The Cape Ann (12 page)

I picked up my pail and moved along. The wealth of worms was beyond anything I could have imagined. I tried not to step on them with my galoshes, but it wasn’t easy. The worms felt different than they looked. They looked smooth and slimy, but they were rough to the touch and not at all disgusting. I had handled worms before when we went fishing, handing them to Papa to put on my hook. This year I was going to learn to bait my own hook.

“Papa, when we go fishing this weekend, will you teach me to put the worm on my hook?”

Papa was all the way across the yard and didn’t hear me. I don’t
know how long we gathered worms. The time flew. Very soon Papa said, “My pail’s full. What about you?”

“Mine, too.”

He slapped the lid down on his pail. The lid resembled a colander, full of holes so that the minnows or worms wouldn’t die. Night crawlers were too fat to slip through the holes. I slapped the lid on mine and followed him to the truck. When he lifted my pail to the back of the pickup, he opened the lid and looked inside. “Pretty good,” he said.

I savored the “pretty good,” sucking out every bit of flavor as if it were Christmas candy. I was turning it over pleasantly in my mind the next afternoon, which was Friday, as Sally Wheeler and I walked to her house from school.

“Papa and I went hunting for night crawlers last night.”

Sally made a face. “You
picked them up?”

“It’s easy. They can’t bite.”

“They’re so icky.”

“No, they’re not. They’re nice. I got a whole pail of them. There must have been a million at Mr. Navarin’s. We had a real good time, Papa and me, and he said I was a very good night crawler catcher.”

Sally shuddered and made an awful face. “Don’t tell Mama.”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t like to hear about killing things.”

“I didn’t kill them.”

“You will when you go fishing.”

That was true. It was something to think about.

“Did you ever see the Rabels’ dog?” Sally asked.

“A black one?”

She nodded. “Mama hit it with the car. She didn’t mean to, but it chased cars all the time, and it ran right out in front of her.”

“Did she kill it?”

“Sure.” Sally shifted her reader, her speller, and her lunch pail. “I was with her. We had to walk home. Mama couldn’t drive. She left the car in front of the Rabels’ after she told them about the dog. She never went back for the car. When Daddy came home on Friday, he went and got it. I had to hold Mama’s hand walking home. She kept telling me she wouldn’t ever drive the car again.”

“When did it happen?”

“Before Easter.”

“Does she drive the car now?”

“Once in a while, but I don’t like to ride with her because she slams on the brakes all the time. It’s scary.” As we crossed the Wheelers’ backyard, Sally said, “She still cries about the dog sometimes. I wish she wouldn’t do that. What if she cried in Truska’s store? People would think she was crazy.” Sally lowered her voice and added, “Sometimes she cries and there’s not even a reason. She says, ‘I’m sorry I’m crying. I can’t stop.’ I don’t see why she can’t stop. She’s a grown-up.”

“Lark, it’s so nice that you could come study with Sally,” Mrs. Wheeler told me, as if this were the first instead of the eighth or tenth time Sally and I had studied catechism together on a Friday afternoon. Mrs. Wheeler’s eyelids were puffy and red along the edge.

“Sit down at the table now,” she insisted, “and have some cookies and milk.” She brought two plates and two glasses, and set them before us. From a big jar she removed handfuls of Fig New-tons and stacked them on our plates, six or eight on each plate. “Do you like Fig Newtons, Lark?”

“Oh, yes. Thank you.” I didn’t like Fig Newtons. They tasted like dried prunes. Also, the seeds made it seem like I was eating sand. But I didn’t want to make Mrs. Wheeler sad so I ate them and smiled.

Mrs. Wheeler poured herself a cup of tea. I wished she’d put some in my milk. I wasn’t fond of milk without something to kill the taste. Mama usually put in a little tea or coffee. Mrs. Wheeler’s back was to us, but I saw that her shoulders were shaking. Not another dog, I hoped.

Without turning around, she said, “I’m sorry to be upset, but a terrible thing happened today.”

Oh, dear, had she killed something?

“It was Hilly Stillman,” she began, her voice wavering but not breaking. “I drove out to the Catholic cemetery to set out plants on Wheeler graves. I wanted them to look nice for Memorial Day. I don’t drive much, but sometimes you have to—to do things.

“I was leaving the cemetery. I’d gotten out of the car to close the gate when I saw another car, coming down the main road, heading into the country. There were three young men in the car—no, two young men in the front seat and an older man in the back. It looked like … I’m not sure who it was. I’d never seen the young
men before. They must be from St. Bridget or Red Berry, or maybe they’re staying at the hotel.

“I closed the gate. There was someone running ahead of the car. I thought maybe it was a high school boy training for a race, but he was wearing a regular shirt and … they didn’t see me right away because of those big spirea bushes on either side of the drive.” She paused. She was trembling, and I wondered if we should go to her. I thought maybe Sally would, but Sally didn’t move. I could feel her discomfort across the table. I wished that I could tell her not to be embarrassed,
most
people were strange when you got to know them. Anyway, I didn’t think it was strange to cry about a dead dog. And the story Mrs. Wheeler was telling sounded exciting and mysterious. I was anxious to hear the rest.

“The car got closer,” Mrs. Wheeler resumed. “It was going slow, and the two young men in the front seat were honking the horn and yelling at the one who was running. They were saying … awful things to him. They were chasing him with the car, chasing him like he was an animal, honking and yelling. They were telling him what… what they would do to him when they caught him.” Mrs. Wheeler spoke haltingly, like someone editing as they go. What had those men said, and why were they chasing someone?

“Then I saw it was Hilly Stillman they were tormenting. He was frightened half to death. He can’t run very well because of his game foot, but he was going as fast as he could. He was about to drop.” She was sobbing. “I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like a nightmare. I ran to the end of the cemetery drive and screamed at them. I waved my arms and screamed. They pulled out and drove around Hilly. Then they took off. Hilly fell down in the grass and curled up and cried like a little child. It was a terrible thing.” She grabbed a towel and covered her face.

I looked at Sally, who sat with her hands clasped on the table before her, her eyes cast down, as if she were praying. I think she was praying for her mother to stop crying. She was ashamed to have her mother cry in front of me.

A minute or two passed. Then, in her phlegmy, tear-filled voice, Mrs. Wheeler continued, “I got him into the car. He was frightened to get into the car. He cried all the way into town….”

“Mrs. Wheeler?”

Sally’s mother still stood with her back to us. Groping in the
pocket of her dress, she found a handkerchief and began blowing her nose. At length she turned around, her face red but dry. She smiled guiltily. Hilly couldn’t have looked any sadder than Mrs. Wheeler just then. “I’m sorry, children,” she said. “I shouldn’t have cried, and I shouldn’t have told you about Hilly. I’ve upset you. Try to forget.”

“Mrs. Wheeler? One time Mama came home from downtown, and she was crying because some sixth grade boys were throwing snowballs at Hilly. She said he gave his sanity for his country.” I hadn’t understood what that meant, and Mama had explained.

But Mrs. Wheeler, having regained her grip, was too embarrassed and upset by her own behavior to hear anyone’s support of her. She looked panicked, as if she’d just woke up in a strange place and didn’t know how she got there. Without a word, she flitted out of the room.

I began wolfing the gritty Fig Newtons as though what we had just witnessed were the most ordinary thing I’d ever seen. “Do you know where babies come from?” I asked Sally.

Sally wasn’t in the mood to talk about where babies come from, nor was she in the mood to study catechism. In her room with the dormer window, we picked halfheartedly through the next day’s lesson, and then she said she was too tired to do anything. Taking off her shoes, she got into bed and said good-bye.

Mrs. Wheeler was nowhere to be seen, so I let myself out and, for once, hurried home. I wanted to watch Mama practice the typewriter. And there she was, hunched in a knot of concentration at the kitchen table, her fingers spread out across the keyboard of the old office-model Royal, leaning slightly forward and peering intently at the diagram on the wall. Click. Pause. Clack. Pause. Click. Pause. It wasn’t going very fast yet. Now and then Mama glanced down at the keyboard.

“Hello,” she said, not looking up.

“You aren’t supposed to look at the keys.”

“I
know,”
she told me impatiently.

The clock over the stove said five. “Are you going to make supper pretty soon?” Usually she had something in the oven or in the skillet by now.

“Papa went fishing with Joe Navarin. They just left. I’ll make us bologna sandwiches.”

“Did they take
my
worms?”

“I’m not sure.” Click. Pause. Clack. Pause. “Now let me practice for half an hour more.”

“I’ll make the sandwiches.”

“Fine.” Click. Pause. Clack. Pause.

I cleaned out my lunch pail and set it to dry on the drain board. Then I checked the slop pails and found that one of them was nearly full, so I carried that across the tracks and emptied it. While I was there, I picked some mustard flowers and brought them back to put in a ketchup-bottle vase on the table. I was Mrs. Brown. Soon I would make bologna sandwiches for my little girl, Myrna Loy, and for Mrs. Erhardt, who was practicing the typewriter at our house.

After I put the slop pail back under the sink, I washed my hands and found an apron. By five-thirty the bologna sandwiches were ready, except for the sliced onion. I peeled an onion and took a sharp knife from the drawer.

“Mrs. Erhardt, would you please slice this onion while I set the table?”

Mrs. Erhardt looked at the clock, gathered up her typing manual and heavy typewriter, and carried them into the living room. While she sliced the onion, I set the table.

“Mrs. Erhardt, Mrs. Wheeler told me a sad story today about Hilly Stillman. You know Hilly Stillman?”

“Yes,” she said, sitting down at the table without yet having been asked. “What did she tell you?”

I recited to Mrs. Erhardt everything Mrs. Wheeler had said, and I told her, “The poor lady was crying. Her little girl says she cries a lot.”

“Mrs. Wheeler isn’t strong,” my guest observed. Then she said, “Mrs. Wheeler didn’t know the man in the backseat of the car?”

“She said she wasn’t sure, but I think she knew.”

“Did she see the license number of the car?”

“I don’t think so. She didn’t say.”

“She should have gotten the license number,” Mrs. Erhardt fretted. “She definitely didn’t know the young men in the front seat?”

“She said maybe they were from St. Bridget or Red Berry, or maybe they were staying at the hotel.”

Mrs. Erhardt chewed her bologna sandwich, two lines appearing between her brows.

“ARE YOU GOING TO
practice the typewriter tonight?” I asked when we had washed and dried our few dishes.

“No. I’d like to call on Mrs. Stillman. Would you like to come along, Mrs. Brown?”

We washed our faces, and Mrs. Erhardt put on fresh lipstick and changed her dress. “Maybe you’d like to bring along a book, Mrs. Brown.”

I fetched
Happy Stories for Bedtime
, my red patent leather purse, and the old blue cloche. Heading downtown in the Oldsmobile, we stopped at Anderson’s Candy and Ice Cream to pick up a quart of chocolate ice cream before calling on Mrs. Stillman.

Rabel’s Meat Market was at the corner of Main Street and Second Avenue, and the stairs to the Stillman apartment above were outside on Second Avenue. The steps were wooden. They creaked pleasantly as we mounted, Mrs. Erhardt first, with the ice cream, me following with
Happy Stories for Bedtime
tucked under my arm. Mrs. Erhardt knocked at the screen door.

“Yes?” Mrs. Stillman inquired, pushing the door open.

“I only stopped to say hello and see how you’re getting on, Mrs. Stillman.”

“Oh, it’s
you
, Mrs. Erhardt. Come in. And you’ve got Lark with you. Isn’t that nice.” She held the door for us.

“I brought some ice cream,” Mrs. Erhardt explained, holding out the quart carton. “I hope you and Hilly like chocolate.”

“Isn’t that nice. We’ll all have some. I’ll call Hillyard. He’s so fond of ice cream. We don’t have an electric Frigidaire, just the icebox, so we’ll eat to our hearts’ content.” She allowed herself a dainty, old-fashioned giggle. Mrs. Stillman’s life was so sparing of need, she took utmost delight in what was proffered.

“Why don’t you sit down on the davenport with your book?” Mrs. Erhardt suggested. I climbed on the davenport, taking care not to put my feet on it. Mrs. Stillman had covered it with a flowered throw, and on top of this were lace antimacassars. The room
had a strange, not unpleasant odor of old things and Murphy’s oil soap and meat market. On the table beside the davenport was a studio photograph of Hilly in his uniform. He was darkly handsome, with an unsullied sweetness to his features, like Mama’s face in her high school yearbook, looking happily off, far into the distance. Hilly must have been looking far off to France.

“Wasn’t Hilly handsome?” I commented to Mrs. Erhardt as she sank down in a green wicker armchair at the other side of the table.

“He still is,” she replied, and I realized that this was true.

Mrs. Stillman came in from the kitchen with a tray of ice-cream-heaped sauce dishes. “Hillyard,” she called, “come have ice cream.” She added, “Put on your robe.”

When Hilly appeared in house slippers and an old, plaid flannel robe, his eyelids were puffy, the rims red, just like Mrs. Wheeler’s.