He snuffled loudly and she wasn’t sure whether he was fixing to cry or was laughing at her. She turned sideways so she couldn’t see him looking at her.
“Some people will always be a stick-in-the-mud,” Dotty said. “They are born that way. They can’t help themselves. They are just plain born to be a stick-in-the-mud.”
They rode on in silence broken only by the sound of Sarah’s hooves and the sudden noise of snow falling from the branch of a tree. After a time Mr. Clarke said, “Seems I’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the line. This doesn’t look familiar to me at all. I think I’ll stop up here and ask directions.” He reined in Sarah as they approached a farmhouse curled under the brim of a small hill, a farmhouse with peeling paint and a porch that clung to the front of the house for dear life, fearful it might drop off at any moment. A battered mailbox bearing the name A. Lazlo stood at the end of the drive, and a sign swung from a large old maple tree, proclaiming: “APPLES. PICK UR OWN. CORTLANDS, MACS, ROME BEAUTYS.” Dotty and Jud stayed in the sleigh as Mr. Clarke went up the front steps. A crowd of small faces looked out at them, pale and watery behind the cracked window-panes.
A woman with a thin, irritable face came to the door. “Yes?” she said in a sharp tone.
Mr. Clarke took off his hat, and she moved back, as if she thought he was going to hit her. “I wonder if you could tell me which road goes to Boonville,” he said courteously. “I seem to have lost my way.”
The woman smiled tentatively, as if her face were stiff and she’d forgotten how to smile from lack of practice. “Why,” she said, “you ain’t but a spit away. At the foot of the driveway, you turn left and then …”
“He turns right is better, Ma,” a large boy corrected her, coming out from behind his mother’s skirts, suddenly brave. “You turn left, you come to the old mill, you got to go around the pond. Takes twice the time. You turn right, you be better off. Takes you straight up to the highway, and it ain’t but a short distance then.” The boy stepped back behind the woman’s skirts as if he’d said his lines in a play and were going behind the curtain, his part over. There was a sound of scuffling.
“Think they know everything, don’t they?” The woman took a swipe at her coarse gray hair, pushing it behind her ears. Then she took another swipe at the surging bodies behind her, apparently engaged in mortal combat.
“Young ’uns don’t mind their manners the way they used to. When I was a girl”—she smiled coquettishly at Mr. Clarke—“young ’uns had some respect for their elders.”
Mr. Clarke thanked her as if she’d given him the keys to the city. “You’ve been very kind,” he said. The children giggled. Dotty stared angrily at them, sure they were making fun of Mr. Clarke because he was so polite. Jud had crawled so far under the blanket only the top of his hat showed.
Mr. Clarke took up the reins, chirping to Sarah, telling her to giddap once again. Halfway down the driveway, Dotty looked back. The woman stood at the open door, looking after them, her hand to her hair. And at the windows the crowd of pale, watery faces pressed against the windows, misting them, watching the visitors leave.
“You warm enough?” Mr. Clarke asked after he’d turned right as the boy had directed him. His cheeks were rosy from the cold, and his face looked less desolate than it had.
“We’re fine,” Dotty told him. Beside her, Jud snuffled loudly. “Just fine.”
She hugged herself and smiled in anticipation, thinking of how Olive would look, how astonished she’d be when she saw the sleigh in front of her house and who was in it. Why, Olive would shout and laugh and carry on something terrible when she saw Dotty. Dotty could hear her voice, how she’d cry out, “I don’t believe it! How on earth did you get here!” Then she’d throw her arms around her friend Dotty and urge her into the house, where they could settle down for a long talk. Dotty reminded herself to introduce Mr. Clarke, and Jud, too, if he behaved himself. Olive would probably want Dotty to stay for at least a week, but she’d have to explain how they got there in the first place and that they had to get back home. She’d show Olive the suitcase, once they’d locked themselves in Olive’s room and settled on Olive’s four-poster bed.
It would be like old times.
I can hardly wait, Dotty thought, her lips turning up at the corners. I can hardly wait.
CHAPTER 17
They followed directions and presently saw a sign reading “Boonville: 2 miles.” Dotty’s face grew warm with pleasure. They were there. Almost. At last.
“Hey there!” A man leaned out of his car. “Get a horse!” he cried.
Jud stood up in the seat, dragging his half of the blanket with him.
“We already did!” he shouted back.
A woman driving a blue Nash honked at them and smiled. Beside her in the passenger seat sat her dog, looking very important, very haughty, like a dowager being taken out to tea. The dog looked them over and, before the car turned the corner, he relented and Dotty could’ve sworn he smiled at them.
“Oh, I love it here!” Dotty cried. “Everyone’s so friendly. I didn’t think they would be in such a big city. Olive must be very happy here.” She scanned the faces of the passersby in the hope that one of them might turn out to be Olive.
“Where does your friend live?” Mr. Clarke asked.
“Why,” said Dotty, astonished, “I don’t know. When I write to her, I send the letter to a post office box.”
“Well, then, we’ll locate the post office and you can run in and ask.”
“How about us telephoning home?” Jud said in a hoarse voice. “You promised we would when we got here.”
“Right you are,” Mr. Clarke said. “You might ask at the post office about where we can find a telephone.”
A very clean and shabby old man with tiny periwinkle eyes and dressed in a coat that hung almost to the ground directed them to the post office. Then he ran his hand over Sarah’s soft pink nose. “She’s a beauty,” he said softly. “Used to have one just like her. Got too much for me to feed so I had to sell her.” He patted Sarah once more and watched them go, smiling a sad little smile.
“Do you know the Dohertys?” Dotty asked the man behind the post office counter. “They have Box 23. I’m looking for Olive Doherty.”
The man stopped sorting letters and gazed at a spot over Dotty’s head, trying to think. “Doherty,” he said. “What’s the first name?”
“Edward. They only moved here a couple of months ago. Six or seven, I think. Olive’s my friend. She has red hair and she’s about my size. Her hair isn’t always red. Only when she’s in the sunshine and her mother gives her a vinegar rinse after she washes it.” Dotty spread her hands wide in an effort to bring Olive to life. “But at night sometimes it’s brown. She wears glasses and she has three older brothers. Her father’s a carpenter and he came here because somebody told him there was work for carpenters here.”
She ran out of things to tell this man about the Dohertys. He continued to sort letters.
“Good luck is all I can say,” he finally said. “More folks out of work here than’s in.”
What if I can’t find her? Dotty thought, for a brief moment panicking. Suppose he doesn’t know where to look? What if we came all this way and Olive isn’t here? Suppose they moved someplace else if Mr. Doherty couldn’t find a job? Oh, my.
She laid her hands on the edge of the counter and stared at the man, willing him to give her the answers she wanted. Just when she thought all was lost, he reached underneath and brought out a piece of paper. “Looks like we got a E. Doherty at number five Carey Street,” he mused, running a knobby finger down a list of names and addresses. “Can’t say he has a box, but he most likely picks up his mail here. General delivery.”
“Oh, please,” said Dotty, “how do I get to Carey Street?”
“You alone?” the man asked, looking hard at her.
“No, Mr. Clarke’s with me, and Jud. We’re only staying the one night. We have to get home because my father doe
sn’t know where I am and he’s probably worried.”
“Better watch your step over there,” the man said. “Rough crowd hangs out around there. You be careful. Don’t lose nothing by being careful, my mother used to say.”
Dotty shifted from one foot to the other. She didn’t have time to waste.
“Could you please give me directions on how to get there?” she said, keeping her voice polite by an effort.
The man shrugged. “Long’s you know what you’re doing.” He went to the door of the post office and, after staring at the sleigh with Mr. Clarke and Jud in it, he said, “Follow this here main street for two blocks. Then bear right, take the next left and you’re there. Can’t tell you exactly where number five is, but there’s bound to be somebody there can. Mind what I say. Watch your step.” He turned and went back inside.
“Did you ask him about a telephone?” Jud said.
“I forgot.” She jumped up beside him. “We can ask when we get to Olive’s. Maybe they have one.” She gave Mr. Clarke the directions, leaving out the part about watching her step.
Carey Street was a sad little street. Everything in it was dingy: dingy buildings, dingy snow, dingy sky, dingy people. It looked as if it could use a good wash. The houses leaned against one another like weary people going to sleep with their eyes open. Thin men and women walked dispiritedly along the narrow sidewalks. The sound of Sarah’s hooves was loud in the stillness. Dotty felt eyes watching her from behind the murky windowpanes. She saw curtains pulled aside to allow the watchers a better view.
What a place for poor Olive to live, she thought. I wonder where she goes to play. I wonder if they jump rope here, or play marbles or Kick the Can. Or baseball. Or any of the games we played together. I wonder if her friends live here too.
“It’s number five,” she told Mr. Clarke. Just think. Olive’s right near somewhere and she doesn’t even know that I’m here too. She doesn’t even suspect that I’m getting closer every minute.
“Slow down, Sarah,” Mr. Clarke said, pulling in on the reins. Sarah pranced and lifted her feet high. She had a new lease on life. Men passed, their collars turned up, their hats pulled down, their faces and hands red and raw in the cold wind and drifting snow. Some of them stared at Dotty and Jud and Mr. Clarke without interest. Their own misery absorbed all their strength and left no room for anything else.
A group of boys gathered outside a store which advertised “Newspapers, Magazines, and Smokes.”
“Can you tell me where number five is?” Mr. Clarke called to them. The boys looked as if he had spoken in a foreign tongue. They turned wordlessly to one another and then looked away. Perhaps they were deaf, Dotty thought.
One boy, bigger, bolder than the others, called out, “Doherty, is it? They’re down a ways. On the right. Second floor.” He stepped back and was immediately swallowed up in the throng.
Mr. Clarke pulled up his coat collar and once again gave Sarah the go-ahead signal. Dotty felt like getting out of the sleigh and running to find Olive by herself. But she stayed where she was, and after what seemed a year they arrived at 5 Carey Street.
Before they’d even come to a stop, Dotty jumped out, ran up the path, and knocked on the door. She waited, heart doing flip-flops. There was no sound from behind the door. She knocked again. Maybe they were out shopping or something. She knocked a third time.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Dotty!” Dotty cried, hugging herself. But that wasn’t Olive’s voice, and it didn’t sound like Mrs. Doherty’s either.
After another long wait the door creaked open slowly, and an old woman with a face so wrinkled she might’ve been a hundred years old peered out.
“I’ve got nothing for you,” she said in a high voice. “I give it all away, every last scrap I had. And there’s no more food to be had. Except one onion and some celery tops and I’m using those for soup. So be off and don’t bother me.” She started to close the door.
“I’m looking for Olive Doherty,” Dotty said indignantly. “Not for food. They said at the post office she lived here.”
The door opened a fraction of an inch. “That’ll be the upstairs people then,” the old woman said.
“Upstairs?”
“Upstairs is what I said,” the woman snapped, “and upstairs is what I meant. Now leave me be.” The door closed with an angry bang.
Dotty saw a flight of stairs leading to the second floor of 5 Carey Street. “She’s up there,” she called to Mr. Clarke “I’ll run up to make sure she’s home and I’ll be down in a sec.” She leaped up the stairs, feeling this was her last chance. Please be home, Olive, a voice drummed in her head. Please be home. She banged on the door. “It’s me!” she cried. “It’s Dotty!” As if there were only one Dotty in the world.
“Dotty who?” a voice asked from behind the door.
“Why, Dotty Fickett!” she replied.
The door opened and a woman stood there, her face gaunt and filled with sadness.
“Mrs. Doherty?” Dotty asked. She wasn’t sure. But it had to be. Only a few months ago she’d seen Mrs. Doherty, strong and bossy, full of life, wringing her hands as she directed her husband and her sons on how to load her davenport into the truck.
“Mrs. Doherty,” Dotty repeated. “It’s me, Dotty Fickett.”
Mrs. Doherty, for it was she, put out one of her hands. She almost touched Dotty, then seemed to think better of it. Her hand fell to her side and “Where did you come from?” she whispered as if her throat hurt.
“From home. I’ll tell you about it. Is Olive here?” If she says no, I’ll die. I’ll just sit down and die. That’s all there is to that.
“Olive?” Mrs. Doherty frowned as if she weren’t exactly sure who Olive was.
“Oh, of course. Of course she’s here.” Mrs. Doherty’s face brightened and she looked much younger, more the way Dotty remembered. “Come in. I don’t know what’s happened to my manners.” She stepped aside. “You’ll have to forgive me. We don’t have much company these days. I’ve almost forgotten how to behave.” She gave a little laugh.
“I know she’ll love to see you. She talks about you all the time. All the old days, the good times. Olive!” She raised her voice. “Olive!”
Dotty laid a finger against her lips. “Surprise,” she whispered. “I want to surprise her.”
“What do you want, Mama?” Dotty heard Olive ask.
Dotty held out her arms, ready to give Olive such a bear hug she’d completely lose her voice for a minute.
“It’s me, Olive!” she shouted.
The door opened, Olive peeked out, and when she caught sight of Dotty Fickett, her mouth dropped open, her face bunched together in the middle, and she began to cry as if her heart would break.
CHAPTER 18
Olive was teasing. That was it. Olive was always joking and kidding around. In a minute she’d stop crying.
Dotty looked at the floor. I shouldn’t have come, she thought. It was a mistake. Her stomach felt hollow. She had thought it would be so grand, such a treat when they got together again. She had thought that when she saw Olive after all this time everything would be wonderful. Life would be as it had been before they were separated.
“Don’t, Olive,” Mrs. Doherty said, her arms rigid and stiff at her sides, as if they’d been starched. “Please don’t.”
Olive’s face was slick with tears as if she’d just come from a very sad movie. She wiped it on her sleeve. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she said. Then, “Where did he come from?” she asked, her eyes wide with amazement. For a minute she sounded like the old Olive.
Dotty turned. Jud stood there, clutching himself.
“He has to go to the bathroom,” she explained.
Mrs. Doherty put out her hand. “I’ll show you,” she said to Jud.
When they had gone, Olive and Dotty stared at each other. “I can’t believe you’re here,” Olive said at last. “I was going to write you a letter, to tell you—”
&nbs
p; “You won’t believe how I got here,” Dotty interrupted her. “We’ve got to talk. Let’s go to your room and close the door. Like the old days.”
But Jud was already back, hitching up his corduroy pants. “How about the telephone?” he said.
“We have to call home,” Dotty said, frowning at Jud. “We have to call home to tell them we’re all right. Daddy doesn’t know where I am.”
“My ma will be tearing her hair out in big bunches, she’ll be so worried,” Jud announced gloomily. He put his finger up his nose in an exploratory fashion, and Dotty knocked his hand down.
“We don’t have a phone,” Olive said quickly. “Most folks around here don’t either. But I think there’s one down the street someplace. I’ll ask Mama.” She flushed. “I’m sorry I can’t offer you any refreshments. Mama and I were going to go to the store today. We might have some saltines, though.” She opened the cupboard door. Dotty couldn’t help noticing it was almost empty.
Boldly Jud said, “How about a cookie?” Dotty stepped on his foot and made a furious face at him.
Olive rattled the box. They could hear crumbs bouncing around inside.
“I guess they’re all gone,” she said and put the box back. Her hair didn’t seem to be as red as it had, and it had lost its beautiful shine. And although she and Dotty had been almost the exact same size, now Olive was at least an inch, maybe more, taller. She was wearing a cotton wash dress that Dotty remembered. Mrs. Doherty must have let down the hem. Even so, it was much too short. Olive’s arms seemed to have grown too. The sleeves of her sweater reached just below her elbows and refused to go farther. Her wristbones jutted out angrily, looking for a fight.
Nervously Olive began firing questions at Dotty. “How’d you get here? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? Where’d you get the money for the bus?” As she talked, her face became animated and two bright spots of color appeared high in her cheeks.
“Slow down,” Dotty said. “Let’s go to your room where we can have some privacy.”
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