A Room of My Own

by Ann Tatlock

  The man looked embarrassed as his nervous fingers kneaded the rim of the hat. "Down at the camp, sir."

  "Just a moment," Papa said. "I'll get my bag."

  Mother, with Claudia in tow, followed Papa out of the kitchen while I brought up the rear.

  "William!" Mother whispered harshly once we reached the hall. "He's one of those hobos from down by the river."

  Papa shook his head and opened the door to the waiting room. "No, I don't think he is, Lillian. He appears to me to be a man of some education."

  Papa was right, I thought. The man's suit was wrinkled and in need of cleaning, but still, it was a suit. The hat he clutched in his hands wasn't the trademark cap of the hobos. He had made the effort to shave that morning, and the fact that he had a full set of teeth was a dead giveaway. I'd never known a hobo whose mouth didn't have gaps where there should have been teeth. On top of that, his speech was far more refined than the mangled grammar characteristic of the tramps. This man had mentioned the camp, but he wasn't one of the regular residents of the hobo jungle.

  "But you've got patients to take care of here," Mother protested.

  Old Mrs. Greenaway looked up from her magazine and lifted her linen handkerchief to her mouth. She gazed at us with a pained expression that appeared to ask, "If Dr. Eide doesn't tell me I'm alive, how will I know?"

  Papa looked from Mrs. Greenaway to Mother. "Nothing that Harold can't handle by himself." To his elderly patient he said, "I'll be leaving you in good hands, Mrs. Greenaway. Dr. Bellamy is a first-rate doctor."

  Before either Mrs. Greenaway or Mother could utter a word of protest, Papa disappeared into his back office and returned with his medical bag. He rushed out to the kitchen with the three of us still tagging him like unwanted shadows.

  "Come on," he said to the stranger at the door. "We'll take the car." As the two men made long strides across the yard, Papa hollered back to Mother that he'd be home as soon as he could.

  Mother stood at the screen door and watched the two men hurry to the garage in the alley. She shook her head and sighed. Claudia still clutched Mother's hand, and Molly, a milk mustache cresting her upper lip, let the half-empty glass sit idly on the kitchen table. Emma May's hands were silent in the dough. For a long moment none of us said anything, nor even moved. We seemed to know instinctively that Papa's going with this man would somehow change our lives.

  And it did. Especially mine.

  Chapter Two

  Papa was a whistling man. He whistled in the morning while he shaved. He whistled as he moved about his office checking supplies in the medicine cabinet and looking through his appointment book. He whistled at night while waiting for Mother to heat his habitual glass of warm milk before going to bed. Invariably, he whistled whenever he came home from visiting a patient. After parking the Buick in the garage, he'd move swiftly, lightly, across the backyard, whistling all the way.

  "Papa's home!" we'd yell when we heard the shrill notes signaling his return.

  The strange thing about Papa was that he almost always whistled Christmas carols. Because he was virtually tone-deaf, you sometimes had to listen carefully to recognize the tune, but generally he was able to hit enough notes for the listener to eventually identify the song. Papa also appreciated the great hymns of the church and, after a lifetime of singing them, knew the words to dozens by heart. I loved to sit next to him during worship services so that his great booming off-key voice came showering down upon my head, making me feel warm inside.

  And yet, in spite of the vast number of tunes that must have been lodged in Papa's mind, when his lips pursed in a whistle, it was a Christmas carol that came out. Sometimes this particular habit of his was annoying, especially in the spring and summer when Christmas was as far from most people's minds as the face on the dark side of the moon. Even when we had all the windows thrown open against the heat and sweat had glued our clothing to our backs, Papa went about whistling "Deck the Halls" and "O Holy Night."

  "Oh, really, William," Mother sometimes chided, "how can you possibly be thinking about snow at a time like this?"

  Papa would smile indulgently and reply, "Well, now, Lillian, I don't guess it was snow I was thinking about."

  And off he'd go, filling the air with a joyful noise that caused family, friends, and patients alike to stare at him with raised brows and suppressed smiles.

  But on the day he was called down to the hobo jungle, Papa didn't come home whistling. Though still fairly light outside, it was already late in the evening when he returned. I saw him from the kitchen window where I stood at the double sink washing dishes with Simon. He came trudging across the yard as though he were almost too tired to move one leg in front of the other. His gaze was lowered to the ground. He glanced neither at the garden nor at the day's laundry that I had hung on the line hours earlier.

  In keeping with Papa's appearance, my announcement was subdued. "Papa's home," I noted quietly.

  Simon, short for his nine years, stood on tiptoe to peer over the windowsill. Mother, sitting at the table, set her coffee cup back in the saucer and said, "Goodness knows, it's about time. What on earth could have kept him so long?"

  Dr. Hal, who was just finishing his supper, wiped at his mouth with a cloth napkin. "Must have been a pretty bad case, Lillian," he said. Dr. Hal was the son of one of Papa's cousins. He had just completed medical school a year before, and Papa invited him to join his practice for a time before venturing out on his own. Papa figured he could use the help, and Dr. Hal could use the experience. Dr. Hal accepted the invitation with little persuading. During the Depression it seemed safer to join an already established practice than to try to set out on one's own. He slept on a rollaway bed in the back room of the office and took his meals with us. His real name was Dr. Harold Bellamy, but I always called him Dr. Hal. A thin, narrow-faced but handsome young man, he was quiet and well mannered and serious about his work. I might have taken a crush on him if he hadn't been family. My best friend, Charlotte, did have a crush on him, but that wasn't saying much. There were few members of the opposite sex who didn't strike her fancy at one time or another.

  Mother rose to greet Papa at the door. "William," she said kindly, "you've been gone for hours. You must be starved. Sit down and I'll have your supper on the table right away."

  Mother allowed Papa to kiss her cheek briefly before he slumped down into his usual chair at the head of the table. He generally returned his medical bag promptly to his office, but that night he simply set it down on the floor beside him and sat staring solemnly at his own two hands folded in front of him on the table. His hair, the color of sand and thinning on top, leaped out from his head in all directions. His wire-framed glasses straddled his nose halfway down the bridge, waiting to be pushed up. His cheeks were ruddy with the color of youth, and yet that night his round face appeared heavy with age. I had never seen him look so weary.

  "Hi, Papa," I greeted him from the sink, sending him a smile.

  He raised his eyes with a start, then smiled wanly in return when he realized who had spoken. "Hi, Ginny," he said. He nodded toward Simon. "Hello, son."

  Simon was rubbing a plate with the dish towel. "You look tired, Pa," he remarked.

  Papa nodded in agreement. "I'm a little tired."

  "Tough case?" Dr. Hal asked. He pushed his plate away and pulled his coffee cup in front of him.

  Papa sighed loudly and undid the top button of his shirt. "There was nothing I could do," he confessed mournfully. "The man was dead when I got there." Taking off his glasses, he began polishing the lenses in a circular motion with his handkerchief. Then he set the glasses down on the table and rubbed his eyes with his large palms. I had the feeling he was trying to wipe away whatever it was he had seen at the camp.

  Mother set a plate of food in front of him. Papa acknowledged it with a nod, replaced his glasses on his nose, and picked up his fork.

  "What happened, William?" Mother asked quietly. She slid into the chair catercorner to h
im.

  Papa, the food untouched, laid the fork back down. "The man was trying to hop a train when he slipped and ended up under the wheels. Sliced one of his legs off completely. He just didn't have a chance, not with an injury like that. Some of the fellows down at the camp tried to staunch the flow of blood. They did an admirable job too, considering. But the poor man had bled to death long before I arrived."

  I heard Mother gasp and felt her eyes on my back, but I didn't turn from the sink. I wanted to appear preoccupied with the dishes so Simon and I wouldn't be sent from the room.

  "How dreadful," Mother said quietly.

  "I'm sorry, William," Dr. Hal offered. "That's a tough thing to have happen."

  Mother continued. "But you've been gone for hours. If there was nothing you could do ..." Her voice trailed off, her question unasked.

  "I--well, how do I explain?" Papa replied. "I left and called the coroner from the nearest service station, but then I went back to the camp. I've spent the past few hours just talking with people."

  "The men at the camp?" Dr. Hal asked.

  "Yes, but I had no idea ..."

  When Papa didn't continue, Mother suggested, "Why don't you eat your supper, William? You can talk about it later."

  But as though he hadn't heard her, Papa exclaimed in tones that were almost agonizing, "How could I not have known what was going on down there?"

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Dr. Hal lean forward over the table. Soothingly, he asked, "What did you see, William, and what can I do to help?"

  I heard Papa sigh again. How I longed for the sound of his whistle. "There aren't just a few hobos living down there anymore. You know that patch of land between the river and the railroad tracks?"

  Dr. Hal grunted his acknowledgment.

  "There must be--I don't know--a hundred people, probably more."

  "There's a hundred men living down there?" Mother asked.

  "Not just men, Lillian," Papa explained. "Mostly men, yes, but women and children, too. There's even going to be a baby born there in the next couple of months."

  The kitchen was quiet. Simon and I cast sideways glances at each other and held our breath, still hoping not to be noticed and sent away.

  One of the chairs creaked softly as Mother leaned back in it. "That's no place for women and children."

  "It's no place for anyone, Lillian," Papa corrected quietly.

  "Are you telling us there's a Hooverville down there?" Dr. Hal asked.

  "Looks that way, Harold," Papa said, nodding. "It's a regular little community with street names and everything. President Hoover, though, might be gratified to know that this particular camp doesn't bear his name. The residents are calling it Soo City."

  "Soo City," Dr. Hal echoed, trying out the name. "And have they really gone so far as to build houses and streets?"

  "Well, only in a manner of speaking. Not houses, really. Shacks is more like it. Made out of odd bits of wood, cardboard, even flattened tin cans. A few people have set up tents. One or two seem to be living out of abandoned cars."

  "Oh, William," Mother whispered.

  "Of course there's no sanitation," Papa continued. "No toilets or baths; no running water. The perfect environment for the breeding of disease. I didn't notice anything contagious going around yet, but I did notice in some of the children--in some of the adults, too--the first signs of pellagra."

  "The Red Death?" Dr. Hal asked incredulously. "Are you sure?"

  "I've never seen it before, but I'm pretty sure. The listlessness, the red splotches on the skin--"

  "But that's just found in the South, isn't it?" Mother interrupted.

  "Not anymore, Lillian. It's found anywhere people are starving."

  "Good heavens, William! Do you mean to tell me those people are starving?"

  "Not quite, but very nearly. Some of them, anyway."

  "Where exactly do they get their food? Just how are these people surviving?" Dr. Hal asked.

  I turned in time to see Papa shake his head. He still hadn't touched the food on his plate. "Some of the men earn a little money going around door to door and offering to do odd jobs. A few of the men even have regular jobs, I guess, except their hours and wages have been cut back so much they were finally no longer able to pay the rent or the mortgage on their homes. They ended up being evicted and their furniture carted off or left out on the sidewalks. Many of them have sent their wives and children to live with relatives, but as I said, there are some women and children there--I guess those folks had no relatives to take them in. So anyway, as far as food goes, there's the breadlines where they can get soup and a sandwich once a day. They tell me they also get wilted vegetables and other unsalable food at the IGA, and when they have to, they scrounge for food in the garbage cans behind the restaurants downtown."

  "And they get their water from the river?" Dr. Hal guessed.

  "Sometimes, yes. But fortunately the owner of the service station where I stopped to use the phone--it's about a mile from the camp--is allowing the men to haul back a certain number of gallons of water every day. At least they get a little clean water that way."

  "And the city inspectors, the department of public health--they're allowing it?" Mother's voice was agitated when she spoke.

  "Apparently so," Papa replied. "Dick Mason--that's the man who came to the door this afternoon--he says one of the sheriff's deputies patrols the area regularly. He doesn't say much, just shows up and looks around. Apparently making sure no one's disturbing the peace. But they haven't been asked to leave and I'm not sure why. They could be run off the property as a menace to public health, certainly. They could be arrested for vagrancy. But so far, they've pretty much been left alone."

  "Just who in the world are they, William?"

  "That's what I was trying to find out, among other things. Far as I can tell, they're just people who have nowhere else to go. They've all lost their homes or farms. Some are from around here. Some are from as far away as either coast. The man who died this afternoon--he was Dick's brother-in-law. The two men used to be in business together in upstate New York, but of course they lost everything in twenty-nine. They scrounged around looking for work up there for a couple of years, but without much luck. Finally they decided to take to the road in search of work elsewhere. They had a car, but it gave out about two hundred miles from here. Since then they've been walking and riding the rails. Somehow they ended up down there in the camp. They were planning to move on today, but--well, it was the end of the line for one of them."

  Simon stopped drying a handful of silverware and said, "Roger Stimson's father says all the unemployed are just a bunch of good-for-nothings. He says they could get jobs if they really wanted to work."

  "Simon!" I hissed his name between my teeth, sure that our hour of departure had arrived.

  But instead of sending us out of the room, Papa responded to Simon's statement patiently. "Well, son, I'm afraid a lot of people take that stance on the unemployed, but it just isn't so. I would bet that all the men I met down there today would jump at the chance to work if there were any jobs available. Right now there just aren't any jobs. But that doesn't make these people lazy, and they're not good-for-nothings either. Many of them had decent jobs and lived in homes not too different from ours but lost them because of circumstances they couldn't control. No, Simon, I suggest you not listen to the opinions of Roger's father."

  "Yes, sir," Simon responded sheepishly. He dropped the silverware into a drawer and reached for the pot I was handing him.

  "Well," Mother said, getting up and pouring herself another cup of coffee, "I'm sorry for what's happened to those poor men and women, but I hope you're not planning to spend a lot of time down there."

  Papa took the first bite of his dinner and chewed thoughtfully. Finally he said, "Well, Lil, I was thinking maybe I could make a run out there once or twice a week. Those people need medical care same as anyone else."

  "Then they can take advantage of the free clinic-
-that's what it's there for."

  "I'm afraid not, Lil. To be treated at the free clinic you have to prove residency, and that's one thing these people can't do."

  Mother stirred milk into her coffee and sat down again. "Then what about the Red Cross? Remember that drought last year that hit the belt land so hard? The Red Cross fed thousands and no doubt offered medical help too. Can't they do the same here?"

  Papa had his mouth full, but Dr. Hal jumped in to answer Mother's question. "That drought was a natural disaster, Lillian. The funds of the Red Cross are for war and natural disasters. What we've got here is an economic disaster. I'm afraid that's not the same thing at all. Besides, the problem is so pervasive. People are losing their jobs and their homes all over the country. There probably isn't much the Red Cross can do."

  Papa swallowed and nodded in agreement. "Harold's right, Lillian. These people are pretty much on their own, I'm afraid."

  "Thanks to Hoover," Dr. Hal added, "no federal aid. Every man's responsible for pulling himself up by his own bootstraps. Hoover doesn't realize that's a little hard to do when your boots are so worn there's not enough leather left to hold on to."

  "I'm sure Hoover is doing what he thinks is right," Papa said quietly. "But help's got to come from somewhere. Those of us who can help in some way need to be doing it."

  "But, William," Mother protested, "think of the diseases that must be festering down there in that filth. Think of what you could bring home to the children. You said yourself--"

  Papa smiled and said in his most reassuring tone of voice, "Lil, I'm a doctor. I work around disease all the time. Now, don't worry."

  "But, William--" Mother began again.

  "What is it, Lillian?" Papa asked tolerantly.

  "We have four children."

  I heard Papa chuckle, a decidedly weary chuckle. "Yes, dear, I'm well aware of that."

  "And, as you know, these times are difficult for everyone. We're no exception. If you spend much time down there--well, those people can't pay. We're hardly in the position to be peddling your services for free."