Rodzina (6 page)

While Oleander and Peony signed a paper for Mr. Szprot, Lacey came up and grabbed my hand. "I don't want you to go," she said. "I'm scared. I don't like to be scared."

"Quit hanging on me, Lacey. I have troubles of my own. And don't start crying." I wiped her nose on her skirt and pushed her back into line with the others. "It makes your eyes all red and your face snotty."

As we left, I saw Hermy the Knife being led by his ear by a big old farmer in overalls. I couldn't believe someone had taken Hermy rather than Mickey Dooley just because Mickey was small and pale and Irish and his eyes wandered. That was going to be one sorry farmer.

Peony and Oleander and I climbed into a wagon, and Oleander picked up the reins. If I didn't get out of this right now, I was doomed.

After a few minutes of clip-clopping, I said, "I don't want to go with you, you know."

"That ain't up to you," said Oleander. "We got this paper."

We rode a little farther. "I'm not as strong as I look."

"Doses of molasses and cod-liver oil will soon build you up."

More clip-clopping. "I can be difficult."

"We know how to handle difficult girls." She snapped her whip.

"Well, then," I said, "I will run away."

Peony and Oleander looked at each other and laughed. "Not much place to run to here on the prairie," said Peony.

Clip-clop, clip-clop, farther away from the train and closer to having to heft and sift and pickle for the rest of my life.
Mama? Papa? Help me. What should I do?

Use your head, Rodzina,
I told myself.
Mama and Papa aren't here but you are. Use your head.

Clip-clop, clip-clop. I could barely see the lights of Grand Island behind us. Finally I said, "I'm surprised you wanted me, what with my being Polish and all."

"Don't know much about Polish," said Peony. "Ain't Jewish, is it?"

"No," I said.

"Polish ain't colored, is it?" asked Oleander.

"No," I said.

"Or Italian?"

"Or Spanish?"

"Or French? I won't have none of those heathens in my house."

"Oh, no. None of those."

"Polish is a good Christian thing to be?"

"Oh, yes. Why, we pray four hours every day. And do no work on Sundays. Or Wednesdays. Or Fridays. Or feast days. Or eves of feast days. Or..."

Oleander looked at me, slowing the horses down a bit.

"And we keep our bodies covered at all times. Never even take our clothes off to wash. We seldom wash. In fact, we
never
wash." Now Peony looked at me.

"And we fast by eating only meat. A lot of meat. Good beef and pork, bacon and lamb roasts. Why, we like meat so much, we even put ground earthworms in our bread. And I am very, utterly, earnestly Polish," I ended.

I watched to see how they had taken all this hogwash. The clip-clops got slower and slower and finally stopped. "Trouble," Oleander said.

"Big trouble," said Peony, looking me up and down. Clip-clop, clip-clop again, faster and faster, as we turned in a big circle and headed right back to where we'd started.

I fairly danced out of the wagon.

The farmers and their wives had all gone home with the orphans they'd bought. Mr. Szprot and Miss Doctor stood outside, lining up the remaining children for a march back to the train. Peony found Mr. Szprot and tore up that paper right in front of him. They got back in the wagon and left with no orphan at all. I reckon just wasn't anybody good enough for them.

Mr. Szprot stared at me, his face like a thunderstorm brewing, so I lined up behind Miss Doctor with the rest of the unwanted children. Most of the big boys were gone. Horton was missing—taken, I guessed. But there were still a couple of the babies, including Nellie and Evelyn, with us, and I saw the rest of my group of unlovables: Lacey and Chester, Spud, Mickey Dooley, Joe, and Sammy.

"Rodzina," said Miss Doctor when she saw me, "Mr. Szprot said you had been taken. What are you doing back here?"

"They didn't seem to like Polish people," I said.

She frowned at me. "You cannot just walk away from arrangements we have made for you. You are not in charge. We know what's best for you and are responsible for your welfare. We..."
What about being responsible for Gertie? What about her welfare?
Miss Doctor went on and on. Finally we began the walk back to the train.

There were more empty seats than before, I realized as I took my seat and scratched my knees. Now what? Would I ride this train forever, just as I had feared? Would I be sold to some other stranger? Or would Miss Doctor finally agree to send me back to an orphanage?

I knew I needed to keep my wits about me, but for a moment I pretended that this train was headed east, not west, and that Mama and Papa would be waiting for me at the Chicago depot.

"You must be hungry after all that traveling," Papa would say, taking my hand. Mama would take my other hand, and we would walk together to Auntie Manya's for pickle soup and sour rye. I would tell them about Mickey Dooley and jelly sandwiches and old Peony and Oleander, and we would laugh, being careful to be quiet so we didn't wake the boys.

Then I cried myself to sleep so quietly that no one could hear. Not even me.

"G
OBACK TO YOUR
seat, Rodzina," Miss Doctor said without even opening her eyes as I slid onto the seat next to her.

"I want to go back to the orphanage."

"I told you, orphanages are not equipped to keep children permanently."

"I will not go somewhere to be a slave. I'd rather die."

Miss Doctor opened her eyes. "The people who come for you orphans do not want slaves."

"No one takes orphans just to be kind. They want unpaid servants. Those old ladies—"

"They would have given you a home, Rodzina," she said, her Z buzzing like an entire hive of angry bees.

"They would have worked me to death and not mourned at all."

"Well, then, Miss Brodski, tell me exactly what it is you want, and the entire mechanism of the Association of Aid Societies, the great city of Chicago, and the sovereign state of Illinois will not rest until they find you exactly the right home."

I figured she was making fun but thought I'd tell her anyway. "Maybe a nice family who wants a daughter, not a servant. With a mama and a papa and some little kids. Boys maybe. Little boys. And I would like them to have a house and a yard and plenty to eat."

She rolled her eyes. "Anything else?"

"Well, they don't have to be Polish. Mama would like it if they were Catholic but Papa didn't think much of any religion at all, so I guess it doesn't matter. He said the Brodskis have been nonbelievers since the sixteenth century, when Pint-Pot Latuski became Bishop of Posen for a bribe of 12,000 ducats, and he did not plan to be the first to defect."

"You can omit the commentary, Rodzina." Miss Doctor took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. "You are an orphan. If a family offers you a home, you will take it."

"
If
I will not be a servant.
If
I will be safe and warm and fed."

"We will do our best. We always do."

"You mean Peony and Oleander were your best?"

"Go back to your seat, Rodzina."

All night and the next day we rattled and swayed, stopped and started again. My body ached like I had spent the night toting rocks instead of just trying to sleep. Who would have thought someone could get so tired and sore just from rattling and swaying?

Out the window, the empty plains went on and on. Here and there were mileage signs for pokey little towns with western-sounding names: Dead Mule Junction 10 miles, Wild Horse Ridge 25 miles, Lick Skillet this way, Buck Snort that way.

When the train stopped in a town called Rotten Luck, Mr. Szprot took us out to stretch our legs. The air smelled of dust and cows. I watched the little kids carefully to make sure they didn't take off, get run over by a cow, or blow away in the dusty wind.

"My daddy could have named this place," said Spud.

"How do you mean?" asked Sammy.

"He worked at the lumber mill, saved his money, and bought a little store. Then he sold the store and bought a saloon. Then he began to drink, went broke, and went back to work at the lumber mill. Then he died."

"When my dad was drinking, he would whup me with the fry pan, to save me from the gallows, he said," said Joe.

"My pa used to whip me on the soles of my feet so no one could see," Chester added.

They all looked at me. "My papa never whipped me," I said.

"I'll tell you what I think about that in two words: im-possible," said Chester.

"Telling falsehoods is plumb wicked," sang Mickey Dooley. "Lying is a sin. When you go to Heaven, they won't let you in."

"Never," I said. And it was no lie. My papa was big, with big, strong hands. He always said Brodskis work with their heads, not their hands, but it was his hands that kept us alive. He went to the stockyards every day but Sunday, where he slit the throats of pigs born to be hams, lard, and leather for the people of America. Papa stood ankle-deep in blood as the squealing pigs came by, hanging from their feet by an overhead belt, and he took his strong knife and opened their throats. His feet swelled and blistered from all those hours on the hard floor. In the summer he tied a handkerchief over his mouth and nose to keep out the flies and mosquitoes, and the sweat poured off him. In winter the unheated room was thick with steam from hot water and hot blood, and he could barely see to cut the pig and not his own arm. In all seasons he came home stinking of pigs and fear. But for all his size and big hands, my papa was a gentle man....

"Watch the rest of the kids for me for a minute," I said to Spud as I climbed back onto the train.

"Miss Doctor?" I said, standing next to her seat.

She opened her eyes and sighed.

"And they can't hit."

She closed her eyes again.

The next morning, while Mr. Szprot, cigar in his teeth as always, slept and Miss Doctor read her book, I sat and watched Nebraska go by. Slowly I became aware of a ruckus. The boys had plopped down in the aisle and were taking off their shoes and socks. "Goldurn," said Chester, looking at Sammy's right foot, black and crusty with grime, "I bet that's the dirtiest foot on this train!"

"Bet it ain't," said Sammy. Bet—the magic word. Half the carload of orphans came over to look at Sammy's foot and their own, argue, and wager.

Then Sammy took off his other shoe and stuck his
left
foot into the air. He was right.
That
one was the dirtiest foot on the train. Peach pits and marbles went into the pocket of Sammy's patched knickers.

Then they all began to unravel their socks. I sure couldn't figure what they were up to. Whistling through a gap in his teeth, Chester wrapped the yarn around a dried-up old apple. He kept winding and winding, and after long minutes he had a ball.

What is it about boys and balls? If there is snow or a stone or an apple and some socks, there is a ball. And if there is a ball, there is a game. I know this because of my brothers, Toddy and Jan, who turned everything round or almost round into a ball.

One time when Mama was to be out late, she gave me ten cents to buy chopped meat so I could have dinner ready when she and Papa got home. While I was slicing bread, Toddy grabbed the meat, rolled it into a round shape, and threw it to Jan. Back and forth went the meatball until Jan made a wild throw, and it hit the ceiling and stuck.

"Get it down," I hollered, punching Jan on his arm, "or you will be the one to tell Papa his supper is on the ceiling."

Toddy lifted Jan, but he couldn't reach it. I lifted Jan, but he still couldn't reach. Toddy took hold of the packing crate that we used for a table and moved it over. I stood on it and lifted Jan, who was then able to scoop the meat off the ceiling. But my foot went through the crate and we tumbled to the floor, meatball rolling into a corner.

Toddy and Jan tried to fix the crate while I dusted off the meatball and turned it into meatloaf. Papa said it was the best he ever ate.

My remembering was interrupted by a plop on my head.

"Sorry, Potato Nose," said Chester as he retrieved the ball. Seemed Sammy, Joe, Chester, Spud, and Mickey Dooley had started a baseball game in the aisle.

Muffled shouts and cheers filled the car: "Yer out!"

"Not by a mile!"

"Slide, Kelly, slide."

"He ain't King Kelly. I am."

"No, me."

"I'm Cap Anson, star of the greatest team in the league, the Chicago White Stockings," said Joe.

"I want to be the striker," Sammy shouted.

"You?" said Mickey Dooley. "You couldn't hit a bull's butt with a bass fiddle!"

Sammy just laughed—Sammy, who swung at Joe every chance he got. But he didn't get mad at Mickey Dooley. No one got mad at Mickey Dooley. How could you get mad at a kid who was smiling all the time?

Lacey stood quietly and watched them. Then she asked, "What are you doing?"

"We're playing baseball, dummy," said Spud.

"What's baseball?"

"Why, only the greatest game in the world. Yer out!" he shouted at Sammy, loud enough to make Lacey jump.

"How do you play?"

"Git away, Cabbage Head. I got a game to play and you're in my way." Spud turned back to Sammy. "You're out, you no-good, cheatin' lowlife!"

"Ro, you tell me. How do you play baseball?"

Never having seen an actual baseball game, I wasn't at all sure, but I thought I could figure it out. After watching for a few minutes, I told her: "Okay, see, the thrower puts spit on the ball and throws it at the striker—that's the guy with the water dipper."

"Why?" she asked. "Is he trying to hit him?"

"Yes, but the striker tries not to get hit—because of the spit all over the ball, I'd say."

"Why is the striker waving the water dipper around?"

"He's trying to keep that spitty ball away from him. If he by chance hits the ball with the dipper, he runs and tries to hide. And if that guy over there catches it, why, they commence arguing about it."

"Run home!" Chester shouted to Joe. "Go on home!" How could they go home, I wondered, when they were orphans, or as good as, just like the rest of us? Home. I was too sad to talk to Lacey anymore, so I just shut down the explaining machine.