American Rebirth

by Norma Jean Lutz

  “It’s true,” Miss Yandell agreed, “that they weren’t allowed to set up an exhibit that shows what contributions the black people have made to American history, and that’s unfortunate. However, the work of black women artists is displayed in this building.”

  “Good,” Mother said quietly.

  Emily thought it was good, too.

  “I am glad you believe women have a right to explore their interests, Mrs. Allerton,” Miss Yandell said, “even when that means they cannot spend all their time at home.” She took a sip of coffee from the delicate china cup. “Let me tell you a funny story.

  “Mrs. Ulysses Grant, the widow of the former president and general, visited my sculpting studio one day. At first, I was flattered. Then she told me that a woman’s place is in the home.

  “‘So you don’t approve of me?’ I asked.

  “Mrs. Grant scowled and said, ‘Will you be a better housewife by your cutting marble?’

  “‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I am developing muscles in my arms to beat biscuit when I keep house.’”

  Mother and the girls laughed. Then Mother asked, “Did she change her mind, then, and decide she approved of your work after all?”

  “She did not totally approve, but she felt my work had some good purpose.”

  Emily was sorry when the lovely coffee party was over and they had to leave their new friend to meet Father and the boys.

  Her spirits lifted when her father said they were going for a gondola ride before dinner. Clapping her hands, she said, “Oh, I’ve wanted to ride in one ever since we came to the fair!”

  They bought tickets for the gondola. Then they waited in front of the Agricultural Building on wide steps that led to the wooden boat landing at the water’s edge, where it would be easier to board the long, narrow boat. On either side of the steps, statues of huge white bulls stared out over the water.

  While they waited, Emily told her father and the boys about their afternoon.

  “That’s nothing.” Ted dismissed her afternoon with a wave of his hand. “You should have been with us. We went in a cave! Not a real cave, of course. It was only a model of Mammoth Cave in South Dakota. But it was just like being in a real cave, with stalactites and stalagmites and everything!”

  Emily had to admit she would have liked to see that. “But only if I could have my afternoon, too.”

  A gondola glided silently up to the steps, and Emily and Ted promptly forgot their exciting afternoon experiences.

  “Oh, it’s one of the prettiest gondolas,” Emily cried in delight.

  The bow of the gondola was shaped like the head, neck, and back of a swan, with wings raised as if it were about to leave the water. The back of the gondola was the swan’s tail. Both the back and front rose taller than a man.

  Richard sat on a narrow seat as close to the front of the gondola as he could get. Father took the seat in the back. Anna and Ted shared a seat, and Emily and her mother sat together near the middle of the low-sided wooden boat.

  The oarsmen’s outfits were brightly colored. Striped shirts matched wide, striped trousers. Colored vests covered the shirts and matched the men’s hats. Even brighter sashes were tied about their waists.

  The oarsmen—one in front and one in back—made the gondola move across the lagoon as smoothly and quietly as a real swan. They stood while they rowed. The oars were skinny and almost as long as the boat. Another oarsman stood high against the “swan’s” tail, controlling the rudder.

  The gondola went under a bridge, and they passed from the Great Basin to the lagoon. Ted pointed out white water birds that bobbed along the shore of Wooded Island. Other gondolas, canoes, and canopy-covered electric launches joined them on the water.

  As they passed a statue of a warrior with his weapons, Ted asked Emily, “Remember that song we learned? The one about the ax?”

  Emily grinned and nodded. Frank had taught them the song. He said all the children in Chicago were singing it.

  Ted sang the first line. Then Emily joined in:

  Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done,

  She gave her father forty-one.

  They burst into giggles. Richard chuckled. “Emily Marie!”

  Emily looked in surprise at her mother, seated beside her. What had she done now?

  “How could you sing such an awful song, let alone laugh at it? I’m ashamed of you. And you, too, Theodore.” Emily spread her hands. “But it’s funny!”

  Her mother’s lips tightened into a thin line. “It most certainly is not funny to sing about a girl killing her parents! The Bible tells us to honor our parents.”

  “I must agree with your mother,” Father said in his severest tone. “Don’t let us hear either of you singing that tune again.”

  Emily and Ted exchanged disgusted looks.

  The gondolier who was manning the rudder suddenly broke into song. His beautiful voice rolled out over the water. The music was pretty, but Emily couldn’t understand the words. But she knew it wasn’t the song about Lizzie Borden!

  “What is he singing?” she asked her mother.

  “It’s from the opera Faust. It’s in Italian.”

  As the gondolier finished his song, Emily saw her new friend walking across a bridge they were approaching.

  “There’s Miss Yandell, Ted. She’s the woman I told you about.” She lifted one arm as high as she could. “Miss Yandell! Miss Yandell!”

  The woman didn’t stop walking or look their way.

  “Emily, do stop yelling.”

  Emily barely heard her mother. She jumped to her feet, waving both arms over her head. “Miss Yandell! Hello, Miss Yandell!”

  The gondola started to rock. Emily waved her arms, trying to get her balance. She saw Ted stretch his arms toward her, but he was too far away to reach her. Everyone in her family was yelling at her to sit down. The oarsmen were yelling something in another language.

  Her arms waved more wildly. “Help!”

  Mother tried to steady her but couldn’t. Finally, she jumped up and grabbed for Emily.

  Too late. Splash! Emily held her breath as she hit the water.

  CHAPTER 15

  Fire!

  Emily pushed herself to the surface, sputtering. Her hair clung like wet seaweed to her face. She brushed it out of her eyes with one hand and treaded water with the other. “Grab the oar, Emily!”

  At Ted’s order, she looked around for the oar. One of the oarsmen was holding it out to her. She grabbed it and hung on for dear life. She didn’t know how to swim, but she knew enough to kick her feet and keep her head above water. “Help!” Cough! Cough! “Help!”

  Emily whipped her head around to see who was calling so weakly.

  “Mother!”

  Her mother was trying to wave her arms in the air instead of moving them in the water. Emily realized in a flash that her mother must have fallen in trying to keep her from falling. Her mother’s head slipped beneath the water. Dread swept through Emily. Her mother didn’t know how to swim, either!

  A moment later, Mother’s head popped back up. “Kick, Mother!” Emily called.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Emily saw a large, dark shape flash by. Splash!

  Relief swamped her when she saw that it was Father. He was helping Mother.

  With Richard and Ted’s help, Emily tried to climb into the gondola. It wasn’t easy with her high-buttoned shoes full of water and her dress and petticoat soaking wet. She hadn’t realized how heavy clothes were when they were wet!

  The gondola rocked dangerously when Richard and Ted started to pull her into it. For a minute, Emily thought it was going to tip over. Anna and the gondoliers moved their weight to the other side of the boat. A moment later, Emily was safe on the bottom of the gondola.

  “Thanks.” She was panting so hard that she could hardly speak. She brushed her hair off her face again and looked to see if her parents were near the boat yet.

  “Why, they
aren’t even coming to the boat!” she cried.

  “I think when Father saw the trouble we were having getting you in the boat, he decided it would be easier to take her to shore,” Richard said.

  Father had one hand under Mother’s chin. She was lying on her back, and he was pulling her along. Richard was right. In a couple minutes, their father reached a small landing and helped Mother up on the steps.

  The gondoliers steered for the landing and reached it right after Mother and Father.

  Ted and Richard helped Emily out of the gondola. She didn’t want their help, but she couldn’t manage by herself in the heavy wet dress. Her shoes made squishing sounds when she stepped out onto the paved step.

  Fairgoers had seen the accident and surged to the landing to see if Emily and her mother were all right. There must be hundreds of them, Emily thought in despair. She turned her back and sank down on one of the bottom steps.

  She glanced over at Mother, who was coughing. “Will she be all right?” Emily asked Father.

  He nodded, a grim expression on his usually friendly face. “She just swallowed a lot of the lagoon.”

  Mother, who always took such care to look good in public and act like a lady, looked like something the dog had dragged in. She’d lost her hat. Half her hair had come unpinned and hung in a mass of wet dangles down her back. Her pretty white linen-and-lace gown had turned pale brown and was torn besides. She’d been embarrassed in front of hundreds of people.

  Emily dropped her head into her hands. “Am I in trouble now!” she whispered.

  A gentle hand touched her shoulder. “Are you all right, Emily?” She looked up into a concerned face. Miss Yandell! She smiled weakly. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  I could sure use Houdini’s trick box about now, she thought. I’d like to disappear for good.

  Emily wasn’t so fortunate. The next morning, seated on the train on the way back to Minneapolis, she looked from one face to another. No one had a friendly glance for her—not even her cousin Ted.

  She’d known her parents would be furious with her. When they decided to cut the trip to the fair short, Ted and her brother and sister had turned against Emily, too. She couldn’t blame them. She’d ruined their trip. They didn’t get to go to Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, which was right outside the fair.

  Of course, her parents had given her yet another lecture with the old familiar chorus: Why can’t you act like a young lady, like Anna?

  I wish Mother and Father liked me as much as they do Anna, she thought.

  Emily tried to curl deeper into the corner of the plush seat. She looked down at the book in her lap, David Copperfield. She pretended to read, but she didn’t even see the words. The rhythmic clack of the wheels going around seemed to be saying, “Stupid girl! Stupid girl!”

  You’d think I’d been punished enough for falling into the lagoon, she thought. After all, the new dress she’d loved had lost its beautiful dark green color. The lagoon water had washed it out and left it a streaked, unwearable mess. Her purse was somewhere at the bottom of the lagoon. Worst of all, wonderful Miss Yandell had seen the whole affair!

  She glanced across at Ted and Anna, who were seated on the purple upholstered seat across from her. They both glared at her.

  Emily drew her legs up under her skirt and pretended to read once more. It was going to be a long ride home!

  The day after they got home, Emily was carrying a large crystal plate piled with cookies. She walked carefully down the hall from the kitchen toward the parlor. The house was filled with family. Uncle Enoch and Aunt Tina, Ted and his parents, and Ted’s brother Walter and his Swedish wife, Lena, had all come to welcome the Allertons back and hear about the fair.

  It’s good to have people around who will smile and talk to me, Emily thought as she neared the open door to the parlor.

  “Tomma tunnor skramla mest!” she heard Lena say, and smiled. Lena always had a Swedish proverb on the tip of her tongue.

  “What does that mean?” Richard asked.

  “Empty barrels make the most noise,” Lena explained as Emily stepped into the room.

  Everyone in the room began to laugh. “That does describe Emily to a T,” Richard said.

  Emily stopped short. Pain stabbed her chest. Had they all been laughing at her? Had she been the empty barrel? Did sweet Lena truly believe that she had no brains?

  The laughter in the room died. Emily realized everyone was staring at her. She could tell they knew she’d heard the unkind remarks.

  “I’m sorry, Emily,” Lena said in her soft, musical voice. “I spoke without thinking.”

  Tears blurred Emily’s sight and made her eyes hot. She kept her eyes open wide to keep the tears from falling. Carefully she handed the crystal plate to Lena. Then she turned and left the room.

  She wanted to run, but she wouldn’t let herself. They laughed at her when she didn’t act like a lady. So she made herself walk slowly into the hall and up the stairs. Only then, behind her closed door, did she let the tears come.

  A week later, Ted was finally speaking to her again, though still he wasn’t the friendly cousin he’d always been before.

  On a Sunday in the middle of August, they went walking together along the Mississippi River after dinner. Near one of the bridges that spanned the wide water, they met Erik, the newsboy, talking with a young man about twenty-five years old.

  Erik’s grin spread wide with a welcome that warmed Emily’s heart. Then she wondered whether he would still be friendly after Ted told him all the clumsy things she’d done at the fair.

  “Haven’t seen you two around in a while,” Erik said.

  “We’ve been to Chicago,” Ted told him, “to the World’s Fair.”

  Erik’s eyes opened wide. “No kiddin’!”

  “Who are your friends, Erik?” the young man with him asked, pushing his bowler hat toward the back of his curly black hair until Emily thought the hat surely must fall off.

  Erik introduced them and then said, “And this is Mr. Thomas

  Beck. He’s a teacher at the Newsboys’ Sunday School. He’s a newspaper reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, too.”

  Ted shook Mr. Beck’s hand. “I’ve never met a reporter before.”

  Emily thought Mr. Beck looked like a reporter. He wore a fashionable brown-and-tan-checked suit with a matching vest. A pencil rested behind one ear. A notebook stuck out of one of his suit pockets.

  “Mr. Beck is a good friend of mine,” Erik said.

  “Tell us about your trip to the World’s Fair,” Mr. Beck encouraged.

  Ted and Emily told them about everything: the beautiful buildings in the White City, the Ferris wheel, the marvelous new inventions and new foods, the huge statues that had seemed to be everywhere in the White City, the famous people they’d seen, the copies of Columbus’s ships, and even the Houdini brothers and their trick box. But when Ted started telling them about the electric launches and the gondolas, Emily cringed and grew quiet. Now Erik and nice Mr. Beck would find out what a silly thing she’d done. She stared at the tips of her new high-buttoned shoes—her old ones had been ruined in the lagoon—and waited.

  Ted described the gondola and gondoliers. “We all went for a ride in one of the gondolas. One of the gondoliers even sang for us!”

  He hesitated. Emily looked up, surprised to find him looking at her.

  “And then,” Ted started again, “and then we went back to the hotel. The gondola ride was the last thing we did at the fair.”

  Emily gave him a small smile. He shrugged, lifting the shoulders of his Sunday suit, but he didn’t smile back. Sadness pinched her heart. It was going to take a long time for Ted and her family to completely forgive her.

  A passerby bumped Emily’s elbow. Mr. Beck looked up with a scowl. “Hey, mister, watch where you’re going.”

  The man paid no attention. He was hurrying toward the bridge. Emily saw with surprise that everyone was hurrying in that direction or staring and pointing a
cross the river. She and her friends turned to see what was so interesting.

  “Fire!” Mr. Beck exclaimed.

  Orange flames shot into the air along the opposite bank, where mostly sawmills and homes were built. The flames raced from building to building like a child at play. It seemed only moments before flame covered the riverbank for as far as Emily could see.

  Mr. Beck grabbed his pad and pencil. He started across the bridge in a dash, his checkered coat flying out behind him as he ran through the crowd.

  Without a second thought, Emily started after him. She could see from the corner of her eye that Ted and Erik were coming, too. Toward the other end of the bridge, she began to feel the heat of the huge blaze. Policemen were warning people to stay back for fear of their lives.

  “I’m a Tribune reporter,” she heard Mr. Beck tell one of the policemen. “I need to get through so I can report on this.”

  With a shake of his head and another warning to watch out for his safety, the policeman let him through.

  Emily leaned against the bridge railing to get a better look at the burning bank. “Ouch!” She drew back, shaking her hands. “That railing is hot!” she told Ted and Erik.

  The clanging of fire engine bells alerted the crowd, and the people pressed together to let the firemen by. The roar of the fire drowned out the rattle of the wheels carrying the engines and the hooves of the horses pulling them. The horses were covered with foam, already overheated from pulling the engines as fast as they could. Firemen hanging onto the fire wagons were covered to their chins in rubber coats. Sponges that would protect their mouths hung about their necks.

  Wagons of every description began crossing the bridge from the burning side of the city, pulled by terrified horses. Household furnishings and frightened people filled the wagons. Men, women, and children clung to the wagons’ sides. Their eyes were huge with fear.

  At the sight of them, Emily’s excitement died. She only wished she could do something to help them.

  Clouds of gray and black smoke and columns of orange and red flames rose so high they almost met the sky. Emily and the boys watched small boats filled with more people move out of the smoke-covered bank.