The Curse of the Buttons (5 page)

“It’s a trick, Ike,” she said.

Milton slowly drew the card up to face Ike.

“That’s it!” Ike said, both thrilled and disappointed.

“Sorry, Ike.” Milton grabbed the spoon from Ike’s pocket. He held it with the drumstick. “Albirdie. What do you say? I’ll play you for whatever you have in your pocket.”

Albirdie pulled the compass from the sock in her pocket, held it up for Milton to see, then hung it around her neck. “Nope,” she said. “You’re a cheat.”

Milton whistled at the sight of the compass. “Direct. Can’t argue with direct.” He glanced over at Morris, who gave him a wave and came to join them, lugging a bulging sack.

“I think we’re done here,” Morris said. “What did he swindle you out of, Ike?”

“Swindle?” said Milton. “We played cards, fair and square, didn’t we, Ike? He’s a wily one, our Ike. No, it was close. I edged him out this time, but next time, no telling.”

They turned to leave but Milton came back.

“Hey, Albirdie. There were some men over at the junkyard saying your father’s friendly with the coloreds. Is it true?”

They all looked at Albirdie. Ike remembered seeing Mr. Jenkins at the church and felt himself turning red without knowing why.

“So what if he is?” she said.

“Don’t matter,” said Milton. “Long as they’re free. There’s bounty on fugitives. A fellow could pick up some nice reward money if they’re fugitives.”

“And a fellow could get arrested if he helps them,” added Morris. “What would you do if your daddy was in jail?”

“Why don’t you give us that compass, Albirdie, and we’ll keep it quiet about your pa,” said Milton.

“Shut up about my father. Iowa’s a Free State,” Albirdie said, putting her hand over the compass. “And pretty soon the whole country will be, too.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Morris. He took the spoon from Milton and dropped it in the bag as they hurried over to another clump of kids. Milton held out the drumstick while Morris started scavenging around them.

“They make me so mad,” said Albirdie. “Preying on innocent people with their lousy tricks. Building up trouble when they don’t know a thing about anything.”

“You’ve been had, Ike,” Junior interrupted. “Look.”

“What?” said Ike.

“They did it on purpose.”

“What?” said Albirdie.

“The drumstick was a distraction. Morris cleaned up while we weren’t looking.”

Sure enough. There wasn’t a speck left anywhere on the ground around them.

Ike watched Milton and Morris. Now, that was taking aim and firing true. “I’ve got to get Milton to teach me that card trick,” said Ike.

Button Row was in an uproar. The back doors to all three houses were propped open. Girl cousins, aunts, and sisters all scurried in and out, carrying armloads of household goods. Mother’s skirt hoop sat on the yard table for God and all of Keokuk to see.

“What’s going on?” Ike asked Susannah, following her from the back door of his house into the next-door kitchen of hers.

“Consolidation.” Susannah deposited a stack of sheets unceremoniously on the table next to the butter dish and turned back to Ike’s house.

He hurried to keep up with her. “Why’d you take our sheets?” he asked, as more things from his house passed in the arms of others. LouLou was holding the corners of her pinafore, making a lumpy sling. She stumbled and an arrowhead fell out.

“Wait!” Ike stopped her. He inspected her jumble: arrowheads, stones, checkers, photo of the Button men. “Those are my things!”

Susannah helped LouLou secure her pinafore and gave her a nudge to send her on her way, but Ike grabbed LouLou’s shoulders.

“Give me my things!”

LouLou let go of her pinafore corners, letting everything drop to the ground as she ran crying for Jane.

“Why did LouLou have my collections?” Ike demanded as he knelt to gather everything into a pile.

“We’re going to
do
something. Finally,” Susannah said.

Ike ignored her as he inspected an arrowhead. “It’s got a crack!” he wailed.

“It was already cracked,” said Susannah. “Think about it. Twenty-one people in three houses. That makes sense. But twelve? We can fit easily into two houses and put the third to use while the men are gone. You’ll go to Aunt Betsy’s. She’s got a cot in the pantry. Your mother and the girls will stay with Mother and me. That way we have one quiet house for your mother’s nerves, and I can be free of those babies and do something useful.”

“Free of the babies?”

“You’ll be there. They like you.”

“Me? No! And what about my house?”

“We could rent the rooms to visiting officers; like a boardinghouse. Or make and sell patriotic trinkets in the parlor. Or dresses. It hasn’t actually been decided. I’ve got a
lot
of ideas.”

“But it’s
my
house!” Ike ran ahead of her up the stairs to his room. The bed was stripped and his shelf was bare, except for his remaining marbles and Lincoln. Lincoln looked more serious than the Button men.
As Lincoln has called . . .
his father’s words came back to him. Surely Lincoln hadn’t called him to give up his room.

Ike turned slowly, looking at the four walls of the room he’d slept in every night of his life. Only one of them by himself. His shoes were still by the door. They’d sat to the right of the door every night of his life; Leon’s to the left of the door, and Jim’s to the left of Leon’s.

Jim’s shoes had passed to Leon and then to Ike. Ike’s old shoes were under the bed, awaiting the potential but unlikely birth of another Button boy. What would Ike do if his feet grew while the men were gone? Ike stuck his bare feet into his shoes. They were a little snug, at that.

He opened his dresser drawer. LouLou hadn’t emptied it yet. He pawed through his three shirts, holding each one up to his front successively. He opened Jim’s drawer and Leon’s. Empty. What if he outgrew his shirts? Could his brothers be gone that long? He flopped on the bare mattress and counted out the forty-seven cracks on the ceiling, a knot of anger growing inside him.

“It’s not fair,” he said out loud. “They left me here.” He sat up. “I’ll show them,” he said to Lincoln’s picture.

He stood at the window. “It’s not fair, Barfoot!” he hollered. He grabbed his shirts, clutched the crock of marbles and the picture card, and went to the door.

“What now?” he asked Lincoln, but the president did not reply.

Ike stood in the middle of his new room. His
temporary
room. Arms outstretched, he touched shelves on both sides, and three long paces took him wall to window. The room was about as big as a soldiering tent. He sat on the floor, setting his collections around him.

Old newspapers were stacked in a corner.
Scrofula, or King’s Evil,
read an ad.
One quarter of all our people are scrofulous.
Maybe his mother was always resting because she was scrofulous. Maybe she just needed some Ayers Compound Extract of Sarsaparilla.

He stood up and examined the pantry again. He would only be here until they let him go back to his room, but until then, no harm in setting it up proper. He unfolded the legs of the narrow cot and set it against the wall under the lowest shelf.

“Ike!” LouLou and Jane peered in the door. “Come draw new paper dolls for us.”

“And us!” cried the little girl cousins crowding in behind them.

“I’m busy,” Ike said, and he pulled shut the door that separated his quarters from the kitchen.

Rhubarb jelly jars joined sweet gherkins on the top shelf, with one pickle jar set under his cot for snacking. Sugar he scooped into an empty flour sack by hand and he dropped bags of beans and boxed this-and-thats into the newly empty drawer. This left a whole cleared shelf for his collections, plus the countertop.

He stacked his extra shirts, pants, nightshirt, and underclothes beneath the cot, opened the small window, then plumped his pillow and lay down.

He watched a spider drop from the ceiling on invisible silk. He missed his forty-seven cracks.

He folded his hands on his chest. The walls were too close.

He twiddled his thumbs. It was all wrong, lying down in a pantry. There wasn’t even room next to the door for his shoes. He’d had to put them under the cot.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself in a smart uniform with a bayonet across his chest, in a tent with his brothers. Uncle Palmer must have slept in a tent, too, out west. The babies were crying, a sound he couldn’t imagine into any battlefield or gold-panning scene.

He would find a way to go south. He would show them.

“Ike!” Aunt Betsy called, tapping on his door. “Bring a jar of jelly for the babies, will you?”

The men had been gone eight days when the first letter arrived.

Ike found his mother nursing her nerves in Aunt Sue’s bedroom. Jane and LouLou were playing war with paper dolls on the floor next to the bed.

“Mother,” he said loudly from the doorway. “Mail.”

“LouLou shot Queen Victoria!” Jane whined as soon as Mother opened her eyes.

Ike held up the letter.

“Give it to me!” Mother exclaimed.

Jane handed her the doll, but Mother waved her off and beckoned Ike into the room.

“You should get out of bed,” he mumbled, stepping over the paper dolls. Mother sat up and grabbed the envelope from him, clutching it to her chest.

“Daniel,” she whispered. “Go get the others, Ike. We’ll open it all together in the parlor. Girls, go downstairs and straighten up.”

Aunt Betsy was spooning mush into the mouths of the babies.

“We got a letter,” Ike said. “Mother says to come over.”

“Glory be!” Aunt Betsy boomed. “Grace Gorman has had two already. Sarah Mallory, too.” She opened the door. “Susannah! Gather the girls. On the double!” She handed a baby to Ike and put her hands on her ample hips. “That mother of yours out of bed yet?”

“Yes, Aunt Betsy,” he said, thankful that he’d seen his mother sit up before he’d left so he didn’t have to lie. He pulled the baby’s hand out of his hair and set her on the floor.

“Good. That’s the spirit. Now, go get plates and forks and take them to the yard table. Good thing Sue and I have been keeping up with our baking.”

“Susannah!” she hollered. “Tell your mother to bring a pie!”

“I’m right here,” said Aunt Sue from the porch. “Is Olive out of bed?”

“Yes!” said Ike as he balanced a stack of plates.

“Olive, we’ll meet outside!” Aunt Sue called.

“I heard,” Ike’s mother said, joining them.

Aunt Betsy started to take the envelope from Mother, but she clutched it tight.

“My son delivered it; I’ll read,” she said firmly. They all followed her out the door. LouLou and Jane stood by with hankies.

“June the 15th,”
Mother read.

“The fifteenth!” Aunt Sue exclaimed.

“A week!” Betsy cried. “Well. Suppose it had to walk here. Go on, Olive.”

“Our dear families,”
Mother continued. She stopped and put her hand to her mouth. Jane held out her hankie but Mother waved her off.

“We together pen this missive from Hannibal, Missouri, on which shores we have safely stepped.”

“Hannibal, Missouri!” echoed Aunt Betsy. “Well, now. Fancy our soldiers in
Hannibal
!”