The Luck of the Buttons (11 page)

“The newspaper, they liked those sorts of photographs. Raw emotion, they call it. And not many people had cameras in those days. We snapped a few more around town that day, then made them up and brought them down to the newspaper office, and there you have it.”

“Paid us, too, they did,” added Elmira.

“Now we don’t have a paper,” said Eldora. She shook her head. “Too bad, too.”

“The library has copies of all of the old papers, though,” said Elmira. “We visit them sometimes.”

“And thanks to yours truly, we’re going to have a new newspaper in town. How about that?”

“A new . . . ?” Tugs started.

“Why, yes, that dashing gentleman was here just yesterday, or day before.”

“Dashing gentleman?” Tugs asked.

“What was his name, Sissy?” said Eldora. “Ford? Door?”

“Moore?” said Tugs. “Was his name Harvey Moore?”

“That’s the one!” said Elmira.

“Such a nice man,” said Eldora.

“What did he want?” asked Tugs.

“Want? Why, he didn’t want anything. He was here to offer us an opportunity. We said we’d have to think about it, of course, but he said we could exchange our late daddy’s (bless his soul) shares of Standard Oil for a founding share of his new venture. A newspaper! Imagine. He thinks two old ladies could be at the forefront of progress.”

“Mr. Millhouse down at the bank is going to change our securities for cash. Mr. Moore is stopping back to collect before he goes back to Chicago to get the printing press and such.”

“He took quite a shine to Leopold, too,” said Elmira.

“Oh, but Leopold was being naughty. He diddled on that nice man’s shoe. Leopold is particular about people, but not usually that particular.”

“Now, what about your pictures?” said Elmira, abruptly changing the subject. “Can we see yours?”

“I don’t know how to get them out of the camera,” said Tugs.

“Heavens to Mergatroid,” said Eldora, laughing. “You mean that old Pepper gave you a Brownie but didn’t tell you how to get the photographs developed? Wasn’t there an instruction manual?”

Developed,
thought Tugs. That’s the word for it.
Developed.

“That would be just like him, now, wouldn’t it?” said Elmira. “Flinty Pepper. He could have at least given you a free round of developing. Nope. I thought it was unusually generous for Pepper to donate cameras for the raffle. He was just drumming up new customers, that’s what. Once a fella or a lady owns a camera, what do they need but film and developing? And then more film. More developing. And talking to Pepper, you’d think there’s no way to develop photographs but in his top-secret back room. The magic room, he calls it, like he’s some sort of wizard holding the magic spell. There’s nothing to it, really.”

“Are you going to show her, Sissy?” Eldora broke in.

“I don’t see why not,” said Elmira. “She did save our Leopold.”

“Show me what?” asked Tugs.

“Come to the back room, dear. Mind the step.”

“And if you hear a
scritchety, scratchety,
that’s just the mice Leopold has yet to catch. There’s a hole back here somewhere, but they’re mostly friendly.”

“Do you have the flashlight, Sissy?” asked Elmira.

“Of course, Sissy. Now, here, you follow Elmira and me. Shut the door behind you.”

They went through the kitchen and squeezed past the icebox to a small door.

“This used to be the extra pantry,” said Elmira. “We made it over.”

“Watch your head, now,” Eldora said. “We’ve got the window covered and there’s a clothesline hanging across.”

Elmira swept the flashlight beam around the small room, and in its path, Tugs saw a narrow table with tubs on top of it. Photographs were hanging from the clothesline strung wall to wall. Others were tacked onto the wall. Tugs was mesmerized.

Elmira shone the light on Tugs’s face. “She likes it!” said Elmira, giggling. “Just like if we’d had a girl of our own.”

“You know those aren’t undies hanging from the line, don’t you?” Eldora giggled.

Tugs nodded.

“It’s the pictures,” squealed Elmira, delighted with herself. “We have ourselves our very own darkroom.”

“Oh, and doesn’t it make Mr. Pepper mad!” tittered Eldora. “All that business, his best customers we were, whoosh out the door.”

Tugs was desperate to see the photographs hanging on the line. She reached out her hand for the flashlight. Elmira handed it to her. She walked along the row of photos, studying each one. The first was the apple tree in the backyard. Since the sisters were so small, it was taken from underneath the lowest branch and was a view up into the limbs. The second was a similar picture — so similar, in fact, that Tugs couldn’t tell the difference between them, save for a smudge down at the edge of one. The third was the same, only a little bit lighter. She went on down the row, puzzled at the repeated images.

“Aren’t they lovely?” asked Eldora.

“She’s speechless!” said Elmira. “Wouldn’t old Pepper be jealous?”

Tugs did not point out that Mr. Pepper appeared to be plenty of years younger than either of the sisters, or that as far as she could tell his business was running just fine, or that these pictures were all the same, just a view of some backyard branches.

“Nice,” was all she said. Clearly that was not high enough praise, because the sisters were disappointed in her reaction.

“
Nice,
she says!” sniffed Elmira.

“I think it’s time for my midday repast,” said Elmira.

“She means it’s time for you to go,” said Eldora to Tugs.

“I’m sorry if I . . .” Tugs started, but the sisters were already on their way out of the room, pulling Tugs with them.

They stood awkwardly in the living room. Tugs patted the sleeping Leopold’s head and then boldness overtook her.

“Would you develop my photographs?” The sisters paused, door open to excuse her. “I took one of the dashing gentleman,” she offered.

“Well, Sissy. She did rescue our Leopold.”

“Yes, Sissy. I suppose you’re right. And the gentleman is handsome.”

“Come back tomorrow,” said Elmira, and shooed Tugs out the door.

Tugs stood on the porch and remembered about Mary Louise and her plan to become a Mary, which made her remember her hair. She reached up and felt its shortness, already missing the pull of its former weight. She wished she could see the picture she’d taken of herself at the picnic.

Tugs stopped in at the library. She wanted to ask Miss Lucy for the old newspapers, but Mrs. Goiter, Miss Lucy’s sometime substitute, was at the desk today. She couldn’t possibly ask Mrs. Goiter for help. Mrs. Goiter eyed young hang-abouts with suspicion, shushing their every cough and snicker.

Tugs had been known to lose a book or two, but they were always — well, usually — found eventually, and while Miss Lucy was discrete about it, Mrs. Goiter had on more than one occasion called out in a loud voice, “Tugs Button! I’m going to confiscate your card!” or, “Tugs Button, you’re on my list!”

Tugs slipped over to the dictionary to think.
Priscilla
was not listed. She paged through, reading idly.

Tugs loved how one word led to another. She’d never seen an ocean, a lagoon, a reef, not even a mass of rock larger than the boulder that prevented Uncle Edgar from plowing the front acre, as he told the story. But one thing could lead to another, after all.

Then she paged back to
button,
as she often did.

She repeated the small poem to herself. Tugs loved the strong images of her name. She liked to think of herself towing things along. She would walk up to Mrs. Goiter and ask about newspapers.

Tugs took one more glance at her name in the book, then slipped her hand under the cover and folded it shut with a slap that was louder than she intended.

“Oh!” she exclaimed to no one in particular. “That was loud!”

“Tugs Button,” bellowed Mrs. Goiter, stalking heavily through nonfiction and reaching Tugs in fewer than eight strides. She put her hands on her hips. “I’m trying to run a
library
here. This is a house of
quiet
and
decorum.
What are you doing and what do you want?”

Tugs wavered. She backed up to the pedestal table and rested her hand on the dictionary. “I . . .” she started.

“Well, out with it!” Mrs. Goiter barked, stepping close enough now that Tugs could smell her stale breath.

“N-n-newspaper?” Tugs stammered. “Old newspapers? I want to see pictures that the Thompson twins took.”

“Humph.” Mrs. Goiter shook her head and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Would you look at the dust on those lights? Do I have to do everything myself?” She shook her head again and walked away.

“Well?” she called in a sharp, very not-library voice, and turned with her hands on her hips. “This way.”

Tugs hurried after her. They went down the curved stairway to a basement room that Tugs had not been in before. There were shelves and shelves of magazines and newspapers in stacks.

Mrs. Goiter motioned with a ruler. “Back issues. Locals on the right, more exotic fare to the left.” She handed Tugs the ruler.

“To mark your place in the stack. Get anything out of order in here and it will be your last visit.”

Tugs approached the rightmost shelf and ran her hand across a stack of papers. Tentatively, she pulled the top one out partway and stood on her tiptoes to read the date. The
Cedar Rapids Tribune,
“A Newspaper Without a Muzzle.” Friday, June 28, 1929. She skimmed the headlines. “No Excuse for Mine Disasters Says Uncle Sam,” she read. She pulled the paper off the shelf. Near the bottom was a drawing of children watching fireworks, with the caption “Safe and Sane.” Tugs wanted to explore the rest of the pages, but the
Cedar Rapids Tribune
wasn’t what she was looking for. She slid it back on the stack and looked on a lower shelf.
Tribune, Tribune, Tribune.
Tugs moved left to another stack, then another, cautiously lifting papers and squaring them back so Mrs. Goiter wouldn’t notice they’d been disturbed.

The
Gazette
s would be older than all of these papers. Or maybe they were counted in Mrs. Goiter’s more exotic fare. She slid a paper off the top shelf. It was a Chicago paper. Nope. Then Tugs pulled it out again. A Chicago paper, right there in the Goodhue library. Now, that was something. Aunt Fiona was the only Button brave enough to have explored a city larger than Cedar Rapids. What went on in Chicago that didn’t go on in Cedar Rapids or Goodhue?

Tugs took the paper, laying the ruler in its place. She laid it flat on the table, admiring the large, smart type of the headlines.

“Scouts to Entertain Community” and “Two Escape Death as Train Hits.” There was a cartoon of a man with a suitcase labeled “agriculture” buying a train ticket to Washington, D.C. She opened the newspaper. There were several photographs here. Her eyes skipped from one to another. She was about to turn the page when her eyes went back to a photograph in the corner. There was something familiar about it. The headline above it read “Dapper Jack Disappears with Dough.” It was something about the smile. . . . Tugs read the article below it.