by Ann Hood
Clara Barton, Maisie thought, tucking her hands beneath her head. Why in the world had they landed in Clara Barton’s barn?
“This is disgusting,” Felix told Clara as she put the onion poultice on his arm.
“How would you ever tolerate leeches if you can’t endure the strong smell of onions?” Clara said.
“Please stop talking about leeches.” Felix groaned. “Besides, no one does anything like that anymore.”
She looked at him, surprised.
“That’s what they did in the olden days,” Felix continued, “before antibiotics and stuff.”
He heard his own words come out of his mouth and something settled in his chest. The olden days.
“You’re not Amish, are you?” Felix said softly.
Clara shook her head. “I have to admit,” she said, “I don’t know what Amish is.”
He studied her—the bonnet, the apron, the long dress, and the funny boots.
“Do you know the date today?” he asked, his mouth turning dry.
She smiled. “September fifth,” she said.
Felix swallowed hard. It had been September 5 when he woke up in Newport this morning.
“Um,” he said. “September fifth . . . ?”
“1836,” Clara said.
“1836,” Felix said. He did some subtraction and began shivering.
It was September 5, more than one hundred and seventy-five years earlier than it was supposed to be.
“1836,” Felix repeated as if by saying it again it might change.
“Yes,” Clara said.
Felix tried to concentrate. Had anything terrible happened in 1836? Anything catastrophic? He could feel his heart banging around under his ribs.
“We’re not at war or anything, right?” he asked. When was the Civil War? he wondered. Eighteen something.
“I don’t think so,” Clara said.
“I mean, the North and the South get along and everything?”
“North and south what?”
“Of America?” Felix said.
Clara placed the back of her cool hand on his forehead and kept it there for a while until she announced, “No fever. When David’s fevers came, he often spoke nonsense.”
A great surge of compassion filled Felix. How could he tell this girl that some time, maybe some time soon, a terrible and bloody war would start and that her country would be divided by it? How could he tell her that President Lincoln would be killed and that slaves would be freed? And what about the countless other historical moments that lay ahead?
Again he struggled to remember when the Civil War began. Felix thought of all the times Mrs. Johnson told him that someday he would realize how important it was to know history. He had no idea that day would come so soon.
“Is Abraham Lincoln the president?” Felix asked Clara.
“The president—”
“Of the United States.”
“You don’t even know who our president is?” Clara said sadly.
Felix shook his head. Maybe the Civil War was a long way from now.
“For your information,” Clara said, “Mr. Andrew Jackson is the president of the United States.”
Felix tried not to laugh. He had never even heard of Andrew Jackson. That guy won’t do anything very special, he wanted to tell Clara. No one will even remember him in a couple hundred years.
“Old Hickory himself,” Clara said proudly.
“Old Hickory,” Felix repeated, searching his brain for some memory of this guy.
“He defeated the Red Stick Creeks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend,” she said, excited. “My father voted for him in both elections. He’s completely paid off the national debt—”
“And this president . . . Jackson?”
She nodded.
“He’s the . . . twelfth or thirteenth president?”
Clara laughed. “Andrew Jackson is the seventh president of the United States. He used to have John C. Calhoun as his vice president but—”
“That’s all right,” Felix interrupted.
Clara blushed. “I can recite the name of every general, captain, colonel, and sergeant, and I know the name of everyone from the president and cabinet to all the leading government officers by heart.”
“Wow,” Felix said, impressed. He certainly couldn’t do that.
“But do you know what I used to think?” Clara said with a laugh. “I had no idea that they were all regular men. I thought they must certainly be larger than life, you know? I imagined the president might be as large as the meeting house, and the vice president as large as, oh, I don’t know. A schoolhouse maybe.”
Felix laughed. “I know what you mean,” he said. “Last year I saw Johan Santana on the street, and I was shocked that he was so ordinary-looking in person.”
“Johan—”
“Santana! Only the best pitcher in the game of baseball!” Felix said.
Clara frowned. “I don’t know that game,” she said.
“You don’t know what baseball is?”
Clara shook her head.
“It’s only the most amazing game ever,” Felix said. He couldn’t believe it. Baseball hadn’t been invented yet? He tried to remember when the first baseball game had been played, but he had no idea. That was the exact kind of thing his father would know without even looking it up.
“What’s wrong?” Clara asked gently. “You suddenly looked so sad.”
“I was just thinking about my father. He knows just about everything. He probably even knows all about Old Hickory and even that John Calhoun guy.”
“My father, too! He’s Captain Stephen Barton, and he fought during the French and Indian Wars, just like President Jackson,” Clara said. “Except he fought in Ohio and Michigan. And before that he fought under General Mad Anthony Wayne in the Revolutionary War. Why, you should hear his war stories!”
Felix nodded politely. “That would be great,” he said. But what he was actually thinking about was how there could have been a war he had never even heard of before. The French and Indian War? Did the French fight the Indians? Or did the French and the Indians fight the Americans?
Felix sighed. “Any sign of my sister out there?” he asked.
Clara looked out the barn door. “No. I suppose she went searching for that thing she needs so badly. What did she call it?”
“A phone,” Felix said. No matter how long or hard Maisie looked, she was not going to find a phone here in 1836.
They fell into an uncomfortable silence.
Then Clara said, “Do you know The Lady of the Lake?”
“Who’s she?” Felix said.
Clara looked disappointed. “The book by Walter Scott?”
“What’s it about?”
“Well,” Clara said, “the poem’s about the struggle between King James the Fifth and the powerful clan Douglas.”
“Wait. It’s a poem?”
“Yes,” Clara said.
“I thought it was a book,” Felix said.
“It’s both,” Clara explained.
“I’ve never heard of a poem long enough to be an entire book.”
Clara laughed. “Even more reason to read it then.”
“Maybe so,” Felix said, intrigued. “You were saying: There’s a king and a powerful clan . . .”
“Yes, but at the very beginning of the poem, a mysterious knight called James Fitz-James arrives at the castle. This is important to know because soon enough he falls in love with Ellen, James of Douglas’s daughter.”
Felix listened as Clara told him the details of the story. He liked how excited she looked as she talked. That was how he felt about good stories, too.
“Oh, it’s all very exciting,” Clara said breathl
essly. “But I shouldn’t say any more. You must read it yourself to see how it all turns out.”
“That does sound good,” Felix said. “I’ll have to get it when I get home,” he added to be kind. He doubted a book that old was still in print.
“What are your favorite kinds of stories?” Clara asked him.
“I like just about everything. Spy stories and science fiction and Harry Potter.” He stopped when he saw that confused look cross her face again. “All kinds of stories,” he said.
“It’s your turn to tell me a story now,” Clara said. She adjusted her long dress and leaned back, her face expectant.
“I can’t really think of any,” Felix said.
“Do you know any war stories?” she asked. “You must.”
“Well,” he said slowly, “once I read about a war where Americans fought other Americans.”
“Like the Loyalists and the Rebels?” Clara said.
“Uh, I don’t think so,” Felix said. Was there still another war he’d never heard of? Here he was, an American, and all these soldiers had died, and he didn’t know what they had been fighting for.
“So, not a Revolutionary War story?”
Bingo! He knew about that war. “No,” Felix said. “This isn’t a real war.” Not yet, anyway, he thought.
“So it’s just a story. Like The Lady of the Lake.”
“Sort of. In this story, people who live in the South want to start their own country. They want their own laws and their own president and everything.”
“That’s silly, isn’t it?”
“No, Clara,” Felix said. “It’s very serious. They call it the bloodiest war of all time. And states are forced to take sides, to be either Union or Confederates.” Like all historical facts, the details were a bit fuzzy to Felix. He hoped he was getting it mostly right.
“Which side does Massachusetts choose in this story?”
“Union,” Felix said. “They want to keep the country unified.”
“Good old Massachusetts,” Clara said. “Then what?”
“Well, one of the things they’re fighting over is whether it should be legal to have slaves—”
“They had a war over that?” Clara said, surprised. “Does it end happily?”
Felix thought about that. “Yes, I think it does. Ultimately. But only after a lot of people die.”
“That’s what happens in war, though, isn’t it?” Clara said matter-of-factly. She sighed. “Even so, I wish I could be a soldier.”
“No, you don’t, Clara. You don’t want to be on a battlefield.”
“Don’t look so worried,” she said, laughing at him. “Girls can’t be soldiers, either, can they?”
She lifted the poultice from his arm. “How is your arm feeling now?”
He moved it cautiously. The sharp pain had subsided to a dull ache. “A little better,” he said.
Clara placed the poultice back on his arm.
“Thanks,” Felix said.
“Ugh! What’s that awful smell?” Maisie asked. She was standing in the doorway of the barn, scowling.
“It’s my poultice,” Felix said.
“What’s it made out of? Onions?” Maisie said, holding her hand over her nose as she walked toward him.
“Did you find your—?” Clara asked politely.
“Oh, no,” Maisie said, looking directly at Felix. “There are no phones here.”
“No kidding,” Felix said.
“I mean, we traveled a long, long way from home,” Maisie said.
“I know.”
“No, Felix, I mean a long, long, long way.”
“Maisie?” Felix said. “You’d better sit down.” He’d always wanted to say that to somebody like they do in movies, and this seemed like the perfect time.
“You know, then?” she said, unable to hide her disappointment over not being the one to figure it out first.
“Maisie,” Felix said, “it’s September fifth—”
“Okay . . . ,” she said.
“1836.”
Felix and Maisie looked at each other for a long time. They could feel Clara watching them.
“1836,” Maisie finally managed to say. “That’s, like, after the Revolutionary War?”
“And before the Civil War,” Felix said.
Clara had gotten to her feet and now loomed over them. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she said, “but what ever are you two talking about? And you never did tell me why you are in my barn.”
“I know how we got here,” Maisie said to Felix. “But I have no idea how in the world we’re ever going to get back.”
The Baseball Game
“Clara,” Felix said, “where exactly are we?”
“On Captain Stephen Barton’s farm,” she answered tentatively.
“And where is Captain Stephen Barton’s farm?” Maisie said, pacing in front of them.
“Oxford,” Clara said. Then she added, “Massachusetts.”
Maisie paused in her pacing just long enough to say, “I have no idea where Oxford is. I don’t have any idea where anything in Massachusetts is.”
“What does it matter?” Felix said miserably. “Where we are isn’t quite as important as when we are, is it?”
His sister broke into a grin as if he had said something wonderful. “That’s right, bro,” she said, suddenly cheerful.
“Huh?” Felix said. He certainly didn’t feel any better. In fact, all he wanted was to be back in Newport, in his bed with his iPod on, and listening to the playlist his father had made for him before he’d gone off to Qatar.
“Well,” Maisie said, her eyes twinkling, “we’re here, right? We might as well make the most of it. I mean, we’ll never have an opportunity like this again, will we?”
Clara got to her feet and swept her hand over her dress, wiping off the straw that clung to it. “You two are just the oddest people I’ve ever come across,” she said.
“You have no idea what it’s like here,” Felix told Maisie. “They don’t even have baseball yet.”
Maisie grinned. “That’s where we’ll start then,” she said. “We’ll teach Clara Barton here how to play baseball.”
“They probably don’t even have balls,” Felix mumbled.
Clara put her hands on her hips. “We most certainly do,” she said. “And I can throw one with an under swing better than any boy’s and make it go exactly where I intend it to.”
“We’ll see about that,” Maisie said. She couldn’t help but think that a girl who had never heard of baseball couldn’t play better than two kids whose father had spent countless warm Saturday afternoons in the park teaching them to throw and hit balls.
Clara laughed. “You’ve never had my brother David teach you anything.”
Maisie started to look for something to use as a bat. She picked up and then rejected a pitchfork, a hoe, and a shovel. All too heavy or misshapen.
“Clara,” Felix said softly. “I think you’re going to be a good baseball player. There’s one player called a pitcher whose job is just to throw the ball, and it sounds like you’d be perfect for that.”
“But how can you play with that arm of yours?” Clara said, kneeling beside him.
“I forgot all about it!” Felix said, surprised. “This thing must really be working.”
He watched Clara carefully remove the poultice from his arm.
“I had quite a skating accident myself a couple of years ago,” Clara said as she poked and prodded his arm.
“You really are a tomboy,” Felix said, unable to hide his admiration.
“There you go again with your funny words,” Clara said. “A tomboy?”
“A girl who can do things like throw underhanded and skate superfast,” Felix
said.
“That’s me, all right!” Clara said, blushing. “I felt so proud when I heard the surgeon say to my father, ‘That was a hard case, Captain, but she stood it like a soldier.’” Clara patted Felix’s arm. “And I can say the same to you, Felix. You stood it like a soldier.”
Felix bent his arm carefully. “I think I’m good to go,” he said.
From one corner of the barn came a loud clattering of metal and then a triumphant “aha!” from Maisie.
She appeared in front of Felix and Clara wielding a wooden stick.
“Baseball, anyone?” she said.
For the first time since he’d landed in the Barton’s barn, Felix stepped outside. It was a bright, sunny day, and the smell of grass and flowers was strong. Though not stronger than the smell of farm animals. Felix wrinkled his nose.
“Do you have cows or something?” he said.
“Twenty-five milk cows,” Clara said proudly.
“Watch where you step,” Maisie said.
“And Highlanders, Virginians, and Morgans,” Clara added.
When she saw the blank looks on Maisie’s and Felix’s faces, she said, “Horses! My father raises them.”
Felix looked around. The farm was enormous, with two barns in addition to the one they’d been in, rolling hills in the distance, a pond, and a large house with porches and a balcony.
“We moved here when I was eight, after my uncle died,” Clara explained. “It’s three hundred acres with lots of grassland for the horses and room for my cousins to come and stay during the summer. They just left a few days ago, which is too bad. They would have liked to learn this baseball, too.”
Maisie gave a low whistle. “Central Park is eight hundred acres,” she said. “Two hundred and fifty of that is lawns, which means you live on a farm about as big as all the grass in Central Park.” She patted her fleece vest.
“Maisie likes numbers,” Felix explained. “She likes math, and I like reading.”
“I’m the one who keeps all the stats for the Mets every season,” Maisie said. “Well, usually.”
The truth was she did it with her father, carefully filling in all the blanks in the Mets record book they got every opening day. Except this year.