Finding Dorothy

by Elizabeth Letts

  The sun was already falling when they reached the homestead. An unseasonable thaw the previous week had melted the snow, and the ground was boggy and barren-looking. Maud noticed that there were now a few scrawny trees Julia and James had planted for a windbreak, but still the setting was one of total isolation—the house looked as if a strong wind could blow it away.

  James did not even come inside—he said he had to return to LaMoure, where he was helping a neighbor plant trees on his claim. The wagon rattled away, leaving Maud with her small valise, standing on the flat, empty plain.

  “Auntie M!”

  Ten-year-old Magdalena flew around the side of the house, braids whipping behind her, and threw her arms around Maud. She was wearing the blue gingham dress, now too short and so old that the blue checks had almost faded to white. A tear along the hem made it hang unevenly. Matilda’s wool socks were bunched around her ankles, exposing the pale, bluish color of her thin legs.

  “Slow down, Dorothy,” Magdalena cried out as she slowed to a walk. Maud looked around but saw no one, not even a doll in Magdalena’s arms. She could still vividly picture the shattered doll, its painted eyes staring blankly from inside the grave.

  “Dorothy, mind your manners and say hello to Auntie M. And curtsy if you please.”

  After a moment’s confusion, Maud caught on.

  “Hello, there, Dorothy,” Maud said, turning to face her niece’s imaginary companion. “I’m very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “And she’s pleased to make yours,” Magdalena said.

  “Where’s your mother?”

  “Mama’s sick.”

  “And who is looking after you?”

  “Dorothy is.”

  Inside, the tiny house was neat, but the main room was freezing. The fire had gone out. Maud pushed the bedroom door open to a waft of fetid air.

  Julia was turned away from her, and as Maud’s eyes adjusted to the light, she realized that her bedding was stained with large crimson splotches.

  “Julia?” Maud whispered.

  Her sister did not stir.

  “Julia!” Maud placed her hand on her sister’s cheek, alarmed to find it cold. She gave her a light shake, followed by a harder one.

  Her sister opened her eyes slowly. “Maud?”

  On the table next to her bed stood several empty bottles of Godfrey’s Cordial. Next to the bed stood a bucket filled with bloody rags. From the mess emerged the translucent curled-up fingers of a tiny hand.

  “Julia, you need a doctor! I’m going to call one at once!”

  “Call no one, Maud. If I live, no one must know.”

  Maud leaned against the wall of the tiny room to steady herself.

  “Julia, Julia…what have you done?”

  “A Bohemian woman from the neighboring claim…James said we couldn’t support another mouth to feed…”

  “Say no more!” Maud cried out. “Pray, Julia, say no more.”

  * * *

  —

  WHEN MAUD LEFT THE BEDROOM, Magdalena was perched on a wooden chair, her heels on the chair rungs, her expression solemn. She had placed two cups from her miniature china set on the table. “Dorothy and I are having some tea,” she said. “Would you like some?”

  A locomotive was rushing full speed through Maud’s head. Her thoughts were garbled, her knees shaking, but she tried to force an expression of calm upon her face so as not to alarm the child, who was looking up at her with large, unblinking eyes.

  “Auntie M?”

  “Yes, sweet pea?”

  “If Mama dies, please don’t leave me alone here. Dorothy is afraid of the wolves.”

  Maud turned her face to hide the tears that now flooded her eyes. She squatted down and put her arm around the girl. “I will never leave you alone,” she whispered.

  “Or Dorothy, either,” Magdalena whispered. “Promise!”

  “Or Dorothy, either,” Maud said. “I promise.”

  * * *

  —

  THE EARLY SPRING NIGHT was moonless, and the heavens were bedecked with a glittering expanse of stars. Alone, Maud wielded the shovel, chipping away at the cold, hard ground. She sweated beneath her dress and wrap. When she paused to rest, her teeth chattered. Her hands were soon raw, her muscles aching.

  Wolves howled in the distance. This only gave her more strength, as she was determined to bury what remained deep enough that the wolves wouldn’t dig it up.

  The torment from her hands, her neck, and her back engulfed her until the stars spun in the heavens and a faint dawn glow burned in the distant sky. The simple stone that marked baby Jamie’s grave stood watch, taunting Maud not to give up before her work was finished.

  At last the hole, though narrow, was as deep as the length of her arm. She upended the bucket and threw a spadeful of dirt on top of it.

  Shivering in the predawn light, Maud tamped down the earth on top of her makeshift burial plot. “ ‘The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit,’ ” Maud whispered. “At least, I hope.”

  Dry-eyed but heavy-hearted, she returned to the little shanty. She was still seated on a kitchen chair, staring into the fireplace, when Magdalena awoke. In Maud’s lap was Magdalena’s dress, which Maud had mended while the girl slept.

  A week later, Frank arrived, having found a neighbor to watch the boys and hitched a ride from Edgeley with a passing farmer. By then, Julia was able to sit up for most of the day. Maud said nothing of the condition in which she had found her sister, but she pulled him aside immediately and told him that there was trouble in the household, and that no matter the difficulty of their own financial situation, they needed to take responsibility for Magdalena’s care. Frank quickly agreed.

  Magdalena was happy to see her favorite uncle.

  “Dorothy, this is your Uncle Frank!”

  Without missing a beat, Frank dropped down on one knee and held out his hand in greeting. “Well, how do you do, Miss Dorothy? I’m pleased to meet you. And what a pretty red dress you are wearing.”

  “Her dress is blue gingham, Uncle Frank, just like mine.”

  Frank made an elaborate pantomime of rubbing his eyes. “Why, forgive me! It must be dust from the road that got in my eyes. Of course it is, blue gingham, and pretty at that.”

  “And she has black pigtails and a little pet dog that she carries around in a basket with her. And his name is Toto.”

  Frank fished around in his pocket and pretended to pull something out. “And look what I have here,” Frank said. “Hair ribbons for a pigtailed girl and a nice meaty bone for her dog.”

  “Dorothy wants to take you out to see where the prairie dogs live.”

  “Well, then let’s go see the prairie dogs. Come along, Toto.” Frank whistled.

  “He’s going to ride in Dorothy’s basket,” Magdalena said. “You don’t need to whistle.”

  They came back an hour later, Magdalena smiling as she recounted Uncle Frank’s wild story about a city for the prairie dogs under the ground where they had streetcars and electric lights and could even talk!

  After lunch, Frank and Maud sent Magdalena out to play, and Frank began to speak earnestly to Julia.

  “We won’t have much to offer,” he said. “But pray let us take darling Magdalena with us. It will lighten your burden, and we will care for her as if she is our own.”

  Julia’s face had been pale since Maud had arrived and found her ill, but now it turned a sickly yellow, with points of red flaming at the balls of her cheeks.

  “How dare you, Maud?”

  “I beg your pardon? I don’t mean to offend you. We’re offering to help because we understand that times are hard.”

  “But you said no!” Julia almost screamed. “I have it right here, the letter. Here!”

  She pushed h
erself out of her chair like an old woman and began rummaging through a pile of opened letters that were stacked up on her chest of drawers.

  “Here it is,” she said, shaking it in Maud’s direction. She began to read aloud in a wooden tone.

  “ ‘My dear Julia, as much as we love our darling Magdalena as if she were our own daughter, our current state of family flux would make it difficult for us to accept Magdalena right now. As soon as our situation improves, we will bring her in with open arms. Love, your devoted sister, Maud.’ ”

  “Maud?” Frank’s brows rose over his eyes as he turned to look at her, eyes wide with surprise. He took the letter from Julia’s hand and read it with disbelief, then turned back to Maud as if Julia were not even there.

  “But darling! Why?”

  Maud shook her head and avoided his eyes. Why, indeed? On the day she had received her sister’s letter, she had felt so wrecked, so hopeless, yet this—this was so much worse.

  “You see!” Julia said. She started pacing across the room. “You know how hard it is for me to let her go. She’s my only companion, and the wolves, they do so howl at night, and James is away so often. One night, Magdalena awoke and said she saw a woman dressed all in white standing next to her bed, not saying anything. It gave both of us a terrible fright. So, I didn’t want to let her go—away from me, my only solace—but James said we couldn’t manage another mouth to feed. So I took matters into my own hands.” She sounded half out of her mind. Frank glanced at Maud, who had not shared the intimate details of the past week.

  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” Maud said. “It is purely my own fault for not understanding that the situation was so dire. There were difficulties…” She looked at Frank imploringly. “I made a mistake. Now I understand, and I’ve changed my mind. We’ve changed our minds—right, Frank?”

  “Let Magdalena go,” Frank said, his voice firm. “You are not fit to take care of a child right now.”

  “Not fit! Not fit? How can you say that? I made the ultimate sacrifice.” Julia’s voice was shrill.

  “Times are hard all around,” Frank said mildly. “Just let us keep her for a while to ease your burden.”

  “That will never happen. I made my choice,” Julia said. “I chose Magdalena. She will stay with me.”

  Maud glanced across the room, and to her chagrin, she saw that Magdalena was kneeling just beyond the slightly open front door, peeking in. She had been listening the whole time. Now she jumped up and, banging the door, ran outside. Through the window, Maud watched Magdalena run toward the horizon as fast as her feet would carry her, her skirt catching on sodden stalks of dead prairie grass, her braids flapping, her faded gingham dress billowing out behind her.

  Frank and Maud found Magdalena seated next to her baby brother’s headstone, knees drawn up, her face in her arms.

  Frank touched her gently on her shoulder.

  “I want to go with you,” she said.

  “Magdalena, you will always have a home at our house,” Maud said.

  “Always,” Frank said. “As long as you live.”

  “But why can’t I go now?” Magdalena said. Her face was streaked with tears, her manner serious.

  Maud fished down into her pocket and pulled out a clean handkerchief, like a white flag of surrender, which she used to blot away the tears from her niece’s smudged face.

  “Your mother needs you here,” Maud said. “You are a brave girl, and you will be all right without us.”

  Magdalena, however, was inconsolable. She lay on the damp ground next to her brother’s grave and howled with a misery so profound that it seemed to expand to fill all the vast, bleak, flat, arid land around them, as if all of the sorrow of all of the people stuck out here trying to chip a living out of this vast, uncompromising plain were contained in her small body.

  While she lay there, black clouds massed, covering half the sky, and a few fat raindrops fell. The girl, clad only in her thin gingham dress and a shawl, began to shiver. Frank unbuttoned his wool jacket. He knelt down beside her and placed the heavy garment over her shoulders. They waited silently next to her.

  Finally, Magdalena was all cried out. She sat up and wiped the rest of her tears off her cheeks with the back of her hand, and Frank brushed her straying hair up off her forehead. She appeared tiny, swamped in the oversize contours of Frank’s jacket.

  “Is Chicago very far away?”

  “Just two days on the train,” Maud said. “Not as far as you would think.”

  “Two whole days?”

  “And we can write you letters, and you’ll write to us as well. And as soon as we’re settled, we’ll invite you and your mother to come for a visit.”

  None of Maud’s words seemed to mollify the girl in the least. The sky had grown menacing, but the sun shone through in places. Frank scooped up Magdalena, still wrapped in his jacket, to carry her back to the house.

  Magdalena gasped, and Frank followed her gaze. “Well, will you look at that!” he cried out. He grinned and started spinning around with Magdalena in his arms. She leaned her head back to look at the expanse whirling above her. After he slowed, he set Magdalena gently back on the ground and knelt down beside her again, gesturing at the stormy sky. Fighting their way through the mass of clouds, bands of orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet shimmered in a short arc.

  “Look right there, it’s a bit of a rainbow, come to brighten our day. Make a wish!” Frank said quickly.

  Magdalena closed her eyes and pressed them shut with her hands. She murmured, and Maud realized that she was repeating the word “Chicago” under her breath.

  “Oh, but it’s no use,” Magdalena said, turning back to look at her homestead shanty, now turned the color of ash in the gloomy light. “I know I can’t leave. Mama can’t stay by herself. What if she gets sick and there is no one to take care of her? I’m responsible for my age. I can do the chores of a hired girl—Papa says so. It’s just that sometimes—it’s hard.” Magdalena hiccuped, then choked back a sob, and then she was crying again.

  Frank slipped his arm around his niece as he knelt beside her, pointing back to the rainbow, which was still visible, peeking through a break in the clouds.

  “Look at that rainbow, and I want you to remember something.”

  Magdalena nodded. Her chin quivered.

  “There’s a man named the Rainbow King, and he lives in the heavens. In a beautiful castle. The sun always shines there, and there are so many good things to eat, and the beds are softer than a million feathers…”

  Magdalena’s eyes were wide.

  “Sometimes he sends his daughter down to us. She walks right along the rainbow and comes down to earth to play. Sometimes her father pulls that rainbow up and she stays on earth for a long time, and she has lots of adventures. But when she really, really needs something, he puts it back down, and she skips right back to her daddy, right across that rainbow bridge.”

  Magdalena nodded solemnly.

  “Now, I know your life seems hard sometimes, but I want you to remember that if you ever get very worried, just think about that rainbow—and if you use your imagination, you will be able to skip straight over the rainbow to play with the Rainbow King’s daughter, in their beautiful land, and you won’t feel so alone, and when you’re ready to come home, you just have to tap your feet together three times, and he’ll put the rainbow down, and you can come straight home.”

  Magdalena’s face had brightened.

  She stood up, raised her chin, straightened her braids, and smoothed down her skirt.

  “You can do this,” Frank said.

  “I can,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Maud breathed.

  When it was time for them to leave, Maud held on to her little niece a bit longer than she should have, afraid that if she let go too soon, Magdalena would see her tears.


  While they murmured their goodbyes, Frank pulled Julia aside. “The moment you don’t feel safe here, Julia, you have a home with us. Promise you’ll remember that?”

  Julia and Magdalena stood side by side as Maud and Frank climbed into the hired wagon, the grizzled driver shifting in his seat, anxious to be off. When they were settled, he shook the reins and the pair started to trot. But just after they began to roll, Magdalena bolted toward them so fast that Frank leapt off, catching her so that she wouldn’t get caught up in the wheels.

  “Wait!” Magdalena cried, one arm outstretched. “I’m staying here, but Dorothy wants to go with you.”

  Maud looked at Frank and signaled him with an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

  “I don’t think so, Magdalena,” Frank said gently. “Dorothy needs to stay to keep you company.”

  “No!” Magdalena’s voice quavered, her chin all puckered. “She doesn’t want to stay. She wants to go with you! She’s very itty-bitty small. She won’t take up any space at all.”

  “But, Magdalena—” Maud protested.

  “Auntie M, please!”

  “But Dorothy will keep you company. She would miss you, and the prairie dogs, and your house and the fields. She wants to stay with you,” Frank said.

  Magdalena stamped her foot and jutted out her chin, eyes flashing. “She says no. She says you’re not listening. She wants to go to Chicago! She’ll skip right back over the rainbow and tell me all about it, whenever she wants. Won’t you, Dorothy?”

  Julia stepped toward Magdalena and grasped her arm. “Come now, Magdalena. That’s enough of your woolgathering. Your aunt and uncle need to leave—I’m sure it’s about to rain.”

  Magdalena’s face was wrinkled up like a furious prune, her brows knit together. She stamped her foot again. “She wants to go!”