Graham ignored his friend, searched his pocket, found a nickel, and passed it to the redheaded girl on the right. She pushed forward two plates and said, “Kindly return them when you’ve finished eating.” She placed the nickel in a cigar box and retrieved a penny.
Graham held up his hand. “A donation for the church.” The pair shared another smile before he managed to shove Owen away from the table.
“What’s got into you?” Graham asked, handing Owen a plate.
“I’ll take the chubby one.” Owen’s first words.
“You don’t say.” Graham patted his friend’s shoulder and laughed.
Owen paused to collect his thoughts. “I’d like to court the one on the left. If she’s not spoken for. Her with the pretty blue eyes.”
“So long as you leave one for me.”
* * *
Owen and Graham began attending the Providence Christian Church of Scranton the very next day, two services every Sunday and one on Wednesday nights. The chubby one, the girl on the left, made no offer of her name. Owen reminded himself that a proper lady waited to be asked. Each time he saw her, he tried to muster the courage, but failed.
The one on the right, Louise, wasted no time introducing herself to Graham. She told him about her life as the child of a maid in the Jones household. How Mrs. Jones refused to allow her daughters to “consort” with Louise, even the youngest, who was her age. The two played together anyway, but in secret, the beginning of a lifelong friendship. She also made mention of a scandal resulting in Mr. Jones’s demise. With the family disgraced, the youngest Miss Jones was forced to take a job as a maid herself, “her with the pretty blues eyes.”
Graham passed all of this along to Owen, who only became more nervous when he realized Miss Jones had been raised with certain advantages. Even if she’s not living that life now, he thought whenever she sat in the same pew at Christian Endeavors, a Sunday school class for the young adults of the church, what could I offer so fine a woman?
Owen’s paralysis persisted, even after three months of church attendance. When she’d glide past him to collect the Bibles, he couldn’t breathe. If she stood to make an announcement about a covered-dish dinner or a visiting missionary, he’d avert his eyes so that his affection would not spill out.
And then came Thanksgiving.
Hattie had invited Owen and all the men without family to share in a meal. Owen donated the bird, one he’d shot a couple of days before in Chinchilla, the next town over. When Hattie called everyone to the table, she suggested Owen sit at the head, since it was his turkey they were serving.
“A beautiful bird,” one man said admiringly.
“Chester never looked so good,” Owen said with a wink. Chester was Hattie’s prize rooster and the bane of every man who boarded there. In addition to his sunrise duties, Chester crowed whenever someone tried to sneak in after Hattie’s ten o’clock curfew. He also nipped the ankles of anyone he disliked, and he disliked everyone except Hattie herself.
“Chester may be the ugliest bird God gave breath to,” Hattie said, “but he’s the best watchdog I ever had.” She sat down on Owen’s right, near the kitchen door so she could clear the table and refill dishes. “And I know that’s not Chester on my platter because he’d have bitten your nose off by now.” Everyone laughed.
Just then, Miss Jones with the pretty blue eyes rushed into the dining room full of apologies, her cheeks flushed, her brow dappled with sweat. On one side, strands of dark hair pulled free from her bun and fell across her face.
Owen looked at Hattie. He’d seen the two women talking together at church on occasion, but it hadn’t occurred to him that they were more than acquaintances. They never sat together that he could recall.
“The colonel’s dinner took longer than expected. I hope you didn’t wait for me.” Miss Jones paused for a moment, glanced at Owen stuck to his seat, and pulled out her own chair. “We had forty-eight people. Can you imagine?” she asked him, turning to the right. “I’m Grace. Grace Jones,” she said. “Hattie’s sister.” Owen didn’t stir. “I believe we both attend Providence Christian.”
Owen wanted to speak, to tell her how lovely she looked with her hair pulled back and a silk flower behind her ear. He yearned to tell her how sweet she smelled, an intoxicating blend of lilacs and vanilla, but he couldn’t find the words.
“I work as a live-in maid for Colonel Watres, like my sister, before she married.” Grace unfolded a linen napkin and arranged it on her lap. “Over on Quincy Avenue. And I also teach piano to his children.”
Hattie interrupted: “Owen, will you lead us in the blessing?”
His throat clamped shut so tightly that words, even if he’d been able to find them, could not escape. He took a sip of water, closed his eyes, and with great effort, managed to loosen a single syllable: “Grace.”
After an embarrassing silence, Graham jumped in. “That’s prayer enough. Amen and let’s eat.” He grabbed a bowl of cooked rhubarb and spooned some onto his plate.
Red-faced, Owen pushed himself away from the table and hurried into the kitchen. He took a few swigs from a flask in his pocket as he paced back and forth. Occasionally he stopped and mumbled “Simpleton” or “Half-wit,” then started up pacing again. Just as he began his fourth pass across the kitchen, Grace pushed through the swinging door with an empty bowl in her hand.
“I’m not much for rhubarb myself,” she explained, “but the others sure seem to like it.” She laughed easily and strolled past Owen toward the stove.
He watched her back, the curve of it, the dampness of the blouse clinging to it. She turned toward him, and in one decisive movement, he grabbed her arm and pulled her into him for a kiss—hungry, urgent, necessary. He tucked the errant strands of hair behind her ear, pressed his lips against it, and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he found Grace on tiptoe, stretched toward him, her eyes wide. Betrayed by her own eagerness, she blushed and tumbled backward, her boot heels slapping against the linoleum floor. She scowled at Owen, who smiled broadly, suddenly emboldened by her chagrin and the contents of his flask. He pulled her in and kissed her again, allowing his lips to linger this time.
Grace and Owen married at the Providence Christian Church six months later, on May 11, 1900, the same day he signed the Temperance Pledge under his father’s signature in his family’s Bible. If he’d had his way, they would have wed sooner, but Grace wanted to wait for the lilacs to bloom.
* * *
Owen smiled at the memory, stood up unsteadily from the church steps, and continued home. Though nowhere near sober, he knew enough to step around the side and enter through the kitchen. The front door took coaxing, and he didn’t want to run the risk of waking the whole house at two o’clock in the morning.
“Look at you,” Grace said from her seat at the table. She turned up the wick on the oil lamp and eyed him head to toe. Broad-shouldered. Muscular. Hair as black as coal. Still handsome, but his hollow-cheeked countenance startled her till she noticed his reddened nose poking through the coal dust. “A fine example for our children.”
They both gasped at the slip and wondered at the weight of it.
Grace found her voice again: “I don’t want drink in my house, Owen Morgan. I’ll not have it.”
Indignation pushed past Owen’s guilt and settled in, making itself at home in his mouth. “Your house, is it? Your house?” he yelled. “I suppose it’s your pay that puts food on the table and a roof over your head?” Owen grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself.
“Do you want to wake Violet?” Grace turned down the lamp as if to quiet him.
“Your house,” he continued. “And I’m what? A guest now?”
“A common drunkard, more like it.”
“You best hold your tongue, woman. I’ll not stand for it.”
“As if you could stand,” she countered.
He slammed the chair across the room, upending it. Grace jumped back in fear.
“I’m so sorr
y.” Owen reached for Grace’s arm, but she recoiled. “I didn’t mean to . . .” He righted the chair and sat down at the table across from her. “What kind of man am I?” He started to cry. “Look what you made me do.”
Anger swelled inside Grace, running off any hope for sympathy. She could feel the rigidity in her stance, in her soul. She knew she was looking down on her husband, judging him, but she could not help herself. “Get out of the house this minute.” She punctuated her statement with a fist to the table. “My father never took a drop of liquor in his life. I’ll not have a drunkard for a husband.” She stood up, hurried to the door, and held it open.
Owen pushed himself up and stood facing her. “Your father was a scoundrel. You and your highfalutin ways.” He took hold of the door. “Your father was nothing but a no-good coward.”
Grace slapped Owen across the face. He returned her blow without hesitation, and staggered out the door.
TO KEEP AWAKE IN CHURCH
To keep awake in church when inclined to be drowsy, lift one foot a little way from the floor and hold it there. It is impossible to go to sleep when your foot is poised in the air. This remedy, though simple, is very effectual and never fails to keep a person awake. —Mrs. Joe’s Housekeeping Guide, 1909
Let the Catholics sprinkle their babies. At Providence Christian we baptize by immersion, the way the good Lord intended. We used to “dunk” in the Lackawanna River. Had to cut away the ice in the middle of winter. Now we have an indoor baptistery. Souls can just as easily be saved near a modern coal furnace.
We try to help out wherever we can. Last fall, after Pearl Williams’s husband took up with that trollop from Bull’s Head, dark-skinned, I-talian most likely, we organized a pound party. Asked folks to donate one pound of food apiece to get the Williamses through winter. Members of Providence Christian did not disappoint. Pearl got herself enough flour, sugar, and canned goods to last a year. And we’re happy for her, even if she didn’t think to share her bounty with those of us who toiled on her behalf.
Missionaries, evangelists. We feed, house, and raise money for them all. There’s talk Billy Sunday might come to Scranton to preach next spring. Now that would be a thrill. Played outfield for the Chicago White Stockings before he found Jesus. Had his picture in the paper just last week. A fine-looking man, even old Miss Proudlock says so.
Wish we could do something for that poor Morgan girl, though. Traipsing all over town with that little Polish boy. Just makes matters worse. Most likely lonesome for her sister. Then again, growing up in Daisy’s shadow couldn’t have been easy. Never knew a more perfect child. Those eyes. That voice. And smart as a whip. It’s a wonder Violet wasn’t more jealous, if you ask us. She did have one advantage over Daisy, though. Never knew a child with more promise at the piano. Of course, that’s all over now. Has to be.
Tending to the needs of our flock—that’s our mission. Probably the same for Catholics, Episcopalians, even Jews. We’re proud to do the Almighty’s work. It’s the Christian thing to do.
CHAPTER FIVE
HATTIE HAPPENED TO BE OUT SWEEPING THE FRONT STEPS when she spotted Grace trooping toward the boarding house. Even before her sister reached the yard, Hattie could tell she was distraught. Grace had the habit of chewing her lower lip when she was troubled. Hattie put down her broom, grabbed two shawls, and led Grace upstairs and out to the second-floor porch for a little privacy.
After some coaxing, for Grace had always needed coaxing, even as a child, she told Hattie that Owen hadn’t come home in almost a week. Hattie’s hand flew to her heart, but before she could say a word, Grace explained, “He’s rented a room over Burke’s. A gin mill, of all places.”
Hattie wasn’t entirely surprised. He’d taken Daisy’s death about as hard as any father could.
Once Grace opened up, she recounted the whole night, including Owen’s drunken antics and the argument it had caused. Grace was upset about his leaving, of course, but Hattie couldn’t help thinking his comments about their father bothered her sister even more.
Owen had been right, Hattie thought, as she tried to comfort Grace. Mean-spirited, but right. Not that this excused his behavior, but their father had been a “no-good coward.” Old wounds opened and anger festered anew, surprising Hattie with their intensity.
Growing up, Hattie and her family had lived in a grand home, with the largest wraparound porch on North Main Avenue. Green-shingled second and third stories sat atop a ground floor of fieldstone. Six gables poked out of the roof, much to the disappointment of Hattie, who thought they should have seven like the house in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel.
Hattie and Grace’s father, Ivor Jones, a third vice president for the Delaware and Hudson Railroad, had amassed his wealth by investing in the mining industry and businesses associated with anthracite. As his fortune increased, so did his enemies, who accused him of making his money on the broken backs of the poor. Not that those in his circle were concerned about the poor, more likely they were simply jealous of his knack for using them to his advantage. At the same time, Ivor Jones sat on the board of the Hillside Home, an almshouse and insane asylum on the outskirts of Scranton. Unlike most board members, he spent time with the wards, and many a preacher praised Ivor’s dedication to these hapless souls.
In the fall of 1888, Bronwyn Jones, Ivor’s wife, had given birth to a son named for his father. Ivor Jr. made four children in all, including Hattie, thirteen; Lizzie, ten; and Gracie, seven. Although Ivor Sr. had always shown affection toward his children, at least in public, he seemed particularly taken with the boy.
“God has seen fit to grant me a son,” Hattie would often hear him say at church. “It’s about time,” he’d add, “don’t you think?” and chuckle.
But soon, their idyllic life began to crumble. Evidently her father had been offering more than just sympathy to the female residents of the Hillside Home and his enemies exposed him as soon as they’d gotten wind of the scandal. The D&H directors dismissed Ivor from the railroad, and investors pulled their money from his interests, bankrupting the family in a matter of months. By the spring of ’89, her father had hanged himself from a rafter in the attic. Unable to cope with the loss of her husband and her sudden poverty, Bronwyn had a nervous breakdown herself and became an involuntary occupant of Hillside. Hattie and her sisters were sent to the Home for the Friendless. There, they could expect to spend their days with other abandoned and orphaned children until they reached adulthood. The baby had been given to the Athertons, a childless couple in the Green Ridge section of town. From what Hattie would learn long after, the woman was barren, and they welcomed Ivor as their own, changing his name to Peter, like his adoptive father. A few years later, after the death of her husband in a mine explosion, Mrs. Atherton and the baby moved to Baltimore to live with her sister. Neighbors lost track of them after that.
The Home for the Friendless, a monolith of stone walls and turrets, stood on the hill near Jefferson Avenue like a guard dog poised to strike. Mothers and fathers pointed the structure out to ill-behaved children as a warning. If you don’t straighten up, it’ll be the Home for you.
Those inside the walls knew differently. The place was better than some and no worse than others. “At least they feed you here,” one girl said to Hattie at breakfast. “And not a one of them will take a switch to you.” And it was true. The women who ran the institution offered serviceable beds, three meals a day, schooling, music lessons, and religious instruction. Yet it was not their own, and Hattie vowed to one day earn enough money to make a home for her sisters and mother.
Four years later, on her seventeenth birthday, Hattie found employment as a maid with the Watres family. She received room and board, and a small salary. By year’s end, with the money she’d saved, she secured three rooms over the bakery on West Market Street. Though it lacked the decorative moldings and vaulted ceilings of her youth, the place was very much a home.
First, she assumed custody of her sisters. Brother Kinter
from the Providence Christian Church vouched for Hattie’s character, and the women in charge gladly handed Lizzie and Gracie over to make room for other unfortunates. Next, she took her mother out of the Hillside Home, initially on short visits, then overnight on weekends, and finally to stay for good. That first year as sole provider proved difficult. If it weren’t for the generosity of church members, particularly Michael Goodfellow, owner of a local boarding house, she knew they would not have survived. As it was, they lost Lizzie to influenza the following winter, a blow from which Hattie never truly recovered.
That spring when Michael proposed, he offered to give Hattie the world if she’d only marry him. As it turned out, she didn’t need the world, just a room for her mother and sister to share. Her mother Bronwyn could often be heard saying, “This is no place for a lady,” when she sat out on the boarding house’s modest front porch; but in spite of her insults, Michael always treated his mother-in-law with kindness and seemed overwrought when she succumbed to consumption that same year.
Now that was a man, Hattie thought. Unlike Owen, Michael stayed put until ’98, when the good Lord carried him home. Diphtheria, God rest his soul.
* * *
Hattie glanced across the porch at her sister, wondering how best to handle Owen’s absence. Her heart told her to move Grace and Violet into the boarding house right away so she could take care of them. It would certainly make her feel better to have them close by. But was that what was best for Grace? She was a woman, not a child, with a family of her own. And what about Owen? If he was ever going to find his way back home, Grace had to be there.
“I’ll have to sell the piano,” Grace finally said as she stood and wandered to the edge of the porch.
Sing in the Morning, Cry at Night Page 3