But I have a hopeful feeling. From now on, I’m going to do everything right. I’m going to get the garden ready as soon as I can. We’ll get that goat one of these days. We’ll get the barn ready.
Oh, President Roosevelt, please hurry.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It’s a Tuesday morning in April. Outside, it’s beautiful; but it’s still cold in here. I rub my feet together in bed and angle my head to glance at the drawings that march around the wall.
I feel as if I know the artist, that corkscrew tail she’s given the dog, the duck with its beak high in the air. I can almost hear it quacking. The girl must have been smiling, maybe laughing, as she drew them.
Last night I finished my Rebecca book in one burst. I just couldn’t make myself stop turning the pages; it was wonderfully cozy reading by the gas lamp in the kitchen with my coat tucked around me.
Cassie is standing in the doorway. “Are you ever getting up?”
“This minute.” I throw back the covers and slide out of bed. The floor is gritty under my feet, but that’s all right. I’ll sweep the whole thing as soon as I can get to it. I have more important things to concentrate on. I’m determined now to get this farm going, the way President Roosevelt is determined to get the country going.
As I walk along the hall, the back window darkens and the wall suddenly loses its color.
“Joey!” I scream.
Head covering the window, he hangs upside down from the roof. “They’ll hear you in Brooklyn,” he calls.
I see now that Pop is holding on to him from above. It reminds me of Joey reaching for money in the sewer.
I stand there watching as boards begin to cover the last holes in the roof. I listen to the sounds of the hammer. The hall downstairs is darker now, except for the light coming through the stained-glass window. The sun spears a yellow edge and the wall is a kaleidoscope of buttery lights.
In the kitchen I turn the chicks’ eggs, then cut a slice of bread. Yesterday Mr. Brancato gave Pop a jar of strawberry jam for payment. I spread some on the bread and a strawberry lands on the crust.
Fortuitous, Miss Mitzi would say.
I sit back taking delicate bites, then I crouch down and open the cabinet doors under the sink to see what is in there. In back is a large pot.
“What are you doing?” Cassie asks.
“Look at this. We can use this one pot for water at the stream instead of two. It might be easier.”
“You need two for balance,” she says.
I don’t look at her. I pull out the pot, gingerly holding the wire handle. The inside may be filled with cobwebs and even a live spider.
But there’s no spider, alive or dead.
I sit back on my heels. The pot is filled with a small pile of drawings. The colored chalk has smeared a little, but the pictures are wonderful. There is one of the stained-glass window and a few of the field out back filled with cornstalks, their tassels waving in the wind.
There’s one of the roof. Why would anyone want a picture of a roof, even one with no holes?
The last one shows the house with its shiny rooster on top. It’s gray and lovely, without a shred of peeling paint in sight. A tray of seeds grows near the doorway.
Underneath the drawings is an envelope, a little dirty, and marked marigold seeds. I run my hands over the edges of the envelope. I can feel the bumps of seeds.
I grab my coat off the hook and put the envelope in my pocket. Outside, I look up at Pop and Joey crawling along the roof. My hands are clammy as I watch them.
I head toward the barn and spend an hour digging soil. I plant the seeds in a tray one by one. “Grow,” I tell them.
I can’t wait to tell Pop.
What a terrible surprise to go back into the kitchen and see him with his head in his hands. And is it possible that he’s crying?
Crying, my pop.
How can that be?
CHAPTER TWELVE
I don’t know what to do. I back into the hall before Pop sees me and tiptoe out the front door. I lean against the porch post and close my eyes. I raise my hands to run my fingers through my hair.
Pop must be thirty-seven? Forty? I don’t even know. But I want to know this: what could make him cry?
Joey comes around the corner, lugging something. “Hey, kiddo.”
He’s carrying some kind of iron thing. He begins to whistle that song “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
I put my hands over my ears. That’s the last thing I want to hear.
He stops when he sees my face, but he pretends that everything’s fine.
That’s Joey. He’s such a good egg.
He raises the iron thing in the air. “A pitcher pump. Pop and I found it in the barn.”
I nod a little.
He leans forward. “We’ll have water in the kitchen by this afternoon. You just move the handle up and down, and water comes out like magic.”
I touch his rough jacket, with its missing buttons. “Pop’s inside. And something’s wrong.” I stop short of saying he’s crying. I can’t tell on Pop that way.
Joey’s foot digs into the mud. “He was quiet before, really quiet. All he said was that we had to fix the roof right away and get the water in. He seemed to be in such a hurry.”
We walk around to the back and Joey peers in the kitchen window. He draws in his breath.
For a moment we’re quiet. Then Joey taps my arm. “You have to be the one to go in there, Rachel. You’re the best of us, the smartest.”
I’m horrified. Just horrified. “I can’t, but thank you, anyway.”
“What we can’t do is let him sit there by himself,” Joey says.
I swipe at the tears on my cheeks. What’s that word? Fortitude.
“You’re right.” I smooth down my hair, which is in corkscrews all over the place, and head for the door.
I slide into the chair across from Pop and look down at a brown paper bag. He’s scribbled numbers all over it. We sit there, not saying anything. Pop straightens the papers in front of him.
“What?” I ask after a while; my voice is so low I can hardly hear it myself.
Pop shakes his head. “We can’t—”
It must be the farm. Something’s wrong with it; everything’s wrong with it. But we can’t go back to the city; I know that. The city is forever away. And I realize I’m not ready to give up on this farm, bad as it is. There are the drawings; and the seeds, which won’t live without a few sips of water every day; and the eggs, of course.
And what about Clarence? I still bring food to the fence every day.
“Money,” Pop says. His voice is as low as mine.
“But the New Deal. President Roosevelt—”
“It will take time,” Pop says.
If only I could make him feel better. Should I remind him of the stained-glass window, of the chicks that will hatch someday soon, or of the frilly plants growing at the edge of the stream that Miss Mitzi would love?
Pop runs his hand over the brown paper bag, over all those numbers. “I don’t know what I was thinking. We’ll never be able to get electricity. It’ll be a dollar a month. And what about the rent? I just can’t imagine.”
“We don’t need lights. We certainly don’t—”
“We need coal.”
“We don’t need coal. We’ve got that fireplace. And sweaters.” I try to smile. “It’s getting warmer every day. And Joey says we’ll have a water pump.”
I see Joey then. He’s sneaked around the front door and tiptoed through the hall. Cassie stands right behind him, her mouth opened in a little round O.
Pop looks toward the doorway. “I’ve lost my job at the grocery store,” he says slowly. “It’s not the man’s fault. He has no money, either.”
“Nothing to fear but fear itself,” I try to say. Isn’t that what the president said? But Cassie begins to cry. It’s not the kind of crying I do. It’s loud and it grates on my ears. Joey looks at me. It grates on his ears, too.
; But Pop feels sorry for her. He holds out his arms, and she runs to him. “Here’s the thing.” He pats Cassie’s back. “There’s a job. It’s a good job—”
“See?” Joey says. “I knew it would all work out.”
But something’s coming; I know it. Otherwise, what’s all this about?
“President Roosevelt wants everyone to get back to work,” Pop says. “And the town of North Lake will do what it can to help.”
“Nice,” Cassie says through her tears.
“They’re going to build a road straight over the mountain near Canada. And they need workers.”
I nod slowly. A job for Pop. But why would that make him cry?
Pop takes a breath. “A bus will take the workers up there.” He looks at the three of us and shakes his head a little. “They won’t come back for …” He hesitates. “A month. Maybe two months.”
I sit back in my chair. The breath goes out of me. I know it’s the only possible way we can get money. But still—being without Pop?
Cassie sees what’s happening, too. Her cries are even louder.
But Joey jumps right in. “That’s great, Pop. We’ll manage. We’ll get seeds going, the chicks hatched.”
Cassie looks at Joey as if he’s lost his mind.
Pop stares out the window. “How can I leave you alone? We have no neighbors nearby, and the town is far.”
Joey cuts in. “Not alone. There are the three of us. Fine and dandy.”
“I know you can take care of each other.…” Pop looks at each of us.
“I can’t take care of Rachel,” Cassie says. “And she can’t take care of me.”
“Cassie,” Joey and I warn her.
Nothing to fear.
But I’m afraid. I’m certainly afraid. We’ll have to stay here alone and, as Joey says, get things going.
I’m the oldest. I have to say something. “Don’t worry, Pop. We can do this.”
Joey and I glance at each other and then away.
Alone.
What a terrible word.
Dear Miss Mitzi,
I walked to town yesterday. It took all afternoon. I remember you said once that walking soothes the spirit.
My spirit needs soothing.
Pop is leaving next Monday for a job far away.
In town I watched the train come in with a huge whoosh of air. It was a cyclone of wind!
A woman with an old straw hat ran up to the train. She handed the conductor a long cardboard box. It dripped all over him, but he smiled at her.
The woman smiled at me, too. “Ferns,” she said, “to send to florists in the city.”
I thought of you, Miss Mitzi, with your jars of ruffled ferns in the icebox. It seems forever since we’ve seen you.
Love,
Rachel
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It’s lonely without Pop. I wander into his bedroom, halfway down the hall. He’s pulled the sheets up neatly over the mattress. Against one wall is a cabinet that he and Joey found in the cellar. On top is a picture of Miss Mitzi wearing her white straw hat. She’s looking up, probably at Pop, who must have taken the photo last summer.
I straighten the doily beneath the picture and realize there’s something under it. It’s a letter and I know I shouldn’t read it, but there are only a few sentences before it breaks off, and I see it all in one second.
Mitzi, my dear—
Every day I think of asking you to come. If only I could do that. I miss you more than I can say, and the children
I touch the paper. Then, feeling guilty, I go to my room, closing Pop’s door behind me. Later it takes me a long time to get to sleep. And then I feel myself dreaming. It’s something about a new school. It’s about a train and a box of ferns.
But then I’m awake. I tiptoe to the window. It’s inky black outside, not a light anywhere.
I lean against the glass. I want Pop. I want him to be here. I want Miss Mitzi. Even though it’s the middle of the night, I picture myself going to her flower shop. I’d sit in her back room, drinking sweet hot tea. It wouldn’t be so dark. The city has lights at night, even small ones in the backs of the stores.
There’s life outside here, Pop reminded us, even if there aren’t neighbors. One night before he left, he talked about being on a farm when he was growing up. “We had a stream, too,” he said. “I’d open my window at night and listen to the frogs croaking and the insects buzzing. Soon you’ll hear that.” He sat back, remembering. “There’s so much going on under the water, fish gliding along, their mouths open, turtles taking slow steps.”
I open the window, just a little, but I don’t hear anything; it’s quiet out there. I run my hand over the cold glass, comforting myself with thoughts of daddy longlegs climbing over the rocks, and birds fluffed up, asleep. I even picture chipmunks tucked under the rocks.
“Clarence, are you out there?” I whisper.
And where is Pop now? Before he left, we walked outside together and I know he was trying to cram everything into my head before he was gone. “I’ve paid the rent for May,” he said. “Be careful of money. You’ll need it for June.” He shook his head. “That’s a long way off.”
“Don’t worry,” I told him, my voice as strong as I could make it.
“It’s a terrible thing to leave you on your own.” I could hear the fear in his voice. “If we were in the city, there’d be people you could go to if you needed help quickly. But here, the closest neighbors are almost two miles away.”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “There aren’t any people near the farm, but Mr. Brancato at the grocery store would help.” He hesitates. “The real estate man is there, too.”
But I remembered what Pop had said to me once. Chin out. I said it back to him now. “We’ll do this on our own. We don’t need to ask for help.” Then I added, “The three of us, you’ll see.”
When it was time for him to leave, we watched and waved from the mailbox as long as we could. In the early-morning light, he went down the road toward town with a small bag under his arm, hurrying to catch the bus. I thought about running after him but held on to the mailbox instead.
Now I look out the window at the dark. A gust of wind rattles the pane; it sounds like teeth chattering. I’ve left the bedroom door open, but I’m not sure that was such a good idea. The stairs creak as if someone is coming up them, and something scurries inside the walls.
Scurries?
A mouse?
I tiptoe to close the door. “Only Mickey Mouse,” I whisper, shivering. “Only Minnie Mouse.”
It takes a long time for me to open the door again and poke my head out. Suppose something is in the hall.
What?
I can’t imagine.
I look up at the stained-glass window, so different without the sunlight behind it. But then a pale shaft of light flickers beyond the glass. See, the moon is shining up there after all.
I hear a sound. Crying? Someone crying? I take a step back.
It’s Cassie.
Only Cassie.
“What are you doing out in the hall?” I ask.
For a moment, I wish we were sharing a bedroom again.
“I’m hungry.” She blinks hard. She doesn’t want me to see her tears. “Starving. That was a terrible dinner.”
I’d volunteered to cook pancakes, but when I tried to take them out of the pan, they crumpled up like miniature accordions. I’m certainly not hungry now. The accordions seem to have unfolded in my stomach. But I don’t want to go back into my dark bedroom—not by myself.
I look at Cassie. She’s afraid. She has always been afraid of the dark. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” she says, and we go down the stairs together.
There’s still a glow from the fire and Cassie moves like a cheetah, climbing up on the counter, opening drawers. She finds a couple of cookies I made and tosses one to me, but I miss and it hits the table, sounding like a rock.
“Some cook you are,” she says, but she’s almost smiling.
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“It was the first time I ever made anything. Miss Mitzi says it takes time to be perfect.”
I don’t have time to say another word. There’s a shadow in the doorway. I let out a chilling scream.
Cassie screams, too. “Aaaaa!”
I reach for her, but Joey says, “What’s the matter with you two?”
For a moment we just stare at him. Then Cassie’s arm goes straight out, pointing at me. “Rachel’s afraid of the dark. She’s afraid of anything that moves.” And then she raises one shoulder. “Me too,” she says in a small voice.
Just those two words and I forget that we’re always arguing. I want to put my arms around her.
“I have an idea,” Joey says. “We could go back to sleeping in the living room.”
And that’s what we do. In the dark, we drag the mattresses out of the bedrooms and push them down the stairs. They bump along halfway and we have to give them another shove to get them to the bottom.
It’s not easy, but we don’t care. We’re all glad to be sleeping here together.
I miss you, Pop.
Dear Miss Mitzi,
We are sleeping on the living room floor now. Early this morning I awoke, listening to sounds: Cassie breathing, and Joey snorting a little.
I could look out the window and see hundreds of stars.
Pop said there’s life outside. And when it was almost light, I heard a red-winged blackbird chirping. He was saying: “Talk to me, talk to me.”
In my head, I told him that without school, I won’t have any important words. I told him how terrible it was not to go to the library for books. I said, too, that we can’t even write to Pop yet. We don’t know where he is.
That reminded me of the night last winter when we went up on your apartment roof. You showed us the Milky Way, which looked just like a path of milk across the sky. We saw the Big Dipper and the North Star. Pop told us that sailors in the olden days used that star to guide them, because it always pointed north. “It was almost like reading,” he said.
“I’m glad we have books,” you told him. “It’s too cold to be outside reading stars.”
We laughed as we went downstairs and had hot chocolate and sugar cookies.