A Violet Season (11 page)

Mr. Jacobs’s attention was entirely different. He was not an awkward boy, but a man. He spoke easily with other men, though
he was young, and he had left Underwood to go to college. Maybe he was merely being polite. But a polite young man would have asked how she and her family were. He would not have offered to accompany her all the way to the Pruitts’, would he? What would Mrs. Pruitt say if she saw? Would she tell Alice’s mother? Alice didn’t care; for the first time she felt she was becoming a young woman herself. She had told her mother she didn’t want to marry, but if Mr. Jacobs were a possibility . . .

They made small talk about the weather and news of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, of the health of their families, of Avery, and of Alan Harris, who had returned from Tampa but was restless to leave again. Then she asked about Princeton, and he told her about the campus green, where two treasured cannons were nearly fully buried to keep them from being stolen by students from a neighboring college. They passed the hardware store, and in the edge of her vision, Alice saw her neighbor Mr. Aiken loading his wagon. He saw them, too, but she knew he wouldn’t say anything to her father, with whom he wasn’t friendly on account of an old dispute.

“There must be scads of smart young ladies in Princeton,” Alice said as they passed the last of the village shops and headed into the open countryside. Mr. Jacobs looked at her in a funny way, his forehead creased, as if she had misunderstood everything about him. The way he looked at her made her feel so foolish that she would have liked to have bolted into the Ellerbys’ field.

“There are a few,” he said. “The daughters of professors. A bunch of snobs, if you’ll excuse me. Some people don’t appreciate the privileges they have, and they hold them over others.”

Alice knew plenty about that, but she also knew better than to say so.

“If you’re asking whether I socialized at college, the answer is no,” he added, and Alice felt a sickening heat flash in her head.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I never meant to pry.”

“Not at all,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to say you were prying. Not at all!” He stopped walking and reached toward her, then drew back again. Two of the Ellerbys’ cows stood at the fence, chewing their cuds and watching with disinterest. The flies that followed them buzzed in the quiet.

“I’m making a mess of this conversation,” Mr. Jacobs said, and he turned toward the pasture and pressed one hand to the back of his neck. He wandered up to the fence. The cows watched him approach. One nudged her nose toward him, and he patted her gently. Alice tightened her grip on the brown paper bag, and it crinkled.

Mr. Jacobs faced her again. She waited for him to speak.

“The truth is, I’m not accustomed to walking with a young lady like you,” Mr. Jacobs said, and Alice wondered what kind of a young lady he thought she was. “Any young lady, that is,” he added. “I feel all nervous in your presence.” He laughed then. She had never heard him laugh, but it may have been the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard, because his laughter had something to do with the fact that being with her made him happy.

It was her turn to say something. She was afraid if she tried, she might begin to laugh as well, uncontrollably, she was so excited to be standing here at the edge of the Ellerbys’ cow pasture with a young man, with Joe Jacobs, and he liked her!

“I’m nervous, too, Mr. Jacobs,” she said, and calling him that made her giggle. She didn’t bother covering her mouth, just let the laugh spill out of her.

“You must call me Joe,” he said, taking a step toward her. She wasn’t sure she would be able to do that. “Maybe not in front of anyone quite yet,” he added, and they laughed together. A wagon was cresting the hill in front of them, and instinctively they set their arms at their sides and began walking. Alice didn’t recognize the driver when he passed, but Joe tipped his hat. Joe. There. That wasn’t so difficult, at least, to think of him as Joe.

“Here we are,” he said a few minutes later when they reached the turn for Aldus Road and the Pruitts’ house.

“You needn’t accompany me to the door,” Alice said.

He seemed to understand that she didn’t want the Pruitts to see he had walked with her all that way. “I hope to see you again soon, then,” he said.

“I hope so, too,” she said, and with a wave, she headed up the road. She couldn’t wait to tell Claudie.

She found Claudie and her mother in the kitchen, shelling peas into a giant pot, where they dropped with a ping like BB shot. Mrs. Pruitt measured out the medicine in a glass and asked Alice to carry it up to Avery; she would be up in a few minutes, she said.

It hadn’t been strange at all to sit at the foot of Avery’s bed when Claudie was there, but now Alice hesitated at his door. It didn’t seem proper, but Mrs. Pruitt had sent her. Alice wondered whether Claudie’s mother had intentions of trying to strike a spark between them. After all, she could have sent Claudie up instead. But it didn’t matter what Mrs. Pruitt’s intentions were. Alice thought of Joe Jacobs and felt a thrilling spin. She rapped at Avery’s door with one knuckle, announcing, “It’s Alice, with your medicine.”

“Come in,” he said in a normal voice; the pain seemed to have subsided on its own. He was lying on his side, and Alice had to set the glass on the night table in order to help him up. He gripped her hand hard and instructed her to put her arm around him. She pressed her hand into his back, damp with sweat, and returned his grip and eased him to a seated position, then let go of his hand to reach for the glass. As soon as she could, she stepped away from the bed and averted her eyes to the lace valance over the window while he drank. She would not make a good nurse, she thought, for merely the hint of sourness in the room made her feel queasy.

“Thanks, Alice,” he said, setting the glass on the night table and leaning on one elbow, then the other, then onto his pillow. “Thanks for getting that for me.”

“You’re welcome,” she said. All the ease had gone out of their conversation now that they were alone. Now that she had touched his weakness. And now that her entire life had changed on the walk from the pharmacy.

“You know what’s the worst of it?” he asked, and Alice felt a leap of fear that he was going to confide something personal to her.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t know if it’s ever going to get better. If I knew that, I could wait. I think I could really be patient. But thinking the rest of my life is going to be like this is hell.” Alice wasn’t sure what to say.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to follow in my father’s business or have a girl.” Avery’s eyes were closed, but tears were rolling over his cheeks to the pillow. Alice pulled a wicker chair from the corner and sat beside the bed and took one of his hands in both of hers. It was the only thing she could think to do, since she had no idea what to say. She sat there with him awhile. He squeezed her hand once, but he didn’t open his eyes, and as the medicine began to work, his hand went limp in hers and he slept. Only then did she set it on the bedcovers and get up, leaving the door ajar as it had been before.

She was grateful for the fresh air of the hallway, where windows were open at both ends. She paused at the mirror near the top of the stairs to collect herself and saw reflected at her a face that betrayed nothing of her earlier conversation with the minister’s son. What Mrs. Pruitt and Claudie would want to know was what had transpired during her long visit to Avery’s bedroom; all of that she could tell them truthfully.

T
he harvest began on a Tuesday early in October. Frank came home the night before, smelling rank from a load of manure, and announced the picking would begin tomorrow. Ida was permitted to stay in the packing room rather than picking because of the baby, but in the absence of other work, Alice was out on a board the first day in her oldest dress and her work shoes, her long hair pulled back in a braid, precut lengths of string around her neck for bundling the bunches as she picked. Ida was hopeful that Alice would be allowed to pick for the season, offsetting Frank’s debt and buying Ida time to find her sewing work. Alice was one of the fastest pickers, gathering up to twenty bunches of fifty blooms in an hour. She knew just how long to pick the stems and how to hook each flower head to the others so the bouquet would resemble a single mass rather than a bunch of tiny individual blossoms. Even Harold, normally parsimonious with praise, complimented her work that morning, and Alice looked pleased.

Some of Alice’s old classmates were out picking by the second or third day with her. Many of them, like Alice, were no longer allowed to continue their education because their families needed the income. Oliver picked with his friends Alan Harris and George
Ellerby. And there was Joe Jacobs, more steady on the board than he had been at planting time, though not nearly as adept as Alice.

The season always began with a rush to supply the New York Horse Show, held every fall at Madison Square Garden. The bandstand would be festooned with garlands of violets, and the Swanley White violets were always included in the winners’ rosettes. Every bunch picked in the week or two leading up to the show was leafed and booted and set in a galvanized tank of water to keep it fresh; then a hundred thousand blooms were transferred into shipping boxes and sent to the Coburg station for the journey to the city.

William had obtained complimentary passes to this year’s horse show, enough to take everyone to the city: Frances and Norris, Harriet and her girls, and four tickets for Ida’s family. Ida would have enjoyed the trip, but Mary and Jasper were too young to go. Frank said he had business with a wholesaler in the city, so he would accompany Oliver, Alice, and Reuben. Harold would stay home to manage the pickers from town, and Ida would have a quiet Saturday to start sewing Alice’s new winter suit after the baking was done.

On the first Saturday in November, Frank and the children rose before dawn to do their chores and catch the seven-thirty train. When Jasper realized they were going without him, he cried inconsolably and was placated only by the promise of a walk to the Mortons’ farm to visit their hound.

The day was dark and spitting rain, and in the dim afternoon the little ones napped a good long while. Ida was eager then to sew on Harriet’s machine, which had been carried up to her house on loan. She hated to borrow it, but owning one was out of the question. Harriet had paid fifty dollars for this one several years ago. Even a portable hand-crank model, not nearly as enjoyable to sew on, would cost fifteen or twenty dollars. Harriet’s sewing machine had a rich walnut cabinet with three drawers on either side, though as Ida snooped through them in search of spare machine needles, she found Harriet had taken no care to organize the drawers. They contained
long, leftover wisps of thread, loose buttons and needle tubes and even items that had nothing to do with sewing at all: a book of matches, a handful of pennies, an old church bulletin.

Ida began by winding a bobbin and threading the machine. Then she started with Alice’s circular skirt, pinning the right sides of the fabric together with straight pins at the table before sitting at the machine. She was always surprised at how smoothly it ran. It took almost no effort to keep the belt running—just a rhythmic nudge of her foot on the treadle. In one minute she had raced a straight half-inch seam down the edge of the fabric, which would have taken fifteen minutes to sew by hand. Truth be told, the machine’s stitches were nicer: perfectly even and straight and snug. Within a half hour or so, Ida had pieced the entire skirt and had only to ask Alice to try it on that evening in order to pin the hem to the proper length and finish off the waistband. She set her irons on the stovetop to heat and laid out the pressboard to press the seams.

The jacket was more complicated. She had taken Alice’s measurements and penciled them on the edge of the pattern, and as with the skirt, the pieces were already cut. This pattern had a triangular panel in the back, as well as fashionable full sleeves, which had to be gathered carefully at the shoulder. On the front, there would be a smart square collar and five buttons. Buttonholes were tedious to hand-sew, but Harriet’s machine had a special attachment for making them.

Ida pinned the back pieces of the jacket together and sewed those seams while she waited for the irons to heat. Jasper stirred in the other room. She wouldn’t complete the jacket today, but Harriet would want her machine returned soon. With cold weather approaching, she had her own sewing projects waiting, and she had lined up the seamstress from Tivoli to work with her the following week. Unlike Alice, who had done a total of five days’ sewing work for Mrs. Nathan and was promised a few days more in the next month for Mrs. DuMont, the Tivoli seamstress was well known for her skill and had
an established clientele in several towns. She would bring her own portable machine and help a woman work through all her sewing projects for the season, new clothing as well as old. She was particularly known for having the creative flair to take an old dress, rip out the seams, and remake it into something new and fashionable.

Ida didn’t mind sewing the way she minded some other household chores. If she could work uninterrupted, it was a calming task that didn’t involve muscle or dirt, and at the end she always had a new garment, or a mended one, to hold up with pride. She loved the rhythmic click of the shuttle and the quiet whir of the flywheel, and sometimes she hummed along. Her fingers, tucking and pinning and feeding the fabric, and her feet, pressing the treadle, were in constant motion, but her mind was entirely distracted from the worries of the day.

As the machine galloped up the long seam of the first sleeve, Jasper stirred again, and his dreamy mumbling was followed by a wail from Mary, first low and exploratory, then rising to a full, hungry cry. Ida hurried to the end of the first sleeve seam and snipped the threads, then forged ahead to the other sleeve, wanting to finish at a logical place. Those tricky gathers would have to wait. She zipped along the other sleeve, snipped the threads, then piled the unfinished jacket pieces on the table and went to fetch the children.