A Flickering Light (29 page)

She stopped walking. Here she was without a paycheck, hoping to assist with Roy’s trip and one day have a decent camera, and she’d just bought an elegant dress she really had no place to wear.

She’d go back later, get the money back.

Still, she’d be eighteen in a month, and it might be a present to give herself. Roy’s trip was scheduled for March if the weather cooperated, and after that she’d be free to save for the 3A Graflex. Even Lilly had said every person deserved to achieve her desires.

She picked up her pace, then climbed the icy stone steps to the Bauer home. A low stone wall defined the porch across the front, and Jessie removed her mittens and struck them against the porch stones, knocking off loose little balls of snow that had accumulated on the wool. She laid her mittens on the wide railing to dry out, then pushed the doorbell.

She heard the bleating sound of the bell. Nothing happened. She pushed it again. She turned around. Someone had shoveled a path through the snow, but the walkway hadn’t been salted and there weren’t any snowmen sitting in the yard, no evidence that children had been out playing beneath an opaque sky. She stepped closer and put her ear to the door. No sounds. Russell would be in school, but she ought to hear Winnie and the baby making noises. No footsteps approached. Maybe they had all gone to the doctor, though it was more likely the doctor made home visits to the Bauers’. She walked around to the back of the house, hoping someone was in the kitchen. She knocked. No answer. As she turned to go back to the front, she saw that the door to a shed was open, and there sat one of those new automobiles!
They must have had a good harvest in the fall in North Dakota
, she thought.

Back at the front, she rang the bell once again, knocked, tried the latch. The door was unlocked. She stepped inside. “Mrs. Bauer? Are you here? Mr. Bauer?” She’d never been any farther into the house than the foyer, but now she looked into the living room on the right, a dining area on the left. She expected she’d find the kitchen beyond that and two bedrooms downstairs, other bedrooms upstairs. She wouldn’t go any farther than the hall. That would be intrusive. She called out once again, and this time she heard a bell sounding from upstairs. It maintained a frantic clang.

“Mrs. Bauer?”

The bell rang out again. She followed the sound up the stairs.

FJ sat at his desk in the bedroom wearing pants and a striped shirt that really needed washing. His wife had taken the children to her mother’s at his request. He could see she was deteriorating. She wasn’t sleeping, wasn’t eating well, and taking care of all of them had taken its toll on her. He needed to hire a helper, someone who could stay here and look after the children at least. It would make things tight—but then he’d bought Henry Ford’s car for eight hundred dollars as a Christmas gift, had it delivered. He didn’t yet know how to drive it himself, but he’d learn. Something to look forward to. It would make life easier on them all. Still, a hired girl was what they needed now.

He heard the doorbell and knew he should go down, but the fatigue still captured him, pulled at his throat when he tried to catch his breath. It must be a girl answering the ad he’d run. He’d been dressed and ready and started to go downstairs but tired with the effort. He was sitting, working up the courage to stand again, when he heard the door open and someone call out his name. He choked at trying to shout back a hello, started ringing his bell instead. Then he heard the footsteps on the stairs. “Mrs. Bauer?” It was Jessie! Surely she wasn’t planning to apply.

“Miss Gaebele,” he croaked out as he took a full breath. “Wait.”

She stepped into the doorway.

He could tell by the look on her face that he must look terrible. A tired old man. He stood and leaned one hand on the desk. She’d changed since he saw her last. Confidence was a woman’s finest perfume, he thought. She pushed her glasses up on her nose.

“If you’ll… I’ll meet you downstairs,” he said.

“Oh. Of course. I just…I heard the bell and no one said anything, so I—”

“Please,” he said, motioning her out into the hallway. She retreated and he followed, closed the door behind them. “I think. If you’ll assist me. The banister…”

“Take my arm,” she told him. “Do you have your cane?”

“Down…stairs,” he said.

The girl took his arm, and her hand felt firm and warm despite the fact that she wore no gloves or mittens. He’d have to ask her about that, but right now it took too much for him to speak. She smelled of the snow, refreshing after months of stale house air. They made their way back down the stairs, and she chattered on about the weather. It was too hard to listen. Putting one foot in front of the other required all his concentration. They reached the entry hall, and he took the chair by the small fireplace. She immediately went to start the fire, giving him a chance to collect himself, he supposed. She was chattering. “What did you say…about…your wages?”

“I stopped by to see if something had happened because Mrs. Bauer didn’t send us our pay at the end of December. I tried to call but couldn’t reach anyone. You’re all busy, I know. And you”—she unbuttoned her coat, removed it, and laid it across the chair—“don’t look well at all. Would you like tea? I’ll just fix us some.”

“I’ll…sign the checks. Upstairs, I’ll get…” He tried to stand. He looked for his cane.

“Nonsense. Tell me where they are, and I’ll get them for you. After I make the tea.”

She helped him move toward the kitchen, finished putting water in the teakettle, lit the fire under the gas stove, and set the kettle on to heat. He watched her while she worked, his cane now in his hand. Such smooth movements she had, yet busy and efficient. “There,” she said. “Now if you’ll direct me. I assume that your family will be home soon to look after you.”

“Russell,” he said. “He’s helping.”

“But where are Mrs. Bauer and the baby? Oh,” she said, dropping her eyes. “It’s none of my affair. I’ll get what I came for and leave you in peace.”

“I…like having you here,” he said.

“No trouble.”

“Good.”
She’s waiting for something
. “Oh, the checks… In the bedroom desk. Third drawer down. Left. Bring an ink pen too.”

The girl—the young woman—pushed past him, and he smelled her lavender scent, wasn’t sure but that the air she pushed as she walked by him wasn’t the most refreshing breeze he’d felt in months.

Jessie took the steps quickly and decided that was why she stood breathless at the door of his room. The covers on his bed were crumpled, and she could almost see the indentation of where his body had been. She felt her face grow warm with that awareness. A cigar leaned into a china plate on the chamber stand next to the bed, and beyond that, a small table held a bowl and pitcher. His interest in Indian artifacts showed in the small rug colored with triangular designs. Prints of birds and hunting dogs lined the wall. A photograph of Mrs. Bauer hung alone near the bay window, the dark frame accented against the yellow wall. It had been taken when she was younger. She was beautiful. Across from it was a portrait with Russell and Winnie. Robert was yet too young to hold still for his addition to the family sittings.

She wanted to walk nearer to the bed, just to see what book he’d been reading. But she didn’t. Still, from where she stood she noticed that the pillow didn’t show an indentation. It wasn’t one of the expensive feather-filled ones. He didn’t splurge on his own comfort. She turned to the desk centered in the bay window and sat down on the chair, bent to the drawer. She found the ledger book and checks. She paused at the page, curious about what sort of expenses a family like his might have, but she’d intruded enough; she picked up the checks as planned.

She saw herself framed in the oval mirror as she closed the drawer and stood. Her face was flushed.
From the stairs
. She looked behind her toward the bed. It was a single bed. He slept alone.

FJ wrote the checks as Miss Gaebele sat and sipped her tea. She chattered on about studio activities and that her father was talking about the Sixteenth Amendment and wondered how congress’s levying taxes would affect the business. “I know you can’t talk right now. But when you’re better, it’ll be interesting to see what you think.”

“Not. Much,” he said.

“Have you seen the Hine books?” He shook his head. “They’re almost all photographs, and they tell the stories of the terrible child labor activities in the Carolinas. There’s another that’s called
Day Laborers Before Their Time
. It’s all about the injustices of children working so young. But the books are full of photographs and very few words! The library just got them even though they were published last year. Imagine, using photography to teach and help people understand problems.”

“You think it will change things?” he asked, surprised he’d gotten it out in one breath. Maybe all he needed was a good cup of tea.

“Once we know something, it’s pretty difficult to keep going on in the same old way, don’t you think?”

She was probably right.

“I really should be going. Thanks for the tea and for writing the checks. I hope Mrs. Bauer won’t be upset that I came and asked for them.”

“Every right to,” he told her. He was aware as she stood that he hated to see her leave.
I’d probably wish the garbageman to stay awhile if he made hot tea and talked
.

“It looks like it will be some time yet before you’re back at the studio,” she said.

He turned his hands over. The spots had lessened, but they weren’t gone. And he was exceptionally tired. He’d had a spurt in the fall of feeling improved and imagined himself taking the train to the Dakota ranch to draw in the healthful fresh air there. He dreamed of sitting with his back against the white wall of the house, basking in the sun, staring out at the unbroken line of fields for as far as he could see. Herman had taken a portion of his share to invest in that Canadian land. But not FJ. It was enough responsibility to turn the earth as it had never been turned before, under a plow, and hope that growing food for the masses justified the drastic changes they’d made to the landscape. But he knew the trip would have exhausted him, and he’d come down with pneumonia anyway and was only now getting beyond it.

She had her coat on now. Must have been speaking, but he didn’t hear what she said; he was daydreaming. He didn’t want her to leave. She brought such pleasure into his life.

That was unacceptable. He knew it wasn’t what he should be thinking.

“I didn’t hear,” he said.

“There’s someone at the door,” she said. “Shall I see who it is?”

He nodded and she swished past him. He heard the door open.

“Mama! Selma!”

“I thought those looked like mittens I had knitted. Child, what are you doing here, answering the Bauers’ door?”

Roy’s Ride

J
ESSIE’S EXPLANATION CONTINUED OVER
the supper table with all her family in attendance. “I simply went there to get our paychecks when Mrs. Bauer forgot to send them. I expected her to be there. When she wasn’t, Mr. Bauer wrote them. That’s all.”

“You were alone with Mr. Bauer in his house,” Lilly said.

Not only alone with her employer in his house but nearly alone with him in his bedroom. Nothing had happened, she wanted to say to Lilly, but didn’t.

“Selma will be alone sometimes too,” Jessie said, “if he hires her to work for them. It was just a complication of the day, nothing more. You’re making much of nothing, Lilly. Mama’s settled with it, aren’t you, Mama?”

Roy burped. Jessie wondered how he could do that at will. “I guess
you’re
not settled, are you, Frog?” Roy grinned.

“I certainly did not expect to see my own daughter answering the doorbell,” her mother said. “And when he showed us the house, I noticed two cups of tea on the table.”

“Maybe leftover from before his wife left to visit her mother?” This from Selma. Jessie smiled. Her younger sister was trying to be helpful.

Jessie debated, then said, “The second cup was mine. I had to get the checks for him and he was so weak, so I just fixed a pot of tea. It’s a really nice teapot, didn’t you think, Selma? Not heavy like our cast-iron one but made of—”

“Porcelain,” her mother finished.

“If I get the job, maybe he’ll come pick me up in their new car. I saw it parked in the back,” Selma said. “The shed door was open. I wasn’t prying, Papa.”

Jessie turned the discussion to Lilly. “Maybe you’ll be making new clothes now for women who ride in cars. I saw a picture in the
Companion
magazine of special veils for hats worn in autos. And they suggested one always travel with a cucumber for wrinkles.”

Jessie hoped she’d directed the conversation away from her tea with Mr. Bauer. But no.

“You had tea with him,” Lilly said, shaking her finger at her. “A woman alone in the kitchen of her employer, a man. He ought to have known better than to do that. He doesn’t have your best interests at heart, Jessie. What if word gets out? What will Mrs. Bauer say?”

“I might slip and tell her,” Selma said, some alarm in her voice.

Jessie didn’t want Selma to worry about anything. Everyone was stoking a fire that had no heat. “It wouldn’t be a slip. There’s no reason you couldn’t tell Mrs. Bauer that I sat in the kitchen on a day when I came to pick up my wages. I simply did a kindness for an ill man and took the burden from her, getting our wages. Now she won’t have to worry about that.”

“Are you going to pick them up every week?” Lilly asked.

“If we don’t receive them, I might.”

Lilly folded her linen napkin ever so carefully, placed it beside her plate. “Sister, I think you’re fluffing goose feathers in a pillow that isn’t yours.”

“Mr. Bauer doesn’t use goose-down pillows on his bed,” Jessie snapped. “They weren’t crumpled enough.”

Her mother choked on the piece of rutabaga she’d just placed in her mouth. “Jessie Ann Gaebele, I will see you in the parlor. You too, Mr. Gaebele.”

“M-m-me?” Roy asked. He started to stand.

“Your father,” Jessie’s mother corrected.

Jessie and her father followed meekly after. Whatever had her loose tongue done now?

Mrs. Bauer had just finished putting Robert to bed. Both of the other children were in their rooms, and she could hear nothing from them. That was good. She was too tired to deal with any of it. Her mother had her own aches and pains, and Mrs. Bauer ended up looking after yet one more person in need. She’d insisted that her mother bring her home, and they’d ridden in one of those cars belonging to a friend of her mother’s. Now they even had an automobile and there it sat, with Mr. Bauer too ill to run it and her not knowing how.

She did admit that the ride had been pleasant—except for the way the wind blew at her face and the smelly smoke the automobile burped out and the way that horses startled on the street and the incredible jerking that occurred when they crossed over the streetcar tracks. She might get used to it, but she wasn’t sure when. Russell had been delighted. They’d been dropped off just as he came home from school, and her mother’s friend had agreed to drive him around the block. The boy chattered at her ears when he came inside until she pressed her hands to them and shouted for him to stop. He’d bowed his head and she hated herself for that, but she didn’t mend what she’d done. She had no glue for that.

Now the two of them, she and Mr. Bauer, were in a discussion, though her mind wandered. “I thought it would be helpful.” Her husband spoke.
Oh yes, about the girl he’s hired and my worry over the finances of that
.

“I should be grateful you were thinking of me, is that it? How old is she?”

“Thirteen or so,” he said. “She’s been working. At Steffes’s, for two years already.”

“Surely not full-time. Isn’t she still in school?”

“Finished. Isn’t going on to the high school. Family. Needs money. Good people. You know that.”

“I guess that will be fine, not that I have much say in things. I worry about the money. I hope she’s strong. Is she a big girl?”

He shook his head. “But sturdy. I imagine like her sisters. Responsible.” Mr. Bauer took a deep breath. “I wanted to be helpful. I can pay the wages. Write the weekly—”

“I didn’t pay your shop girls!” Her hands flew to her face. “I forgot. I’m so sorry. I can’t do anything right.” She felt herself in that swamp of unworthiness, though the moment before she’d been irritated, frustrated that it had taken him so long to hire a girl. Why did she always argue, raise financial issues? They could obviously afford a hired girl since he had that splurge of a Ford vehicle in the shed. She supposed he’d start calling it his “garage” now and want one built on the property in St. Charles, where he’d invested in yet another cottage after the successful fall harvest. Last year someone had flown one of those aeroplanes across the English Channel. She supposed Mr. Bauer would want one of those next! She inhaled. Sometimes that stopped the racing of her mind, the fear that grabbed at her throat and threatened to suffocate her.

“I took care of it,” he told her. “The wages.”

“Did you mail them? I could take them tomorrow.” She turned to see if she could find envelopes on the foyer table where he placed outgoing mail that he took with him to work. There was nothing there.
Of course not. He hasn’t gone to work for months
.

“Miss Gaebele took them,” he said.

“Oh. Well, that was clever thinking then, to give them to her when she came to interview. I’m sure she’ll pass them along to her sister.”

He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll arrive safely.”

She thought it an odd characterization but let it go at that. “When will you have her start?”

“In a week. Plenty of time to help plan Winnie’s birthday next month.”

Winnie’s party. All the women at church were doing such things now. “I haven’t planned—”

“Selma will help. It will be. One less thing. To worry over.” He motioned to her to help him stand. She assisted her husband up the stairs, settled him into bed. “I imagine Russell will be chattering to you yet tomorrow about his auto ride.”

Mr. Bauer nodded. “I’ll hope to learn. When spring comes.” “He sits in that thing. In the shed. Is that safe?” Mr. Bauer nodded. He held her hand. “Not to worry, Mrs. Bauer,” he said. He looked at her then, held her gaze. “Thank you, Mrs. Bauer. I so appreciate. Your help.”

She grunted. She knew he might have liked a “You’re entirely welcome,” but she couldn’t muster it. She pulled away and patted his hand instead. She checked the chamber pot to be sure Russell had remembered to empty it earlier, then left her husband alone. Only later in her room did she think to wonder how her husband had managed to make it downstairs for the interview. No matter. Things were looking up. She’d have help, and soon it would be spring, and Mr. Bauer would be better. She could look forward to that.

Jessie wasn’t expecting to see Voe and Daniel Henderson at the studio before she arrived.

“Never you mind, then,” Voe told Jessie. “Daniel and I will tend to this. You’re not to be involved.”

Jessie put her hat, coat, and mittens on the hook in the kitchen. As wet as she got walking to work in this snow-blowing weather, they’d decided to let things drip there rather than form pools beneath the oak coat tree in the hall. She came back in, annoyed that Daniel Henderson was there at all. And they were boxing something up that she was not privileged to know about. Everyone seemed to be doing things to her, affecting her life. Did it even matter to the others that she was turning eighteen in a week and would be responsible for herself? Apparently not. Her mother continued to harangue her (a word she put into her list of memorable words) and tell her how disappointed she was that Jessie had taken such liberties at the Bauer home. How could they trust her? How could she make such decisions as to be in a man’s bedroom long enough to see the condition of his pillows? Could they ever count on her to be the young woman they’d raised her to be? Her morals were being questioned—and theirs too if she continued to do such risqué things.

“But if I had done anything wrong, I wouldn’t have told you,” Jessie said.

“What?”

“I mean, it was so innocent, my seeing his bedroom. I was just getting checks. If it had been something, you know, wrong, would I have mentioned it to you?”

That had silenced them, for the moment.

Jessie thought they were right about one thing: she’d made a terrible slip in commenting on the pillow. It was almost as if she wanted them to know about it, but what would be the point of that? It was an innocent moment of seeing, that’s all. Being a photographer, an artist, made her aware of things that most people weren’t. But her mouth had gotten her into trouble. She never should have described the pillow because to them it suggested something that slanted the truth when all the truth was there wide open for anyone to see. Nothing was happening that ought not to. Her parents had finished their harangue, and Jessie had gratefully gone up to bed.

Now, this next morning, here she was with Voe challenging her too.

“Mr. B. asked us to do this,” Voe defended when Jessie stood with pursed lips, refusing to leave so they couldn’t continue whatever secretive thing they were doing.

“I don’t see how,” Jessie said. “He’s ill and can barely speak. It was all I could do to get the wages taken care of without him collapsing. Why would he tell you to box up a portrait and keep me from knowing about it?

“Well, he did.”

“It’s a kindness, Miss Gaebele,” Mr. Henderson said. “Don’t spoil the surprise, then. Maybe you can fix us coffee. Do you do that?”

Jessie bristled. “I do whatever has to be done.” She turned and headed to the kitchen. Maybe he was going to give her the double exposure, but why wouldn’t he tell her to just take it with her when she went home? There didn’t have to be all this secrecy.

After her parents’ remonstrating her (another word she’d read in a
Woman’s Home Companion
story) she had made up her mind: she would go with Roy for his appointment, and then she would begin saving, not for a camera but for enough money to leave. She’d get a room, like the girls who worked at the hospital or who came in from the country to serve at the restaurants and cafés did. They had all kinds of free time when they finished their work, and they didn’t have to account to anyone but themselves. She’d get by with her little old camera. She would.