Silver Rain (15 page)
Then Elsie took off her hat and sat down with it held tight in her lap. Scoop sat beside her, holding her hand as her mother's lovely voice, getting stronger and stronger as the song went on, drifted toward her, as if she was singing for Elsie alone.
When she was done, Mother stood with Uncle Dannell's arm around her, looking up at Elsie. Elsie and Scoop clapped and clapped, their applause drowned out by the cheers and applause of spectators standing in the bleachers all around them.
As the applause died, one coin fell through the air. It landed on the hard ground like a drop of rain on a roof. Then another coin and another fell in a shower, spinning and turning, glinting and shining. Until Elsie's mother and uncle stood in the downpour of coins that flew through the air and fell at their feet, rolling across the floor until all around them the Silver Rain lay like bright puddles after a storm.
E
lsie scurried over the rows of seats, pushing between chattering spectators to make her way down to the dance floor. She rushed to her mother and put her arms around her and held her tight, while her uncle rested his hand on her back, not saying a word. Scoop scuttled across the floor on his hands and knees, scrambling for every dime and nickel that had been thrown down.
The fancy man tried to persuade them to go back to their seats so the dance could go on. Letty Driver's bright mouth gleamed as she bullied Mother and Uncle Dannell with all kinds of fancy words like “breach of contract” and “reneging on agreements.” Finally, a man in a shabby tweed coat barged out from behind the curtain and threatened to have Scoop and Elsie arrested for trespassing. “Get out of here, you brats!” he shouted. He gave Elsie a hard shove in the back. “You're interfering with the proceedings.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” Elsie screamed at him. She was not surprised by the words that flew out of her mouth. And Scoop didn't even look up from the floor. But Mother and Uncle Dannell stared at Elsie in surprise.
“Can't you see you almost killed them?” she shouted at the dance marathon man. “This isn't dancing. It's true what the Reverend said. This is just explodeâ¦it's explo⦔
Scoop stood up, his pockets jingling. “Exploitation,” he said. “That's what it is. You've been taking advantage of everyone. This is a crooked deal. Anyone can see.”
A call from the bleachers of “Hear, hear!” was followed by a loud mixture of hoots, cheers and applause.
“Exploitation. That's the word,” said Elsie. “It's exploitation. Now I'm taking my mother and uncle home. And you can't stop me.”
At first Uncle Dannell tried to argue. “We're almost there, I can feel it,” he said. Just like he talked about all the other schemes that got him in trouble before.
Ignoring him, Elsie took Mother aside. “Nan has some news,” she said. “There's a letter from Father.” Her mother's tired face brightened as Elsie went on to whisper about the dollar bills tucked in Nan's pocket.
“Let me tell your uncle,” said Mother when Elsie had finished. She put her thin hand on Uncle Dannell's arm and talked quietly into his ear. So quietly that no one else could overhear. But it was not as if Mother was telling Elsie's uncle a secret, thought Elsie. This was family business.
Uncle Dannell finally nodded and patted Mother's arm. He hugged Elsie without saying a word and nodded once at Scoop, who had just pocketed the last dime from the floor. Then Uncle Dannell walked through the curtain and collected Mother's and his belongings.
Elsie, Uncle Dannell, Mother and Scoop left the dance hall together while Mr. Hayden Lyle sputtered and swore, and, all around them, the crowd chattered like a flock of startled birds.
“Elsie looked for you everywhere,” Scoop told her mother and uncle when they were out of sight of Taylor's Clothing factory. It took them a while, as Mother and Uncle Dannell walked so slowly.
Scoop was being the gentleman and was carrying their bags.
“I looked for Father too,” Elsie said. “I went to the shantytown. But he wasn't there.” Elsie rubbed her thumb across Mother's palm. “Then we found out about the marathon, and the Reverend took us to see it, and I thought I saw you. That's why we came back. Then Nan got a letter. She wouldn't tell me who it was from at first. She said it was grown-up business.” She was getting everything mixed-up. But there was so much to tell. “And I'm not like Dog Bob. I don't have the instincts to keep everyone together. But I tried. The letter came ages ago, but Nan didn't tell me about it until today. It was a secret,” she added.
They stood in a huddle on the sidewalk while Mother and Uncle Dannell took a breather. Scoop sat on Mother's suitcase. Uncle Dannell picked up a cigarette butt from the pavement and flicked the dust off it, just like Elsie had seen hoboes do a million times. Mother's fingers were tight on Elsie's shoulders now. “You told me about the letter from Father. And about the money. But is he coming home?” She leaned over to stare into Elsie's eyes. “If you know, you must tell me,” she said. “Even if she told you not to say, I will make it right with Nan.”
At her mother's words, it felt as if all the weight she had been carrying around since Father left and Mother and Uncle Dannell disappeared and Dog Bob got stolen was suddenly lifted off Elsie's shoulders. Like a huge sack she no longer had to carry. She felt so light she could fly away. “The man Father works for in Winnipeg has a brother in Kerrisdale. He'll give Father a job. So he can come home. If you let him, he will come home.”
Elsie held her breath as her mother turned her wedding band on her finger and frowned into the distance.
Scoop was watching them now. So was Uncle Dannell.
“Can Father come home?” Elsie asked. She felt as shaky as she had standing in front of the hoboes in the shantytown. “Can he?”
Her mother turned slowly toward Elsie and touched her shoulder, her face still serious. Elsie didn't dare move as she felt her mother's fingers stroking her cheek.
At last Mother smiledâso widely it was if her whole face changed. Once again she looked like the person Elsie had known before the Depression came. Before the bank took away the jewelry business and the Tipsons bought their house. Before they moved into the garage and Father ran away.
“Of course he can,” said Mother quietly. “Isn't it what we wanted all along?” She bent down to pick up her suitcase, but Scoop beat her to it. “Now, don't you think we should hurry?” she said. “Your grandmother will be wondering where you are. We all have a lot to tell her.”
We'll tell Nan everything, thought Elsie. Whether she likes it or not.
Finally the family fractions will work out. And there will be no more secrets.
“There's a dog waiting for me, I hope.” Uncle Dannell waggled his eyebrows at Elsie. “I'm sure you've been taking care of him the way you promised.”
When Scoop opened his mouth to speak, Elsie quickly grabbed her mother's suitcase from him. “I'll carry this.” The story of how she saved Dog Bob from the hoboes could wait for another time.
Mother looped one arm through Uncle Dannell's arm. “Come on. We're dead on our feet.”
“Hey, Scoop. Where's all the money you picked up?” asked Elsie, as she hauled the suitcase along.
Scoop put down Uncle Dannell's duffel bag and shoved his hands in his pants pockets. They jingled as he shook them. “It's all here. Every penny and nickel and dime of the Silver Rain.”
“Let's hope there's enough to pay your nan that nine dollars I owe her,” said Uncle Dannell.
For a moment Elsie couldn't think what her uncle meant. Then she remembered the argy-bargy with the pay-packet raffle. “Nan will have to let you come home too, won't she?”
They were at their own driveway now. This time Elsie did not even glance at her old house as they passed it. She couldn't care less if Jimmy Tipson was staring down at her from the bedroom that used to be hers. She didn't need to check the mailbox.
She set Mother's suitcase on the ground and pulled her hat down tightly on her head. Then, picking up the luggage and looking straight ahead, Elsie led her family home.
LOCAL CHILDREN EXPOSE
RACKET THAT INFLICTS
INDIGNITY AND DEGRADATION
BY JAMES FORREST WITH FILES FROM
“ SCOOP ” STYLES AND ELSIE MILLER
SPECIAL TO THE COLUMBIAN
V
ANCOUVER , MARCH 16, 1932 . With great daring and enterprise, two local children, Elsie Miller and Ernest (Scoop) Styles, both 11, recently gained access to the dance mar athon taking place in the old Taylor's Clothing building on Terminal Avenue. There, they learned more than any child should know about what desperate people are willing to do to make money to feed themselves and their families.
“Dancing should be for celebrating. Not as a means of exploitation,” says social activist Reverend Hampton of St. Mary's church, Oak Street. “In these places, people dance beyond endurance for the chance to win what is advertised to be a significant prize.”
But as the children found out, that money is rarely available to the dance âwinners.' Huge sums are deducted for the dancers' food, nursing care, even the cost of renting a cot for ten-minute breaks every marathons hour during the marathon dance. Many last as long as 30 days.
“I might not approve of how they went about it,” says Nan Davies, 69. “But my granddaughter and her friend showed great tenacity when they set out to find out where my daughter had gone, when she signed on for the marathon as a way out of our present position.”
Thanks to the in tervention of these two young people, Mrs. Davies's daughter, Peg Miller, is now happily returned to home and hearth, enjoying a heart warming reunion with her family. And the house hold situation is likely to improve with the return of Mr. Miller, who in the pas t months found employment in Winnipeg in his chosen profession. He returns home, and to an offer of employment in Vancouver, on Thursday.
Fraud charges are pending against the marathon organizer, Mr. Hay den Lyle of London, Ontario.
NORTH POLE
BARBER SHOP
1638 Terminal Avenue
We shave two heads for
the price of one
EVERY TUESDAY
DROP BY AND GET
LATHERED UP
B
arry Broadfoot's
Ten Lost Years 1929-1939: Memories of Canadians Who Survived the Depression
provided me with insights into what life was like for so many people in the Depression, told in their own voices.
As always, I must thank Douglas Brunt for his patience and encouragement, and my editor, Sarah Harvey, who helps bring out the best in my writing and the stories I want to tell.
LOIS PETERSON wrote short stories and articles for adults for twenty years before writing
Meeting Miss 405
, her first novel for children. Her next children's book was
The Ballad of Knuckles McGraw
. She was born in England and has lived in Iraq, France and the United States. She now lives in Surrey, British Columbia, where she works as a fundraiser and in a public library, writes, reads and teaches creative writing to adults, teens and children.