Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  Frank knelt down beside Magdalena. “What do you think about this one?” he said. “She’s mighty fine-looking, isn’t she?”

  Magdalena stayed mute, gripping her porcelain doll.

  “Would you like a new Dorothy?” Frank asked. He touched the doll’s hair and pointed out her fancy wardrobe, stroking the real fur of the doll’s muff with the tip of his finger. But Magdalena just shook her head and stared back at the floor.

  Frank patted her on the shoulder. “You needn’t worry, little one. I think I know how you feel. You love your very own Dorothy better than any of these dolls. Why, now that I look at her, I can see why. Look at her beautiful black hair,” Frank said, pretending that the penny doll had real hair, instead of painted-on black that was already half rubbed off. “And see how she smiles? Why, you know what?”

  Magdalena looked up.

  “I think I know what Dorothy wants! A high chair!” he said, pointing to the doll furniture.

  Magdalena shook her head. Her eyes furtively darted toward a miniature china tea set, nested in a small wicker suitcase.

  Frank saw where her eyes were resting. “You like that, don’t you?” He gently tapped her on the tip of her nose. Magdalena nodded, eyes wide.

  “Dorothy likes it,” she whispered.

  “And don’t you both look as pretty as buttons in your new blue dresses,” he said.

  A smile washed across Magdalena’s usually somber face, bright as a prairie sunrise, and to Maud’s surprise, she dropped into a curtsy and then, holding her doll at arm’s length, twirled so that her skirt and curled locks billowed out around her, a beatific smile lighting up her face.

  Then, just as suddenly, she resumed her watchful, puckered expression. Maud’s face was serene, but inside, she wanted to shout for joy. Like a little crocus poking through the snow, Magdalena was starting to come to life.

  The next morning, when Maud came downstairs, she saw the little tea set sitting on the table. A moment later, she heard Frank’s jaunty steps skipping down the stairs.

  “Oh, Frank,” Maud said, throwing her arms around him. “You remembered! She will be so delighted!”

  * * *

  —

  “JULIA!” MAUD TRIED TO get her sister to listen to reason. “You mustn’t leave! Can’t you just stay through the winter with us? What’s the hurry?”

  Julia was upstairs, packing.

  “Maud, please, don’t ask,” Julia said. “You already know where I stand.”

  “Then, sister, let me ask you something else. You know I can’t have any more children—or, rather, I think that perhaps I could, but I know that I must not. Frank and I have both grown to love Magdalena dearly. Why don’t you let her stay with us? You can give more attention to the baby, and it’s one less mouth to feed.”

  Julia paled. She looked away.

  Maud reached for her sister’s hand. “Julia, there’s no shame in it. I know you’ve been through hard times.”

  “Maud, my dear little Maudie. You don’t know the half of it. A single summer hailstorm ruined most of our wheat.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “James had to mortgage the claim to make up the difference. If we lose it, we’ll have nothing—and James, he…” Julia clapped her hand over her mouth, as if she realized she was about to say something she would regret. “Sister, you can never imagine the loneliness I feel out there. Sometimes, James has to go away for days at a time. The view out my window is utterly devoid of life and seems to stretch to the ends of the universe, and at night, the only company is the sound of the wolves howling. It plays on a person. It can make your thoughts turn dark and confused. I can’t leave Magdalena here. The girl is my only company. Without my little girl, I fear that I would lose my mind!”

  “But, Julia”—Frank had just come into the room and had overheard the tail end of the conversation—“surely you can put the girl’s welfare above your own loneliness? Your daughter would be in the safest and most loving hands with Maud,” he said. “We would treat her as our own daughter. We’ll give her the best of everything.”

  Julia’s eyes flashed.

  “I see what you do! New dresses and toys! How can I compete for my own daughter’s affections when I can offer nothing of the kind?”

  “Julia, please,” Maud said, stunned by her sister’s bitter tone. “We are not competing for Magdalena’s affection. We are trying to help you—and her!”

  “I’ve accepted your charity, and now Jamie is on the mend. From here on in, we will take care of ourselves. I’m selfish, I suppose,” Julia said. “But I can’t bear being alone.”

  Maud’s temper rose to a flash point. She opened her mouth, ready to leap to the defense of her plan, but Frank caught on to Maud’s torrent of emotion, and he placed a staying hand upon her arm, cocking a single eyebrow as if to say, Not now.

  “You are her mother,” Frank told Julia. “You must do as you see fit. But please know that our door is always open—for Magdalena, for baby Jamie, and for you as well. If you change your mind, just say the word and we’ll come and fetch her.”

  That night, Frank stroked Maud’s back and wiped away her tears.

  “We should have insisted,” Maud said. “If anything happens to Magdalena, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “No, Maud. I’m afraid if you demanded, that would only set Julia’s mind more firmly against it. Let her return to the homestead, and perhaps she’ll begin to reconsider.”

  Maud flipped over and buried her face in his chest. “I hope you’re right.”

  Maud shivered on the platform as the northbound train toward Ellendale pulled away, with Magdalena’s pale, narrow face pressed up against the window. Maud did not stop waving until the train was gone and all that was visible was a faint gray smudge of steam on the horizon.

  * * *

  —

  A WEEK AFTER JULIA’S DEPARTURE, Maud was stirring a stew on the stove when she heard Frank push open the front door. As he entered the kitchen, she was surprised that he looked so dejected.

  “What is it, darling?” Maud said.

  “I’m afraid we’ve had a spot of bad news. Nothing to trouble you much…it’s just a business matter.”

  Maud turned around and took in his pinched brow and tightened mouth.

  “But you must tell me, Frank. Perhaps I can help you with it.”

  “It’s just that there has been a big storm on Lake Huron. The Susquehanna has gone down.”

  “The ship?” Maud was puzzled. “Oh, dear. Were people drowned?”

  “No, thankfully, the crew was rescued, but it’s not so good for us,” Frank said. “It was carrying my entire Christmas order. All of the goods that I needed to stock the store…I’ll have to reorder everything, and nothing will arrive before the twenty-fifth.”

  Maud could feel a furrow forming between her eyebrows. She rubbed it away with her finger, determined to appear calm.

  “Wasn’t that the inventory you purchased on credit?” Maud asked.

  “I’m afraid so.” Frank sank into a chair, looking utterly defeated. “I’m going to have to pay the bank back. It wasn’t insured.”

  Maud laid a hand upon his shoulder, absorbing the weight of his news. “Never mind, Frank. I’m sure we can recover.”

  Frank turned to Maud, looking mournfully at her with his wide gray eyes.

  “It’s not the money,” he said.

  “Of course it’s the money,” Maud said. “What else would it be?”

  “Maud, darling, do you really not understand? I’ve made a solemn promise that Baum’s Bazaar would bring Christmas to every child in this part of Dakota Territory—we don’t have near enough merchandise on hand to fulfill the need.”

  Even now, after seven years of marriage, sometimes Frank deeply surprised her. Maud had quickly taken stock of the parameters of this disaster: Fran
k had overextended and gone into debt in order to have plenty of goods on hand for the Christmas season. The 1888 harvest had produced Dakota’s third straight bumper crop of wheat. While some of the small individual farmers, like Julia’s husband, were struggling, the townsfolk in Aberdeen were feeling prosperous, with extra money to let them indulge in Frank’s luxuries. But the Dakota people were a practical lot—they might gratify themselves at Christmastime, but they would not consider doing so all the year round. Frank had been counting on a big holiday season to put his enterprise firmly into the black; instead they would miss the Christmas season and have to go deeper into debt. Yet sales had been brisk so far. Frank would need to be careful, but with good management, they would come out all right. But to Frank, kind, good-hearted Frank, none of this was what mattered. He was worried about children not getting their favorite toys for Christmas.

  “It’s nothing more than a minor setback.” Frank’s tone had an edge of forced cheer. “There are still quite a few nice toys in the store, and if we don’t have the sales we were hoping for, it will all even out over time.”

  * * *

  —

  ON CHRISTMAS EVE, there was not a fir tree to be found anywhere within a hundred-mile radius of Aberdeen, but Frank came home from downtown dragging a fine balsam fir that had been shipped in from St. Paul and surely had cost more than Maud would think wise. He stood it up in the parlor, filling the room with the crisp scent of Maud’s childhood. They decorated the tree with candles and popcorn that Maud cooked on the back of the stove, and silvery tinsel and red glass balls that Frank had brought home from the store.

  In the morning, when Maud came downstairs, she found Frank standing beside the tree with a look of unmitigated delight.

  “But, Frank!” Maud opened her mouth to protest, only just then Bunting and Robin, clad in their red woolen long johns, appeared at the top of the stairs, their faces slack with astonishment.

  Under the tree, Frank had constructed a city of blocks the likes of which Maud had never seen. It had tall buildings and turrets, roadways and rivers lined with shiny blue paper, and even tiny flags that fluttered from its ramparts. There were miniature trees, and tiny people, and a mechanical train that surrounded all of it. Maud knew that all of these toys must have come from the store, but only Frank could have so artfully constructed it.

  “With all of these oohs and ahs, I think we must christen it the Land of Aahs,” Frank said, clearly pleased at the boys’ reaction. They had already crept forward, eyes bright, and knelt down to inspect their magical city up close. Now they looked at their father with wonder.

  “Tell us about it, Father!” Bunting and Robin said together. “Tell us the story!”

  “Well, it’s a fairy kingdom,” Frank said, “and of course that means it’s inhabited by fairies…” The boys sat rapt, each on one of his knees while Frank spun a tale about his imaginary kingdom that he conjured seemingly from thin air.

  For Maud, there was a delicate Japanese paper fan, and in a small square box, Maud was astonished to find a ring with a sparkling emerald.

  “Frank?” Maud looked at him, puzzled. It was one thing to buy toys, and another thing entirely to buy jewels.

  Frank bowed low. “I’m afraid, my darling, that it’s nothing but paste, made up to look like an emerald for a queen.”

  Maud’s face relaxed. “Oh, thank goodness!”

  Christmas Day of 1888 was full of cheer and happiness, of delighted children and laughter, of carols and cakes, and, of course, the enchanted fairy kingdom Frank had built for the boys, which kept them occupied, wrapped up in make-believe, for the rest of the day. But in spite of her delight in the boys’ happiness, Maud felt a niggling undercurrent of concern, and she couldn’t help but add up in her mind how much all this must have cost. Like the paste jewel Frank had given her, everything was sparkling and bright, and yet she felt as if a single tear in the shiny fabric would expose the flimsy garment underneath.

  Two days before New Year’s, Maud was washing dishes when she realized she’d forgotten to take off the ring. She pulled her hand from the scalding water only to realize that the paste stone had faded to a dingy gray and the gold finish had stripped off, revealing the tin underneath.

  Maud showed Frank the ring. “I’m so sorry! I should have taken it off. Look what I’ve done.”

  Frank whirled her around and planted a kiss on her forehead.

  “No, darling! I’m the one who’s sorry. You deserve a genuine emerald. I promise I’ll get you one someday.”

  Maud wanted to tell Frank that it was not an emerald she craved as much as stability—a home, her family, and some money in the bank for a rainy day—but how could she fault Frank now? She remembered the first time she’d seen Frank on the stage, in the theater, how she had fallen in love with his magical world. She had seen that expression on the boys’ faces as they stood at the top of the banister, looking down at the world of wonders Frank had created. Wasn’t that the gift she had married?

  * * *

  —

  AFTER HIS DEPARTURE FROM Aberdeen, Jamie lived only a few more months. On March 15, 1889, Maud received a telegram. The baby had passed that morning, and the burial was planned for that afternoon. But the northbound train was delayed, and so by the time Maud arrived in the tiny town of Edgeley it was late afternoon, and they still needed to make the journey by wagon to Julia’s claim, about eight miles to the west. Reverend Langue, a Presbyterian minister, made the journey with her. A wooden box, covered in a dark cloth, rested at their feet.

  Baby Jamie was laid out on the kitchen table in the main room of Julia’s shanty. His shriveled body still smelled faintly of the brandy from the bath Julia had given him to try to revive him after she’d found him not breathing. Maud helped her sister dress him, inserting his stiff little legs into woolen stockings, then threading his rigid arms through the sleeves of a fine white dress that Maud had hand-embroidered.

  Julia placed her son into the small pine coffin lined in white cloth. Affixed to the box was an engraved silver plaque: SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME. Maud had brought Kenilworth ivy, rose geranium leaves, and smilax vines from Aberdeen, and they draped these over the rough pine box.

  Outside, the ground was covered with a thin crust of frozen snow. The men had worked up a sweat digging Jamie’s narrow grave in the expanse north of the house. At half past five, the March sun hung low like a flat disk. The long, straight horizon was colored a faint orange and shrouded in haze as the small group of people gathered next to the open grave, also lined with pristine white cloth. James Carpenter stood, shoulders hunched, staring into the grave without expression.

  Magdalena’s eyes were dry, and she held herself stiffly. She was dressed in a faded black frock, with a wool shawl wrapped tightly around her thin shoulders. Now and again she shivered, but otherwise she was completely still. Maud held tight to one of her hands. With her other hand, the girl grasped her doll. As the first spadeful of dirt hit the coffin, Magdalena flinched. With a sudden jerk, she wrung her ice-cold hand free from Maud’s grasp and rushed forward to the edge of the open grave. Violently, she hurled her doll into the pit. The porcelain doll hit the edge of the pine box and shattered. Its head, sheared from its body, settled on the newly spaded dirt, its painted blue eyes staring up unblinking into the heavens.

  “Magdalena!” Julia shrieked. “What have you done?” She yanked her daughter’s thin arm, pulling her away from the edge of the open grave. “Why did you do that?” she screamed.

  Magdalena stared silently at her mother, her violet eyes shimmering in the fading purple light.

  “Dorothy wanted to go with Jamie,” she answered quietly.

  Into the silence, the reverend struck up singing “Thou Art Gone to the Grave,” and one by one the assembled joined in, their voices so frail against the giant landscape that the small knot of them seemed to make s
carcely more sound than the eternal rustling whisper of the wind through the prairie grass. Magdalena didn’t blink or make another sound as she watched the remains of her doll and her baby brother disappear under the unforgiving earth. The sun had plunged below the horizon, and the temperature plummeted. When they crowded inside Julia’s tiny house, everyone was shivering. Magdalena clutched her now empty hands to her chest.

  Neighbors from adjacent claims had brought food, so the small group quietly broke bread and ate soup, warming by the fire as a sharp wind beat across the flat land outside.

  Maud sent her sister to bed, noting that Julia took a generous dose of Godfrey’s Cordial before she retired, insisting that it would help her sleep. Next, Maud put Magdalena to bed in her narrow cot next to her parents’ bed, staying with her niece until she was sure she had fallen asleep. All the while James Carpenter, who had said almost nothing all day, stayed near the stove with a jug of spirits, staring morosely out the window.

  By the time the kitchen was straightened, Maud wanted to faint with fatigue. She had planned to make a cot for herself near the fire, but she didn’t want to stay alone with Julia’s husband, who had not moved from his spot by the window. Eventually she pushed open the door to the back room and crawled into bed next to Julia. Her sister’s medicine had evidently not worked. Maud found her sister wide-eyed, and no sooner had Maud joined her than wolves started howling outside. It was clear that their lonesome cries came from the north side of the house, where the baby had just been buried. Maud stroked her sister’s forehead and said nothing. For a long while, Julia lay perfectly still in the bed. The wolves finally ceased their howling and Maud listened to her sister’s breathing, hoping that at last she had fallen asleep. But after a few moments of blissful silence, the wolves started up again. Julia flung herself upright, threw back the bedclothes, and leapt out of bed so quickly that her white nightdress swirled around her like a wraith. She began pounding on the wall of the house with both fists.