第5章 心和面粉

Hearts and Flour

After several weeks of hard winter, this end

of the county is enjoying a January thaw. Mrs.

Dowdel, a lifelong resident, observes that “A

January fog will kill a hog.”

—“Newsy Notes from Our Communities” The Piatt County Call

We’d just finished up a Saturday breakfast when we heard a pecking of sharp heels out on the back porch. Grandma looked up. A shape showed in the steamy window of the back door. There came a fumbled knocking.

“Better let her in,” Grandma said.

It was Mrs. L. J. Weidenbach, the banker’s wife. Fools rush in, and she plunged past me into the kitchen.

Grandma looked her up and down. Mrs. Weidenbach’s hat spilled black artificial cherries off the brim. Her upper arm clamped a big pocketbook, and her coat featured a stand-up muskrat collar. Grandma considered the fur with a professional eye. Her gaze fell to Mrs. Weidenbach’s hemline, though she had to peer around the table to see. This may have been when Grandma saw that skirts were getting shorter.

Mrs. Weidenbach showed a good deal of leg. “I won’t keep you, Mrs. Dowdel,” she sang out, “as I see you are a busy woman.”

Having polished off a plate of scrapple and corn syrup, Grandma lolled. “I will cut the cackle,” Mrs. Weidenbach said, “and come straight to the point.”

Mrs. Weidenbach never came straight to the point. Her voice dropped. “Word will have reached you about poor Mrs. Vottsmeier over at Bement.”

“Will it?” Grandma said.

Mrs. Weidenbach clutched a chair back and leaned nearer. “The Change,” she said.

“If she’s thinkin’ about making a change, who could blame her?” said Grandma. “Vottsmeier’s no prize.”

Mrs. Weidenbach rested her eyes. “I mean the Change of Life.” She tried not to notice me nearby.

“Hitting her hard, is it?” Grandma inquired without interest.

Mrs. Weidenbach clutched her own furry bosom and reeled. “The night sweats! The hot flashes! Of course it’s nothing to what I suffered, but ...”

Still, I wouldn’t go away. I was just off her elbow, hearing every forbidden word. And she was coming to the best part. Her voice fell. “And her womb dropped.”

“Do tell,” Grandma said. “How far?”

“She says it feels like it hit the floor.” Mrs. Weidenbach gave me a cold shoulder because I was sticking like Grandma’s glue. “But as you know, I never gossip.”

Grandma lurched in surprise. Coffee jumped out of her cup.

“All I am saying is Mrs. Vottsmeier is out of the running.”

A dreadful vision of Mrs. Vottsmeier trying to run with some of her insides bouncing on the floor almost sent me reeling.

“And so we are up a gum stump about our Washington’s Birthday tea. It’s our sacred tradition to serve cherry tarts to honor General Washington. And as the world knows, there is nobody to touch Mrs. Vottsmeier for her cherry tarts.” Mrs. Weidenbach’s eyes snapped. “She is a plain woman, but there is poetry in her pastry.”

“Who’s throwing the party?” Grandma said.

“Who?” Mrs. Weidenbach blinked. “Why, the DAR, of course. The Daughters of the American Revolution, of which I have the honor to be president.”

The DAR was a club of only the best ladies in town. They all traced their families back to the Revolutionary War (our side).

“As I expect you are aware,” Mrs. Weidenbach said, warming up, “my family descends from Captain Crow, who was at Yorktown when Cornwallis capitulated. My mother was a Crow, you know.”

“Ah,” Grandma muttered. “That explains it.”

“Frankly, Mrs. Dowdel, one of the sorrows of my marriage is that I don’t have a daughter and, yes, a granddaughter who will step into my DAR shoes when the time comes.”

I couldn’t help it. I looked down at her shoes. They were high-heeled and a size too small.

Mrs. Weidenbach looked at me bleakly. After all, she had no granddaughter, and Grandma had me. Now she began her retreat because the January thaw hadn’t thawed Grandma.

“I leave you with this thought, Mrs. Dowdel. The Daughters of the American Revolution maintain a proud tradition of American aristocracy in even as humble a town as our own. Without cherry tarts, we are letting down General Washington. The town is still abuzz about your pumpkin and pecan pies. And I bow to nobody in my admiration for your flaky pastry. I charge you, Mrs. Dowdel, to play your part and come through for us.”

With that, she was gone. We listened to her pecking off the porch. Silence fell like a benediction.

Grandma took her sweet time, then remarked, “Skimpy coat, wasn’t it? She’s courting pneumonia going around naked to the knee. She wasn’t wearing enough to pad a crutch.”

We sat at the table, listening to the icicles drip from the eaves.

Finally, I said, “Grandma, are we going to be making cherry tarts for her?” Because we’d need cornstarch, and we were about out of lard.

But she didn’t hear me. “There’s different kinds of people in the world,” she said. “There’s them who’ll invite you to join their bunch. Then there’s them who’ll pay you for your work. Then there’s Wilhelmina Weidenbach.”

And that seemed to be her final word on the subject.

Winter resumes its grip as the younger set at the high school looks forward to an exchange of Valentine cards, and the DAR is abuzz about its annual Washington’s Birthday tea.

The high school will have its big red hearts But where will the DAR get its cherry tarts?

—“Newsy Notes om Our Communities” The Piatt County Call

“What’s all this about a valentine exchange?” Carleen Lovejoy said to Irene Stemple one February morning. “Nobody told me about it.”

“Newsy Notes” may have been optimistic. There were a lot more girls than boys in school. And none of the boys seemed to be of a romantic nature.

Ina-Rae leaned over from her desk and pushed her big-eyed little face into mine. Somehow she still looked scrawny and incomplete without her wings. “It says in the paper there’s going to be a valentine exchange,” she whispered. “At the grade school we always made our valentines. We cut out hearts at our desks and put on lace. Elmo Leaper ate the paste. It was fun. Do you reckon we’ll make them here?”

“I doubt it,” I whispered back. “This is high school.”

“Well, it beats what we’re doing.” Ina-Rae stuck out her tongue at her history book.

The classroom door opened. Principal Fluke stood there with a new boy. The day had been gray, but crisp winter sun broke through and seemed to find the newcomer. He was as tall as Mr. Fluke and lots better-looking. His hair was red-gold, according to the sun, and not cut at home. It was razor-trimmed over ears flat to his head. Forrest Pugh, Jr.’s, ears stood straight out, like open car doors.

“Miss Butler,” Mr. Fluke said. “I got you a new scholar. Looks like my prayers is answered, and I got me a scoring center for my basketball team.” Mr. Fluke pointed to the top of the boy’s head.

Milton Grider flipped his pencil and slumped in his desk. At five nine, he’d been the tallest boy in school, till now. The new boy seemed to be six feet tall, easy. The back of Carleen Lovejoy’s head vibrated.

“Name of Royce McNabb,” Mr. Fluke said. “His paw’s come in as surveyor for the county roads. Family’s from down Coles County way. Mattoon. Let’s call him a senior.”

If Royce McNabb minded hearing his personal history blurted out in front of strangers, he didn’t let on. But then, he was from Mattoon, which was citified for these parts. And sure enough, he was wearing corduroy pants, not overalls. An argyle pattern sweater strained across his broad shoulders.

Ahead of me, Carleen gripped herself. “Be still, my heart,” she murmured loudly. Then she leaned across to Irene Stemple and said, “Hands off. He’s mine.”

“Move over, Milton,” Miss Butler said, “and make Royce welcome.”

Royce went through the day with the same smile for everybody. He’d probably been in a lot of schools and knew how to handle himself.

When I got home, I told Grandma we had a new boy at school. She waved him away. “The town’s filling up with people you wouldn’t know from Adam’s off ox. Not like the old days when you knew your neighbors.”

“The winters were colder back then too, weren’t they, Grandma?”

“People starved to death because their jaws froze shut,” she said. “You getting interested in boys?”

“Who, me?” I said.

At that, we heard Mrs. L. J. Weidenbach fumbling at the back door. When I let her in, there were ice crystals in her muskrat. She elbowed past me, her eyes teary with cold and emotion. Grandma had been over by the Hoosier cabinet. Now she was sitting down, seemingly at her ease.

“Mrs. Dowdel, we cannot pussyfoot anymore over these cherry tarts.” Mrs. Weidenbach grappled with her giant purse and came up with the Piatt County Call newspaper. “I need a commitment. My land, it’s in the paper now, where it has inspired two lines of bad verse.”

Grandma didn’t read the paper, so Mrs. Weidenbach shook it open and read,

The high school will have its big red hearts

But where will the DAR get its cherry tarts?

“Doesn’t that turn your stomach?” she demanded. “I don’t call it reporting, and I don’t call it poetry. It’s snooping, and possibly by a foreign power. The dignity of the DAR is on the line.”

Grandma picked a loose thread from her apron front.

“Mrs. Dowdel, I need your answer before we get any more publicity of this sort.”

“Oh well.” Grandma turned over a large hand on oilcloth. “If it’s my patriotic duty, I’ll bake up a mess of tarts.”

The wind went out of Mrs. Weidenbach. She’d been geared up for a larger struggle, more on the lines of the Battle of Bunker Hill. “You will? Well, that’s real ... reasonable of you.”

“All in a good cause,” Grandma said.

Mrs. Weidenbach turned to go, but didn’t make it to the door.

“On my terms,” Grandma said.

Mrs. Weidenbach turned back, slowly.

“We’ll have your DAR tea right here at my house.”

“But—”

“It’ll be handier for me,” Grandma said. “I don’t get out much anymore.”

That was a whopper, but Mrs. Weidenbach’s head was whirling.

“Mrs. Dowdel, let me explain. This is more than a social occasion. This is a meeting of our DAR chapter, strictly limited to our members. It is always at my house.”

“I’ll fire up the stove in my front room,” Grandma said. “It’ll be warm as toast in there.”

“But—”

“Or you can serve store-bought cupcakes at your place.”

Mrs. Weidenbach crumbled.

I was at school early on Valentine’s Day, but Miss Butler was there before me. Since the newspaper had announced a valentine exchange, she thought she’d better fill in with a valentine of her own on everybody’s desk. Hers were the flimsy kind that came in a sheet you punched out. So that was one valentine apiece.

When people straggled in, they found their valentines. “Honestly,” Carleen Lovejoy said, rolling her eyes when she saw her valentine was from Miss Butler. She stuffed it into her desk.

Then here came Ina-Rae. On her desk beside mine was Miss Butler’s valentine—and three more. Ina-Rae clasped both hands over her mouth. She squeaked, and people turned to look. She was all eyes. And she really was the thinnest girl in the world. She was skinnier than a toothpick with termites. She looked around to see how many valentines everybody else got. One apiece.

Ina-Rae crept into her desk. Her hands dithered over the paper pile. She too made short work of Miss Butler’s valentine. Then she took up the next one. It was homemade to a fault. It looked like it had been whittled, not cut out. The message read, Ina-Rae stared, then leaned so far over, she was almost in my lap. “I think that one’s from Elmo Leaper,” she confided at the top of her voice. “Can you believe it?”

I send this sentiment in haste

But at least I didn’t eat the paste

A Secrit Admiror

And, really, I couldn’t.

Ina-Rae sat straighter in her desk now. Maturely, she took up the next valentine. It was somewhat better made, with odd little tufts of cotton batting stuck on.

It read, Ina-Rae gasped. Then she was all over me again. “The Johnson brothers? Can it be?”

Simple shepherds are we

And too sheepish to say

Have a happy St. Valentine’s Day

[unsigned]

As luck would have it, Elmo Leaper and the Johnson brothers were across the hall with Mr. Herkimer. But word that they’d sent Ina-Rae valentines swept our room like a grass fire. It didn’t take long. There were only about twelve of us. Carleen Lovejoy looked back in annoyance.

Now Ina-Rae came to the last valentine, and I could hardly wait.

It really was lovely. A white satin heart, padded like a little pillow and surrounded by a double row of paper lace neatly pasted on—hours to make. Ina-Rae cradled it in trembling hands, to read, “Oh, Mary Alice!” Ina-Rae bounced in her desk. She seemed overcome with self-confidence. Word radiated that Royce McNabb had sent Ina-Rae Gage a valentine.

To the sweetest little girl in this room,

or any room.

from R. McN.

Royce was there too, but seemed not to notice. He always brought an Edgar Rice Burroughs book, or a Rider Haggard to read before school took up. Word reached Carleen, though. Ina-Rae and I watched her vibrate.

Then she blew. Out of her desk, she switched and stalked back to us.

“Let me see that thing.” She snatched the satin heart out of Ina-Rae’s hands, ripping lace.

Carleen read the message for herself. Every word burned into her brain. She looked back at Royce McNabb. He sat there with his chin in his hand, reading. Royce was out of reach. Carleen slammed the valentine on Ina-Rae’s desk, got down in her face, and howled, “What have you been up to, you trashy little squirt?”

A single tear replaced the gleam in Ina-Rae’s eye.

Miss Butler came out of her chair. “Carleen! Leave the room.”

So Carleen had to. Royce looked up as she slumped past him. The back of her neck was valentine-red and hot-looking. The door closed behind her. It was eight o’clock on the nose, so we all got up to give the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ina-Rae lifted her desktop to sneak peeks at her valentines all morning long, cooing loudly. Down in the basement at noon when we were eating out of our dinner buckets, all the girls wanted to sit near her, even Irene Stemple.

Royce shot baskets by himself down at the other end. He never really was a team player, though he had a nice hook shot. Not that I knew anything about basketball.

Carleen wasn’t there. A smart mouth sent you home in those days.

Afterward, out at the pump, Ina-Rae sidled up to me. “That was fun. Did you see Carleen’s face? I can keep the valentines, can’t I? You sure dreamed up some swell messages, Mary Alice. Especially R. McN.’s. They must have took you absolutely days to make.”

“All in a good cause,” I said.

Ina-Rae had played her role well too. I’d liked the tear in her eye.

Then I went to scrubbing under the pump. My hands had been gummy for days. I thought I’d never get all the paste off them.

February turned out to be my busiest month. I was no sooner through making valentines than Grandma had me rolling out pastry for the tarts. And always from the center out. We spent the weekend before the DAR tea with towels around our middles and our hair tucked up. The kitchen was in a white fog of flour.

Then on Washington’s Birthday, the tea was set for four o’clock, so I hightailed it home from school. In the kitchen the tarts were laid out on cookie sheets, little works of art, each and every one. Grandma was nowhere to be seen.

Then there she stood in the doorway to the front room. Grandma? She seemed to ponder the distance off my right ear. She was ... posing. Her snow-white hair waved down from a neat center parting and drew back in a bun so tight, no hair escaped. Pearls hung in her ears. There were traces of Coty powder in the laps below her chins.

I’d never seen her dress. It must have been from the Lane Bryant catalogue. It was maroon wool crepe, with many a tuck taken across the prow. My gaze fell to her waist, where a self-belt was holding its own. And could it be? A lacy handkerchief was tucked up a cuff below one large wrist. New shoes peered out from below her skirts—fine big black patent-leather boats.

The tears started in my eyes. I wanted to hold her in that moment forever, framed by that door. “Grandma,” I said, “you’re beautiful.”

She waved me away, but she was.

A flouncy white party apron she’d made for me hung over a kitchen chair. She tied it around my waist and pointed to a tray of punch cups. No tea appeared to be brewing, but she seemed to want me out of the kitchen while she made the punch. I carried the tray into the front room.

It was hot as August in there, and I nearly pitched all the glassware on the rug in surprise. A lady had already arrived and occupied the best chair. And she was no member of the DAR. It was Mrs. Effie Wilcox.

Mrs. Wilcox in a hat and an apron—but a nice, visiting apron. Her eyes and her teeth aimed all over the room.

Grandma had set up a table with a white cloth. I put the tray down. Turning, I had the next shock. In the rocker by the stove was another lady, wrapped in shawls and old as the hills. She wasn’t DAR either. She looked like she might smoke a corncob pipe.

I couldn’t tell if Mrs. Wilcox noticed me. You could never tell where she was looking. But the ancient lady was sound asleep because somebody had parked her too near the glowing stove. She was alive, though. You could have heard her breathing all over the house.

Back in the kitchen, I said, “Grandma, who’s the old party on the other side of the stove?”

She turned from a large bowl of brilliant red punch. “That’s Aunt Mae Griswold. The Cowgills brought her to town in their dairy wagon. She don’t get out much anymore.”

“Grandma, how old is she?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Grandma said. “You’d have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck.”

But then a rapping on the front door echoed through the house. “That’ll be the DAR.” Grandma was cool as a cucumber, as if they often called.

When I opened the door, Mrs. Weidenbach swept in, followed by Mrs. Broshear, the undertaker’s wife, and Mrs. Forrest Pugh. Then Mrs. Lutz, the preacher’s wife, and last, Mrs. Earl T. Askew. All of them were hatted and corseted, veiled and gloved. They sensed trouble at once.

“Oh, tell me I’m wrong,” one of them blurted. “Is that Effie Wilcox?”

“Howdy,” Mrs. Wilcox said, looking them all over at once.

They spotted Aunt Mae Griswold. Her jaw had dropped. She had two teeth, and she whistled