“Too certain?” Harburg said. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“Shouldn’t a song about a rainbow have a little more doubt in it?” Maud said, starting tentatively but getting a little louder as she spoke. “Just because you can see a rainbow doesn’t mean you know how to get to the other side. Think about it. That pot of gold—you can’t ever see it, right? You have to take it on faith.”
The pencil man nodded, then slipped the orange stub from behind his ear and scratched a few words on his pad of paper. “You know, I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but you could be on to something.”
Maud turned back to the girl, to see if she understood, but the girl’s mother now stood next to her on the stage, fussing with her hair and whispering to her in an agitated hush.
Louis B. Mayer clapped his hands twice. “Splendid! Splendid! We must be going. Keep working on it. Just continue to do as you do….Don’t you worry, Mrs. Baum. Chances are this song won’t even make it to the final cut. No reason to think about it now.”
Mayer put his arm through Maud’s, directing her toward the door. As he hustled her out into the bustling alley, Maud craned her neck, trying to catch a last glimpse of the girl as the heavy sound stage door swung shut behind them.
“L.B….!” someone was shouting.
“A moment, please!” Mayer said, then hurried away from Maud without even saying goodbye, leaving her alone in the crowded alley.
“But, Mr. Mayer!” Maud called out to his receding back.
“Come around whenever you like!” he called out to her. “Just don’t get in the way.”
Maud headed home, feeling unsettled. She’d known from the moment she’d seen Judy that she was too old to play Dorothy, who was but a girl in pigtails, forever young. But that soaring voice…somehow this girl, a stranger to Maud, had conveyed exactly what it felt like to be just spreading her wings, waiting to fly. Even now, in her eighth decade, Maud had not forgotten those complicated emotions: the desire to escape, to get away, to grow up—the fate of every girl.
Every girl except Dorothy.
Something had pierced Maud deep down. Was it the girl? Or was it the song, whose odd melody had burrowed into her ear and now seemed to play in the background? She drove home unable to forget the tune’s haunting effect, like a Broadway overture teasing at what was to come.
CHAPTER
3
FAYETTEVILLE, NEW YORK
1871
Maud was ten years old when she first discovered that possession was nine-tenths of the law. She was hitching up her infernal skirts, hightailing it away from Philip Marvel, who had just lost his precious amber cat’s-eye marble to the neighborhood’s fiercest girl. Maud clutched the marble in her sweaty palm, her rawhide marble pouch banging against her wrist as she ran. Now, as always, she longed for the pockets that all the boys had. She had long been a faster runner than anyone on the street, and this in spite of her greatest handicap—her petticoat and skirt. Philip and the rest of her schoolmates were jeering at her. She could hear their footsteps pounding behind her, and the sound of their familiar taunts. She was still half a block away from home, lungs burning, but she kept running. She had won the amber cat’s-eye fair and square; she knew Philip and his gang were hoping to take it back through their advantage of numbers and brute force. She had no intention of giving it up.
The Gage house in Fayetteville sat on a street corner next door to the dwelling of Mr. Robert Crouse. The fastest way to the safety of her own back porch was across the corner of his garden—but she didn’t like to take this route. Perched in the center of the neighbor’s kitchen garden was a scarecrow clad in a long black frock coat, a floppy black preacher’s hat shading its terrifying face of straw. Maud was not generally a fearful sort, but the scarecrow bore a strong resemblance to his daunting owner, Mr. Crouse, so much so that when she was younger, she used to confuse the two. At night, before Maud fell asleep, she often imagined that the scarecrow had escaped from his perch, climbed up the rain gutter, and was peering through her bedroom window.
Maud ran on. The boys’ footsteps were getting closer. Rounding the corner, she reached the bushes that ran along the side of Crouse’s garden, where she caught sight of the frightful face of the scarecrow staring down at her. The boys had almost reached the corner, so she darted through a hole in a hedge of lilac bushes. Hidden among the leaves, Maud panted silently as they ran straight past. From her vantage point, she saw them slow to a walk and stop, looking around but unable to see her in her hiding place.
“Where’s Maud?” Philip called out. “Gone to vote with her mother?” The boys tittered. Encouraged by the reaction, Philip raised his voice, looking around, hoping to catch sight of Maud. “At ten a little pet, at twenty a sweet coquette, at forty not married yet, at fifty a suffragette!” The boys exploded in laughter.
Maud’s face flamed, and her fist closed tight around her marble. Unable to rein herself in, she called out from her retreat in the bushes, repeating every word she’d heard her mother say at home: “Women will vote! And we’ll never vote for a dumbskull like Philip Marvel or his boring, long-winded, small-minded Methodist anti-suffrage father!”
At the sound of her voice, the boys whirled around. Knowing they would discover her hiding place momentarily, Maud had no choice. She had to cross Mr. Crouse’s garden and climb over his side fence. If Crouse saw the girl in his yard, he’d give her a good scolding. Holding tight to her marble, she counted to three, then burst from the bushes, into Crouse’s yard.
A few paces into the yard, she heard a strangled cry. She jumped back, heart pounding in her throat. At first she saw nothing, but when she crouched down to see from a different vantage point, she came face-to-face with a beak and two bright blue eyes.
It was a baby crow, hopping awkwardly across the grass, injured and probably too young to fly—ready prey for the many cats who roamed the neighborhood. Maud squatted lower to get a better look, then quickly glanced back toward Mr. Crouse’s house. The door was shut, and the windows were blanks framed by curtains.
Very slowly, Maud reached out her hand. The crow peered at her with his blue eyes, as if he were considering whether or not he wanted to be Maud’s friend.
Maud watched without moving until she started to feel pins and needles in her legs, but still the little black bird just stood there, cocking his head, yet not trying to escape, either.
“Maud,” her mother’s voice called out the back door. “Maud, it’s close to supper.”
Maud glanced up at Mr. Crouse’s house; there was no sign of movement, so she set her marble down on the grass, then gently coaxed the injured bird onto her skirt, flipping up the cloth so that the bird was caught in its folds. Just then, she heard the creak of a door, followed by Mr. Crouse’s voice calling out, “Young lady, stay out of my garden!”
Maud skedaddled fast as she could across his yard, making a beeline for the stockade fence, which separated the Gage and the Crouse properties. She had reached its wooden slats and grabbed hold, ready to climb, when she realized that something was wrong. Her hand was empty—she had set her marble down to retrieve the bird and, in her haste, had left it there. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she could feel the tiny bird restlessly scratching the inside of her skirt.
“Maud?” Her mother’s voice was just over the fence. So close to safety! She spun on her heel and ran back across the yard to the spot near the lilac bushes where she had left her marble.
Maud pounced on it, then—skirt in one hand, marble in the other—bolted back across the yard. When she got back to the fence, she faced another dilemma. With one hand clutching her skirt and the other holding the marble, how was she to scale its boards?
Mr. Crouse was crossing the yard toward her at a rapid clip. Now was not the time to hesitate. She popped the marble into her mouth and, one-handed, climbed the fence.
Just as she straddled it, Mr. Crouse reached her. He tried to catch Maud’s sleeve, but it was too late: she was already sliding down the Gage side of the fence—only as she slid to safety she felt her petticoat catch, followed by a loud tearing sound. By the time she arrived, red-faced and winded, at the back door, she was wearing only her pantaloons—her skirt was still folded up, the crow scrambling inside. Maud spit the marble back into her hand. Triumph!
She looked up to see her mother peering sternly at her, but Maud couldn’t miss the merriment in Mother’s eyes.
“What have you got in your skirt, and where, mind you, is your petticoat?”
Maud turned to gesture at the fence, but no sooner did she point it out than mother and daughter saw the crinoline and lace disappearing as if being yanked from the other side.
Gently, she unfolded her skirt, and there was the baby crow, looking startled but none the worse for wear.
“Stealing crows from the Crouses’ scarecrow?” her mother asked, with obvious amusement.
“I think he fell out of his nest. We need to feed him and find him a place to sleep.”
Without a word about Maud’s dirty skirt, unbraided hair, or lost petticoat, Matilda set to work with utter seriousness. She found an empty flour crate and helped Maud fashion a bed from straw. After bringing up some dried corn from the cellar, she gently placed some kernels next to the bird.
Matilda then pulled out one of the old medical volumes from her grandfather and mixed up a syrup of cane sugar and water. “If it’s good enough for human babies, it is most likely to be good enough for crow babies, too.”
Mr. Crow was quite settled and comfortable when a sharp rap sounded on the front door.
Matilda, smooth as always, glided across the room and opened the door.
There stood Mr. Crouse. In his hand, he held Maud’s lace petticoat.
“Mrs. Gage,” he said, tipping his hat. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Gage.”
“Mr. Gage is not at home right now,” Matilda replied. “But I’m standing before you, so please speak your piece.”
Just then, the baby crow decided to open his beak and let out a loud squawk. Maud giggled.
Mr. Crouse peered over her mother’s shoulder as Maud struggled to put a serious expression on her face.
“Your youngest,” Mr. Crouse said, “was not behaving in a manner that is suited to a young lady.”
Maud’s mother raised her chin and snatched the petticoat out of his hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Crouse,” she said. He tipped his hat again and had not even turned all the way around when she shut the front door firmly.
Matilda was not a woman to be trifled with, and she did not appear amused. She said nothing about Maud’s petticoat—just tossed it in a heap on the table.
“The simplest way to avoid needing to speak to Mr. Crouse about your petticoat,” she announced, “would be for you to stop wearing them.” She marched upstairs and shortly came downstairs with two pairs of T.C.’s old short pants.
“From now on, why don’t you simply wear these?”
It did seem like a splendid idea. Maud envied the boys their short pants and despised the skirts that slowed her down, but she got teased enough already and she couldn’t imagine what would happen if she went out wearing her brother’s hand-me-downs.
“Oh, Mother! Are you sure that’s wise?” Maud’s sister, Julia, had just entered the room, a basket of mending balanced on her hip. “Everyone will call her a terrible tomboy. Doesn’t Maud get tormented enough?” Even though she was a decade older than Maud, she was not much taller. Her long, fawn-colored hair was twirled in an enormous coil atop her head, with a few curls pulled out to frame her face. Now her eyebrows slanted down like a line of geese heading south. “You’ve ripped your petticoat, Maudie? Again? I just mended it last week.”
Sorry! Maud mouthed, putting a finger across her lips to indicate that she did not want Julia to tell Mother how much the boys already teased her.
Matilda waved her hand dismissively. “Mr. Crouse believes that I’m not raising your sister to be ladylike,” she told Julia. “For the record, let it be known that this is true. Too much control can stunt a girl, sap her of courage, and render her weak.” Maud cast a furtive glace at Julia, and sure enough, she saw her sister’s mouth pucker in frustration. This was one of Mother’s pet theories, that girls needed to be free in order to learn to be strong, but to Maud, it always sounded like a backhanded insult to her sister, who had left school years ago.
The front door pushed open and Papa entered. Maud flung her arms around his legs so hard that he pretended his petite daughter had almost knocked him over. Scattered across the dining room table were straw, corn husks, twine, brown paper, and all the rest of the makings of the crow hospital.
“Oh!” Matilda said, sniffing a slight burnt odor in the air. “I’ve forgotten entirely about our supper! Julia, quickly!” Obediently, Julia set down the mending basket and ran into the kitchen, the torn petticoat at last forgotten.
Papa’s eyes crinkled as he removed his coat and hat while listening to Maud’s story. He spent a long moment admiring the crow. Then Maud remembered the very best thing about the day: her cat’s-eye, which she had put in a small box on the window ledge for safekeeping.
Papa held it up to the light of the gas lamp, catching its amber sparkle.
He got down on one knee and pressed it back into his daughter’s hands.
“Boys will be looking to win it back,” he said. “Keep your skills sharp and I trust you won’t let them.”
* * *
—
MATILDA SET ABOUT NURSING that crow with the same determination she brought to every task. Maud’s crow grew rapidly, and soon she let him outside, where he perched on the fence, showing a fearlessness in the face of Mr. Crouse’s scarecrow that Maud quite envied. Every morning, she brought him corn, and though he had learned to fly, he still stayed nearby, seeming happy with the arrangement. Maud was certain that he recognized her. He made a loud caw-caw sound whenever he saw her.
A few days after Mr. Crow’s emancipation, however, Mr. Crouse showed up on their doorstep again. Matilda went out onto the porch, closing the door behind herself. Maud didn’t hear much of the short conversation between Mother and the neighbor, but as soon as Matilda came back inside, she burst out laughing, until she was bending over and tears were rolling down her face.
“What is it?” Maud asked.
Finally, her mother caught her breath enough to tell Maud what had happened.
“It seems that our neighbor believes that our crow is mocking him,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Mocking him?” asked Julia. “What ever can he mean?”
“Apparently,” Matilda said, “he believes that our crow has learned the English language, and instead of the normal cawing of a bird, our crow is taunting him by calling out his name: Bob Crouse! Bob Crouse!”
* * *
—
MAUD SAT CROSS-LEGGED IN the grass, wearing her new knee-high pants, which were ever so much more comfortable than a skirt and petticoat, and carried on a long one-sided conversation with her avian friend until he answered: Bob Crouse, Bob Crouse. And then Maud would reply to him, in her best crow voice: Bob Crouse, Bob Crouse.
One Saturday morning, Mr. Crow was in the backyard squawking when the loud crack of a shotgun sounded outside, followed by silence.
Thinking her pet crow might have been frightened away by the sound, Maud went out to the yard to investigate and saw Mr. Crouse staring out his second-story window. He waved and smiled.
Mr. Crow lay on the grass near the fence with a bullet hole straight through his heart.
“Mother!”
Maud ran across the backyard, through the kitchen, and into the parlor. Mother had her glasses on and was writing something. Mau
d knew not to interrupt when her mother was working, but Matilda must have heard her daughter’s sobs and seen her tearstained face and was at her side in an instant.
Mother’s face drained white when she saw her daughter’s pet lying in a pool of blood in the grass.
“This is murder!” she said. She scooped up the crow, blood and all, and grabbed Maud’s hand. They went straight down the walk and marched up onto the Crouse front porch, where Mother pounded on his brass knocker with a fury of which only she was capable.
The door opened, and there stood the offender himself, still with a big grin on his face.
Without a word, Mother unfolded her skirt to reveal their poor tortured crow. His still, glassy eye stared out at Maud, piercing her heart.
“Looks like you’ve got dead vermin, there, Mrs. Gage.”
“This was my daughter’s pet. You had no right to do what you’ve done.”
“I’d say that was a good riddance,” he retorted.
“What could you possibly have had against this poor crow?” she said. “He was no danger to your garden. He took corn straight from the palms of our hands.”
“His noisy cawing kept me up all night,” Mr. Crouse said. “I couldn’t get a wink of sleep.”
“Killing him was completely uncalled for.”
“And what are you going to do about it?” He chuckled. “Are you going to write the Declaration of the Rights of Crows? ‘I hold these truths to be self-evident,’ ” he tittered, looking down his long, bony nose. “ ‘That all men, women, vermin, critters, and creatures of the field are created equal…’ ”
Mother’s voice was steady. “I believe that to be true, Mr. Crouse. Good day.” Mother’s chin raised up another few inches, and from the way she grasped her daughter’s hand, Maud knew that she better look proud too, even though inside her heart was breaking. Back at the Gage house, Maud burst into tears again, and Matilda reached over and pinched her arm, hard.
Finding Dorothy Page 3