by Ann Tatlock
When Papa greeted him, he looked up at us with a genuine expression of delight. "Afternoon, Doc!" he said. He lifted a hand for Papa to shake but didn't bother to stand up. "Nice to see you around here again. Anyone sick?"
Papa shook his head. "Nothing serious. Just the usual complaints. I think you've met my daughter Virginia?"
"I believe I had the pleasure up to your house last Monday," the man replied, tipping his cap. "Howdy do, Virginia. Name's Sherman Browne."
"How do you do, Mr. Browne?" I responded.
"Anything I can do for you today, Sherman?" Papa asked.
Sherman chuckled and lifted up his shoes so we could see the soles. Both had holes in them larger than silver dollars. "Not unless you're a cobbler after hours," he quipped.
Papa laughed and rolled back on his heels. "I'm afraid my skills are limited to medicine, though I'd like to help you if I could."
Sherman put the shoes down and said, "That's all right, Doc. The cardboard works pretty good. Only problem is, it doesn't last near as long as leather." The man let go a good-natured chuckle and scratched his head with fingers that were blackened by the coal. As he scratched, his cheerful expression slipped into one of consternation, or perhaps it was puzzlement. His eyes took on a faraway look as he said, "You'd never guess to look at me that I used to be able to spiff myself up real nice--shiny shoes and all--every Saturday night to take my girl out to the picture show, and every Sunday morning to go to church services. Seems like a long time ago now."
Sherman Browne was right about one thing: I never would have imagined such a thing. I never would have seen him as anything other than just another transient resident of Soo City. To suddenly be made aware of his former life--a better life--was something of a jolt. To picture him all spiffed up to meet his girl, shiny shoes and all, was too great a task for my imagination.
"Where's your home, Sherman?" Papa asked.
"Little place called Mayfield, up to the north of here. Had my own lumber business. I was just really getting started when the crash came, and I lost it all. Darn shame, too. I think I could've done real good if things had kept on going as they were. I'd just begun to put some money aside so my girl and I could get married. 'Course, the crash changed all that, too."
"What's your girl's name, Mr. Browne?" I asked.
He looked at me and smiled. "Her name's Mary Lou. Prettiest little thing I ever set eyes on."
"Where is she now?"
"Up in Mayfield with her folks. She promised to wait for me. I hope she does."
Papa said, "She'd be a fool not to, Sherman. That's my best opinion."
Sherman looked up at Papa with gratitude. "Thanks, Doc," he said. "A man can use a word of encouragement now and again."
Papa gave Sherman the last jar of peaches, looked at his watch, and announced it was time to go home. I didn't say as much, but I was glad. The heat had drained me of all strength, the tearing past of two more trains had left my insides all the more rattled, and I had grown more and more thirsty over the last couple of hours. Never had I wanted more desperately to go home. But as we walked back through the camp on our way to the car, we found ourselves momentarily sidetracked by music. Not radio music, but live music. Between a couple of the shacks three men sat huddled together on upturned cinder blocks, one with an accordion, another with a guitar, and the last with a harmonica. Not only were they playing, but the two whose mouths were free were singing, and though they would never make Carnegie Hall, they weren't too bad for a group of ragamuffin minstrels. When they saw Papa, they stopped playing as though on cue, right in the middle of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"
"Afternoon to ya, Doc," the harmonica player called. He was a short, stocky man with curly red hair and a blue bandanna tied around his neck.
The two other musicians called out similar greetings as Papa and I approached them.
"Good afternoon, men," Papa said. "Getting yourselves in tune?"
The accordion player, a dark Italian-looking fellow, said, "We thought we'd croon a little to keep our vocals geared up. You never know when you might be called upon to play at a dance or a wedding. Say, who's that with you?"
Again I was introduced, and again caps were removed and I was greeted politely.
As though the existence of their group required an explanation, the guitarist said to me, "We go around singing for pennies. It's the only way we can scratch out a living these days." He completed the group by being a blonde. He was tall and thin, and his narrow fingers were made for dancing over the neck of a guitar.
"Oh," I replied shyly. "You're very good."
"Well, we used to be better," said the accordionist. "We used to have a banjo player, a darn good one too, but he hopped the line last week. Now we're a trio instead of a quartet."
"Oh, I see."
"He'll probably be back, though, one of these days. He thought he'd find greener grass on the other side of the fence, but he'll find out soon enough the grass ain't growing anywhere."
The guitarist, waving one long arm toward Papa, said, "We've heard you whistling enough to know you enjoy music. Why don't you sit yourself down awhile and join us in a chorus or two?"
Papa smiled and glanced again at his watch. "Wish I could, friends," he said amiably, "but I'm afraid I can't spare the time right now. Duty calls down at the office."
"Sorry 'bout that, Doc," the guitarist quipped, tossing a glance at the other musicians. "We forgot what it's like to be a regular working man."
"Well, you'll remember soon enough, I hope. In the meantime, let me know if you need anything."
"I reckon I could use a million bucks." That was from the harmonica player.
Papa chuckled. "I'm afraid I can't help you there, friend."
The three musicians laughed and picked up the song where they had left off.
Once I built a railroad,
made it run,
made it race against time.
Once I built a railroad,
now it's done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?
The tune and the words, so appropriately haunting in such a place as this, followed us as Papa and I strode out of the camp and climbed back into the sweltering car. I was quiet nearly all the way home, subdued this time not so much by the heat as by what I had seen. Not only had that afternoon been my introduction to human suffering, as Papa predicted, but also to the strength of the human spirit.
As we approached our house, that sprawling old Victorian, that place where I had lived my whole life, it appeared to me as oddly unfamiliar. It was as though I stood in a new location in order to view the house from a different angle, the way an art connoisseur steps methodically around a statue to study it from various viewpoints. I saw the house now from the vantage point of Soo City, and from this new angle, I saw how much my family had. Not just the house, but so many other things as well. Everything we really needed, and a few luxuries besides. And for the first time in my life, instead of simply accepting that this was the way things were, I felt a pang of guilt that I should be living a life of comfort--even if I did have to sleep in a crowded bed--while other people lived crammed together in a neighborhood of shacks that weren't even as nice as my old playhouse.
"Papa," I said quietly as my father nosed our Buick up the alley toward the garage, "we live in a very big house, don't we?"
Papa chuckled briefly and said, "It's gotten considerably smaller, I'd say, since the in-laws joined us." That was the closest he ever came to complaining about the Dubbins moving in with us.
"Mama said she was going to make chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight."
"I'd say I'm ready for it. My stomach's been growling for hours."
"And this morning I helped her and Aunt Sally make a couple of rhubarb pies for dessert."
"Sounds dandy," Papa said. "Maybe I'll start my meal with dessert."
"But, Papa," I wailed, "we have so much while those people down in Soo City don't have anything. It makes me feel guilty. M
aybe we ought to be like them, Papa. Maybe it would be better if we were like them. If we had nothing. Then everything would be more fair."
Papa pulled into the garage--to save time coming and going, he always left the garage door open--and parked the car. Then he looked at me and said, "Well now, Ginny, I can appreciate your feelings. Most people might just be glad it was the other fellow hit by hard times, but a sensitive person like you probably can't look on the suffering of another without feeling guilty that you aren't suffering in the same way. But you have to look at it this way. If you and I had nothing, we'd have nothing to give. And if we had nothing to give, our friends down in Soo City might be just a little bit worse off."
I considered for a moment my father's words and found they made sense. "You're right, Papa," I replied. "I never would have thought of it that way myself."
"Eventually you would have," Papa responded as he opened the door of the car to get out. "We live and learn. For the living you've done, I think you've learned a lot, but you have to consider that you really haven't lived very long."
I thought I had lived a very long time. Thirteen years, after all, was nothing to sneeze at. But I had to consider that for Papa, who was approaching the midcentury mark, perhaps thirteen years didn't look like very much.
As we walked through the alley and across the yard, each of us toting a medical bag, I slipped my free hand into Papa's, something I hadn't done since I'd declared myself Virginia instead of Ginny. But I suddenly felt like holding Papa's hand again.
"Our teacher told us last year that President Hoover said no one would go cold or hungry," I said. "But I think those people in Soo City are hungry, Papa."
"I'm afraid so, Ginny." We stopped by the garden where Papa pretended to check on the progress of the tomatoes, though I knew he was actually stalling to give us a little more time together. "I'm afraid Mr. Hoover's been a bit too idealistic about the situation in our country. He's reluctant to admit to how bad things really are."
"Is he a selfish old man, Papa?"
"No, Ginny. I think he genuinely cares about people. But he lifted himself up out of poverty as a young man, and he thinks other people ought to be able to do the same. What he's not figuring into the equation is that these men aren't facing their own little financial crises but rather one huge economic disaster. They just can't pull themselves out of poverty the way Mr. Hoover did."
"Will Soo City still be there when winter comes?"
"No doubt." Papa nodded. "I can't imagine things will be much better by winter. No, those people are likely to be in that camp for some time."
"But, Papa, what will they do when winter comes?"
Papa stuck out his lower lip and thought a moment. Then he said, "They'll be plenty cold, I guess."
The thought of it made me at once both angry and sad. "So they'll not only be hungry, but they'll be cold, too, in spite of what the president says," I remarked dolefully.
Papa didn't say anything, but his concern for his newfound friends was evident on his face. The two of us walked hand in hand to the house. Before we reached the door, I resolved that, like Papa, I was going to give something to the folks in Soo City, and before we stepped inside, I knew what that something was going to be.
Chapter Twelve
Thinking ahead to the winter months, I decided to collect blankets for the residents of Soo City. The very next day I put a box in Papa's waiting room where people could leave donations. The sign I tacked up over the box got right to the point: "Don't let your homeless neighbors freeze to death this winter. Please give blankets!" Men and women were in and out of that office all day, dozens of people every week, at least a hundred every month. I figured some of them would be willing to return with blankets they no longer needed for themselves.
I also decided I would have to take direct action--a fact learned from the host of traveling salesmen who were constantly ringing our doorbell. We wouldn't have had nearly so many brushes and gadgets in our house if those relentless vendors didn't come around peddling them. Like those salesmen, I, too, would have to go door to door to try to drum up blankets for the people in the camp.
I had easily gotten Papa's permission to put the box in his waiting room, but now I'd have to get Mother's permission before I could make the rounds through the neighborhood. First, I spent several days telling her about all the people I'd met in the camp--Mrs. Everhart and baby Caroline, Mr. Lucky and his dog T-Bone, Sherman Browne and the three musicians--and I told her how polite and kind and gracious they'd all been to Papa and me. I assured her they were regular people, just like us, and that I hadn't met anyone there that we had to be afraid of. (I didn't mention Mr. Jones the Red but felt I was still being honest because I hadn't actually met him.) I described their homes, the sparseness of those little shanties, the lack of furniture and food and running water and bathtubs. But those shanties were neat and orderly, I emphasized, and I saw a woman working awfully hard doing her laundry in an old tin tub. Those people weren't lazy--no sirree. They were cleaning and cooking and washing and fixing things just like we did. And one of them, Mrs. Everhart, tried to give Papa a beautiful silver brooch with an opal in the middle. "She said it was for you, Mama, but Papa wouldn't take it because he said one day she or little Caroline was going to have a brand-new dress and would need a piece of jewelry to go along with it." As an afterthought I added, "I don't know where she got that pin, but I bet it might have been a family heirloom, handed down from Mother to daughter for generations. I bet it was the one treasure Mrs. Everhart took with her when she had to leave her home, and just think, Mama, she wanted to give it to you!"
Mother didn't appear quite as impressed as I had hoped. She listened mostly without comment while my prattling accompanied our cooking and canning and washing of the dishes. When I finally ran out of things to tell her, I decided it was time to get to the point.
"Mama," I ventured timidly, "a couple of people have left blankets in the box already, but I was thinking--I bet I could get a whole lot more blankets if I went around door to door and asked for them. You know, the way those traveling salesmen do."
"Door to door?" Mother asked incredulously, her large hands pausing in the midst of scrubbing a pot.
"Sure. I mean"--my voice faltered but I forged ahead--"from what I saw, not a single person is set for winter. And there's a whole lot of people down there, you know. The more blankets I collect, the more people will have one. I just keep thinking what it's going to be like for them when winter comes, and it's a terrible thing, Mama. You know how it is to be so cold your bones ache and you can hardly bend your fingers because it hurts so much. But you and me, we can always come inside here and get warm, but those people, when they go inside they might just as well still be outside. So I was thinking, we must have plenty of neighbors who might not chance to get sick this summer and see the box in Papa's waiting room, but who'd be willing to give a blanket if I asked them for it direct."
Mother sighed as she handed me the pot to dry. I took it from her and rubbed furiously while waiting for her response. She grabbed another pot off the stove and dropped it into the soapy water in the sink.
"You're just like your father, Virginia," she remarked. "Always trying to do the impossible. You can't keep all those people warm this winter."
It wasn't the response I had hoped for, but I wasn't ready to give up. "I know that, Mama," I said agreeably. "But maybe I can make some difference, even just a little bit."
Mother scrubbed away at the pot, splashing water up to her elbows and across the bib of her apron. I chewed my lower lip as I put the dry pot away in a cupboard beside the stove.
"I don't even like the thought of you going down to that place," she said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm only going along with your father's wishes."
"Yes, ma'am."
"If I had my way, you'd both steer clear of that camp."
"But they're not bad people, Mama. Really they're not."
Mother pau
sed again in her work and stared out the window above the sink. Her expression made me wonder if she saw something frightening out there, but when I looked to where she was gazing, I didn't see anything other than Aunt Sally puttering in the garden.
Quietly, Mother said, "I just have a bad feeling...."
I waited for her to continue, but she didn't. Instead, she handed me the last pot to dry while she started wiping down the counters. She was no doubt picturing me going around like a little beggar girl, pleading for help from the neighbors--a thought so mortifying as to send her to an early grave.
As a last resort, I decided to grab my mother by her Achilles' heel. In spite of her sometimes crusty exterior, Mother's heart had a big soft spot for children, and my last bid would have to shoot like an arrow right into that particular target.
"Mama," I said, "there are children down there, you know. Little boys and girls--even a baby. Their clothes have been worn so long and washed so many times there's practically nothing left of them. There's no way those clothes are going to keep the children warm this winter. But maybe my going out and getting an extra blanket or two will make the difference between them staying warm or freezing to death. What if it was Simon or Claudia or Molly? What if one of them was down there in the wintertime with nothing to keep them warm? Wouldn't you want someone to come along and give them a blanket?"
This time Mother sighed so heavily I thought she'd deflate like an old balloon. She wiped the table clean, then rinsed the dishcloth and hung it on a clothespin on the back of the pantry door. She took the dishtowel from me, snapped it open a couple of times, and pinched it into a clothespin below the dishcloth. Then she slipped off her wet apron, and it too was relegated to its hook on the door. When I finally gave up hope of her ever answering me, she said, "All right, Virginia, you can collect the blankets."
I tried not to let her see me smile. I knew my sense of satisfaction would only annoy her.
But I must have really planted a colorful image in her mind of Simon, Claudia, and Molly freezing to death in the camp, because that same afternoon Mother rummaged through the linen closet and presented me with a wool blanket she had purchased only the year before, saying, "Here's the first one for your collection."