A Room of My Own

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A Room of My Own Page 20

by Ann Tatlock


  "That's important in times like these, Mrs. Hunt. Though I'm sure your husband is giving an honest day's work for an honest day's pay."

  "All I know is whenever Mr. Gallagher finds something for Stan to do down at the store, Stan comes home looking like he used to look when we had a bumper crop. That makes us all feel a little bit better, that's sure. He ain't so easy to live with otherwise. Anyway, I suppose you're wanting to see Ben?"

  "I just thought I'd take at peek in his mouth to make sure there's no infection," Papa said.

  "He seems fine," Mrs. Hunt offered. "He's not complaining, anyway."

  "Is he here? It'll just take a moment."

  Mrs. Hunt moved her round head from side to side. "He went down to the river to play with his brother and some of the other youngsters, but I'll have Sissy run and fetch him. Sissy!" The woman called the name over her shoulder, flinging it like a scolding toward the door of the shack.

  In a moment the door opened and a small girl appeared. She was a younger version of the daughter who sat shelling peas, except that her hair was clipped to just below her ears and her face was still ripe with baby fat. Otherwise, she had the same pale coloring, the same wistful blue eyes, the same long limbs and narrow naked feet.

  "Yes, Mama?" she asked, her hand resting on the door as though she wanted to be able to shut it quickly and retreat inside again.

  "Run down to the river and fetch Ben, will you? The doctor's here to see him."

  "All right." The child cast timid eyes up at Papa and moved reluctantly out of the shelter of the dim shack.

  Before she could slip away to the river, Papa suggested, "Tell you what, Sissy, why don't I come along with you? That way Ben doesn't have to be called away from his friends, and I can see a number of the children at once."

  The child lifted her bony shoulders in a shrug, then turned and led the way, her small bare feet kicking up dust as she walked. I took a step to follow, but Mrs. Hunt said, "Why don't you sit with us awhile, Virginia? We don't get many visitors around here."

  I looked to Papa for guidance, unsure of what he would want me to do. "Go ahead, Ginny," he instructed. "I won't be long."

  I was reluctant to sit directly on the ground, but then again I could hardly stand about hovering over these two people, giving the impression I was too good to join them. The image of Mother's Monday afternoon hands--raw and chapped and wrinkled after scrubbing a household of laundry--pricked my conscience as I settled clumsily into the dirt, but I tried to hide my discomfort with an awkward smile. I had come to the camp with the anticipation of seeing friends--after all, people had been asking for me, wanted me to come--but suddenly I felt myself among strangers, and I was shy and ill at ease. Knowing I ought to be friendly and say something, I was appalled to find myself unable to roll so much as a single word off my tongue. I looked to Mrs. Hunt to say something, but she simply sat serenely shelling the peas. Apparently she had exhausted her arsenal of words while Papa was there.

  The awkward moment of silence was broken when the girl said, "I seen you around here before with your pa."

  Her words sounded almost like an accusation, as if I'd trespassed on private property. I wasn't quite sure to how to respond.

  "Uh-huh." It was all I could manage.

  "You're the one brought around the quilt and the blanket."

  "Yeah."

  "The quilt smells good. Like cedar."

  "I'm glad you like it."

  "Your name Ginny?"

  "Well, Virginia, really."

  "Mine's Lela. My ma says I'm named after some stage actress, but she doesn't remember who it was. She saw her once on vaudeville and remembered the name Lela, so that's what she named me. I'd like to be an actress on the stage or maybe in the pictures, wouldn't you?"

  I'd never seriously considered this a possibility for myself. If my dramatic talents were as questionable as my musical talents, I didn't stand a chance.

  Without waiting for my answer, Lela went on. "Just imagine being up there on the stage, all dressed up in beautiful clothes with jewelry and lipstick and maybe even a little beauty mark right here on your face"--with her index finger she touched a spot just to the right of her lower lip--"and everyone watching and thinking how pretty and talented you are...." Her voice trailed off and she got that distant look in her eyes that comes from seeing something that isn't there. But then, so abruptly that it startled me, she turned to me and asked, "So who're you named after?"

  "Well, um, nobody. At least nobody I know of."

  "Oh." She stared at me a moment before going back to shelling peas. "How old are you, Virginia?"

  "Thirteen."

  "I'm fifteen." The brief smile of satisfaction that curved the end of her lips seemed to say she'd somehow outdone me by being born earlier. "I don't suppose you have a boyfriend, do you?"

  "No," I confessed. I shifted my position in the dirt. The hard earth pressing against my ankles had left my feet tingling.

  "I had a boyfriend once, but not anymore."

  "Thank the Lord for small favors," her mother interjected without looking up from the bowl of peas in her lap.

  "Mama!" the girl protested. "There was nothing wrong with Walter."

  "There wasn't much right about him, either," Mrs. Hunt countered.

  While they argued about Walter for a moment, I wondered whether I ought to offer to help them with the peas, but I was too timid to speak up and too shy to stick my hand into the bowl and just start shelling without permission. I looked beyond the women to the river to see if I could catch a glimpse of Papa. I hoped he'd hurry back.

  My attention was pulled back to the girl when she said, "I suppose you live in the city?"

  I nodded. "Not too far from here."

  "You have a garden?" The girl's lower lip curled downward in a small pout, as if she expected to be disappointed by my answer.

  "Oh yes," I assured her. "Tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers--"

  "We had a whole farm once, didn't we, Ma?"

  Mrs. Hunt nodded.

  Lela, apparently unaware that she had interrupted me, continued. "We grew corn mostly. But Ma had a great big vegetable garden practically right outside our back door. We grew everything you could think of. Best tomatoes you ever ate. And squash and green peppers and rhubarb and peas. Better peas than these." The girl shoved her open palm toward me so I could inspect the little green orbs nestled in the creases of her hand. They didn't look like bad peas to me. When she figured I'd gotten enough of a look, she tossed the peas into the bowl on her lap and sighed. "I sure wish we could go back home again. I miss that garden."

  "Ha!" Mrs. Hunt cried, looking up from her work for the first time. "It was like pulling teeth to get you to go out and water and weed. You hated that garden and you know it."

  "I did not, Mama!"

  "Then how come you said you did every time I sent you out to work in it?"

  The girl stuck out her lower lip again. A strand of her dusty blond hair fell forward over her face as she worked, and she tucked it back behind her right ear with a quick movement of her slender hand. "I did so love that garden, Mama," she finally said defensively. "I just didn't know it till we didn't have it anymore."

  "You always said you hated living on a farm, hated being a farmer's daughter. All you ever talked about was living in the city. Well, here we are, living in a city right on the shirttail of the city, and you're still not satisfied."

  "Well, Soo City isn't exactly what I meant, Mama."

  "At least you're finally off the farm."

  "I just said--oh, never mind." Her cheeks grew all the more mottled as she swallowed her annoyance. Finally she pushed her mother's comments aside and changed the subject. "You wanna get married when you grow up?" When she looked at me, her eyes sparkled for the first time.

  "Well, yeah, sure," I muttered. Of course I did. Didn't everyone?

  The girl lifted her slender face toward the sky as though her dream castle was floating somewhere just overhead. "I wan
na get married and have a big house in the city. I wanna have pretty china and silk sheets to sleep on and a maid and a cook and lots of children and--"

  "I thought you said you missed the farm."

  "Oh, Mama."

  "The problem with you, child, is you don't know what you want."

  "Yes, I do!" Lela retorted. "I know what I want. I want to be happy. Nothing wrong with that, is there?"

  She directed this last question toward me in such a way as to make me feel that somehow I ought to rise to her defense. I opened my mouth to speak--though had I actually had the chance I don't know what I would have said.

  Before I could say anything, Lela herself interrupted me by adding, "I got dreams that are going to come true, Mama, whether you like it or not."

  "We all got dreams, Lela," the woman replied wearily, not lifting her eyes from her hands still shelling the peas. "But that don't make much difference in this world."

  Just then I saw Papa approaching the shack from the direction of the river, and I scrambled up quickly from the ground. "Well, here's my pa," I said, slapping furiously at the dusty seat of my dress. "I guess I better go."

  "Been nice visiting with you, Virginia," Mrs. Hunt said, looking up at me and squinting against the sun. Her hands, poised to pinch open a pea pod at either end, paused while she said good-bye. "Stop by again sometime real soon, will you?"

  "Sure," I promised reluctantly. I didn't like it when grown-ups started talking about dreams not coming true. Mothers, I thought, were notorious for doing that. My mother, Charlotte's mother, Mrs. Hunt. They'd been around longer than I had, long enough to know more than I did, but I told myself that if their dreams hadn't come true it was their own fault. They just hadn't tried hard enough. That being so, what right did they have to scare me into thinking the future might be nothing but one big disappointment?

  "Ben looks just fine," Papa called loudly as he approached us. In another moment he had reached the Hunts' shanty, smiling. He always enjoyed being the bearer of good news. "No sign of infection."

  "Thanks for checking, Doc."

  "I hate to tear Virginia away from you, but I need my assistant--"

  "Not to worry, Doc," Mrs. Hunt said. "We've been having a nice visit, but I know you have other people to see."

  "I'll be back around in a few days."

  "We'll still be here, I'm sure. Well, good-bye now, Virginia."

  "Good-bye, Mrs. Hunt. Good-bye, Lela."

  The girl cupped her brow with one hand against the sun and looked up at me. She appeared about to say something of importance but only said, "See ya, Virginia," and went back to the peas.

  I walked away gratefully, trailing after Papa. Lela Hunt and her mother and their lost farm and their thwarted dreams had left me feeling sad. Fortunately, I didn't have too much time to dwell on it. In another moment a young man came running up Hoover Avenue yelling, "Doc, there's a man cut his hand real bad on a rusty tin can trying to get 'er open. Can you come--"

  "Lead the way," Papa said. The man turned on his heels and started in the opposite direction, with Papa and me hurrying after. On one of the smaller roads off Hoover Avenue, up toward the tracks, we came upon the wounded fellow sitting next to a small sputtering campfire, his right hand cradled in his left. The handkerchief he had wrapped around his palm was soaked with blood. The assailing can of beans lay on its side near the fire, half its contents spilled out over the ground. "Lucky you were here today, Doc," the young man said as we reached him. "Otherwise I just mighta bled to death. Just about cut my hand clean in two. Might need a couple of stitches."

  "Well, let's just take a look." Papa rolled up his sleeves and cupped his hands in front of me. I knew what to do. Since the beginning it had been my job to pour alcohol over Papa's hands between patients. After he patted his palms dry with the towel, he knelt down on the ground beside the young man while I stood by with the medical bag. I watched my father carefully unwrap the bloody handkerchief and make a cursory inspection of the wound. "Virginia," he said, "hand me some cotton and the bottle of rubbing alcohol, will you? And the bottle of antiseptic." I felt like a bona fide nurse as I opened the black bag and picked out what Papa had asked for. When the hand was cleaned and the bleeding partially stanched with a wad of gauze, Papa inspected it again. A thin red line ran the length of the man's calloused palm. "Don't think you'll need those stitches after all," Papa decided. "The wound's not deep--just long. All the blood made it look worse than it is. But I'll wrap it up good and tight to make sure it doesn't get infected. By the way, I don't think I've seen you around here before. I'm Dr. Eide. And you're--?"

  "Name's Judson Breemer," came the reply. "I only been here a couple of days. Been fortunate enough to take up with Scott here." He looked up at the man who'd rushed down Hoover Avenue to get us.

  Papa nodded. I figured he and Scott were already acquainted.

  "I've been riding the rails the past couple of months...."

  While the three men talked and Papa worked, I inspected the contents of the medical bag, fingering the stethoscope, the bottles of Mercurochrome and aspirin and rubbing alcohol, the lint and cotton and gauze, the applicators and tongue depressors, the syringes with anti-tetanus shots, one of which was used on our current patient. I couldn't help feeling a certain awe at these tools of Papa's trade. The contents of this little bag could help people get better, could maybe even save their lives. That seemed a wonderful thing, and I ran my hand over the worn leather bag proudly.

  "Thanks, Doc," the wounded man said as my father stood and stretched his legs and rolled down his sleeves.

  "It'll ache for a while," Papa warned, "but I'll leave some aspirin with you. And I'll come around again in a few days to see how it's healing."

  That afternoon, Papa made a point of hunting down Dick Mason. We found him in the common pose of the men of Soo City, sitting in the doorway of his shack smoking a cigarette. He had forgone the razor for a couple of days, and the gray of his whiskers made him look surprisingly older. Every time we saw him, I thought he appeared a little bit less like a gentleman and a little more like the regular hobos that had long inhabited the jungle.

  Papa settled himself on what passed for lawn furniture around there, an upturned cinder block. I leaned up against the shack, the medical bag resting against my knees. Papa took off his glasses in his customary way and with his handkerchief wiped the sweat off his face before cleaning the lenses.

  After a few moments of small talk, Papa asked Mr. Mason, "The men have heard about the strike that started at the grain mill, haven't they?"

  Mr. Mason nodded and blew smoke out the side of his mouth. "Oh, sure," he said. "Word gets around pretty fast."

  "Have you heard any talk about strikebreaking?"

  "Around here?" Mr. Mason shook his head emphatically. He threw the butt of his cigarette on the ground and crushed it beneath the heel of his worn shoe. "We may be down on our luck, Dr. Eide, but I don't think there's a man among us who wouldn't rather starve than be a scab. No, there's been no talk of breaking the picket line, I can assure you of that."

  Papa put his glasses back on and thought a moment. "Must be tempting, though. Especially for those who have families to feed."

  "Maybe," Dick Mason agreed. "But we know what those strikers are trying to do, and we're on their side. I for one couldn't live with myself if I knew I had a part in undermining their efforts."

  "I'm glad that's how you men feel, Dick," Papa said. "I've got a brother-in-law on that picket line, and I have to say my sentiments are on the side of the workers, too."

  "Can't say I blame you, Doc."

  "I'd be on the side of the workers even if my brother-in-law weren't on the line, though, and that's a fact."

  Dick Mason acknowledged Papa's words with a nod.

  Papa continued. "I suspect the mill owners will try to bring in scabs at some point, but I'd hate it if any of them were men from this camp."

  "Like I say, you don't need to worry there, Doc."
<
br />   "What's the word on Mr. Jones?" Papa asked.

  "He keeps himself busy trying to hold meetings with the men and handing out the Daily Worker and pamphlets and other Red propaganda."

  "Do the men accept the literature?"

  "Yeah, but only to use as fuel for their fires when it comes time to warm up a can of beans."

  "So he's not having much luck?"

  "A few men meet with him regularly. But if you mean, has he succeeded in forming that Unemployed Council yet, then no. Not that I'm aware of, anyway. He's determined, though. All those Commies are. They all work harder than Billy Sunday spreading their Red gospel. They'd put a lot of church workers to shame."

  Dick Mason lighted another cigarette, and Papa talked for a while about the general conditions of Soo City until Mr. Mason interrupted him and pointed briefly with the hand that held the cigarette. "That's him now. Talking with Hoss Knutsen."

  All three of us looked down the avenue to where two men stood talking in the middle of the dirt road. I recognized Ross the Hoss, so I deduced that the other man was John Jones. My initial reaction was one of disappointment. I don't know what I expected, but it must have been something other than an ordinary-looking man. Surely, I thought, the Communists must look like Communists, but since I didn't know what Communists looked like, I could only conclude from seeing Mr. Jones that they looked like everybody else. He was a thin man of average height and, from what I could tell, average appearance. Nothing at all about him set him apart from the other men of Soo City. I'd have to tap all the resources of my imagination to make him sound exciting when I described him to Charlotte.

  "So that's our Mr. Jones, is it?" Papa asked.

  "That's him," Dick Mason said simply.

  Papa stood. "Well, guess I'll move on." He extended a hand to Mr. Mason, who shook it.

  As Mr. Mason withdrew his hand, his face lighted up with sudden remembrance. "Say, Doc," he said, "I nearly forgot--don't know where my mind's at to forget something like this. A couple days ago the Soo line brought in someone from my own hometown--all the way from upstate New York."

 

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