Let's go For Broke

by Mary Lasswell

  “We like our own apartment-size range better,” Tommy said. “The big one takes up quite a lot of room, but we’ll keep it for you.”

  “Long as we’re here, we might’s well take it,” Mrs. Feeley decided. “No tellin’ when we’ll get free labor again, an’ storage space is what we got most of.” She called James, and Bim, who soon stowed the stove beside the other appliances.

  “That wood stove is fine,” Jesse said, “but in the summer it is going to be awfully hot in the kitchen. For twelve dollars you can get the stove connection put in. I’m glad you took it.”

  Back at the Mansion, Mrs. Rasmussen excused herself and ran to the kitchen. N. Carnation followed her and began to set the table. The chef had left the fire well stoked and now had fine pink coals. She had left scalloped potatoes with layers of onion rings, potatoes, and chipped ham covered with a quart of her new powdered milk mix. All the liquid was gone, leaving a golden brown crust on top. She had carrots and celery cooked together in what was left of the turkey broth. She stuck a loaf of French bread into the oven after sprinkling it with cold water. No use to bottle the guava jam she had made! They would eat that up in nothing flat.

  She got out the turkey meat and saw that it was in fine shape. She added toasted bread crumbs, chopped fried onion, a little sage, lots of salt and pepper, and mixed it all together with two raw eggs. N. Carnation set out a bowl of small walnut meats she had picked out. The day before, when she was drying the feathers, she found many that had fallen off the trees into the grass, small and stunted, but very tasty.

  “Gimme!” Mrs. Rasmussen motioned. She had just had an idea. She formed the turkey patties into a generous size, dipped them in flour, then beat up two more eggs and dipped them in that. She chopped the walnuts coarsely and dipped the patties into the chopped nuts. Then she heated margarine in her largest iron skillet and fried the patties, turning them carefully until they were crunchy golden brown.

  “They’ll be done by the time we sit down,” she said. “How about you and me? Cerveza?” She made a drinking motion with her thumb toward her mouth.

  There’s a pie-anna in the parlor to give the house a tone,

  An’ yer welcome drunk or sober, at Maggy Murphy’s home!

  Mrs. Feeley sang gaily as she helped the boys push the piano into the house.

  Miss Tinkham held up her hand like a traffic policeman: “Let me think a moment. The drawing room is elegant, I admit, but don’t you feel somehow that a piano, like a sofa, in a big kitchen is a lovely thing? The kitchen is the heart of the house, really.”

  “Swell!” Bim looked around carefully to find a place on the rotten floor where the piano would not end up in the cistern as the rental agent had. “Little as it is, this thing’s heavy.”

  “Tell you what,” Jesse said. “Us guys gotta plank this floor over for you. Nothin’ to it. Then we can put down some of that plastic tile that you can cut to fit. We fixed the kitchen for one of our friends real nice.” He walked over to smell what was cooking on the stove. Bim was examining a tray of what he thought was cookies, chocolate drop cookies. He lifted one to his nose and sniffed at it disappointedly.

  “Them’s begonia bulbs,” Mrs. Feeley laughed. “Found ’em outside. I’ll soak ’em next week an’ plant ’em again.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen had found the electric extension cord and now the Refrigidaire was purring happily. The big electric range was stored in a far corner against the day they would have twelve dollars they didn’t need.

  “Give us a tune,” she said to Miss Tinkham who needed no urging. They all began to sing:

  They had to carry Carrie Nation from the floor!

  They had to carry Carrie Nation from the floor!

  Oh, there wasn’t but one reason

  Why they had to carry Carrie,

  ’Twas that Carrie couldn’t carry any more!

  James brought her a beer and the boys drew up boxes to sit on.

  “I’ll just throw us a salad together.” Mrs. Rasmussen had picked dandelion leaves, sharp and bitter, from the wild part of the place. The tall mustard they had trimmed back a few days before had put out little new leaves. Mixed with her celery and escarole from the store, they made a salad that would hold its own anywhere. She decided that since everything was so fine and festive she would sacrifice one more fresh egg. She stirred it well and added olive oil, vinegar, and lemon juice. She had already put little squares of hard bread into the oven to toast, covered thickly with garlic put through her press that had been a present from Katy, Mrs. Feeley’s lovely niece-in-law. She poured part of the dressing on the seasoned greens, and the rest of it over the little croutons. Then she stirred these lightly into the big wooden bread bowl she used for salad.

  “Come an’ get it,” she shouted. The guests needed no urging. The guavas set off the turkey cutlets to perfection, and the sherry-flavored cream sauce she had made on top of the browned margarine in the pan was delectable.

  “Woman,” Bim laid down his knife and fork, “do you realize you could own us body and soul after a few suppers like this?”

  “Just take me to raise,” James said. “I don’t feel like getting married and having a bunch of nyah-drag-back kids anyhow! I’ll just board the rest of my life with you.”

  “Sure thanks,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Does me good to see you cut your wolf loose!”

  “Sabrosa la comida,” N. Carnation murmured to Jesse.

  “You bet it’s tasty,” he said. “Re-tasty! That means double-tasty.”

  The beer was staying well behaved and cold. Mrs. Rasmussen had put eight cans into the freezing compartment of the icebox to speed the process.

  “You gonna stay with the ’lectric company all your life?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

  “I’m no career man,” Bim said. “Put in my thirty years and get out.”

  “I’d like to be in business for myself,” Jesse said. “This ceramic tile interests me. Once I learned that, I’d have a chance to get good contracts. James here, he studies all the time and wants to go into the building business.”

  “What type?” Miss Tinkham inquired.

  “The new light aggregates interest me a lot,” James said. “You know these building blocks that come in all shapes and sizes? You think they are heavy till you pick them up, then you see they’re real light? That’s a big advantage in building, not having all that weight on the frames. They’re moisture-proofed now and some have a ceramic smooth washable finish inside. They’re handsome.”

  “Like cinder blocks? What do they make ’em out of?” Mrs. Feeley asked.

  “They get them from beneficiating low-grade ores,” James said.

  “Well, now, it’s about time somebody done something for the poor devils,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  When order was restored, James decided it was no use to try to explain the process further to Mrs. Feeley so he suggested that all hands wash the dishes to the music of Miss Tinkham’s piano.

  Chapter 13

  SATURDAY MORNING Miss Tinkham and Mrs. Rasmussen nailed up the improvised mailbox on a convenient stump at the entrance to the Mansion. Then they went back to the conservatory and N. Carnation helped them gild the beautiful wrought-iron sign the boys had brought them.

  “They only work half a day on Saturday,” Miss Tinkham said. Last night she had bought a gallon of gold paint and six brushes, also a gallon of brush cleaner. The nice woman at the florist supply had let her have the wholesale price so she didn’t want to miss a chance like that. N. Carnation sat up half the night fondling the gold and silver artificial leaves they had bought.

  “I told ’em to come for their dinner,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Mrs. Feeley cut one o’ them blue squashes in half with the axe. It’s bakin’ in the oven now, with butter an’ brown sugar. I grated a little bit o’ that sour orange peel on it. Sure oughta be good. Slim had a nice big rump roast, hardly no bone at all, last night an’ I figgered it’d come in handy. Then I’m gonna make a big dish o’ creamed onions, an’ a pa
n o’ macaroni an’ cheese. Them boys works hard.”

  Miss Tinkham nodded approvingly: “Right after dinner, I must go into a huddle with Jesse and N. Carnation. We have to make her take some of the money the flowers brought. And a bank account, however small, would help to establish her identity.”

  The sign looked glamorous and the young men secured it to two tall trees at either side of the brick pillars by means of steel wires. Jesse brought two big panels of plywood, six by eight feet. They were painted white. Then he took a yardstick and made lines and guide letters in pencil. “We oughta list the things just the way you had them on those signs you carried on the freeway,” he said. “They were swell.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen called them to dinner, and did not have to speak twice.

  “Just like finding a bird’s nest on the ground.” James smiled.

  “Lady,” Bim said. “I’m a real canoozer of food, and you’ll never get rid of us dishin’ this stuff out.”

  Miss Tinkham was puzzled but decided he meant “connoisseur.”

  “Don’t want to,” the chef said. “What we gotta do is get rid o’ that money from the flower balls, it’s burnin’ a hole in my pocket.”

  “We spent twenty of the hundred and ninety-six for flower supplies last night,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “An’ eight dollars for groceries at Slim’s,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “The forty-five we owe Ben Hur Grossman weighs on me,” Miss Tinkham said.

  “When you give that, how much does it leave?” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “One hundred and twenty-three dollars.” James did it in his head.

  “My idee,” Mrs. Feeley said, “is N. Carnation’s gotta take half o’ that. Then what’s left, we can divide four ways. We can buy stuff for our own plans. Like me, I need fertilizer an’ peat moss an’ sour stuff an’ gardenia plants.”

  “Tell her it’s hers, Jesse,” Miss Tinkham said. “Tell her we want her to put most of it in the bank and just hold a little to keep in her pocket. Tell her the other flowers are contracted for.”

  Jesse explained rapidly.

  “She says she realizes she has to do whatever you tell her,” he said.

  “No! No, siree!” Mrs. Feeley said. “If she wants to take it all an’ buy jelly beans, it’s okay with us.”

  “What she means,” Jesse said, “is that you are like her sponsors and she thinks you know what is best for her, because she trusts you.”

  “That’s better,” Miss Tinkham said. “Her share comes to sixty-one fifty and she should bank fifty of it at least.”

  Jesse explained and then interpreted: “She says that is more money than she has ever seen at one time and says if she puts it in the bank, can she get it back out again? She says if it has her name on it, won’t the River Guards, she means the immigration officers, know it’s hers and take it away from her?”

  Miss Tinkham put down her knife and fork: “We might as well put an end to this once and for all. Listen carefully and translate word for word what I tell you. N. Carnation is a United States citizen and has been since the day she married Heinz, forty-five years ago.”

  The silence endured several minutes before Jesse broke it in Spanish.

  “No es posible,” N. Carnation murmured, very pale suddenly.

  “Yes it is possible.” Miss Tinkham understood that much. “Anyone, any foreigner or alien who married an American citizen prior to 1918, anywhere in the world, automatically became an American citizen. We know she is one, if she married Heinz legally, and we believe she did. Now we must prove it. That is why you and I have to sit down with her and go over the events of forty-five years ago, step by step, and write them down.”

  “If you ain’t the beatin’est,” Mrs. Feeley said admiringly.

  “They had them war brides from France in the World War One,” Mrs. Rasmussen remembered.

  “Same case, exactly,” Miss Tinkham said.

  N. Carnation could not take it in, even when Jesse explained carefully that it was the law. The law that existed at that time. That today there was a different law, but in her case the old law still held good.

  “You leave the dishes to our tender administrations,” Bim said, “and get that all down on paper. The Veterans Bureau could find out what became of Heinz, but I don’t suppose she’d know his company or troop or outfit.”

  “She doesn’t need to,” Miss Tinkham said. “In a book of memoirs by an Army officer who took part in the expedition, there is a roster of the men who went into Mexico to chase Villa. I got it at the library. There is a Heinz in the Twelfth Cavalry, Company C. She said he transferred to a truck company, did she not?”

  Rapid Spanish was exchanged between Jesse and N. Carnation.

  “He learned how to drive one and brought her to the Border in it about Christmastime before the rest of the American soldiers left,” he said.

  “That would be December, 1916, since the Expedition was withdrawn from Mexico in February of 1917. Ask her if she ever heard of the battle at Carrizal?” Miss Tinkham said.

  N. Carnation had. She remembered hearing of many people who were killed, including Americans.

  “We’re on the right track,” Miss Tinkham said. “But the burden of proof remains on us.”

  “She says,” Jesse told Miss Tinkham, “that if you want, she will swear in front of her priest at church over here that she was married in church by the priest in San Gerónimo.”

  “Tell her we believe her implicitly. We feel sure she is a citizen and has suffered needlessly all these years. Ask her why she never inquired or got any help on the matter.”

  “She says,” Jesse replied after a long conversation, “that it is very hard for poor people to make inquiries, especially when they cannot read and write in Spanish, much less in English. She was a little ranch girl of fifteen when Heinz married her. She spoke no English and Heinz spoke little Spanish. She says when the troops came to El Paso, he stayed at the fort for a few days and left her with a Mexican refugee family who were living in El Paso. They spoke no English at all and had no money. Some people from Mexico, they think revolutionists, came around and threatened the Mexican family so that they were always moving from house to house at night, trying to hide. Heinz came to see her every night while he was at the fort in El Paso and gave her money. He told her he was going east with the troop and for her to stay with those people. They were refined and decent people and she was not to leave them for any reason. He said he would send for her as soon as he knew his orders and had a place to live. He took the marriage certificate with him and said he would send her money every month, and that if he had to go away anywhere, the government would send her the money every month just the same. She has never heard one word of him or from him from that day to this.”

  There was a lengthy silence at the table. Miss Tinkham broke it at last. “It seems incredible, yet it is a rather commonplace story. I feel sure there are many people wandering around through this country who are citizens if they only knew it, especially people of Mexican parentage born on this side of the Border who were taken to Mexico while babies.”

  “And the other way around,” Jesse laughed. “Lots of them are born on the other side and come over here to buy forged birth certificates and pass for U.S. citizens.”

  “The immigration people have their hands full,” Miss Tinkham sighed. “But they have done an efficient job and if they are as good as I think they are, they will have a record of N. Carnation’s legal entry at Columbus, New Mexico in December, 1916.”

  “How could they keep all those papers?” James said.

  “I read recently where they started keeping records in 1909. From that time up to present date, they have copied them all on microfilm, which as you know, takes up very little space.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Bim said. “You know, you coulda been one of those lady lecherers that goes round giving talks!”

  “If we can just establish our friend’s citizenship, I’ll never bother God for anything mo
re, I promise.” Miss Tinkham smiled.

  “It’s in the bag, I think,” James said. “Our president at the V.F.W. is a big buddy of the district director of the Veterans’ Administration. He can help.”

  “Trouble is, they’re so everlasting slow in Washington,” Bim said.

  “What are our congressmen and senators for?” Miss Tinkham cried.

  “There’s a divided opinion on that subject,” James laughed.

  “I know,” Miss Tinkham smiled. “But in an emergency, to expedite things, it seems to me that if your friend, the V.A. Director, sent a telegram to our senator, requesting a prompt reply by telegram, collect, to a well-framed query to be answered by the Veterans’ Administration or whatever corresponds to Bureau of Personnel, regarding one Heinz, of Twelfth Cavalry Troop, C, under General Pershing in Mexico in 1916, we would know where we stand.”

  “They’d have to have a record of the marriage,” James said. “Guys in foreign countries have to get permission before they can marry natives. It would tell if she was his legal dependent, and we could find out where he is. He’s bound to have retired long ago.”

  “Make a list,” Mrs. Rasmussen laughed. “Get the pencil an’ copybook.”

  “That’s the first thing,” Jesse said and took N. Carnation by the hand. Miss Tinkham went with them into the living room to write down her plan.

  “We must know her full name,” she said.

  “Encarnación Villegas de Heinz,” he said. “Native of San Gerónimo, a ranch village in the state of Chihuahua, Republic of Mexico.”

  Chapter 14

  “AIN’T NO USE to try to thank you for all you done,” Mrs. Feeley said to the three young men as they ate a Sunday night snack in the kitchen. The grounds had been cleaned up thoroughly enough to satisfy any Board of Health inspector, but Mrs. Feeley insisted on leaving a wide hedgerow of brambles and overgrown bushes around the outside of the place.