Marta's Legacy Collection (24 page)

A month after they moved onto the property, Papa mounted a big brass bell next to the back door. When Clotilde reached up to pull the cord, Mama slapped her hand and told her to listen to Papa. “This is for emergencies only,” Papa told them in a grim voice. “It is not a toy. You ring it only if someone is hurt or the house is on fire. When I hear it, I’ll come running. But if I come and find someone rang a false alarm, they’ll have a very sore bottom.” He pinched Clotilde lightly on the nose and looked from Bernie to Hildemara.
“Versteht ihr das?”

“
Ja
, Papa.”

Hildemara lay in bed that night imagining all the terrible things that might happen. What if the potbelly stove caught on fire? What if Clotilde tried to put coal in and fell in headfirst? Hildemara smelled smoke. She saw flames coming out the windows and licking up the outside of the house. Crying out, she ran around the outside of the house. She tried to reach the bell cord, but it was too high. She jumped, but still couldn’t reach it. She could hear Mama and Clotilde and Rikki screaming.

Mama shook her awake. “Hildemara!” She put her cool hand on Hildemara’s forehead. “Just a dream.” Pulling her shawl around her shoulders more tightly, she sat on the floor. “You were crying again. What were you dreaming this time?”

Hildemara remembered, but didn’t want to say. What if speaking it aloud made it come true?

Mama stroked her hair and sighed. “What am I going to do about you, Hildemara Rose? What am I going to do?” Standing, she leaned down and brushed a light kiss against Hildie’s forehead. Pulling the blanket up, she tucked it in firmly around Hildie. “Pray God gives you better dreams.” She crossed the room and quietly closed the bedroom door behind her.

Papa hired four men to help him prune the almond trees and make burn piles in the alleyways between the rows. Then they went to work pulling up old posts and putting in new ones on which they strung wire. They pruned the vines and tied the healthy shoots, wrapping them so they wouldn’t freeze.

While Papa and Italian day laborers worked on the orchard and vineyard, Mama worked on the house. Every room got a fresh coat of yellow paint. The windows had flowered chintz curtains. The mattress, sofa, chairs, and standing lamps arrived. Her trunk became a coffee table. Papa built the bedframe. When he said he was too busy to make a table and chairs, Mama walked to town and ordered them from Hardesty’s catalog.

Papa put his head in his hands when she told him. She put her hand on his shoulder. “It cost less than if you’d bought the materials and built them yourself.” He got up and left the house.

Mama didn’t have much to say for the next few days. Neither did Papa.

“We should build a big porch bedroom along the back,” Mama said over dinner.

“We’re not spending another dime. It’s going to be months before this place produces anything but weeds, and we have to pay taxes.”

Not even Bernie talked after that.

Hildemara could hear Mama and Papa talking in low, intense voices behind the closed bedroom door. “Well, what did you expect? It would be easier having your own place?” Papa’s voice stayed low, indistinct.

The next evening, Mama turned their world upside down. After grace, she scooped meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and carrots onto a plate and gave it to Bernie to pass to Papa. When everyone was served, she prepared her own plate. “I have a job at Herkner’s Bakery. I start tomorrow morning.”

Papa sputtered. Coughing, he put down his knife and fork and took a gulp of water. “A job!” He coughed again. “What are you talking about? A job!”

“We can talk about it later.” Mama cut up meat loaf for Rikka.

Papa glowered at her through dinner. Mama cleared dishes and told Hildemara to keep out from underfoot. “Go and sit with Papa. He’ll want to read to you.” Papa always read the Bible after dinner. Tonight, he told them all to go to bed. Hildie watched and listened silently from her cot.

“Let me do them. You’re going to break something.”

“You’re not going to work,” he said in a low, hot voice.

“I’m already working. This way I’ll get paid!”

He grabbed a wet dish from her hand, dried it, and shoved it in the cupboard. “We need to talk. Now!”

She wiped off her apron and tossed it on the counter, marching into the bedroom. Papa closed the door firmly behind him when he followed.

Clotilde started to cry.

“I’ve never seen Papa that mad.” Bernie flipped over on his cot. “Shut up, Cloe.” He put his pillow over his head.

Hildemara listened.

“What about Rikka? She’s still nursing!”

“She’ll come with me. I can nurse her as well in a bakery as I can at home. Hedda Herkner has a playpen she used for her son, Fritz.”

“You didn’t ask me.”

“Ask you?” Mama’s voice rose. “I didn’t ask because I knew what you’d say. I talked to Hedda the day after Mrs. Miller told me she expected me to cook and clean for her. I told her I worked for a bakery in Steffisburg. I can make tarts and
beignets
and—”

“Make them for your family!”

“I’ll be paid by the hour, and we’ll have as much bread as we need.”

“No, Marta. You’re my wife! You didn’t even consult me before you went off and—”

“Consult you? Oh, you mean the way you consulted me before you left for the wheat fields?” Mama’s voice kept rising. “You never thought enough of my opinion to ask for it! You thought nothing of signing my life away, first to Madson, and then to Mrs. Miller and her good-for-nothing daughter!”

“Keep your voice down! You’ll wake the children.”

Mama lowered her voice. “We need another way to bring in money besides farming. We all have to make sacrifices.”

“Who’s going to do the washing, the cooking, the sewing, the—?”

“Don’t worry. The work will get done. The children are going to learn to pitch in. Bernhard, too! Just because he’s a boy doesn’t mean he can go off and do as he pleases while the girls do all the work. Someday he’s going to be on his own. Until he finds a wife to take care of him, he’ll have to cook his own meals, wash his own shirts and underwear and pants, and sew on his own buttons!”

“My son is not doing housework! You leave Bernhard to me. Do what you want with the girls.”

“Isn’t that always the way?” Mama’s voice had a strident edge Hildemara had never heard before. “The son always comes first. Well, so be it, as long as Bernhard learns how to be a man and not a master!” Mama came flying out of the bedroom, throwing her shawl around her shoulders. The front door closed firmly behind her.

Hildemara sat up. “Go back to sleep, Hildemara.” Papa went out the front door after Mama.

Hildemara chewed her lip, listening. She didn’t hear footsteps going down the stairs, but she heard voices again. Papa spoke low. He wasn’t angry anymore. She crept out of her cot and went to the front window. Papa sat beside Mama on the steps.

Hildemara crept back to bed and prayed until she went to sleep. When she awakened, Papa sat at the table, reading his Bible. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. Hildie shivered as she sat up. “Where’s Mama?”

“She had to be at the bakery before dawn. She took Rikka. When you have your lunch hour, Mama wants you to come to the bakery. She’ll have something for the three of you.”

When they arrived, Mrs. Herkner called out to Mama. Hildemara saw Rikki asleep in a playpen behind the counter. Mama came out of the back of the bakery wearing a white apron with
HB
embroidered on a pocket. “Oh, heavens, Hildemara! Didn’t you bother to brush your hair this morning?” Mama waved them behind the counter and into the back workroom. “Sit right there.” She gave them each a thick slice of fresh bread, a wedge of cheese, and an apple, then found a brush in her purse. Planting a hand on top of Hildemara’s head, she brushed hard and fast while Hildemara tried to eat her lunch. “Hold still.” Hildemara’s scalp burned, but when she put her hands up, Mama rapped her knuckles with the brush. “How on earth can you get so many knots in your hair?”

“I’ll do better tomorrow, Mama.”

“You sure will.”

When Hildemara arrived home from school, Mama got out her scissors. She took a chair and set it on the porch outside. “Sit down. I’m cutting your hair short. You can’t go to school looking like you did this morning.”

“No, Mama. Please.” What would the other students say if she showed up with short hair?

“Sit down!”

Mama started cutting, and Hildemara started crying.

“Stop blubbering, Hildemara. Hold still! I don’t want to make any more of a mess of it.” Hunks of dark brown hair fell on the floor. Frowning, Mama looked her over and decided to cut bangs. “I need to even this side up.” After a few more snips, Mama pressed her mouth tightly and fluffed Hildemara’s hair on one side and then the other. “That’s the best I can do.”

When Mama turned to put her scissors back in her sewing box, Hildemara felt her hair. Mama had cut it all the way up to her ears! Sobbing, Hildemara fled to the barn and hid in the back stall. She didn’t come out until Mama called her to dinner.

Bernie looked horrified when Hildie came in the back. “Holy cow! What did you do to your hair?”

Mama scowled. “That’s enough, Bernhard.”

Clotilde giggled. Hildemara stared at her resentfully. Clotilde still had long, curling blonde hair. No one would laugh at her at school.

Papa sat at the head of the table, staring at her. “What happened to your hair, Hildemara?”

Hildemara couldn’t hold the tears back. “Mama cut it.”

“For mercy’s sake, Marta, why?”

Mama’s face reddened. “It’s not that short.”

Clotilde giggled again. “She looks like the little boy on the paint cans.”

Mama served Hildemara after Papa. “It’ll grow out in no time.”

Hildemara knew it was as close to an apology as she would ever get from her mother. Not that it helped. Her hair wouldn’t grow out in time for school tomorrow.

Just as she feared, the students laughed when they saw her. Tony Reboli asked if she had put her head in a lawn mower. Bernie punched him. Tony swung and missed. They started shoving each other around the playground. Miss Hinkle came outside and told them to stop at once. “What started it?”

Tony pointed. “Little Sis’s hair!” He laughed. So did others.

Miss Hinkle turned to Hildie. She looked shocked for a second and then smiled. “I think it’s very becoming, Hildemara.” She leaned down and whispered, “My mother used to cut my hair short, too.”

Hildemara took last place in the line of girls. Elizabeth stepped out of line and waited for her. “I like it, Hildie. I like it very much.” Hildemara felt a wave of relief. Anything Elizabeth said she liked, everyone else liked, too.

When break came, Clotilde went off to play on the bars with her friends. Hildemara sat on the bench and watched Elizabeth playing hopscotch with several other girls. Gathering her courage, Hildie walked across the playground. Heart thumping, she clasped her hands behind her back. “May I play, too?”

Elizabeth smiled broadly. “You can be on my team.”

That night, Hildemara lay awake, feeling euphoric. Mama sat at the kitchen table, the kerosene lamp burning, the stack of books on American history that she’d borrowed from the library sitting in front of her while she wrote a letter. Papa had gone to bed an hour ago. Bernie snored softly. Clotilde lay curled on her side, facing away from the lamp. Mama looked sad as she wrote.

Hildemara got up and tiptoed to the edge of light. Mama raised her head. “How was school today? You didn’t say much at dinner.”

Bernie and Clotilde usually dominated the table conversation. “I made a friend.”

Mama straightened. “Is that so?”

“Elizabeth Kenney is the prettiest and most popular girl in class. You can ask Clotilde.”

“I believe you, Hildemara.” Her eyes shone.

“Elizabeth said she’s always liked me. She wants me to go to church with her sometime. Would that be all right?”

“Depends on the church.”

“I told her we were Lutherans. She didn’t know what that was and I didn’t know how to explain. Her family goes to the Methodist church on Elm Street.”

“They probably think we’re heathens. I think you’d better go.”