19 The scene brightens

The leanest of the lean days was over; the larder was never quite empty again; and, after papa rejoined the family, life quickly settled into the old familiar grooves. As our aunt had prophesied, he had no difficulty getting a job at better pay and shorter hours than he could ever have hoped to enjoy at ‘The Saddlery.’ Mamma immediately began to set aside quarters and dimes, her heart fixed upon a stove that would really draw and not make such a mess of every batch of bread. Well, that was very fine, said papa, but why stop at the stove? Why not dream of a house in which to put it. A house with a garden and a chicken run, and a barn big enough for a cow and her calf?

These dreams were not much comfort to me, however. I had my own troubles to solve, and no time for such nonsense. I had started school with fear and trembling. How I lived through that first awful day I don’t know. The principal looked at me helplessly. What was she to do with such a big child who scarcely understood a word? Heaven bless her, she understood what an ox I should feel among the babies—yet what was to be done? To the first grade I had to go, where a very young teacher received me with the kindest smile. However, I only stayed there for a day and was shunted off to the shoulders of another harried lady, who took me in hand with a firm, efficient grip. Whatever the cost to both of us, I must learn to read. To that end I stayed after four, and consequently dashed home on wings, full of vanity and wisdom. I had actually spelled out two magnificent words! Saucer! Altogether! They were honey on my lips, beautiful beyond every other sound. But, alas, when my practical mamma inquired into their splendid meaning, I was lost. Worse than lost when, days later, I discovered that saucer had no poetic connotation whatsoever, and was just the dish from which my pussie drank!

Nevertheless, I bore up under the disillusionment, I was so busy memorizing a host of other words, fixing their sound in my mind and translating them back to their Icelandic equivalent. That was not so bad, but how on earth was I to add the trick of spelling to this twofold exercise, when the sound had no bearing on the letters? Why was c sometimes hard and sometimes soft? And why, for goodness’ sake, was fox spelled with an f and ‘phrase’ tortured with a harnessed ph? But, at that, the idiom was ten times more confusing. A hound was fast when he cornered the rabbit, and likewise fast when secured by a chain. You were cold when the winter winds buffeted your bones, and you had a cold when your flesh was burning with fever!

It was all very queer, and frightfully unreasonable, but there were combinations of sounds that from the first were music to my ears. I made up my mind that this language was my own—that I would struggle with its capricious parts as patiently as papa wooed his Icelandic phrases.

I should have had a miserable time of it, however, those first few months, if I had not been adopted, so to speak, by Katie Pepolenski. Katie was a big Polish girl who had all the qualities which I lacked. She was pugnacious, cheerful, and completely satisfied with herself, although she was poor and almost an outcast in the school. We were two curiosities; two awkward foreign creatures who made an easy target for the cruel humour of our small companions. Katie was a dirty Polack, and I a dirty Icelander! I, of course, was even more derided, because no other child in the entire school suffered from such a peculiar nationality. An Icelander! Ho, ho, look kids, she’s an Icelander! What do you mean, Icelander? Eskimo, that’s what! Hey, blubber, how do you like living in a wooden house?

So it went, and although I could understand well enough what was shouted at me, I had neither the courage nor the facility to defend myself. After one such attack, when I stood cowardly and affrighted amidst a savage little mob, Katie, hitting right and left with her hard brown fists, plunged through the crowd, and, tucking her arm through mine, out-shouted our tormentors. ‘Leave her alone, you devils! You skunks! you dirty Swedes!’ she shrilled, her dark face blazing with rage. And, to my unholy delight and utter amazement, she completed the rout by shrieking a blood-curdling curse: ‘You filthy Cossacks, I’ll spit in your eye! I’ll spit in your eye and curse you to hell!’

‘The skunks!’ sniffed Katie, as the humorists dispersed, each after his own fashion, hooting, laughing, tongues pointing scorn. ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ She beamed upon me. ‘Well, come along. After this, you stick by me—Katie Pepolenski don’t get walked on by no dirty Americans!’

Thus the queerest friendship began. Katie, it transpired, lived in a tiny two-room cottage half-way up the hill that began its ascent a block or two beyond our house. Her parents were Polish peasants who had come to America with an eye to making a fortune, on which they hoped to retire in the beloved homeland. They were doing very well, said practical Katie. Most of papa’s wages went into the sock, for, by now, they owned the house, a cow, some chickens and geese. They sold eggs and milk, and raised their own vegetables. With the eggs and milk money Mamma Pepolenski bought flour and sugar and tea, papa’s daily pork chop, and molasses cookies. This latter was almost a sacred rite, as I soon discovered. Every evening after four Katie dashed to the corner market for the chop, and, faster still, made her way to the little Scandinavian bakery for five cents’ worth of the fat, newly iced molasses cookies. On the few occasions when the bakery had not the required six cookies left Katie turned pale. Why, she always came for them every day, to get them fresh! Why didn’t the bakery missus remember and keep them? The bakery missus generally did, but sometimes in the busy season the extra help forgot about the Pepolenski cookies. ‘Holy Mary! What will papa say? Mother of God, what to do!’

Katie’s big freckled face turned helpless eyes on the equally helpless Icelander. ‘Maybe a white cookie will be nice for a change?’ I once ventured recklessly.

‘A white cookie!’ Katie shrieked. ‘A white cookie my father would spit on! I should spend money on a piece of white dough? You’re crazy!’

‘How about a ginger square?’ suggested the amused saleswoman.

‘Six for five cents?’ haggled Katie.

‘Well, no, they come a little higher, but I’ll let you have six this time.’

‘How much higher?’ Katie demanded, the born barterer’s gleam lighting her eye.

‘Four for a nickel.’

Katie peered into the glass case to make sure of the size of the squares and if they were frosted. Satisfied that no better substitute could be found for the customary favourites, she paid over the nickel, and, with a sharp request that to-morrow’s purchase be safe-guarded, departed. ‘Anyway, papa won’t be so mad when he knows he’s eating on the bakery,’ she informed me. ‘The frosting is just as thick too. It saves on the sugar when you dunk the cookies in the tea.’

My first visit to the Pepolenski domicile was an absorbing adventure. I had never crossed a foreign doorstep. For that was the secret source of our strange attachment: each of us thought the other a queer ‘outlander,’ although we stood together against our common enemies. The first thing that struck me when I entered the dim cool house was a peculiar smell—an unfamiliar odour that permeated the whole place. Yet everything was clean as a new broom, every pot and skillet scrubbed and scoured. To be sure, the small kitchen was cluttered—but neatly cluttered—with all manner of strange things to see. Strings of garlic and other seasoners hung from a frame above the stove; huge bags of sunflower seeds adorned the wall, and, in one corner, stood a big barrel of sauerkraut. The smells began to explain themselves.

Katie’s mamma was a short, corpulent person, whom I never saw uncovered. Her head was always adorned with a kerchief from which her round, smiling face and dark, twinkling eyes peered out with candid good humour. She seemed always to be on the verge of bursting into chuckles. My advent was something of an occasion which called for a gift of sunflower seeds. ‘Eat! Eat!’ urged Mamma Pepolenski, nodding and twinkling. ‘Much good, you see!’

Truth to tell, I was sadly deficient in the etiquette of seed-munching, and, besides, found the delicacy rather tasteless. But Katie saved my face by hustling me off to the front room. I must see their Ikon. It was from Poland and occupied a place of honour above a little shelf that was dressed with a crocheted fringe. Two tall candles in brass holders stood on either side and a bowl of paper flowers, blue and red, made a patch of gay colour in the centre. There were several lithograph prints of various saints upon the wall, and an especially dolorous representation of the Saviour crowned with thorns hung above the paternal bed. Except for this huge bed, and another smaller one at the back of the room, the only other pieces of furniture were some wooden chests and a big iron-rimmed barrel. The beds were like small mountains, so high they were with feather ticks and enormous pillows, all white as snow. Katie was immensely proud of the beds, on which not a wrinkle nor a ridge could be found. Their smoothness depended upon expert rolling with a broom handle after the feather beds had been shaken and fluffed into those proud, airy formations. ‘It’s a big job,’ said she, patting a bolster with a loving, rough paw. ‘But, you should know, to be careless with beds won’t get you a good husband.’

The barrel inspired curiosity. It was the biggest barrel I had ever seen, and why it should stand there instead of in the kitchen proved too much for my limited culture. ‘Katie, why do you keep the water in here?’ I queried. ‘Isn’t that awful unhandy for your mamma?’

‘You’re crazy!’ said Katie, amiably. ‘That’s not mamma’s water. That’s papa’s bath—don’t you wash in your house?’

‘Well, not in a barrel,’ I admitted humbly. ‘How do you mean, it’s your papa’s bath?’

‘Holy Mary! Don’t you know anything? Oh, well, I suppose in Iceland it’s too cold for a skin bath. It’s like this: every morning papa jumps into the barrel, and then runs to the gate and back to get the air on his skin.’

‘Katie! Not in the winter-time? Through the snow—with nothing on?’

‘Of course. For the health, there’s nothing better.’ Katie explained, smilingly patient with my ignorance. In all his life Papa Pepolenski had never known a day’s illness, which blessing, thanks to God’s mercy, was due to the invigorating influence of cold water on the back, and snow on the feet. Yes, in winter Papa Pepolenski was even healthier than in summer, for, as every one ought to know, the sun sucked the health from the body through the sweating pores.

Here, surely, was something to think about. Perhaps all that ailed us was the lack of a water-barrel. ‘Do you jump into the water too? You and your mamma?’

Katie threw me a pitying glance, her face reddening with shame. ‘Holy Mary, it’s good mamma can’t understand much English. Should a woman run out naked—in this country? You’re crazy! It’s better not to say such things. Look here, are you a Christian? I’d like to show you my confirmation veil. At Easter I take my first communion.’

‘I’m not a Catholic, Katie, but I’m going to be confirmed one day—my sister had a veil too, and lilies of the valley for her hair.’

‘Come along then!’ Katie pulled me towards one of the chests. ‘I guess you’re not the bad kind of Protestant.’

Mamma Pepolenski, who had been hovering in the doorway for some time, now hurried forward, and shoving her daughter aside with a cautioning rebuke, herself displayed the filmy treasure. Proudly she pointed out that the veil reached to the heels—it would do for Katie’s wedding if the good God gave her a husband. It was a beautiful veil, bought with fifty quarts of raspberries! Fifty quarts picked in the early dawn, and sold in the broiling sun from door to door. That was the price of Katie’s finery. ‘And may the holy saints mark the sacrifice, that something comes of it!’ said Katie’s mamma, crossing herself.

All these things were marvellous to me, and were passed on to my own mamma with proper emphasis, but neither the sunflower seeds nor the health-giving barrel impressed that stiff-necked daughter of the Viking. In fact, my parent abjured me, on my oath as a civilized creature, to forgo the bird seed and think no more of the water-barrel. That sort of thing was well enough for Russian peasants, said she, but who ever heard of white people scampering about in their skins? It was disgraceful. ‘If you can’t find better friends, do without them,’ was her heartless injunction.

‘But, mamma they aren’t Russians,’ I pleaded. ‘Poles are a different kind of people, aren’t they, papa?’ I appealed to my milder forebear.

‘What do I care for all that?’ mamma interrupted crossly. ‘This Katie the child runs around with is a little savage. She shouts and stalks along the street like an Indian. Do you want your daughter to behave like that? Is it a mark of distinction to hop into a barrel and dash out into the snow, naked as the Lord made you?’

‘Well, well, well, the Lord’s handiwork is not to be sneezed at, my love!’ papa rejoined gravely, that glimmer of familiar mischief darkling his eye. ‘I’m neither for nor against such exhilaration, but I hardly think the child will come to grief because Katie’s papa disports himself so bravely.’ Then, to me: ‘What does Katie talk about, my dear, besides her father’s health and the blessed saints?’

Now I was cornered. Instinctively, I knew that mamma would frown upon our conversation about good husbands for whom one prepared by making soft beds. Nor would she relish the verbal battles so colourfully peppered with pointed curses.

‘Oh, we talk about Poland,’ I temporized, trying to remember something scholarly and impressive. ‘It’s a nice country. They have so many holidays, when they dance in the street—’

‘And knife each other, I’ll be bound,’ mamma interpolated, crossly. ‘Put your mind on your reader and forget such foolishness. That’s my advice. And don’t let me catch you shouting like a stable wench!’

Mamma could be very unreasonable, I thought to myself, and stole away to the window, hoping to cheer myself with a glimpse of the beautiful young man who lived on the next corner.

I was quite in love with him, and after Katie’s remark about a husband my heart jumped like a startled mouse each time he passed. Of course, I knew to the exact minute when this glorious experience might be expected. He always fetched water from the pump at seven o’clock. That he was married, and lived in the same sort of barn we ourselves did, nowise dampened my ardour. He was tall and dark, and always wore a bright red sweater that seemed to me as beautiful as a breastplate of beaten gold. Above that blazing garment his bold black head rose with the proud lift of a warrior. Nor was it difficult to provide my hero with a mettlesome steed and a broad axe in place of the pail. Those daily excursions to the pump, told to the beat of my racing heart, were really the sublimest conquests, executed with romantic dash and daring. Imaginary enemies strewed the streets behind my darling as he whizzed back from the diabolic stronghold of the pump with his pail, converted into a casket of glittering jewels.

This rendezvous at the window was the most precious moment of the whole day, for which I waited with delicious twitters and bated breath. Each day the glorious creature drew a deeper sigh from my suffering breast as he swung past in his scarlet breastplate, cheerfully unaware of the sore havoc he was causing. But, just as I was at the point of confessing my hopeless devotion to Katie, I was happily cured. Alas, what should I see, one dreary November day, but my Beautiful Knight trundling a baby carriage! Now, that was too much. A wife was no obstacle, but a baby was definitely not in keeping with prancing steeds and heroic conquest. The wretch had deceived me! Never again was my nose pressed against the window-pane, nor my eye beguiled by the flash of a red sweater.

It was a sad disillusionment, almost as depressing as the weather, with its squalls and sleet and scudding, angry clouds. The eternal damp chill seemed to leap at my throat, choking my breath with clammy fingers that left me gasping and sputtering, to my utmost humiliation. Sometimes these attacks were so severe that I had to sit down in the street, with Katie keeping watch between me and any possible enemy. For this trusty guardianship, I was deeply grateful, yet it had its bitter alloy. Katie delighted, with all her rugged soul, in defending such a miserable weakling, but at times she lost patience, and banged me on the back with peasant thoroughness. ‘Stop! Stop! You’ll bust yourself? Holy Mary, you’re blue in the face! Here, get on with you. Hang on to my arm. Do you want to catch your death in the gutter?’

Under the full steam of this righteous indignation we would stagger down the hill, Katie outshouting the lustiest wind as she laid down the law for my benefit. If I wasn’t so crazy, I’d burn a candle to the saints. No telling but they’d hear me, though I was a Protestant. Catholic saints weren’t limited in their miracles. Any way, I could eat raw meat and lots of suet.

‘Katie! I couldn’t—not suet!’

‘Shut up-you’ll choke again,’ Katie admonished. ‘You could eat a dog if you had to. Haven’t you any sense? Do you want to bark yourself to skin and bones? What sort of husband would that get you, do you suppose?’

No, I had no fancy to become the sort of thing Katie painted with vivid word strokes and considerable relish. Katie’s mamma had known such unfortunate baggages back home: pale wretches who shivered in their greyish hides; hacked and wheezed their lungs away, and, finally, to no one’s regret, ended up in a pauper’s grave. That last called for serious cogitation. Goodness knows, I was inured to the thought of an early, saintly demise, but this pauper angle gave an entirely new and sinister twist to the familiar story. I solemnly swore to Katie that henceforth my prayers would be addressed to the whole calendar of saints—for it seemed highly probable that if I picked one haphazard, the rest might take offence—and my sole petition, for release from the wheezes and the threatening shadow of a pauper’s grave. Katie thought it a capital idea, and called the Blessed Mother of God to witness that she would put a copper in the poor-box on Sunday, and add her sanctified prayer to mine.