weeks later, Teresa hired her young friend, Elaine, to clean house. Elaine loved to earn a quarter by mopping the floor or washing the dishes. While she cleaned, Teresa lay on her bed, eating a cracker, saying, “Elaine, do this. Elaine, do that.” Pretending to be rich enchanted her until Jess told her he didn’t have enough money to pay Elaine.
“What? You’ve got plenty of money. You’re just cheap.”
When Jess stood his ground, she fumed.
Next Teresa bought blankets and a linen tablecloth on the in
stallment plan. Then she purchased a smart dress for $1.98. Oh how splendid to be modern! Next Teresa bought silk stockings, all the vogue, even though they were terribly expensive, 49 cents a pair, enough for nearly five movies. Then she punched a coin in the nickelodeon, chose “It Ain’t Gonna to Rain No Mo’, No Mo’,” and danced. What rapture!
Not surprisingly, Teresa’s debts multiplied. Among them was the money she owed Mr. Bissing for that ugly green dress. Jess, thank goodness, paid that bill for her, but he groused at her installment buying: “Don’t you know? A dollar down is a goddamn dollar forever.”
After a while, she learned to handle money more realistically.
•
Marriage liberated Teresa. Ever since she came to Kansas, no matter where she lived, she always feared that, like Albert, she would be told to leave. Counting orphanages, she’d lived in a dozen places, but until she married Jess, she never had a home. Marriage provided her with security. It felt like paradise.
But Jess kept telling her what to do. One night at supper he told her to wear no lipstick.
No lipstick! He must be joking. Whoever heard of such a thing?
The next day, she put on just a little lipstick, and he didn’t notice. So the following day, she put on a little more, surprised at how the action exhilarated her, and the next day, still a little more, expecting to get caught, but Jess said nothing. On the fourth day, she became prudent. She knew her days of lavish makeup were history.
The Binders, from the left, Wolfgang (the father), Clyde, Al, Roy, Jess, George and Walter (“Petey”). Fred and Jim are not shown. (Courtesy of Teresa Martin)
After she married Jess, Teresa discovered that she’d also “married” his numerous relatives. His father, Wolfgang Binder, was German but not a Volga German, to Teresa’s relief. Jess’s Irish–American Indian mother had died when Jess was seven. His fourteen siblings, all older than he, married people like themselves; Teresa disdained them. To her, Binders were crude, rough-acting people. “Uncouth vulgar barbarians,” as Ben once said. One sister-in-law chewed food, plucked it from her mouth, and fed it to her younger children. That particularly grated Teresa.
Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story Page 12