Reaching into her little pouch, she took a nibble of her bread. Then, because she could not help herself, another.
Strange how the more she ate, the hungrier she became. Why was that? Was it true for everyone, or just herself? And was it true at all, or just a figment of what Hannah called her “overblown imagination”?
But this was not a time for aimless wondering, either. Sadly, it never was. Gazing for a moment at her precious locket, Maggie put her crust of bread inside her pouch.
If only she could stay and thank Walter. He had saved her life. What had she to give him in return but her words? Nothing. Yet if she stayed until he awoke, what trouble she would make for him. He would insist that she eat a bite of breakfast, and she could not. She would not.
She may be no more than a pudding-faced imp, but she had never been a thief, and she would not be one this day.
As the sun lit up an amber-colored square of glass in Walter’s kitchen window, Maggie slipped out the door and into the frosty morning. A snowflake, then another, floated lazily to the earth.
And there went that same brown dog, or what appeared to be the same dog as yesterday, scooting along with its nose to the ground. What a strange creature, searching for food along an icy sidewalk.
What kind of dog was he anyway? Where did he live? What was his name?
Taking care not to slip, Maggie began to follow the dog. Some dogs were smarter than people. Perhaps he knew something she did not.
Tucking her hands into her armpits, she ducked her head and hurried along. If only she had mittens.
Another good pinch was due. Once the “if onlies” began, there would be no end to them. If only she had a family, if only she were bigger or stronger or older or prettier or smarter.
See? And that was just the beginning.
Better to count the blessings that she did have, which was easier in its way. The list was short, shorter now that she no longer had Hannah or a bed or meals or a position with Madame Dinglebush. There was her coat, her woolen socks (which could be counted as two blessings), her boots (also two) with good soles, one well-made gray dress, her necessaries, the mysterious locket, and a crust of bread smeared with goose fat.
Nine blessings. Nearly two hands’ worth.
The dog had found its way to an open marketplace. Men with broad, flat shovels were clearing last night’s snow. Stalls were being hung with banners and signs, and set with food and wares.
Perhaps she could be an apple seller. How hard could that be?
Just ahead she saw the brown dog pounce upon a bone dropped by a butcher and take off like he had stolen it.
Maggie wandered over to the apple stall. How brilliantly red the apples looked in the drabness of a winter’s morning.
“Fancy an apple, do ye, lass?” said the tall, thin man with snaggleteeth and bright green eyes.
“I do, yes. But I have no money. Do you have some work for me? I can peel apples as fast as—as a dog takes off with a bone.”
“Can ye, now? Well, that would be no good to me, little one. We make no pies here. You might try that woman over there.” He pointed to a stall draped in red and white.
Maggie took a last lingering glance at the apples. “Thank you, sir,” she said, and crossed the square. The sky was white and the air was still, but the snow had stopped.
The woman at the red-and-white stall had a smushed-up face and narrow eyes. Seeing Maggie coming, she turned away.
Maggie spoke to the woman’s back, telling the woman all the things she had learned to do at Hannah’s elbow, not the least of which was rolling a perfect piecrust.
“Get on with you, now,” the woman said over her shoulder. “I’ve got no work for you.”
She tried another stall and another, getting nothing for her efforts until the very last one. There she was given some bits of biscuit but, alas, no work.
“Take yourself over to the shirtwaist factory, corner of Fortune and Down,” said the baker. “They’ll give you work.”
“Thank you, sir,” said Maggie.
Work! She was in luck. The factory would give her work, he said. Not even a perhaps. He seemed to know. Thanking Hannah belatedly for her sewing lessons, Maggie left the marketplace and headed in the direction the baker pointed.
Not one day out of her position at Madame’s and she had found work.
Well, almost. She hurried on, confidence like buttered toast with jam sitting inside her.
But where was Fortune Street? Down Street? She looked for a friendly face, then an almost-friendly face, then settled for a sleepy-looking face inside a checkered kerchief. “Please, ma’am, could you tell me how to find the shirtwaist factory on the corner of Fortune and Down?”
The sleepy face awoke. Its eyes widened. “What do you want with the factory?” the woman said.
“Work,” said Maggie, simply.
“Not there,” said the woman. “You don’t want to work there.”
“I don’t?”
“Not if you value your health,” said the woman.
Maggie valued her health, all right. As much as any child can, which is not to think about something so easily come by. “Please, ma’am. If you can tell me.”
The woman sighed and shook her head. “Two blocks left, three blocks right, and you shall find it,” she said. “God help you.”
Speak
The building on Fortune and Down was ever so tall. Maggie looked up and up, and there at last was the top of it pushing smugly into the white sky. Maggie found her way to the door, brass hinges and dark wood, four times her height. She pulled at the door with all of her strength, but to no avail.
Was there no one working here after all?
Just then a panel truck painted with the words CRAWFORD AND SONS, PURVEYORS OF FINE CLOTHING rounded the corner and came to a stop at a door in the side of the building.
Maggie dashed down Fortune Street, up the steps, and through the open door.
The room she entered was dimly lit. In long rows sat women of every size and age bent over their sewing or pushing fabric through clacking machines. Faint light from dust-coated windows fell softly on their heads.
Beside each woman, clothing cut but unsewn waited in tall stacks. No one looked up.
“Excuse me,” said Maggie. She cleared her throat and said louder, “Excuse me.”
“Hold your water,” said a voice from the back of the room. “I’ll get to you in a bit.”
Maggie watched a woman big with child using her belly to sew upon. The woman looked weary, though it was still morning.
Then Maggie’s eyes lit upon a boy that she had at first taken for a short, thin woman. In all of her life, she had never seen a boy sew. How strange. Where had he learned? Were his hands as capable as any girl’s? What was he doing here? How old was he?
But stranger than a sewing boy was the fact that no one spoke. Except for the occasional “pass me this” or “gimme that,” the place was bereft of human speech; except for the occasional sigh, quite empty of human emotion.
Well, work was nothing to laugh about. Maggie didn’t expect humor, but even the maids jollied about when Madame was out of hearing. They told each other stories, true ones and not-so-true ones, sometimes wicked ones. They kept each other entertained while they worked.
As far as Maggie could tell, there would be no stories in this place. Difficult as it would surely be, Maggie would be forced into silence.
If she’d learned anything from her last day with Madame, it was to hold her tongue.
A man wearing a cobbler’s apron came clunking toward her, leaning on a cane. Maggie found herself staring at a shoe tied onto a block of wood.
Looking up from the shoe, she found two impatient, dark eyes waiting. “Well, what’s it to be, girl? A handout or honest work?”
“Honest work, sir!” said Maggie at once.
The man picked at his teeth with a little stick. “How old are you? And don’t lie to me. It makes no difference.”
“Ten, sir. Eleven on my next birthday.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do, sir.”
“I’ve got work for you,” he said. “I’ve got work for anybody who wants honest work. Six-day workweek, off on the Sabbath.” He pointed at her nose. “Providing you work until the last bell and ask no questions.”
“No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.”
“And when the authorities come, you and the boy there”—he pointed at the sewing boy, who glanced up and went back to his work—“quick, jump into that bin.” His finger went to a box filled with scraps of cloth. “There’s a law about hiring brats like you, and I don’t want no trouble.”
“No, sir,” said Maggie. “I mean, yes, sir. I’ll jump straight into that bin.”
“No food on premises. No chatter. Fifteen minutes for the midday break. One minute past, and you’ll be fined.”
“Yes, sir,” said Maggie. “I mean, no, sir. I won’t be late.”
“See that you are not,” he said. “Name’s Speak, Nicholas Speak. That’s ‘Mr. Speak, sir’ to you.”
Maggie held out her hand. “My name is Maggie Street,” she said. “I shall be happy to work for you, Mr. Speak. Sir.”
Speak grabbed her hand quite roughly and pulled her along behind him. “We’ll see what you’re worth, girl.” He led her to a table piled high with shirtsleeves waving for help. Or so it appeared.
Maggie had a million questions for Mr. Speak. Where was the washroom? for one. What would she be paid for her work? “Mr. Speak? Sir?”
“No chatter,” he said. “Apply yourself. I will be checking your work.”
From his apron pocket he took a spool of white thread and a needle. “After this, you provide your own,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” said Maggie.
Where did one purchase thread and a needle? She didn’t dare ask.
She had been given a table in the dimmest part of the room and a stool that had once been a chair.
Such a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Why was that? She had found employment, and in less than one day.
Well, she was hungry, that’s all. It would pass.
She slipped her hand into the sack where the locket was, and for a little while felt filled to the brim with something more precious than food.
Mercy
With his paws wrapped around his precious bone, Oliver gnawed and gnawed until no evidence existed that meat had ever been upon it. Then he dug the bone a nice deep hole and buried it.
Coming out from beneath the bridge, he began wandering along the wet, pebbled shore, stopping to sniff an oyster shell, fish bits, an orange rind, then a place where another dog had been. He looked out across the water that seemed to have no end.
For some reason that he did not know, the water buoyed his spirits.
And then he did know.
One day when Oliver was still a pup, Bertie had come home with this same water smell clinging to her skirt. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes filled with something that Oliver had seen only in the eyes of children.
Excitement, he guessed it was. Pleasure.
She had taken from her pocket a photograph of a man standing on the deck of a boat—a stiff-looking man, Oliver thought, but Bertie seemed to like him all the same. She gazed at the photograph for a long while before placing it along with a flower between the pages of her black book.
Oliver’s memory had given him a clue. Bertie was here, here with the stiff-looking man among these boats. Oliver had only to find either one of them and his search would be over. Bertie would throw her arms around his middle, and Oliver would be so happy that he would beat her unmercifully with his tail.
Well, he wasn’t at all happy that she had left without telling him where she was going or when she would be back. But he would forgive her, and life would go on the way it was. The way it always had been and was supposed to be.
Was that too much to expect?
Once, Bertie had offered Oliver a bite of her fish from her plate. Perch, she called it. Oliver had sniffed at the perch, and because he did not know then, as often we do not, that food might not always appear so magically, he turned it away.
Now, famished, smelling that same strange smell, his mouth began to water.
All along the dock, fishermen were readying their boats, pulling down nets and floats, washing their decks so that fishy-smelling water spilled out onto the shore.
Impatient, Oliver ran up the gangplank of the first boat he came to. From below came the sounds of human activity, but the deck for the time being was his. He searched it thoroughly, bloodhoundingly. Not a bite of perch was to be found, much less a trace of Bertie.
Oliver’s nose had done its job, but his ears had let him down, for suddenly right above him stood a giant of a man, his fists on the waist of his rubber trousers.
“What have we here?” said the man in a booming voice.
Just as Oliver was about to bolt, the big man dropped to one knee beside him and grabbed the scruff of his neck.
The man had trustworthy eyes. “Lost are ya, fella?” he said. “Where’s your master?”
He began scratching Oliver behind the ears. Oliver swooned. “I’ve got nothing for ya, boy. But stick around awhile, and we’ll see what we can fetch from the sea. How’s that?”
Out of all those strange words, Oliver picked the one he knew: fetch. Fetch was a game he’d played with Bertie’s grandson. So when the big man pulled in the ropes and went up into a little house above the deck, Oliver stuck around.
Only when the deck rumbled under his feet and the water began to churn did Oliver have second thoughts. But by then, it was too late. Sliding and scrambling from one side of the deck to the other, Oliver was going out to sea.
Miss Fancy Coat
By the time the midday bell rang, Maggie’s eyes were tired. She had been staring for hours at her needle in the near dark. Three times she had poked that needle toward her finger, pulling back in the nick of time.
If she’d bloodied a cuff or a sleeve, what then?
No job, that’s what.
All around her, women were rising from their chairs, stretching their backs against their hands, yawning, groaning, moving like cattle toward a door in the back of the room.
And now they were talking, all of them, all at once.
“Hazel! Yoo-hoo!” called one. “Save me a place next to you. Have I got a story!”
“My fool of a son,” said another. “You won’t believe what he’s up to!”
An elderly lady, bent nearly in half, stopped at Maggie’s table. “Come along now, child,” she said. “You have only a quarter hour. You don’t want to waste it.”
Maggie jumped up and followed, last in line.
The room used for work breaks was small and airless. The women crowded in, taking food out of sacks for their midday meal.
Maggie climbed into a small space between the old woman and a younger woman with flaming red hair. Across the table sat the sewing boy. His hair was the color of hay and stuck out all over his head. Chewing on an apple, he stared at Maggie with hard eyes.
“Where d’you come from?” he said. “You with your fancy coat.”
Maggie looked down at her coat as if seeing it for the first time. Fancy? The gray coat with its big black buttons had once belonged to Madame’s granddaughter. Maggie appreciated the coat for its warmth, but she hadn’t thought it fancy.
“Leave the child be, Danny,” said the red-haired woman beside her. “She’s not been here one day and you with your nasty mouth!”
“Huh!” said the boy called Danny, wiping a sleeve across his apple-wet mouth. “Just ’cause you’re my big sis, don’t think you can—”
“Shut it,” said his sister. “The less we hear from you, the better.”
The chatter, which had stilled, started up again. Maggie slipped her hand into her little pouch and drew out her crust of bread.
The red-haired girl looked down, her eyebrows raised.
“That’s all you’ve got?”
Maggie nodded.
“Here, then,” said the girl. “I don’t care much for apples.”
The apple was not one of those she had seen in the market. This one was green with mushy brown spots, but for Maggie it was a true gift. Gifts came seldom in her life.
“Oh! Thank you!” she said.
The red-haired woman shrugged. “Ain’t nothin’,” she said. “We help each other out when we can. Don’t we, girls?”
A half dozen women around the table nodded or said “we do” or “when we can.”
A shy smile tugged at the corners of Maggie’s mouth. The room filled with bodies was stifling, but now the warmth was welcome. She was beginning to think the factory might not be such a bad place when the bell clanged and the women got up from the table.
“Back to work. No dawdling,” ordered Nicholas Speak, appearing out of nowhere.
Maggie was last in line, except for one person: Danny the sewing boy. Skimming past her into the big room, he whispered, “Stick with me, girl. These old biddies don’t know nothin’.” He stuck out his hand. “The name is Daniel Durch, and I ain’t afraid of nothin’ or nobody.”
Maggie shook his hand. “Maggie Street,” she said. But that’s all she said, because she was afraid of some things and some people. Nicholas Speak, for one.
“I’ll show ya the ropes,” said Daniel Durch.
“What ropes?” said Maggie, looking around her.
“It’s a sayin’,” he said. “Don’tcha know nothin’?”
“I know about some things,” said Maggie.
Daniel smirked. “Like what?”
“Owls,” said Maggie, the first thought that came to her.
Daniel frowned. “Owls?”
“Yes,” said Maggie with great conviction. “Owls.”
A Fine and Delicate Clue
As the big fisherman flung his net out onto the water, Oliver fought to keep his footing on the deck. Then up from below came another man. This one was smaller but just as strong. Together the two pulled in a net filled with squirming silver fish and dumped it onto the deck.
Maggie & Oliver or a Bone of One's Own Page 3