Some Luck (22 page)

Almost every day, Mama walked past her and saw her playing with Henry and said, “You are a good, good girl, Lillian. A pure angel, and, truly, you are my salvation. Do you know that?”

And Lillian said yes, because that was what she was supposed to say. But she hardly heard Mama say these things, because she couldn’t take her eyes off Henry.

PAPA AND FRANK
mostly stayed out of the house—that was the easiest thing. Once in a while, Papa said, “Well, son, your mama cannot be pleased, and that’s the way women get to be sometimes. You have to make up your mind to put up with it, and go about your business.” The outside work could have been worse—had been worse. At least this year there was almost enough rain, and the crop looked pretty good. When the sheep shearers came, Papa gave Joey all the wool, because he said that Frank had hardly done a thing for those 4-H lambs—if they had been left to him, they would have starved to death. But so what if Joey got a few bucks for his wool? Frank had stretched his rabbit skins from the winter on the south side of the barn, and then he had taken them to Dan Crest, who found a man from Des Moines who bought them for a dollar apiece—that was twenty-two dollars—and said they were good quality and “the ladies’ll love ’em.” He said what he was really looking for was fox, though. No one could resist fox. So one thing Frank did to stay out of
the house was roam down by the creek and through the fields, scouting fox burrows and keeping his eyes peeled for other possibilities. Papa said that this was very “enterprising.”

Of course, he did all of his other work, too—feeding the cattle and Jake and Elsa, working the fields, fixing fence, and planting. Pruning the Osage-orange hedge had fallen to him, too, and he had hated it until a new boy at school, from out of state somewhere, had told him you could make a good bow and even arrows from the branches of the hedge, and he spent part of the winter doing that. Papa complained about all the farm work, especially now that Elsa was almost twenty and Jake was not much younger. A plan he’d had of raising a foal and getting another one had come to nothing. Grandpa Wilmer had gone out of the horse business; what were they going to do? Maybe Elsa would last through the year, and maybe not. Papa said, for the hundredth time, as he was putting them away and Frank was hanging up the harness, “Well, we’ll see what happens. Maybe Roosevelt will send us a couple of good horses, now that he’s been inaugurated,” but Frank didn’t consider himself a horseman, he considered himself a tractor man. He kept his eye peeled for tractors. There were three—two on the other side of Denby, owned by the Marshalls and the Larsens, and one about two miles north of the school, owned by none other than the Dugans. The Dugans’ tractor was a John Deere, green as a stalk of corn and with yellow wheels, and Frank thought it was much better-looking than a Farmall, but he did agree about how the Farmall was more like a tricycle, and easier to steer. Both of the tractors on the other side of Denby were Farmalls, black.

Grandpa Wilmer was not going to be the one to get the first tractor in the family. He was out of the horse-breeding business, and had sold his stallion to a breeder down in Missouri for next to nothing, a fellow who had imported some giant donkeys from France after the war and was trying to develop a new type of hinny. But for what, Frank wanted to know? Better to have a tractor.

Mama and Papa were already arguing about whether Frank should go on to the high school. It wasn’t that he couldn’t do the work—everyone knew that he could, and would—he liked the work. Miss Grant said that she had nothing more to teach him—he knew everything she knew already, and a lot of things she didn’t, and
so she had him teach the younger boys, though he was not allowed to smack them if they made mistakes. The high school was a ways—three miles—and without any help on the farm, Papa didn’t see how he was going to afford anything about this. If Frankie walked, it would take him an hour (a half an hour, thought Frankie, because he could run the whole way), and the hack was slow, too, since it had to wind around to several other farms to pick up other youngsters. But how was Walter going to afford the gasoline to take him, and who would drive? And the school day at the high school was a long one, especially with the going back and forth. “Your smartest child!” shouted Mama. “You want to bury him on the farm for the rest of his life. You think this place is the be-all, end-all, and it isn’t!”

Frank’s solution was a bicycle—he’d seen one for sale at a secondhand store in Usherton, cruiser style, not very old, fifteen dollars. He knew Papa was going to object—that was always his first response to anything—and maybe it would be hard to pedal on the dirt roads sometimes, but the roadbed curved upward, and he was sure he could pedal fine if he went straight down the middle and watched for ruts. Not to mention snow and ice. The thing was to get to Usherton, and to do that he would have to take the car.

What you did when you wanted to get away with something was not to plan, but to look for an opportunity. Frank didn’t think that bicycle was going anywhere—fifteen dollars was a lot of money with everyone out of work and half the shops in Denby and Usherton boarded over—so he waited. A few weeks passed, and the argument went on about high school—Mama now wondered why a man who planned to have a family would buy a farm “off away from everything,” and Papa asked her if she understood the first thing about soil fertility and wells and taking what you could get, and Mama said she understood all of that perfectly well, thank you, then burst into tears again. Papa said Frank had eighth grade left to go, why not worry about it later, and Mama said, “He’s teaching the younger boys! There’s nothing left there for him.”

The opportunity came one morning after a not so big blowup at the breakfast table. Joey and Lillian had fled, saying they had to be at school early, and Frank was lingering behind the barn, wondering if maybe hooky wasn’t a nicer thing to do on a lovely day than sitting
in that stuffy schoolhouse. Grandpa Otto drove up in his truck, and Papa wiped his hands on his overalls, ran out to the road, and got in without shouting goodbye. There had been nothing said about this at breakfast, so Frank didn’t know why Papa was going to the other farm, but so be it. Frank circled the barn and then the back of the house, until he could look into his own window. His room was empty and still, the door to the rest of the house closed. Frank pushed on the screen and climbed in to get his money.

He did know how to drive—Papa had taught him, in case of emergency. Mama had never learned; someone had to. But he hadn’t driven by himself before. Backing the car out was no problem—he just released the brake and let it slide. Once he reached the road, he started it up, backed around, and drove away without a glance. If Mama was waving at him from the porch, he would find out about it later.

He sat up as straight as he could and looked carefully at every intersection for any other vehicles. But what vehicles would there be? It was a clear day—everyone was in the fields. After maybe a half an hour, he went through those woods and over the river, which had risen almost as high as the banks, and into town. Now was the confusing part—how to get to the shop, which he had seen when he was in town with Papa a few weeks ago. But there were plenty of cars and trucks, and he just did what the ones with dirty wheels did, headed toward the farm-supply store. Probably it took him longer to get there than it would have taken Papa, but he recognized the way as he passed. As for driving, he kept to the right, used his hand signals, and maintained the same speed as everybody else, and there it was, the Back for More Store, and right in the window, the bicycle. Fortunately, no one was parked in front, so all Frank had to do was pull over, glide to a stop, and turn the car off.

The woman in the store was glad to sell the bicycle. She said, “Oh, it’s so nice when a young person has a chance to see the countryside, and this is a lovely Columbia, hardly used.” She smiled at Frank’s fifteen dollar bills, and held the door for him as he wheeled the thing out. She said, “Is your father—?” But Frank just pretended he had nothing to do with the car and got on the bicycle and rode it around the corner. It was harder than he’d thought it would be, but, then, the
streets were paved, so it was easier in that way. In all this planning, he’d forgotten that he’d never actually ridden a bicycle.

It took about an hour, weaving and winding down the streets of Usherton, some a little busy and some nice and empty. He even waved—to Pastor Elmore as he passed their church. He heard Pastor Elmore’s shout following him. Back at the shop, he saw the sign on the window—“Closed for Lunch”—and he hurriedly opened the passenger door and slid the bike in, in front of the back seat, lifting the wheel a bit and twisting it so the thing would fit. Then he got in and drove home, which took a little longer because he was so excited that he kind of forgot how to shift and stalled out a couple of times. He did remember to buy some gas—he’d brought along a dollar for that. He got almost six gallons, which was pretty good, he thought, and would go some way toward pleasing Papa in spite of himself. He also put some air in the tires of the bicycle.

Well, they were waiting for him when he got home—turned out that Papa was only at Grandpa Otto’s for an hour or so, and Mama did remember seeing the car drive away, and Papa went over to the school to see if Frank was there. Maybe they were all sitting on the porch because it was a nice day, and maybe they were waiting to see what was going to happen. As he drove in, Papa stood up, came down the steps—he looked pretty mad, though he wasn’t undoing his belt. Without glancing at him, Frank went smartly around the back of the car, opened the door, and eased the bicycle out. He heard Joey say, “Oh boy!”

Papa met him and the bicycle at the edge of the grass. He snapped, “What’s that?”

“It’s a Columbia Cruiser. I think it’s about a year old, not much more.…”

“How did you get it?”

“Well, I took some of my rabbit-skin money, and I bought it for riding to the high school. I estimate I can get there in a half-hour or less, faster than the hack.…” His voice was getting too quick. He glanced at Papa.

“Who gave you permission to take the car?”

“No one.”

Mama had Henry on her hip, standing on the top step of the porch, and Frank knew what to do—he smiled at her. And then she
said, “You’re always talking about enterprising, Walter. That’s enterprising.”

He made his voice level and businesslike. “I can start high school in the fall and graduate when I’m seventeen.” Then, “I put a dollar’s worth of gas in the car.”

Walter said, “Oh, good Lord. Well, your punishment is to wash the car, inside and out—got me?”

Frank knew he could get Joey to help.

“Thank the Lord you’re back safe,” said Rosanna. “My heart was in my throat.” But she couldn’t hide that she was pleased.

ONE DAY
at the end of August, Papa came home from the county agent’s office in Usherton and said, “I guess we’re going to buy a tractor.” Joe hadn’t seen a smile on Papa’s face in a long time—not even during the oat harvest, even though the crop looked pretty good—and Joe had heard him say to Mama, “Five years ago, I knew I could sell the oats for a bit more than I put into growing them, but if I fed them to the hogs and the cattle, the animals turned those oats into real money, and I have to say, I thought I knew what I was doing. But now I can’t get six cents on the dollar for what I put into them, and hog and cattle prices are so low that, the more oats that pass through the animals, the less they are worth. I don’t know which end is up anymore.”

And Mama said, “Did you hear that the Larsens are heading to California?”

“Up past Denby there?”

“They shouldn’t have bought that tractor. I don’t know what got into their heads.”

But then there was a law—Roosevelt got it passed—Papa got money for not planting half the corn crop. “And why should I plant it?” said Papa. “Forty-two bushels per acre, but only seventeen cents a bushel—what’s the difference between that and nine bushels an acre at eighty-five cents a bushel? Exactly none, except that those forty-two bushels cost the soil something. So, next year, I’m planting clover on half of it and then plowing it under.”

The day when Papa and Frank went off to get the tractor was the day when Eloise came for a visit with her husband and her new baby.
Joe was carrying water to the sheep (down to four now) when he saw the car drive in, a Plymouth with a rumble seat. It was a beautiful car, and when Eloise got out of the passenger side with the baby in her arms, and a tall, thin man got out of the driver’s side, Joe ran to the well and washed his hands and face under the pump. By the time he got inside, Eloise and the man were sitting on the sofa and Mama was in her rocking chair with Henry on her knee. Lillian was cooing over the baby, who looked just like the man, Joe thought, if that was possible in a baby.

Mama said, “Joey, look who’s here! Eloise has a baby girl named—”

“Rosa!” cried Lillian. “She’s five months old. Guess what! She was born on your birthday!”

“Yup,” said Eloise. “March 13.”

The man had his hands on his knees, and he was looking around.

Eloise said, “Rosa Sylvia Silber. I plan for her to be a heroine of the people. Joey, this is Mr. Silber. He’s my husband. Your uncle Julius.”

Joe did what he had been told to do, which was to look Mr. Silber straight in the eye and hold out his right hand to be shaken, then say, “How do you do, Mr. Silber?”

The man said, “Pleased to meet you, Joe.” His accent was musical, his hand enormous, but long and thin. He had nice fingernails.

Mama said, “Mr. Silber is a writer. He writes things for a living.”

“I do, too,” said Eloise.

“Well, I—” began Mama.

Lillian held her arms out for the baby, and the baby held her arms out for Lillian. Rosanna gave her first good smile that Joe had seen. Eloise hesitated for a moment, then let Lillian take the baby. Lillian, as always, did a good job and was stronger than she looked. She put one arm under Rosa’s backside and another around her waist and held her close. Mama said, “Lillian is a real little mother. Must come from Walter’s side.”