A Room of My Own

by Ann Tatlock

  "You must miss your family very much, Pete," Papa said.

  The man sighed heavily. "Never spent so much as a night away from them till now. I'd jump on a train this minute if I heard even a rumor there was work back in Pittsburgh."

  "You traveling alone, Pete?"

  "More or less. You meet people, you know, people that are going your way, and you travel with them maybe a day or two, maybe more. But everybody's going in a hundred different directions, looking for the one road that'll lead to a little bit of pocket change and a hot meal."

  "Do you expect to be around here long?"

  "Can't say." He looked up at Papa and squinted against the sun. "You don't know of any place in town that's hiring, do you?"

  "No," Papa said. "Wish I could say otherwise, but I don't know of a single place that's hiring."

  "I thought not," the man said without rancor. "But I think I'll makes the rounds of the town and see for myself. It can't hurt."

  "No," Papa agreed, "it can't hurt."

  "Say," the man peered at us through narrowed eyes as though we had just come into focus. "You're not from around here, are you?" He waved a hand to indicate that he was talking about the shantytown.

  "We live about two miles from here. I'm a doctor--" Papa lifted the medical bag slightly to offer proof of his profession. Apparently the man hadn't noticed the bag before. "I like to stop by a couple times a week to see if anyone needs anything."

  "Well, now, that's good of you, Doc. It's not everyone who'd volunteer to set foot in this camp. Can't blame them, though. No one'd be here if they didn't have to be."

  Since Papa had led the way for my speech, I said, "I've got some blankets I'm trying to get rid of, Mr. O'Neil. It's going to be pretty cold around here when winter comes. Would you like to have one?"

  The man smiled at me, and his blue eyes sparkled. "That's right kind of you, but I'm not needing a blanket. This shanty came with one. Man before me must have left it behind." I was disappointed that I couldn't give a blanket to Steel O'Neil in exchange for his compliment, but when the man spoke again, I was mollified by his request for something else. "I'm not ashamed to say it can get plenty lonely at times, being away from the family and all. I'd be proud if you two came around again, just to pass the time of day."

  "We'd be pleased to do that, Pete," Papa said, while I nodded in agreement. "And if you ever need anything, you let me know."

  The man held out his hand. "I'll do that, Doc. Thanks for stopping by. And thanks for the offer of the blanket--sorry, I'm afraid I've forgot your name already."

  "Virginia," I replied.

  "Pretty name," said Steel, thereby gaining another point in my book. "My daughter's name is Elizabeth Lee."

  "That's pretty, too," I said.

  Steel O'Neil shook my hand and said, "Be seeing you, Virginia."

  Papa and I said good-bye, but before we could get very far, Steel O'Neil called to Papa, "Say, Doc?"

  "Yes, Pete?"

  The man hesitated, pursing his lips thoughtfully. Then sheepishly he asked, "If I wrote a letter to my wife and daughter, you reckon it'd be too much to ask you to mail it? I don't have the money for so much as a stamp."

  "You write all the letters you want, Pete, and I'll see they're posted."

  The man swallowed, nodded, and raised a hand but didn't say another word. Papa and I moved on, with Papa's whistling and the squeaking of the wagon wheels accompanying our stride. People could hear us coming, and some showed up in their doorways to talk with Papa. I was curious to get a glimpse of John Jones the Communist, but we didn't meet anyone by that name. I figured he must have been away at one of his Party gatherings. We didn't run into Dick Mason, either, so Papa couldn't ask him about the Unemployed Council. The three musicians were nowhere to be seen, as well, and when I asked Papa about it, someone who overheard my question called out, "They've gone to Hollywood to be in pictures and get rich." But the comment was followed by snickers and laughter, and I knew it wasn't true.

  We made a stop at Mr. Lucky's house, where Papa changed the bandages on the old man's hands, commenting that the burns were healing nicely. "Another week or so and the bandages can come off for good," Papa announced. Mr. Lucky received the blanket I offered him with his usual drawn-out laugh, an expression of unbridled glee if I ever heard one. He said he'd let T-Bone use it as a bed until the cold set in. "Might just rest my head on a corner of it, too," Mr. Lucky said, "if T-Bone don't decide to hog it all for himself."

  "Tell him he has to share," I told Mr. Lucky, a comment that elicited another piercing shriek from the man.

  "Didn't share his soup bone with me," Mr. Lucky sputtered through his laughter. "Don't know why he'd up and decide to share his blanket with me now."

  At the mention of a soup bone, T-Bone's ears perked up, but Papa apologized to the canine, saying the butcher's daughter's ringworm had cleared up, and the remainder of his payment had already been made in cash.

  After several return trips to the car, all twenty-two blankets were given new homes. Surprisingly, two or three men approached me for one after I'd run out. I assured them I'd be collecting more and would bring them around soon.

  That night we tried to escape the heat by sleeping outside on sheets in the backyard. The heat was less intense outdoors, the breezes easier to catch, and we might have spent more nights outside on the ground that summer if it hadn't been for the parties of mosquitoes that delighted in buzzing about our heads while growing drunk on our blood.

  Although Mother refused to sleep outdoors herself ("What would the neighbors think if they saw me sprawled out all over the grass in my nightgown?"), she laid out sheets for the rest of us and, as usual, cooled our pillowcases in the icebox. Normally I didn't go to bed as early as my sisters, but since they wouldn't sleep outside without me, I gave in to their pleas and joined them. The three of us lay down on the cushion of soft grass, one of them on either side of me, and before I could finish telling them the story of Rumpelstiltskin, they were both settled deep into sleep. I lay awake a long while looking up at the stars. I realized that I had never before simply lain on the ground and stared up at the night sky, and I marveled that something as awful as the heat had initiated my first prolonged look at something so beautiful. I was certain I knew now why newlyweds sat on hotel balconies gazing up at the moon and stars. Surely nothing could be more romantic than the heavens stretched out endlessly overhead. Did the people in Soo City, I wondered, ever leave their shanties at night to look up at the sky? But perhaps the view wasn't so grand from there, especially when they had no clean linens between themselves and the ground and no cooled pillowcases on which to rest their heads.

  I turned on my side toward my little sister Molly. She lay peacefully, her doll clutched in her arms, her sweet child's breath escaping lazily from her open mouth. She looked as though she hadn't a care in the world, and indeed, I don't believe she had. I wanted it always to be that way for her and for Claudia. I planted a kiss on the warm cheek of first one and then the other before closing my own eyes to sleep. I had begun to drift off when Simon came out to join us. Then Rufus and Luke, Aunt Sally and Uncle Jim, and even Dr. Hal. Papa stayed inside with Mother.

  The nine of us lay side by side beneath the stars, surrounded by the chirping host of cicadas and katydids. The last thing I heard before the night songs finally lulled me to sleep was Aunt Sally's voice, speaking to no one in particular, or perhaps simply to the sliver of moon overhead. "I wonder where Jimmy Jr. is tonight."

  Chapter Fourteen

  On Monday, the first of August, at eleven-thirty in the morning, the workers of the Thiel Grain Mill walked off the job and formally declared themselves on strike. Even though Uncle Jim was no longer employed there, he was with the men when the picket line started to march at noon.

  I had been so caught up in what was happening in Soo City that I hadn't given much thought to the grain mill. But now I couldn't help thinking about it. Rex Atwater had come around late the previous e
vening to let the grown-ups know that the negotiations had broken down and the only alternative left was to strike. Mother told me the news first thing in the morning, and the weariness on her face let me know that she'd hardly slept a wink all night. I'm not sure any of the grown-ups did because they all looked pretty tired and solemn. Uncle Jim left the house early without stopping for so much as a cup of coffee. Mother and Aunt Sally made pancakes and bacon for breakfast, and by the time Papa and Dr. Hal joined us, the tension in the house was heavy as a thundercloud. We ate mostly in silence--Dr. Hal didn't even bother to read to us from Walter Lippmann--and when we finished, Papa went off to the office without whistling, a sure sign that he was worried and distracted.

  My brother, sisters, and cousins sat down to breakfast after the rest of us, which was the usual routine. We couldn't fit all eleven in our household around the kitchen table at once, so we fell into the habit of eating in shifts. Aunt Sally laid a platter of pancakes on the table and announced evenly, as though she were speaking of an upcoming church picnic, "Rufus, Luke, the strike will be starting today. We must all remember to pray for your father's safety and for the safety of everyone involved. Let's hope the strike is settled quickly."

  "Is Pa going to fight the mill owners, Mama?" Luke cried.

  "Only in a matter of speaking, Luke," Aunt Sally said calmly. It wasn't going to take much for her cool exterior to crumble, though, and if anyone was capable of causing the first crack it was Luke.

  "Will there be guns and shooting and stuff?" Luke pressed.

  "Certainly not!" Aunt Sally snapped. Her face blanched as white as the milk she was pouring into Luke's glass.

  "Quiet, Luke," Rufus muttered as he dribbled molasses over his pancakes. "Don't talk about stuff like that in front of Ma."

  Aunt Sally, flustered, set the pitcher of milk down on the counter, removed her apron, and told Mother she might as well start in on the laundry. Mother said she'd be down to join her in a minute, but her words were lost to Aunt Sally's pounding footfalls on the basement stairs as she hurried away. I paused in my dishwashing at the kitchen sink long enough to cast Luke an unmistakable glare of contempt. Luke responded by rolling out the whole of his tongue at me, upon which sat the half-chewed remains of his latest bite of pancake. Mother turned from the pantry just in time to catch him and warned that if he didn't straighten up, she'd see to it that he wouldn't be able to sit down for a week.

  After that our morning fell into its usual routine, though our movements were hampered by the lingering cloud of tension. I was pinning shirts and dresses and sheets to the clothesline and wishing my Charlies would come to our rescue when the men of the grain mill walked out shortly before noon.

  Uncle Jim stayed at the strike headquarters until late into the night, but that evening everyone else in the house, including Papa, gathered around the radio--cold drinks in one hand and funeral parlor fans in the other--to listen to the news reports of the strike. The event had begun smoothly enough with words the only weapons used on either side. Rex Atwater was quoted as saying he hoped employers and employees could come to a peaceful resolution of their differences. Rufus and Luke hoped their father would be quoted over the radio, too, but he wasn't.

  We listened to the rest of the national news--none of which was very hopeful as far as the economy was concerned--and when "Happy Days Are Here Again" started to play, Aunt Sally rose and turned off the radio. She straightened her back and took a deep breath before she spoke. "Beginning tomorrow," she said, "I'll be gone most every morning. I promised Jim I'd help out down at the commissary, serving breakfast and lunch to the strikers." She went on to tell us that the strike machine was up and fully functioning--with the union assured of receiving all the supplies and voluntary support they might need--and the grain mill workers were settled in for the long haul. No one, Aunt Sally explained, could anticipate how long the strike might last, maybe only days, maybe weeks. "While I'm gone, Rufus and Luke," she continued, turning to her sons, "I want you both to make yourself useful around here and do whatever Aunt Lillian might ask of you." She looked at her sister, and the two women nodded to each other.

  "Yes, Ma," Rufus and Luke grudgingly consented in unison.

  "Harold, when will you be putting in your time at the strike hospital?" Papa asked.

  Dr. Hal shrugged. "Whenever they need me, I guess. I'm hoping, of course, there won't be much need for a doctor."

  It looked as if Dr. Hal was going to get his wish, because the second day of the strike was quiet, and so was the third. About two hundred men at a time marched on the picket line for two-hour intervals, then returned to the strike headquarters for a meal or a cup of coffee. When one group of picketers went off duty, another took its place. They were under constant police surveillance, with the uniformed men walking their new beat in stiff and measured steps not far from the strikers. Uncle Jim said it was like waiting for fireworks to go off. But during that first week everything was quiet. Emerson Thiel and his two sons, Albert and Arthur, the owners of the mill, didn't even try to keep the mill open by bringing in strikebreakers. It was as though the owners and the strikers were just kind of sniffing each other out, trying each to see what they could expect from the other side.

  We saw almost nothing at all of Uncle Jim once the strike started, and Aunt Sally generally didn't arrive home from the commissary until early afternoon. Dr. Hal was on alert for his call, but during that first week no call came, and he went about his usual business of tending to the daily fare of illnesses and ailments that trotted through the office.

  On Wednesday afternoon, the third day of the strike, Papa called me into his office and asked if I'd like to make a run out to Soo City with him.

  "But it's only Wednesday, Papa," I responded in surprise.

  "Well?" he asked.

  "We always go to Soo City together on Friday."

  Papa laughed. "It hasn't been made into law, has it, that we go there only on Fridays? I had to pull a youngster's tooth a couple days ago, and I want to check on him and make sure there's no infection. Are you too busy to come?"

  I pursed my lips, wondering what Mother would think. "Well, I finished practicing the piano, and I've done the lunch dishes."

  "Then let's go," Papa said.

  Reluctantly, I asked, "Do you think Mama will mind?"

  "Don't see why she should," came the reply, "as long as your chores are done. Besides, the folks down at Soo City are beginning to mind when you don't come with me. Whenever I show up alone, there's not a soul who doesn't ask me where you are."

  "Really, Papa?"

  "Just the other day Longjohn said that when I make my rounds by myself it's like seeing Laurel without Hardy or Burns without Allen. `It just don't seem right,' he said."

  "You mean they like me to come with you?"

  Papa laughed again and patted my arm. "Now, what do you think?" he asked.

  I was enormously pleased to think I had won the affections of the people of Soo City. I rushed from Papa's inner office out to the waiting room to check the contents of the blanket box.

  "Never mind about that now," Papa said. He followed me into the empty waiting room with his medical bag in hand. "We'll take the blankets in on Friday as usual."

  The boy who'd had his tooth pulled was the younger son of Alice Hunt. As we approached their shanty, we spotted Mrs. Hunt and one of her daughters sitting directly on the ground just outside the door. I hadn't seen Mrs. Hunt's eldest daughter before. The two of them sat cross-legged in the dirt with white enamel bowls cradled in their laps, the hems of their dresses tucked down around their knees. Mrs. Hunt was wearing the same gray cotton dress she had on the first time I saw her, and the scuffed tips of a pair of leather shoes stuck out from beneath either side of her wide lap. Her daughter, a thin girl with limp blond hair, wore a sleeveless pale blue dress. She was barefoot and it was the tips of her toes that poked out from beneath her slender thighs. A third and larger bowl sat on the ground between them into which they rep
eatedly dipped a hand and pulled something out. When we got closer I could see they were shelling peas. I could also better view the daughter's face. Her skin was mottled, perhaps by the heat, and her face was almost too thin, but she was pretty in a raw sort of way. Could she have gone to Charlotte's house and taken advantage of the boxes of cosmetics and jewelry, she would no doubt have been quite pretty. A little mascara to perk up the doleful eyes, a little rouge to highlight the cheekbones, a swish of lipstick to color the lips, a few rag curlers to add some waves to the hair. She certainly had potential. But here in Soo City she was colorless and forlorn, like the camp itself, and a person had to be content to imagine her beauty.

  "Good afternoon, Mrs. Hunt, Lela," Papa said as we reached them.

  "Well, howdy, Doc Eide," Mrs. Hunt replied.

  The girl glanced up and offered Papa a brief smile. Then, the smile gone, her eyes came to rest on me while her mother continued.

  "You caught us fixing supper. Got a treat for tonight. Stan came home last night with a couple pounds of fresh peas he picked up for running some errands for the grocer down at the IGA. He's there now, hoping to exchange a few hours' work for some meat or maybe a few eggs. That grocer--he's a good man. Some of us around here would be a lot more hungry if it weren't for that man's generosity."

  Papa nodded. "Sam Gallagher's a fine fellow. My wife's been a customer of his for years, and he's always treated us fair."

  "More than fair, I'd say, when it comes to his dealings with Stan and some of the other men out of work. Stan says he's seen Mr. Gallagher put aside vegetables and bread and all sorts of food soon as it comes into the store, and then when the unemployed come around hoping for scraps, Mr. Gallagher gives them this nice fresh food saying it's leftovers and too old to sell. Stan asked him why he did it, and Mr. Gallagher said he'd spent too many days watching men digging through his trash bins out behind the store, and it near killed him. He said, `Here I am surrounded by food while my fellowman starves, and it just ain't right.' He probably don't need Stan running errands for him, probably would give him food just for the asking, but I reckon he wants to help a man hold on to his pride if there's any hope at all of holding on to it."