Where Lilacs Still Bloom (6 page)

M
y girls grew up, despite my wish to keep them at my side. So, when they were all three together, it was a festive time, even though we had work to do. I hated ironing and was glad when my girls reached an age where I could convince them that ironing shirts and sheets would develop their characters. At least that’s what my mother always told me while she heated the flatiron for me. On a spring afternoon, I heated the irons for Lizzie and Delia and Martha as they worked their way through the baskets, while I perused seed catalogs for ornamentals. I already had my kitchen garden planned. My girls had apparently been planning events as well.

“We’d like to have a double wedding, the way you and Aunt Amelia did,” Delia said.

“You would? Have you chosen your intended, or are you still piddling around with your travels?”

“I’m not piddling.” Lizzie held the iron midair. “I climbed Mount St. Helens because I like the challenge.”

“I can understand that. But challenging your brain is a better use of your time.”

“She’s had college, Mama,” Martha said. “She needs a body challenge more than a mind one.” Martha was the only one of our children who didn’t have pearl-pale skin. Hers had that wholesome look of warm sun, but of course that wasn’t the fashion then. I think it made her self-conscious, adding to her quiet ways.

“I guess you’re right. Mountain climbing is a challenge that never appealed to me.”

“It would build your character, Mama,” Delia said. She left her ironing board to pour kerosene into the one modern iron we had. She took her time.

“I have other things to do,” I quipped. “Like surviving three chattering girls avoiding ironing.”

“We’re doing it.” Lizzie’s clear voice rose above the groans of her sisters. “I’d rather entertain you on the piano.” Lizzie had a lot of interests, including music. I was proud that Frank and I could afford to send her off to Portland for schooling and music lessons and a piano. I’d graduated eighth grade at Lee Lewis School and wished I could have gone on further. But I met Frank, married him at sixteen, had Lizzie at seventeen, and that was that.

“Ha,” Delia said, coming back to task. “I should be baking.”

“Your father likes his collarless shirts pressed well. See how important you are.”

“You’ve been waiting years to have us do this,” Lizzie said. She had the same oval face of her sisters and cocoa brown hair like them too.

“If you’re going to have children, make them be girls. A mother can always use the help.”

I thought back to when I had only daughters. With Martha’s arrival two years after Delia, I had three young girls underfoot. I set aside a plot where the two older ones could make their mud pies while Martha slept in her basket beneath the cedar tree. I kept the sun from her face, but she still looked suntanned even in winter. She took after Frank. They all had big brown eyes, though, taking after mine, I guess. Inside the house, the room heated up with the irons and the hot cotton. As much as I disliked housework, this afternoon of ironing and conversation was turning out to be a fine time. I was glad Fritz was with his dad somewhere with the cows.

Martha finished her basket of clothes and picked up a book. She was our studious one, always studying, thinking, even writing some to express what lay inside her. We shared that too. Fritz we indulged as the only boy. At thirteen he was already taller than Frank and fine looking. He helped Frank with the chores and freed me from some of that work, though I liked moving the cows to new pastures near the river, listening to their moos and such, getting in a good walk on a spring
day. But a boy needs to know what his father’s work is so he can step into it when the time comes.

They were good children. I like to think Frank and I gave them those good qualities, but we just provided the soil for the planting. Oh, we tended and pruned when they got too wild, and we watered their spirits at the right times down the street at the Presbyterian church where Lizzie played the organ now that she was living back home with us. I didn’t openly brag on my children, at least not in front of them, for that can harm a child as much as no words of praise at all; and I had to keep them in line.

“Will you make our wedding dresses for us?” Delia broke into my musing.

“Knowing you could do it just fine yourselves, I’m honored to be asked.” I’d have to fit it in between plantings. I watched my apple grafts, added more each year. I made up nicotine tea to spray on invading insects. Now, daffodils consumed me, and my lilac efforts needed encouragement too.

“You girls should think twice about a double wedding,” I said.

“Didn’t you and Aunt Amelia have fun?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t just my day. We shared the limelight, and that can be humbling, which is a good thing, mind you. But a girl only gets married once, and it’s nice to think she’d have it be just her and her husband’s special time.”

“You always celebrate your anniversary with Aunt Amelia.
And she’s your best friend. Like Lizzie and I are,” Delia said. I looked over at Martha, but her expression never changed as she turned pages in her book.

“An anniversary might be nice to share just with one’s husband too,” I said.

Ours was a big, jovial German family. My brother lived down the road, my two sisters and their husbands also close by. Every birthday meant a gathering. Every holiday saw cousins saunter in, sit and chat, offering opinions. It was an opinionated family, I can tell you that. I liked that kind of family camaraderie, but it made for times when I wished I’d been an only child. I sometimes think if Amelia hadn’t been marrying, Frank and I might have waited, and I could have gone on to high school in Portland.

But that was wishful thinking, past its prime, just like I was, my girls talking about marrying and moving away. I was fortunate my girls wanted my seamstress skills to decorate their weddings when they could do it themselves.

“So have you picked a date for this double wedding?” I asked. Lizzie hung up Fritz’s shirts and started pressing on her skirt, the last in the basket. She took a mouthful of water and sprayed it across the linen to dampen it, then began to press.

“Just the year,” Delia said. “Nineteen-o-three.”

“Next year?”

“Do Nell Irving and Fred know of your intentions?” Martha asked.

“Not exactly.” Both girls laughed at a private joke. “But that’s never stopped us before. We’ll let them know when the time comes.”

“Don’t you always say you have to plan ahead?” Lizzie added.

“Some things you can’t plan on your own.” I shook my head. “So much for ironing building your characters. I think you’re using this time for plotting against unsuspecting young men. They should know what you intend.”

“They will, Mama. We’ve planted the seeds. We’re just letting them grow.”

C
ornelia Givens wrote wretched little poems when she was eight years old with titles like “I Threw a Dead Flower Away Today” after tossing out a handful of weeds she’d picked for her mother. She cried when she passed the trash bin and saw again the once pretty blooms mixed in with breakfast gruel scraped from the pan and last evening’s egg noodles covered with a red sauce neither she nor her sister enjoyed one bit. Her mother was creative when it came to fashion but left much to be desired in the kitchen, which is where Cornelia found her own creative bent, mixing up roux and sauces that piqued the palate and brought deep inhales from her sister. But writing was her passion.

Still single at twenty-five and living at home, some mused that she might remain so with her strong-willed ways. She didn’t care. What she did care about was getting a byline—writing
feature stories with her name attached—and it looked like that was going to happen at the
Sacramento Bee
. The paper’s motto upon printing its first edition in 1857 was “The object of this newspaper is not only independence, but permanence.” Cornelia liked the idea of things that would last forever. She’d written a short piece about public ownership of the water company, and her editor, Charles Kenny, had penciled “good writing” before handing it back. Later there’d been an editorial about the value of public ownership of things citizens depended upon, and Cornelia felt she’d aided in that view, even though he hadn’t printed her piece.

“Might I have a word with you, Miss Givens,” CK said. Everyone called him that, and she followed him into his office that overlooked the Sacramento River. She liked working for the man. He was wise and fair. Her job at the paper was to answer the phone and act as a secretary, so she brought her notepad. “You’ve heard of Mr. Tidings’s untimely death.” She nodded. “I realize I’m not giving you much time to grieve, but I’d like you to take over his Common Woman column.”

“Oh.” She was astounded, but Cornelia prided herself on her quick thinking. “Women don’t take advice well from other women,” she said. “I thought I might get a feature post, attend city meetings, and be a reporter as my advancement past being a secretary.”

“Women don’t take advice from other women?”

“My mother said it’s a proven fact. She ran a millinery,
and she told me it took time and lots of trust before a customer would accept her opinion of how a hat looked on her. They get defensive and jealous.” A stack of papers fell from the edge of his desk as he stepped back, pondering, and Cornelia quickly knelt to retrieve them. She set the papers on the walnut desk and poked her long hairpin back into the knot of blond hair that graced her head.

“Women will accept your advice if you write it well. That’s what the paper needs. You want to do it or not?”

“Oh.” It didn’t look like he was going to let her write features. Would she be stuck at the desk bringing in scones for the reporters her whole life? Maybe she should take what she could get, see if she could turn it into something more.

Before she could concur, CK said, “I just can’t see how a woman could get jealous about food questions or how to get fly stains off a wall without ruining the paint. Or how to decorate for a child’s birthday party. Or the best way to fumigate a room without damaging the lungs unduly. Have you seen any of the letters, Miss Givens?”

“No, I haven’t.” Cornelia didn’t know the answers to those questions, but she doubted Mr. Tidings had either. He probably asked his wife for suggestions, and she could easily ask her mother or neighbors. Her editor was right—they claimed they always were. What mattered to the common woman might well be better answered by one, rather than a common man.

“I thought you wanted a byline?”

“I do. I just thought, well …”

“It’s this”—he pointed to the pile of letters—“or you keep answering the phone.”

“You think women would still ask for advice?”

“Certainly. Might as well get people used to the idea that a woman can write.”

“That’s very progressive of you, CK. And if a feature presented itself, one that women might find interest in, I could—”

“Let’s take it one step at a time. For now I need you to write an answer to the question of what to do about a maid who I think—I mean who a reader thinks is stealing. She’s a favorite maid, and the matron of the house doesn’t want to lose her.”

“Why, be direct. I’ve always believed that people are doing the best they can, that they are usually cooperative and helpful and worthy of trust until proven different. The matron should tell the maid that things are missing and solicit the maid’s help in determining what might be happening to those things. Ask her advice and implement suggestions, then see if things improve. If they do, perhaps you’ve found your culprit, but the problem is solved, and she gets to stay. But more likely you might discover other hands that could be dipping in the till, and the matron now has someone else helping her solve that problem.”

His eyes narrowed. “My cousin. I knew we shouldn’t
have let him stay in the guesthouse. Have that column on this desk in the morning.”

“Yes sir.”

“And say it just like that, you know, that it might be someone else, a cousin, perhaps.”

Cornelia nodded. He handed her a stack of letters. She had her byline.

She stayed late to write the column, then picked up her purse and fairly skipped home. Tomorrow she’d bring the reporters and her editor fresh-baked croissants to say thank you. She hoped it wouldn’t mean the men would come to expect it. But then, maybe one day she’d write a piece about food and how people use it to express their feelings. There might be a byline in that.