“I’m afraid it’s the best we can do, under the circumstances. Maybe Cleve can make you a bigger bed or something. Here’s your pitcher and washbowl. But you can also wash up in the bathroom across the hall.”
“A necessary? Here in the house?” She felt her face heat up just remembering her past experiences. “No privy out back?”
“Heavens no. We might be in the forests of Oregon, but we’re civilized.”
“I reckon your necessary is fit for a little person?”
Sarah’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh. Oh. Yes. Oh dear. Well, there is an outhouse behind the barn. The hands use that. Used to, that is, when we still had hands.”
Babe edged herself into the tiny room. “Can’t hardly catch my breath in here.”
Sarah opened the window. “There. Is that better? Babe, I know what it’s like. Being a carnie. Living out of a trunk. We just make the best with whatever we have.” She pulled back the coverlet. “You know from carnie life we just grow where we’re planted.”
Babe cocked a half smile as she imagined herself growing, a giant sequoia, erupting like Alice in Wonderland, right up through the roof. “I’ll try. Thank you.”
“Well, good night,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Babe sighed, looking around. She’d have to remember not to hit the electric light overhead, and to be careful with the porcelain pitcher and washbowl, stay away from that dinky rocking chair and footstool. “Dainty,” she muttered. She switched the light on and off, on and off, trundled to the bed, cringing at the creaks in the wood floor. She gently tested the strength of the bed before sitting down.
The bed sagged under her, tossing her off-balance, the sound of springs and ropes protesting under the strain of her weight.
But it had been a long, hard day filled with enough surprises and changes to last her for quite some time. She fell asleep, folded nearly in half.
She’d barely been asleep when she sat upright, awakened by the muffled, familiar roar of a bear. The roar was answered by Euclid’s screech, then Egypt’s grumble. She groped for the light switch, picked up her valise, and tried to ease herself out of the house without upsetting or breaking anything.
The gush of fresh night air welcomed her. She made her way back to the barn, back to her critters.
“Back to sleep, everyone,” Babe said. “Your Babe’s here now.”
There was a bunkhouse off the barn. Perfect! She pushed together some bunks, found an ancient horse blanket in a trunk, then curled up.
She closed her eyes, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and saw her Euclid running toward her, the large log house, the pastures, the trees, the barn, and the comforts for her animals. Then she tried to remember what Cleve, Sarah, and Miss V looked like, but all she could remember was Denny Franklin.
36
“You know, Babe, we can’t just live here and take her hospitality and not do something,” Lotty said as they sat alone having breakfast on their second day. Babe looked down at her third helping of a half-dozen eggs and two more slices of ham.
“Way I eat, I’ll wear out my welcome real fast,” Babe said. She looked around. “Where is everybody?”
“Sarah said Cleve and Denny go every day to the logging mill down the hill a piece.”
“And your aunt? She still asleep?”
“No, Sarah said they all start out every morning and go work at the mill.”
“That tiny little lady goes to work in a lumber mill?” Babe asked. She’d never seen a lumber mill, but had met plenty of timber savages—all hale and hearty men.
“I guess. All I know is, we have to pull our own weight. All of them up there working and us down here living like the queens of Sheba.”
“You girls have enough?” Sarah asked, sticking her head in from the kitchen.
“Yes, thanks,” Lotty said. “And don’t worry, we’ll clear and clean up. Don’t do anything special for us.”
“And, ma’am?” Babe said. “Thanks again for them nice blankets and curtains and fixings for my room over to the barn. Looks like a real home to me.”
“My pleasure. I should have realized you’d get cabin fever in that tiny little guest room. Still, I hate to think of you sleeping in a barn.”
“It’s home to me.” Babe winked at Lotty.
“Oh, Sarah . . . ,” Lotty started, “um, can you tell me . . . I mean, when Miss V wrote me, she called me a godsend. But why? Seems like she has everything she needs here and good help to boot.”
“I’m not sure what I should tell you and what I shouldn’t. After all, you only got here yesterday. We’re all just getting acquainted. But I can tell you this, she needs all the help she can get.”
“And we want to help. Just not sure how,” Lotty said. “I mean, I’m not much help with big things.”
“But I can help! I can drive a team, tote just about anything, swing a ax like any he-man.”
“Oh dear,” Sarah said, cutting Babe off. “Maybe not that sort of help. Well, she’ll never say anything, but I will. Well, she’s nearly forty, and her health isn’t the greatest.”
“Why? What’s wrong?” Lotty asked.
“Her heart. They told her it was from birth. You know, a part of her condition, being small and all.”
“She setting for a heart attack?” Babe asked. “Seed one once. Man fell over splat-dead just standing in line for a beer.”
“She’s had a few, oh, they call them episodes,” Sarah said, fiddling with a napkin.
“Her heart?” Lotty’s hand went to her own heart.
“We women get older, we get to thinking about our lives,” Sarah went on. “What’s past and what’s future. We think about family. But Miss V has such a difficult road ahead. And you are a godsend. And you, too, Babe, and maybe even that menagerie you brought with you. She’s needing family now, and we’ve been needing new life blowing into this place for a long time.”
Babe recalled how Denny had blown life into this very dining room.
Sarah reached to touch Lotty’s hand. “When Miss V got your letter, she started to cry. She was so happy she found you. Well, you found her.”
“Why?” Lotty asked.
“And she didn’t even cry when she came back from that heart specialist in Portland. Or when the county assessor sent his judgment about the property lines. Well, I’m saying too much.”
“How come if she’s doing so poorly she’s out working? Shouldn’t she be here, resting and taking care of herself?” Babe asked.
“Lay in bed and wait for a heart attack that may never happen or work to keep your land, your business, everything you’ve worked hard at for nine years?” Sarah said.
Lotty began, “That sounds like she’s—”
“Angry!” a voice snapped as Miss V eased herself through the kitchen door. She glared at Sarah, who popped up from the chair.
“Oh, weren’t you down at the mill?” Sarah asked.
“We forgot the lunch hamper, so Denny drove me back. Now, if you don’t mind, I will do my own explaining from now on and you can make sure that hamper is full!”
Babe wondered if all small people could shout such big orders.
Miss V turned to Lotty. “I suppose she told you about my health.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry. About your heart, I mean.”
“No pity, please. Fact of the matter is, doctors have been wrong before, and I feel just fine. Now, if you two want to stay on here—and you can surely change your mind when I tell you what we’re up against—and my weak heart is the least of it. Fact of the matter is,” she repeated, then stopped, thinking. “Well, I’m in the middle of a conflict here. But I didn’t invite you here to fight my battles for me.”
Babe asked, “You mean like a war?”
Miss V walked to a wall with several hanging photographs. She pointed up to one. “That was Logan Lumber, just last year. Babe, could you hand that down to me?”
Babe got it, pleased to put her size to good use and set the frame
d photo on the table. “We had a crew of fifty-three men, four women. Full-time, two shifts. Putting out enough lumber to ship all around the state.”
Babe blinked, making sure she was seeing what she was seeing. “Youngins make good lumberjacks?”
“Look closer,” Miss V said.
Both Babe and Lotty leaned into the photo, then looked at each other.
In unison, they said, “Dwarfs!”
Lotty pointed to the photo. “And that man there! He looks familiar!”
“The Great Harry Harlequin,” Miss V said, “World-Famous Rubber Man. Contortionist, actually. Quite an act in his day.”
Babe and Lotty looked at Miss V, the same question on their faces.
“No, carnies don’t make the best lumberjacks. But, what else could they do?”
“All thems’re carnies?” Babe asked.
“No, of course not. But many. I always had a job for any performer who needed to get off the road. Or was forced off the road.”
“You said last year. What about this year?” Lotty asked.
“Had to close the mill. Lay everyone off.”
“Tell them the rest,” Sarah said, standing next to the sideboard.
“Sarah!”
“I’ll tell them if you won’t, Miss V. Several of those carnies, old and out of work and hardly able to lift a nail let alone a hammer, are set up in the county charity home and guess who sends them a wagonload of food and supplies once a month?”
“Sarah, do you mind?” Miss V said.
“Yep. Donation Day, we call it here. Just so you know and, okay, now I’ll see to that hamper!” She pushed the door open and let it whap whap whap after her.
“What happened to the mill?” Lotty asked. “Fire?”
“No, no. At least I would have had insurance to cover fire. No, this conflict is with Mother Nature.”
Babe stayed silent but knew from her own life, Mother Nature won every time.
Miss V climbed up her steps and sat, breathless, in her chair. “Are you all right, Miss V?” Lotty asked, jumping down off her perch and coming to her side.
“I’m fine. I have my nitroglycerin if it gets bad.”
“Nitroglycerin!” Babe boomed. “Don’t that blow things up?”
Miss V chuckled. “No, it’s all right. My pills won’t blow anyone up, least of all me. It’s just medicine for my angina.”
The kitchen door swung open again. “Excuse me, Miss V,” Denny said, his hat in his hand, “did you want me to keep waiting?”
There he was again . . . maybe the nitroglycerin would calm down Babe’s own rampaging heart.
“Oh, yes, Denny,” Miss V said. “Coming. Well, girls, do you want to come with me down to the mill? I can explain things better there. Denny, you stay here and help your mother.”
Babe stood aside to let the small ones go through the door, which Denny held open.
Babe smiled at him, hating her huge red lips, her crooked piano-key teeth. She tried to edge through the door, but bumped into Denny, sending him off-balance. Babe grabbed his arm and pulled him back up with an easy tug.
“Oh. Excuse me,” Babe said. “You okay?”
He rubbed his arm and looked up at her, his face full of wonder. “Man, you’re strong!” He gave her bicep a squeeze—something Babe usually hated, but this was new, different; this was Denny.
Lotty had seen the whole awkward moment from the kitchen. “Babe. Can’t you try to be a little more careful?”
37
It was only a short but steep wagon ride down to the mill. Babe walked, matching her strides to the turn of the wagon wheels. Miss V handled the reins and Lotty sat next to her on the small bench, just their size.
Babe kept glancing over at Lotty and thought there was something different in her face, in her manner. She wondered what it must have felt like—finding not just an aunt, but an aunt she could, in every sense, see eye to eye with. Ol’ Babe ain’t never going to see eye to eye with no one, she thought, looking down at her boots. Never.
They tied off the horse, then walked through a yard with dozens of empty slots for holding lumber. They went through two huge doors on rollers and entered the mill itself. A gush of damp, chilly air greeted them. Babe looked around . . . sawdust, cobwebs, a long, half-cut board in the middle of a huge round saw. It was almost as though a witch had cast a spell and everything stopped working right in the middle of a job.
Their footsteps echoed as they walked through. “The office is over here,” Miss V said, pointing to a room. Cleve sat at the desk, doing paperwork. There were maps and charts and photographs spread out along a long, low counter that ran the length of the room.
Babe stood back, looking over everyone’s shoulders.
“Cleve, bring those photos over, will you?” Miss V asked, pointing. “The girls need to know what we’re up against. Here’s a photo I had taken of the Heartbreak Creek, which my property borders, when I first bought this place.”
“Didn’t know they could make photographs that big,” Babe said. “We’ve only seed postcard-size!” She gave Lotty’s leg a small nudge, but she got a rude shuush! back.
“That’s a swimming hole big enough for six Egypts,” Lotty said. “That a rope swing?”
“Yes, it was great having all the local kids come swim and play. Picnic. We all loved it,” Miss V said.
“Hold up,” Cleve said. “That was last summer. This is now.” He placed another photo over the first.
“And this is the photo that was taken from the same place. The surveyors for the county took it,” Miss V said, her mouth hardening.
“That can’t be the same place,” Lotty said. “What happened?”
“Landslide,” Cleve said. “That creek? Gone way over there. Water’s going to go where water’s going to go. Over here’s swampland. Nothing but a huge mess now.”
“And every time it rains—swoosh! More hillside fills up the creek,” Miss V added. “That’s what I meant when I said I was up against Mother Nature.”
Cleve took a pencil and used it to point. “This property here belongs to Maynard Luckett. Here, here, and here, along Heartbreak Creek. He’s this old lunatic prospector hermit.”
“Well, he’s not that old,” Miss V said. “And he wasn’t always a lunatic hermit.”
“Miss V,” Cleve said, sighing heavily, “he keeps to himself and never figured out why they call it Heartbreak Creek. And what he was has nothing to do with what he is.”
Miss V turned to Lotty. “I told you there was conflict.”
“So what’s the conflict?” Lotty asked. “What’s logging trees have to do with that creek?”
“Come on. I’ll show you,” Cleve said.
They followed Cleve through the deathly quiet mill and came out into the sun. In front of them loomed a huge swampy area, as though a lake had once been there and the water had simply evaporated into thin air.
“See that? It used to be our holding pond.”
“What did it hold? Mud?” Babe asked.
“Logs for the mill,” Cleve answered. Then he pointed toward a high, narrow structure. “That’s called a sluice. Think of it as a long, high slide. Heartbreak Creek used to flow into it and that’s how we slid our logs down from the hill. Can’t even fire up our steam engines without water.”
“I don’t understand,” Lotty said.
“It’s like this: no water, no logs, no work, no crew, no lumber, no money,” Cleve said. “See, things always come down to money.”
“Don’t we know it!” Lotty said.
“We’ve been living on the ragged edge for almost a year now, and then there’s all those at the county charity home.” He put his hand over his mouth. “Oh, maybe I’ve spilled too many beans.”
“Sarah already spilled those beans,” Lotty said.
Babe pulled Lotty’s sleeve and whispered, “We got money left.”
“Yes! Babe and me have some money. We can help.”
“You just try to give that proud wom
an charity,” Cleve said. “She only now agreed to let us stay on for just room and board. And I’m afraid we won’t be able to even do that much longer. Might have to take our washed-up acts back on the road. Miss V needs to toss in the towel and sell out. You can’t fight Mother Nature.”
Babe threw a rock out across the pond, where it pinged! off a tree stump, sending splinters flying.
“Maybe you could talk to her, Carlotta,” Cleve said. “She won’t listen to us. We can winter over, but come next spring . . . we’ll have to move on and she should, too. She can’t go on fighting without weapons.”
As they walked back through the mill, Babe wondered what kind of weapons could ever go against Mother Nature.
38
“Now can I see ’em?” Denny asked, pointing toward the barn.
“Sure, but don’t move fast, or say nothing, or even look ’em in the eye,” Babe warned.
Lotty gave Babe’s leg a little kick. “Don’t listen to her, Denny. These animals are tame as kittens. Especially Egypt. She loves people. You can come pet her, and I’ll show you some of her tricks.”
Denny’s face lit up like the Fourth of July. “Man! Yeah!”
Denny followed Lotty into the barn, and Babe went over to Ajax. She pet his grand, graying nose. “Reckon elephants and pretty little dwarfs is more exciting than ugly giants and worn-out, smelly old critters. No offense, Ajax.”
Babe went into the barn, trying to ignore the lilting laughter and “Man alives!” seeping through the walls from the other side of the barn. The bear and chimp had been snoozing, and both their heads popped up when Babe gently called to them.
Euclid’s chirp was more Where have you been? than Hello, Babe ol’ girl!
As though to answer him, she said, “Been learning about this place Lotty’s landed us in.”
“Denny! That’s not funny!” Lotty giggled from the other side of the barn.
“Then why are you laughing?”
“Well, I guess maybe it is a little funny.”
Now more laughter from the other side; each new note of gaiety annoyed Babe. Jealousy? Long ago she decided the green-eyed monster was about the only monster not inside her. Once she’d realized who and what she was and that there would never be any recovery, jealousy made no sense. Yet the sound of Lotty’s cheer and Denny’s laughter and even Egypt’s nose snorting stirred something inside her.
Professor Renoir's Collection of Oddities, Curiosities, and Delights Page 18