A Place to Belong (9 page)

Peg continued to sniffle, and Gussie immediately turned on her. “Take your tears somewhere else, Missy. Miz Swenson don’t need to hear all your troubles. The two of you—look how you’ve upset her!”

Peg pulled back, her red-rimmed eyes wide with concern and guilt. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered to Olga.

“Dear little love, it’s all right,” Olga answered. “Part of being your mama is listening to your problems and trying to help.” She attempted to rise from the sofa on which she’d been lying. “I’m worried about the swelling around Danny’s eye. I’ll wash his face and—”

Gussie interrupted her. “You just lie back, Miz Swenson,” she said. “I’ll tend to Danny.”

Olga obediently sank back against the pillows. Danny
was shocked to see how weak she was. She seemed to have lost more weight, and a thin blue line throbbed in her neck. Why hadn’t he noticed? There’d been so much to think about, so much to do.

“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he told Olga. “I won’t get into a fight again. I promise.”

“I promise, too,” Peg echoed, her lower lip wobbling.

“There’s no harm done,” Olga said and smiled at them. But as they followed Gussie from the room, Danny turned to glance at Olga and saw her sigh and close her eyes.

Tears rolled down his cheeks as he sat in the kitchen and let Gussie wash the dirt from his face and swab at the scraped place on his chin.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Gussie grunted. “It don’t hurt that much.”

“It’s not that,” Danny said. “I was remembering Da when he was so sick. And Mrs. Swenson—”

“Hush!” Gussie whispered, and gave a jerk of her head in Peg’s direction. But Peg was huddled on the floor in front of the fireplace, cradling her cat, her face buried in Whiskers’s fur.

Gussie was right. He should help Peg, not make her feel worse. Danny gulped back the tears and said, “Peg, don’t feel bad that we won’t have a school Christmas pageant. You can sing your angel song to Mr. and Mrs. Swenson and Gussie and me.”

Peg raised her head and looked at him mournfully. “It’s not the same,” she said.

“It’ll be better,” he told her, “because you’ll be the only one performing. We’ll all be watching you.”

He could see Peg thinking about this, and she sat up a little straighter.

“Wait till you taste the good Christmas food,” Gussie said. She wrung out the cloth and handed Danny a linen towel to dry his face. “Everybody makes steamed Christmas
puddings with lots of fruit and nuts and suet and spices, and serves them hot with a big lump of hard sauce on top.”

“What’s hard sauce?” Danny became interested in spite of himself.

Gussie smiled and rubbed her stomach. “It’s butter and sugar beaten together. When it’s put on the pudding it melts and runs down the sides.” She sighed. “It’s the best-tastin’ stuff you’ll ever eat, not even exceptin’ flummery.”

“What’s flum’ry?” Peg asked.

Gussie laughed. “It’s a boiled custard. Talkin’ of Christmas, tell you what let’s do. Why don’t we make Miz Swenson a sweet sachet for a Christmas present?” Peg looked so puzzled that Gussie added. “You two don’t know nothin’, do you? A sweet sachet’s a packet of good-smellin’ berries and leaves and such to lay in the wardrobe or chest of drawers, so all the clothes will smell good. Come on, Peg, let’s see if we can find a bit of cheesecloth and ribbon to start with.”

Danny ran up the stairs to change his clothes. He didn’t want to think about Christmas. It would be his first Christmas away from Ma and Mike and the others, and he didn’t know how he was going to stand it. Before the tears started again, he pulled on his coat and ran outside to find Alfrid.

As Christmas approached, the church was decorated with fragrant pine boughs, and the Swensons’ house was warm with sugary, spicy smells. Fresh ginger cakes or crisp sugar cookies were waiting for Danny and Peg when they came in the door from school each day. Sometimes they’d eat them with cups of hot cider, warming their cold fingers against the mugs. Olga would smile at their pleasure in the treat. She looked more frail than ever and spent more and more time resting.

The winter gusts of snow and sleet brought most of the farm work to a standstill and brought Alfrid indoors, where he hovered near Olga. He made one trip into St. Joseph, traveling alone, and he came back with a solemn face, shaking his head at what he’d heard and seen in town.

“There’s talk that when the Southern states secede from the Union, Missouri will go with them,” he said. “Governor Jackson is urging secession.”

Danny hadn’t forgotten Dr. Mundy, and he had to ask. “Did you see Dr. Mundy?”

Alfrid shook his head. “I kept an eye out, but no sight of him. You must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him.”

Danny hoped Alfrid was right. He never wanted to meet up with Mundy again.

Alfrid had brought letters to Danny and Peg from Ma and Megan.

“Megan wrote this herself.” Danny said to Peg. “She’s learned to read and write!”

“When are you going to write to the others in your family?” Alfrid asked him.

“Danny!” Olga exclaimed. “You haven’t written to your mother or brothers and sisters yet?”

Danny knew how stricken he must look, because Alfrid quickly said, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble, Danny, but Olga is right. Your family will want to hear from you.”

“I’ll write to them today,” Danny mumbled. “Or maybe tomorrow, because I’ll need to help with the animals, and then there’s supper, and schoolwork to finish.”

“Alfrid will excuse you from working out-of-doors,” Olga said firmly. “You may write your letters now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Danny said meekly. He followed Alfrid to the dining room and took a chair at the table as Alfrid lit an oil lamp against the afternoon’s early darkness.
Alfrid placed on the table a bottle of ink, some sheets of paper, and a box containing penholders, tips, and wipers.

“Dear Ma,” Danny wrote on the first page as soon as Alfrid had left the room. He stopped and stared at the paper through blurred eyes, and his stomach hurt. Ma was so far away, and she shouldn’t be. She and her children should be together. He wanted to tell Ma that, but he couldn’t. What could he write? He couldn’t write anything that would make this all final.

Gussie came into the room carrying a stack of plates. “How are you coming?” she asked. “I’ll need the table soon to set up for supper.”

“I don’t know what to write to my mother,” Danny blurted out.

Gussie shrugged. “Don’t ask me. I never writ to anybody in my whole life. Just think of somethin’ pretty soon because in about half an hour we got to eat.”

As she left him alone, Danny quickly wrote, “Peg and I are fine. How are you? Your loving son, Daniel James Kelly.”

He leaned back and gave a long sigh of relief. That was noncommittal enough. He’d write the same to Mike, Megan, and Frances and Petey. Oh! And one more thing. At the bottom of the page he added, “Merry Christmas to us all.”

Christmas was not merry in the Swenson home, in spite of the wonderful gifts Alfrid had made: a sled for Danny and a doll bed for Peg’s rag doll. There was an orange apiece, some taffy candy, new clothes, and a roast goose dinner, cooked by Mrs. Pratka, ending with the spicy steamed pudding that Gussie had promised. But Olga had barely enough strength to attend the Christmas services at church, and as soon as the family arrived home, she took to her bed.

The doctor came the next day, but this time he talked
to Alfrid a long while, and when he left the house his face was solemn. Alfrid spoke to Mrs. Pratka, and Danny heard the few words which frightened him so much that he huddled in a corner of the parlor, his arms wrapped around his knees. Olga was going to die.

When Alfrid found him there, Danny clung to him, and he felt Alfrid’s tears against his own cheek. All he could do was share Alfrid’s sorrow. There was nothing he could say to Alfrid to help him.

But there was a great deal Mrs. Pratka could say. She was at the house every day, maintaining a constant chatter as she kept Danny and Peg busy with chores which Danny sometimes suspected she made up from moment to moment. She shepherded them in to see Olga when she felt that Olga was strong enough to visit with them for a few minutes, and she cared for Olga as tenderly as though Olga were her own kin.

“The widow Pratka is a hard one to work for,” Gussie mumbled grudgingly, “but I give her this much. She’s gettin’ everythin’ done what needs to get done.”

Peg hugged her cat, but Whiskers was little comfort for her. Peg followed Danny around, snuggling up beside him whenever he had time to sit down. “When will Mama get better?” she kept asking.

“Peg, she’s awfully sick,” Danny answered the first time. “She might not—” But he stopped when he saw the terror on Peg’s face. He hugged his little sister, and lamely finished, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

It was the last day of December when Olga called for Danny and Peg to be brought to her room. Gently she kissed them and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mama,” Peg said.

Danny was so choked up he couldn’t talk. He knew that Olga was saying good-bye.

Mrs. Pratka carried Peg off to the kitchen for milk
and cake and listened to her prattle, but Danny went upstairs. He rolled into a ball on top of his bed and cried until he fell asleep.

Sometime later Danny felt Alfrid scoop him up and hold him on his lap. Hearing voices in the hallway, Danny realized that Olga had died. “It isn’t fair!” he cried. He hugged Alfrid tightly and sobbed, “You’ll send us away now, and I’ll lose you, too. You’re my father, and I love you, and I need you, and now I’ll lose you, just like I lost Da, and I can’t! I can’t lose you, too!”

“Hush,” Alfrid murmured against Danny’s hair until Danny had quieted, his sobs turning to dry shudders that shook his body.

“Listen to me, Danny,” Alfrid said, his voice as soft as the darkness in the room. “I will not send you away. Your home is here with me. Eight years ago Olga and I had the heartbreak of losing our two sons to diphtheria. You are as dear as another son to me, and I have no intention of losing you as well.”

“Promise!” Danny whispered.

“I promise,” Alfrid said, and Danny heard him add, “Somehow, we’ll work out a way.”

9
 

“L
IFE GOES ON
,” Mrs. Pratka said, and somehow it did, the ragged, tearing edge of pain slowly diffusing into a dull, spreading ache.

Alfrid’s second cousin, Melba Wallace, came to stay for a while. She was a short, gray-haired woman who repeatedly sighed as she worked, like a miniature engine letting off puffs of steam. Although she was pleasant enough to Danny and Peg and told them to call her “Aunt Melba,” she tended to talk about and around them as though they weren’t there.

Mrs. Wallace seemed to get along nicely, however, with Mrs. Pratka, who came over nearly every day to help and often stayed to cook supper. Sometimes, when Danny and Peg arrived home from school, the two women would be bent over their needlework in a conspiratorial buzz of conversation.

Mrs. Pratka would boost Peg onto her lap and snuggle her as she asked about school.

At first Peg missed Olga so much that she couldn’t eat and cried “Mama” in her sleep. Danny, who would creep into her room to hush and soothe her, began to worry that Peg would get sick, too, so he was thankful when she began to respond to Mrs. Pratka’s attentions. On the day he heard Peg begin to chatter with the women, recounting a story with a laugh, Danny leaned against the door, sighing with relief. Peg was going to be all right.

Mrs. Pratka was kind to Danny, too, surprising him sometimes with hot cocoa and ginger cookies. Danny would gulp the treats as fast as he could and hurry outside to find Alfrid. He felt comforted and secure only when he was with Alfrid.

“In the early spring, before the planting, I’ll have to hire a farmhand,” Alfrid told him.

“I’ll work hard. I can do what any farmhand could do,” Danny said.

“Schooling comes first,” Alfrid said.

“I can do both,” Danny insisted. He wanted to prove to Alfrid that he was needed. And he loved Alfrid so much there was nothing in the world he’d rather do than work beside him.

The next few Sundays, after church services, Alfrid would leave Melba, Peg, and Danny for a few minutes to visit Olga’s grave and tenderly lay a small holly branch or pine bough on the snow.

On the third Sunday Danny walked through the little cemetery with Alfrid, sorrowing with him, angry and fearful because there was no way he could help.

Alfrid laid a sprig of holly bright with red berries at the base of the headstone and murmured, “There’ll be flowers in the spring.” He stepped back and held Danny’s hand firmly, but Danny knew that Alfrid wasn’t talking to him; he was talking to Olga.

Then the last Sunday in January, as they drove home after services, Melba turned to Alfrid and said, “There’s never enough time for mourning, Alfrid, but it’s time you began thinking about taking another wife.”

He gave her a sharp, quizzical glance before she added, “You can’t run the farm by yourself. It takes two to make a go of it—a man and a woman. I can only stay a few more weeks to tend to you and the children. My own family needs me.”