A Room of My Own

by Ann Tatlock

  Fearing that all my efforts had been in vain, I asked, "Do you think they won't want the blankets, Papa?"

  "No, they'll want the blankets. Of course they'll want them. What I'm saying is that they don't want to want them. Do you know what I mean, Ginny?"

  "I think so, Papa."

  "We have to be able to give to people without at the same time taking away their dignity."

  "But how do we do that?"

  "It isn't easy. Of course, a lot depends on the receiver. Some people are able to receive graciously, while the pride of others--and that's different from dignity, pride is--won't let them accept anything at all. But I guess the thing is, Ginny, we have to somehow let people know we don't think we're any better than they are, and we have to do it without actually saying so. We're not reaching down to them, just reaching out to them from a place that runs parallel to their own. Can you follow what I'm saying, Ginny?"

  "I think so, Papa." I remembered that when Papa gave away the Mason jars of food, he had talked as though the people were doing us a favor by taking them off our hands. But I couldn't say I just happened to have twenty-two extra blankets lying around, and would anyone be so kind as to relieve me of the burden? I frowned and asked, "What do you think I should say?"

  "My advice would be to give people an option. Don't tell them you have a blanket for them. Ask them whether they'd like to have one. That way they can decline easily if they can't find it in themselves to accept one."

  I thought Papa the wisest man in the world, and I took his advice to heart. We parked again under the shade of the maples at the edge of Soo City. We had been driving as usual with the windows down, and after being briefly battered by the inrush of wind, we stepped out into air that was heavy with humidity and as still as death. At once my skin prickled under the heat. The taste of dust settled against my tongue, and my throat felt parched by the hot air that I reluctantly drew into my lungs. The weather being what it was, it seemed strange to pile the wagon high with blankets. For the first time I wondered whether the people of Soo City might laugh at me as I pulled my little red wagon through their streets. Maybe I should have waited until the cooler days of autumn to pass the blankets around. But I was here now, and there was no turning back. If people wanted to laugh, they would just have to laugh. I pulled the first wagonload of blankets toward Hoover Avenue while Papa held one hand on top of the pile to keep it from tumbling over.

  I asked Papa if we could go to the Everharts' first. Someone had left a baby quilt in the waiting room box, and I wanted to give it to Caroline. As we made our way down the dirt avenue--the baked earth cracked from lack of rain--I felt the eyes of curious onlookers upon me. The men who had the previous week sat smoking in the doorways of their shacks were there again, as if in the intervening days they hadn't eaten or slept or so much as moved. They pulled lackadaisically on their cigarettes, blowing out the wispy white smoke to mingle with the stifling air. Some called out a greeting to Papa; others simply stared indifferently. One hollered, "Whatcha got there, Doc?"

  "We've got some blankets for those who want them," Papa explained.

  "Little hot for that, ain't it, Doc?"

  "Won't be in another few months, Elvin."

  "Haven't much thought ahead to winter. Can't hardly think past next week."

  "Well, like I said, those who want one can have one, and we'll be collecting more. You gentlemen think about it and my daughter and I will be back around later. We're heading to Mrs. Everhart's now to see the baby."

  Another man volunteered, "I can tell you she's still alive and kicking. She gave the camp a display of her lung power last night around midnight. Lungs are healthy, Doc, I can tell you that."

  "Thanks for the medical opinion, Charlie," Papa quipped. "A few more months and she should be sleeping through the night."

  "That's all right, Doc," Charlie said. "We don't mind the noise. Kind of gives a man hope, in a strange kind of way."

  When we reached the Everharts' dwelling, once again Mrs. Everhart's timid face brightened into a sort of relieved joy when she discovered it was Papa and me knocking on her door. As before, she graciously invited us into her home. "The baby's asleep," she said quietly as she opened the door wide enough for us to enter.

  "We won't disturb her, then," Papa said, also quietly. I followed his lead and stayed outside the shack. He looked at me and said, "Would you like to explain to Mrs. Everhart what you're doing today?"

  I swallowed and, remembering what Papa told me in the car, began. "I've been collecting some blankets, since I was thinking ahead to winter. My mother always tells me to plan ahead." Mrs. Everhart smiled and nodded appreciatively at Mother's wisdom. Lifting the quilt from the top of the pile, I continued. "Well, somebody happened to give me this pretty little baby's quilt, and since we don't have any babies in our house anymore, I was wondering whether Caroline might like to have it."

  Rather awkwardly I lifted the quilt up for Mrs. Everhart to inspect--and to take, if she wanted. But instead of reaching out for the gift, she laid her narrow hand across her heart. "Why, if it's not the most beautiful little quilt I've ever seen ..." Without finishing her thought, she tentatively moved her hand to touch the quilt, running her palm along the squares of material stitched together by an anonymous mother or grandmother.

  "I hope Caroline will want it," I said. "Otherwise, I don't know what to do with it."

  "Oh, of course she'll want it," Mrs. Everhart replied.

  I gave the quilt a slight nudge so that it pressed more firmly against the woman's palm, and finally, smiling, she took it from me.

  "Thank you, Virginia," she said. "Really, though, you all have done so much already, I--"

  Papa cut her off by asking, "How's the baby been? Is her appetite good?"

  "She's been just fine, Dr. Eide," Mrs. Everhart replied proudly. "And my, yes, what an appetite. I believe she's put on a pound or two just in the last couple of days."

  "Good, good," Papa said. "And the rest of the family?"

  "Everyone's as good as can be expected. Tom's in town again looking for work, but the boys are here." She looked over her shoulder into the dark shack. "Boys? Come on and say hello to Dr. Eide and his daughter."

  Two young boys, about eight and six, dutifully came to the door and offered their indifferent greetings.

  "And how are you boys doing?" Papa asked.

  "All right," responded the older of the two, though in a voice so low I could hardly hear him.

  "What do you think of that brewer's yeast I left with your mother?"

  The older boy wrinkled his nose, and the younger clamped his shut with his forefinger and thumb. Both shook their heads.

  "Doesn't taste so good, huh?"

  "They don't like it," their mother said, "but they're drinking it."

  Papa studied the two cherubic but dirt-smudged faces. He asked the boys to hold out their hands, which they obediently did. Papa inspected the back of each hand, turned them over gently and inspected the palms, then looked up and down each bare arm. I didn't know what he was looking for at the time, and I can only speculate now that he was checking for the red splotches that came with pellagra. He asked Mrs. Everhart some questions about the family's diet, questions she answered almost apologetically. Papa reminded her that one of the missions downtown handed out milk for children, and Mrs. Everhart remarked that Tom had taken the boys there on occasion, but even so, their thirst for milk was never satisfied.

  "If they can get even one glass a day, that would help," Papa instructed.

  "We'll do our best, Doctor. It's a long hot walk into town. Tom's the only one who has the strength to do it every day."

  Papa gave the woman a few more words of medical advice and another bottle of brewer's yeast, then turned to go. I hadn't been able to take my eyes off the pale round faces of the little boys. They weren't much younger than my own brother, Simon, but they seemed so much smaller and rather helpless and pitiful.

  Impulsively, I asked, "Would
you like a blanket?"

  They stared at me with blank faces, then looked up at their mother for an explanation of what had just been said.

  "For the winter," I added. "I have some blankets here. You can have one if you'd like."

  The older of the two took a tentative step forward while gazing almost suspiciously at the contents of the wagon. Then he lifted his eyes to me without lifting his head. "Okay," he said, holding out his hands. I placed a blanket in his arms.

  Mrs. Everhart laid a hand on the boy's towhead. "What do you say, Tommy?"

  "Thank you," the boy responded mechanically.

  I smiled awkwardly. Never had I seen a child so lifeless, as though a plug had been pulled and all the humanness had been drained out of his little body. He must have sensed my curiosity and pity because he and his brother hastily disappeared again inside. Mrs. Everhart offered a few more words of thanks, then shut the door.

  Papa and I spent about three hours at the camp that afternoon. At least that's what I figured because three trains went by. I discovered early on that most of the people in Soo City, lacking pocket watches, kept track of the hours of the day by the passing of the trains. It must have wreaked havoc on their schedules when the trains were running late; but then again, I don't suppose the people who lived in the camp had to worry much about the time.

  Among those whom we saw and spoke with were a number I hadn't met on my previous visit. One was a young man called Longjohn, so named because he wore all of his clothes all year round, including his long johns, for fear that someone would steal them. He didn't actually have many items of clothing--a pair of pants, a couple of shirts, three pairs of socks, a light jacket, a cap, and of course the long underwear--but how he could wear it all with the heat the way it was, no one could figure out. It made me feel faint just to look at him. When Papa couldn't convince him to remove at least the extra undergarment, he suggested plenty of water to prevent dehydration. Mr. Longjohn said he preferred bootleg if he could get it. Papa told him he couldn't help him there.

  When Mr. Longjohn learned that I was handing out blankets, he said he'd like to have one, but could I put it aside and bring it around to him at first frost? Otherwise he'd have to wear the thing draped over his shoulders like a cloak, and he figured even he wouldn't survive that kind of bodily suffocation. I assured him I'd put a blanket aside for him and bring it around when he needed it.

  Shoes was a large middle-aged man who managed to earn pocket change by shining shoes, just as his nickname implied. He set himself up on the same street corner every morning and waited for business. There wasn't much, but he did have a few regular customers. Also, his corner being adjacent to one of the busier hotels, he got the business of the out-of-town salesmen who needed to look good to impress their customers. All in all, he got by fairly well and was known to bring back food and cigarettes from time to time for his buddies in the camp. Shoes took a blanket, one that Mrs. Mobley gave me that was thin and rather worn. In fact, when Shoes unfolded it, we discovered moths had chewed a couple of rather large holes right in the center. I tried to talk him into accepting a better blanket, but he insisted this was the best of the lot. I later learned that he had ripped the thing to shreds to use as rags for shining shoes--his plan from the beginning. The immediate need to keep his business going outweighed his future need for warmth in the winter. I thought him prudent and simply put aside another blanket, along with Longjohn's, to give to Shoes when winter came. I never did learn Shoes' real name, nor Longjohn's, either, for that matter.

  Another man put his blanket to immediate use by hanging it up in the entrance to his shack as a door. "At least until I can find a nice piece of wood to put up in its stead," said Ross Knutsen, otherwise known as Ross the Hoss for his muscular build and boundless energy. He'd spent most of his adult life working in logging camps in the Pacific Northwest but had ended up in Soo City some months back when he'd headed east in one freight train after another. He said he might be hopping the Soo Line again before winter, not because he held out much hope for finding a job, but just because he felt better when he was on the move.

  Quite a number of the men, like Ross the Hoss, predicted their own departures from Soo City in the not-too-distant future. "There ain't no work out there to be had," more than one said. "But a man's got to snoop around anyway, just in case the unexpected turns up." Most of those who had set their departure dates for sometime before winter said they had no use for blankets. "But thank you kindly, anyway."

  On the other hand, the women of the camp gladly emptied my wagon of its cargo. They all had children, and it was the children they were thinking of as they contemplated the coming snows. I figured as much, because the one characteristic common to nearly all the women was a look of unrelieved hunger on their faces. It was easy to imagine them giving most of whatever food they had to their children, while eating only enough themselves to stay alive.

  Alice Hunt was the woman I'd seen the previous week washing her family's clothes. She had four children. Two were in their teens, she said, and two under ten. Only the youngsters were with her that afternoon. The two older ones were in town with Mr. Hunt, looking for odd jobs to work in exchange for food. "Time was, when Stan and I had our farm," she told Papa, "I'd give a plate of food to every hungry man came round to our door looking for a handout. And now my own husband's one of those men going into town looking for work and asking for food. I never thought I'd see the day. But life's funny that way, ain't it, Doc? Something you don't expect happens and changes everything."

  "Life's always changing," Papa agreed, "sometimes for the better. Things won't always be the way they are now, Mrs. Hunt."

  The woman shook her head sadly. "I hope you're right, Doc," she said. "For my children's sake, I hope you're right."

  I happened to have Miss Cole's quilt with me at the time, so I gave it to Mrs. Hunt, figuring a woman would appreciate it more than a man. "My piano teacher sewed it herself," I explained.

  Mrs. Hunt examined several of the patches one by one, running her thick forefinger over the dainty stitches. "Now, why on earth would she want to give it away, I wonder? Maybe she'll regret it. Maybe she'll want it back--"

  I shook my head. "She said it was just sitting in a cedar chest picking up the smell and probably wouldn't ever be used for what it was made for. She wanted someone else to enjoy it."

  Mrs. Hunt lifted the quilt to her round face and sniffed. "It does smell of cedar," she said, smiling. "I used to have a cedar chest myself, filled with all sorts of quilts and blankets...." Her voice trailed off and her eyes took on the distant look of remembering.

  "I hope you'll enjoy sleeping under it, then," I remarked.

  "Oh, we will, no doubt," she replied. "Tell your piano teacher I appreciate her gift, will you?"

  I tried to give Mrs. Hunt two more blankets for her large family, but she would accept only one, saying she wouldn't feel right taking more than her share.

  One man whom neither Papa nor I had met before was Steel O'Neil. When we came across him, he was sitting on an upturned cinder block staring at a photograph. We paused beside him, and without a word of introduction, he looked up and offered us the photo. "My wife and daughter," he explained, a mixture of pride and longing in his voice.

  Papa accepted the photo and studied it with an air of genuine interest. "Nice-looking family you've got," he replied. He handed me the photo and held out a hand to the man on the block. "I'm William Eide, and this is my daughter, Ginny."

  The man shook Papa's hand and said, "Proud to know you. Name's Pete O'Neil, but around here they call me Steel. Steel O'Neil. Got quite a ring to it, don't it?"

  "You've been in the steel mills, then?" Papa asked.

  The man nodded. "Twenty years in the mills back in Pittsburgh. That's my home. Left school and started working when I was sixteen and never missed a day till I got laid off."

  After some quick calculation, I realized that this man was some ten years younger than Papa, though he l
ooked ten years older. His hair was almost completely gray, and the deeply tanned skin of his face was leathery and wrinkled. His only young feature was his startling blue eyes, with which he stared up at us beseechingly, as if he was afraid we would walk away without giving him a moment of companionship.

  He continued hurriedly. "Got laid off about six months ago and started riding the rails. The Soo line brought me here a couple days ago. Word had it this shack was empty"--he nodded toward the shanty behind him--"so I thought I'd move in for a time. The man who had it before me hopped the line going south. I wish him luck."

  The man's story made me think of a hermit crab finding an empty shell and moving in.

  "Is your family still in Pittsburgh, Mr. O'Neil?" Papa asked.

  "Call me Pete," the man offered. "It's just easier."

  "All right, Pete."

  The man took the picture from me, stared at it another moment, and nodded. "Yeah, had to leave them behind in Pittsburgh. I'm hoping to find work somewhere and send home most of the money."

  It was a tune Papa and I had heard before. It was the theme song of the Depression.

  "Your daughter's very pretty, Mr. O'Neil," I volunteered, hoping to say something to cheer him up.

  The man nodded appreciatively again, then smiled. "Looks a little bit like you, I think."

  Though she looked nothing like me at all--she had long dark hair, fine features, and an enviable smile--the comment endeared me to Steel O'Neil for life. It was a rare day that a stranger implied that I was pretty.