American Struggle

by Veda Boyd Jones

  Across the room, Meg could see Fred with his fourth-grade classmates. His eyes were shining as he hung on every word. Fred might be ornery, but he had an inquiring mind. Meg didn’t doubt that one day Fred would be inventing things just like Cyrus McCormick. That is, if Papa would just give him a chance. If Fred were busy doing the things he truly loved to do, perhaps he wouldn’t make so much mischief.

  One display that was especially exciting was a cylinder called a Leyden jar that stored electricity. The teachers had groups of the students hold hands. The first person touched the top of the Leyden jar while the last person touched the side of the jar. Meg let out a squeal as she felt a tingly shock go through her. The amazing contraption, along with other demonstrations of electricity, had everyone talking and laughing. Mrs. Gravitt had a difficult time restoring order.

  “I wish Papa could see this,” Susannah was saying as they filed down the steps. “Why, he’d probably purchase one just to get laughs at the store.”

  Susannah went on chattering about the Leyden jar, but Meg no longer heard. On the landing stood the dark-haired boy. He was off to the side, letting the long lines of students go past. His eyes. Meg needed to see the eyes. She was on the side where he stood. She chanced one look. The eyes were wide and expressive. Dark brown, almost black, framed in dark lashes above the high cheekbones.

  She was five or six steps above the landing. She dared to take one more look. This time the dark eyes were looking square at her. He smiled, then nodded. Burning with embarrassment, Meg dropped her gaze and carefully managed her long skirts as she went down the steps. When she arrived on the landing, she brushed so close to him she could have reached out and touched his blue velvet coat. Softly he whispered, “Hello.”

  Meg quickened her step and hurried on down the stairs with

  Susannah close by her side. As they arrived in the massive front foyer, Susannah grabbed her arm. “Meg, wasn’t that the boy you saw the last time we were here? Have you been introduced to him? He acted as though he knew you.”

  “Now who has a dreamy imagination?” Meg teased her friend. “He was looking at everyone and smiling.”

  Susannah looked back over her shoulder. “What a handsome young man. I wonder who he is?”

  Meg didn’t bother to remind Susannah that she’d asked the same thing only a couple of weeks earlier. At least now Meg knew he was somehow associated with the institute.

  “Girls, girls,” Mrs. Gravitt said as she hovered behind them. “There’ll be no more talking. Another warning will give you both a demerit.”

  After Mrs. Gravitt shuffled on past, Susannah mouthed, “We’ll talk later.”

  But Meg knew there was nothing to talk about. She now had the face firmly in her mind and could easily improve on the first sketch she’d made. Whether she could imitate the light, life, and humor she saw in his eyes remained to be seen.

  Since Mama needed several items from the mercantile, the three Buehlers walked with the two Hendrickses from Liberty Street down to Vine after school. Fred could talk of nothing but the exhibits he’d seen. Meg had never seen him so excited. He was as full of energy as the Leyden jar.

  Unfortunately, Julia overheard Susannah remarking about the boy on the stairway, and she demanded to know what boy Susannah was talking about. Meg gave Susannah a worried look. She certainly didn’t want Julia or Fred to have another reason to torment her.

  “Nothing,” Susannah replied quickly. “Nothing at all. I don’t know what you thought you heard, but I said nothing about any boy.”

  “Has Meg got a feller?” Fred asked. “Tell us, Susannah. Does she?” Fred slapped his forehead in mock distress. “That’s all we need to make Meg owl about more—for her to be lovesick.”

  “You heard nothing of the kind, Fred,” Susannah said. “Now hush your talking about your sister.”

  Stephen echoed his sister’s words. “Let her be, Fred. She’s not done anything to deserve your teasing.”

  “Aw,” Fred retorted, “everybody babies poor little Meg. She gets away with everything.”

  Meg sensed that Susannah was ready to say something about the bad bump on Meg’s head, but Meg gave her a warning glance and shook her head. While she appreciated Stephen and Susannah standing up for her, it would only make things worse later.

  As they passed Bushnell’s stationers, Meg noticed a long rectangular box of colored charcoals in the window. On a small desk easel by the box was a still life of a vase of flowers obviously done in the charcoals. Meg hesitated for only a moment before hurrying by. How she would have loved to have lingered and studied the drawing more closely.

  Later, as she and Susannah looked over the November issue of Godey’s, Meg felt she needed to explain to Susannah about the young man at the institute. “I did look at him,” she confessed. “But only to study his face to be able to sketch it. I never expected him to look back at me.”

  “Then I wasn’t dreaming. He was returning your glance. And he did smile at you. Mm. And what a perfectly handsome smile it was, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to be forward.”

  “Of course you didn’t, Meg. I know that. But stop and think—he didn’t know he was being an art study.”

  Susannah was right, Meg knew. She’d been much too forward and daring. It made her feel very ashamed.

  “Make me a promise,” Susannah said.

  “What is that?”

  “May I please see the portrait when you finish it?”

  Meg hated to think about showing her work to anyone. “It would hardly be a portrait, Susannah. Just a sketch.”

  “But you’ll let me see, won’t you? Please? Your own best friend?”

  How could Meg refuse? Susannah had done so much for her. “All right. Yes, you’ll see the finished sketch.” How she would sneak it out of the house was another matter altogether.

  CHAPTER 10

  Meg’s Secret

  The next Saturday afternoon was Meg’s turn to walk to Oma’s for a visit. The German section of the city was bordered on two sides by the Miami Canal, so the community referred to the area as “Over the Rhine,” after the famous river that flowed through Germany.

  Oma often spoke of the beautiful Black Forest region east of the Rhine where she’d spent her days as a young girl. Meg was sure the Miami Canal looked nothing like the Rhine River in Germany.

  Mama often commented that Over the Rhine was a place more German than Germany itself. Immigrants clung to their language, customs, and love of food and music. While Meg enjoyed the friendly people, the growing prejudice in the city against all “foreigners” made her extremely uncomfortable.

  Meg’s basket was full of food for Oma, who hadn’t been getting around as well ever since the fall that hurt her ankle. As she made her way down Everett Street toward the canal bridge, Meg heard the horns that the captains blew to let others know their boat was coming.

  Meg stopped on the bridge to rest a moment and watched as the mules plodded steadily along the towpath, pulling the canal boat. Some boats traveling the canal were freight barges, but this particular one was a passenger boat painted white with trim, green shutters. In spite of the chilly November day, several passengers were enjoying the view from atop the boat.

  The young “hoggee,” armed with a long whip, walked on the path behind the mules. The large blinders on the bridles kept the mules from being distracted by activities going on about them. The hoggee used his whip to tell the mules to stop and go or pull the boat over to the side.

  As she watched the boats move lazily along the canal, Meg wondered what it would be like to travel on one. She could picture herself sitting on the top with other well-dressed ladies, watching the serene Ohio countryside glide by. Of course, she would be armed with a sketch pad in order to capture every changing scene.

  But there was no time for daydreaming. Meg just hoped no one from school saw her crossing into Germantown. She didn’t want to suffer the fate that Hulga and Ida faced each day.

 
Every shop in Germantown—each sporting German names—had window boxes where, in the spring and summer, flowers spilled over and brightened the scene. At the butcher shop, Mr. Ludwig, wearing a clean white apron, was sweeping his front steps. “Gute morgen, fraulein,” he called out to her, beaming his broad smile.

  “Good morning, Mr. Ludwig,” she answered politely.

  Meg continued down narrow streets past the rows and rows of little shops. Men dressed in woolen jackets and blue worsted pantaloons called out to one another in German words and phrases. From somewhere inside a building came the lilting melodies of a mouth harp. It reminded Meg of the music she used to hear during long summer evenings at her grandparents.

  When she was younger, she often sat with her grandparents on the front porch, listening to music drifting down the street from the biergartens. Though Opa never drank beer, he loved being able to hear the hand-clapping, oompah-pah German music. He and Oma would teach Meg traditional dances. Meg loved the laughter and fun. But now Opa’s gout didn’t allow him to dance.

  The homes in the neighborhood looked much like Meg’s own home on Everett Street, with neat gardens and a few chickens and freshly scrubbed front porches. As she approached Oma’s house, she saw that the front porch steps were spotless as ever. That meant that the neighbor women had given Oma a hand with the cleaning.

  Tapping at the door, she heard her Oma’s call to come inside. To her surprise, her short, stout Oma was up and about. Hobbling a bit, but doing well.

  She greeted Meg with a kiss on her cheek. “And what have we here?” she asked, looking at the basket. “Emma thinks her mutter can no longer cook, does she? Ach.” Oma gave a wave of her hand. “Up and about I am. You tell her.” Oma led the way to the kitchen in the back of the house.

  “I’ll tell her, Oma,” Meg said as she set the basket on the table and removed her cloak. Laying it over a chair, she began to put the things away that Mama had sent.

  “Come, come,” Oma said impatiently. “That work I can do when you are gone away. We’ll pour coffee and visit. I want to hear all that is doing in your life. You did not come last week. It was your time to come, but Frederick come in your place. I like to see Frederick, but I miss your visit.”

  Meg seldom knew how to fit a word in edgewise when Oma was talking. Perhaps that was why Mama grew up to be so quiet. Sometimes Oma lapsed into long phrases of German that left Meg puzzled.

  “You should speak der German, too,” she would say in a testy tone. “You are German. Germans speak der German.”

  Now Oma poured coffee and diluted Meg’s with thick cream and put in plenty of sugar. Slices of black bread were arranged on a tray and slathered with sweet butter. Meg helped pull chairs over by the fireplace in the small front room.

  She never did explain why she hadn’t come the previous Saturday, and evidently Oma forgot she’d even asked. Meg made polite conversation about subjects in school and the field trip to the institute. Her description of the tingling shock from the Leyden jar made Oma chuckle.

  Then Oma asked, “You have a suitor at school?”

  “Please, Oma. I’m not even thirteen. I’m much too young for a suitor.”

  “Ach! I was but thirteen when your Opa and I met, and we married. If you lived in our community, I could introduce you to nice German boys. Good boys work at the packing plant. Your children could go to our German school, go to our German church.”

  Meg shivered at the thought.

  “If only your papa hadn’t taken our Emma away from us.” Oma’s voice became wistful, her pale blue eyes sad. Meg had heard Oma make that statement dozens of times. Always the same words, always the same sad tone of voice. It was as if Ben Buehler had kidnapped Emma Schiller and moved to another country. In Oma’s mind it might just as well be.

  “Is the fall butchering under way?” Meg asked, trying to change the subject.

  “Under way, yes,” Oma said in a brighter tone. “More hogs this year than ever before. Walford, he still thinks the packing plant cannot run without him. He will breathe his last breath standing next to a sausage stuffer, I suppose.”

  Oma had finished her coffee and bread and taken up her embroidery work. Sometimes Meg brought along her knitting or quilting pieces, so the two of them could work together. But now that winter was coming on, daylight fled earlier, and the visits were much too short.

  On this day, Meg excused herself even earlier than usual. She had a plan. Over her grandmother’s protests, she put on her wrap and prepared to leave. Oma limped to her pantry to see what she could send back to her Emma’s house.

  Since both homes had the same of almost everything, Meg wondered why her mother and grandmother even bothered. But it was always like this. Mama sent things to Oma’s house, and Oma sent things back again. This time she chose two jars of her watermelon preserves and two loops of fresh leberwurst.

  In spite of Oma’s protests, Meg made sure the items she had brought were put away before she left. After bidding Oma good-bye, Meg went down the same streets, past the same shops until she was two or three blocks east of the canal. From there, she turned and went south.

  She smiled to herself. There was time before darkness fell for her to go to the institute and take a brief look around on her own. The galleries were free and open to the public. It was there for the citizens of the city. Why shouldn’t she be able to look on her own? After all, she reasoned, Mama and Papa had never actually forbidden her to go and observe the art exhibits.

  On the other hand, Meg knew that she was expected to go straight to Oma’s house and straight home. And it was no secret that Mama thought art to be a wasteful folly. Still her feet kept walking south, across another canal bridge and farther away from her own house.

  A wrought iron fence surrounded the vast institute complex. The gate was open. Excitement welled up inside her as she strode through the gate, hurried down the sidewalk, and entered the front door. The place seemed much different without a hundred or so students filing through. Could she remember where the galleries were? She especially wanted to see the landscapes. Just then, an elderly caretaker came out of an anteroom and asked what she was looking for.

  “The landscape showing.”

  “Top of the stairs,” he told her. “Down the hall, last gallery on the right.”

  “Thank you,” Meg replied. It seemed so simple. So ordinary. Some people probably came to the institute every week or so to view each new exhibit and thought nothing of it.

  Meg adjusted the heavy basket on her arm and went up the steps. Late afternoon sunshine slanted through the foyer windows and lent a mellow tone to each shiny marble step.

  The sign outside the door specified the particular gallery she was looking for. This was the best way to look at art—alone and in the quiet. She went straight to the ocean scene and studied it at length. Taking her time, she strolled about the room, absorbing the beauty and detail of each painting. The oils seemed to be the most dramatic, but she loved the gentle pastels best.

  Meg was determined not to make the mistake of overstaying her visit. Repeated glances out the window let her know where the sun was hanging in the western sky. When it was as late as she dare let it be, she reluctantly pulled herself away and hurried back down the hall. As she came to the stairs, the tall windows afforded a panoramic view of the gardens.

  At the landing, she stopped still. A figure sat on a bench near a small bubbling fountain. Even though he was bundled in a hat and coat, Meg could tell it was Damon. Before him stood a large easel, turned so she could not see the work. Beside him on the bench were his palette and brushes. The boy was leaning back as though to study the work.

  So now she knew. Damon was an artist. Or at least he was interested in art. Somehow the new knowledge made her feel guiltier than ever, as though all this rich goodness was too much for one person to contain in a single afternoon.

  Down the steps she hurried and out through the heavy front doors. She would have to walk quickly to make it home befo
re Mama became worried. As she reached the gate, a voice called behind her. “Hey there. Hey! Stop! Wait a moment.”

  Meg turned. Damon had left his easel and was coming her way, calling out to her. There was quite a distance between them, so she hurried into a run, through the gate, and down the street. Thankfully, he didn’t pursue her.

  What a fright! How embarrassing it would be to meet him. She couldn’t imagine a more devastating event. She never wanted to meet him—she only wanted to sketch his likeness.

  The last remnants of the sun were shooting salmon-colored rays across the sky as she arrived home. She went around to the kitchen door. Meg was exhausted, and her arm ached from the weight of the basket, yet deep inside she felt strangely exhilarated and happy.

  Mama greeted her at the door, shaking her head and saying “tsk, tsk” at the sight of the leberwurst and jars of preserves that Oma had sent. “I try to help your Oma, and what does she do? She tries to outgive me every time. How does a body help someone like that, I ask?”

  Mama was in the midst of preparing supper, so Meg hurried to hang her wrap and put on her apron and lend a hand. Mama asked polite questions about her visit, and Meg answered them.

  It seemed like a dream that she’d actually been to the gallery alone. Never in her life had she ever done anything so daring. Inside, her emotions were tumbling about. Surely she should feel sorry that she’d sneaked off as she did, yet she wasn’t sorry at all. It would take time before she could sort out her feelings. In the meantime, she had a new scene to sketch.

  CHAPTER 11

  The New Mitt

  In the second week in November, the election ballots were finally all in and tallied. Church bells tolled as the news arrived that James K. Polk had been voted in as the eleventh president of the United States. Fred was not happy.