smiling waitress reminded her. Then she remembered she was hungry.
Breakfast was so long ago. She read everything on the long menu,
and mentally counted her money. This was to be something different,
something special. No ham sandwich and a glass of milk this time. She
finally decided upon an elaborate chicken mixture in a potato basket,
and a chocolate ice-cream sundae for dessert.
The food was delicious, and Janie was engrossed. Once, as she lifted
a spoonful of ice cream, she looked up to see a sea gull watching her
from his perch just out side the window. He wasn’t nearly so pretty
close up as he was from a distance. He was quite awkward and ugly
looking, except for his eyes. They were like clear, red glass. Janie
smiled at him, but he only looked at her bleakly. “Greedy,” he seemed
to say. “There you sit, eating chicken and ice cream, while I have to
scour the river for my dinner.” With that unhappy observation he was
gone.
“Grouch,” Jane said, and continued to enjoy her lunch.
A noisy tug chortled up the river leaving a wake of foam. It was small
enough to scuttle under the bridges, and the bridge tender only waved
his arm in salute, instead of having to turn all the machinery as he
did for the big boats.
The clock in one of the tall buildings across the river chimed and
Janie looked up. Goodness! It was one o’clock. The waitress brought the
check, and Janie extracted her crisp one dollar bill and laid it on
the slip of paper. She wasn’t quite sure of what to do next, but grown
people always put something on the tray for the waitress. She added a
dime and a nickel from her rapidly dwindling supply.
An exquisite creature, dressed in the very latest fashion, walked
slowly up and down the aisles between the tables. Every curl was in
place. Her face had the pleasantly blank expression of a wax doll. Her
posture was faultless, and she moved so very gracefully and formally,
it was almost like dancing. Janie held her breath. In spite of all
that Mom had taught her, she stared. She had never seen anything so
beautiful in all her life, even on circus posters.
She rose to leave, but her eyes wouldn’t come away from the beautiful
lady. She walked backwards, and missing the entrance, bumped into a
palm tree.
The hostess at the entrance looked as if she hadn’t seen the mishap,
but her eyes were sparkling.
“Would you like to be a model when you grow up, dear?”
“Oh yes,” said Jane blissfully walking away on air. All the way down to
the street floor she studied her reflection in the tiny mirror at the
elevator operator’s elbow. She held her chin very high, and lowered her
eyelashes. That was better. With her eyes half closed she looked just
right.
“Main floor,” the operator called. “Main floor, watch your step,
please.”
Jane floated out with her nose in the air, and tripped on the ledge.
Down she went, full length, on the floor. Half a dozen people helped
her up, and were very solicitous.
“Are you hurt, little girl?”
“Did you trip?”
“Let me brush you off.”
“Dear me, such a fall!”
“Can I get you a drink of water?”
“Perhaps you’d better sit down for a moment.”
Janie was embarrassed, but otherwise quite all right. “Thank you,” she
said to each one who wanted to help her. “Thank you, but I’m not hurt.
I’m all right now. I only stumbled.”
She started off by herself once more, and this time she didn’t lower
her eyelashes, and she didn’t float. “I’ll wait till I get home,” she
thought. “I’ll practice that walk in my room.”
She looked at her watch once more. It was early in the afternoon, only
one-fifteen. Two hours stretched before her to do with as she pleased.
She decided to go to the stamp store. All the Murrays except Mom
collected stamps, and they had worn a beaten path to the stamp store.
Mom would have none of it. “I collect stamps, all right,” she said. “I
collect them off the floor and under the beds. I shouldn’t be surprised
if I’d brush stamps out of my hair!”
The stamp man was glad to see her. He was small and gray and stooped.
He always seemed absorbed in something he was peering at through a
magnifying glass. He was like a kindly absent-minded gnome. Janie sat
on a stool at the counter, and pushed off her hat. It was good to sit
down after the hot walk up the street. A fly buzzed on the screen at
the window, and the clock ticked. That was the only sound as the old
man and the young girl pored over the bright-colored paper squares. She
looked and looked, and at last decided upon three stamps, one for each
of the boys. She opened her purse and reached for her money, but the
money was gone. She searched again, and turned the purse upside down
and shook it, but there was nothing in it but a handkerchief and two
skeins of embroidery cotton.
“Oh, Mr. Marckus,” she wailed. “What will I do? I’ve lost my money.”
“Eh? What’s that you say?”
“I’ve lost my money. It must have fallen out of my purse when I fell
getting out of the elevator. I wanted to buy these stamps for the boys,
and now I’ve lost my money.”
Mr. Marckus carefully put a stamp down with a pair of tiny tweezers. He
squinted at her distressed face.
“How much do you need,” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t really need anything. I can walk from here to the
doctor’s office, and I’m getting a ride back to the lake with Daddy,
but I spent a whole dollar on myself, and now I wish that I could buy
something for the boys.”
“Well, you can’t charge anything here,” said Mr. Marckus in his dry,
dusty, little voice. “If I gave credit to all the young ones who came
in here, I’d never be able to make enough to pay my rent.”
Janie’s cheeks burned. “I didn’t mean,” she started to say.
“I know you didn’t,” said Mr. Marckus. “Your whole family, from your
Grandmother down have always been good customers of mine. Here, take
the stamps, and we’ll say they’re a birthday present. You have a
birthday pretty soon, don’t you?”
“No,” said Janie, looking happy again. “Not until September.”
“Makes no difference,” he said. “A present’s a present.”
He went back to his magnifying glass, and seemed to pay no attention to
Janie’s delighted thanks as she prepared to leave.
The twenty-two blocks to the doctor’s office seemed very long indeed.
When she got there the waiting room was crowded and she was thirsty and
tired. When Daddy called for her at five o’clock she thought she had
never been so glad to see him.
“Well, chickie,” he said, pinching her nose. “Did you have a good day?
Did you have a fine time spending your hard-earned dollar?”
She settled back in the front seat gratefully, and the car headed for
the lake. “Daddy,” she confessed. “I had fun. It was a good day, but I
spent my whole dollar on a fancy meal. I ate so much that I felt uneasy
all afternoon, and now my money is gone and I have nothing to show for
it, not even a new hair ribbon.”
Daddy chuckled. “That’s all right, Janie, my girl,” he said. “We all
learn our little lessons.”
_Chapter Twelve_
_The Bear Who Loved Apple Pie_
[Illustration]
It was cool that night at the lake front. The boys built a fire with
some old boards that had washed up on the shore and begged Daddy for a
story.
“Please tell us a story about Indians, Daddy,” said Davey. Bill ran to
gather some dry willow twigs to get the fire off to a blazing start.
“I want a bear story,” James insisted. “Mom knows a good one about a
big brown bear. It’s a true story, too. She told it to me a long time
ago, when I was real little.”
Dad laughed. “It would appear,” he said, “that I’m being ousted as the
storyteller of the evening. Janie, run and get your mother.”
Mom was standing on the stepladder tacking paper edging on the cupboard
shelves. She had a hammer in one hand and a handful of tacks in the
other. “Me?” she asked, gesturing with a hammer. “You’ve got the
champion storyteller of McWade county down there right now. Why don’t
you have him entertain you?”
“It’s James,” said Jane patiently. “He’s got it into his head that he
wants to hear your story about the big brown bear, and I was sent to
fetch you.”
“Why,” said Mom. “I’m flattered. I’ll find my sweater and be right with
you.”
“Welcome to the powwow,” said Daddy rising and bowing low. “These
mighty braves,” he explained, “would like to hear an Indian story and a
bear story.”
Mom joined in the play. She wrapped her sweater around her shoulders,
making believe it was an Indian blanket, and accepted a cushion near
the fire.
“I think I know the story that James is referring to. It’s a true
story about Indians that your Grandmother told to me.” She leaned back
against the willow tree, and made designs in the sand with a willow
twig as she talked.
“It was about a hundred years ago when the Murrays first moved to
Wisconsin. Your Great-grandfather bought a farm up in Door county. I
shouldn’t say a farm, because it was really a forest. Before it could
be a farm they had to chop the trees down, uproot the stumps, and carry
off the stones. They built a little cabin in the clearing, and there
they lived and worked.
“You’ve seen pictures of Great-grandmother in Grandma’s album. She
looks very prim and sedate in her stiff silk dress, and her little
children look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, but they
were just the same sort of people that we are now. I think that
Great-grandfather must often have been tired and discouraged at the
end of the day, and Great-grandmother must have been frightened and
lonely at times, but they worked on and on and lived to see the forest
disappear and beautiful cherry orchards bloom in its place.
“There were no neighbors near by, but the Indians were friendly. One
of their trails led past the cabin, and the Murrays used to watch
them padding along on their way to the settlement at Sturgeon Bay.
Great-grandfather knew two of the braves.
“‘That’s Ninnecons,’ he would point out. ‘He has no fingers on his left
hand. He says that a bear bit them off, but most likely he got them
caught in a beaver trap. The tall one is Shabeno. He’s a good Indian.
They’re walking down to the settlement to sell those baskets you see
piled on the squaws’ heads.’
“Summer was a busy time. The entire family helped to grow and gather
food for the winter. The children helped in the garden patch, and
little Nick pulled trout out of the brook as fast as he could bait
his hook. Blackberries as big as thimbles glistened in the sun at the
edge of the clearing, and thick clusters of wild grapes gave promise
of being jelly in the fall. There were raspberries in the woods, but
Great-grandfather didn’t want them to go picking berries without him.
“‘A big brown bear lives in the neighborhood,’ he said. ‘He has a sweet
tooth. Remember how he stole the wild honey you wanted, Mother? He
likes raspberries. You’d most likely meet him in the berry patch.’
“‘He wouldn’t hurt us,’ said Great-grandmother. ‘He might like
raspberries. He might even make off with a lamb or a young pig, but he
wouldn’t hurt a person.’
“‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Great-grandfather. ‘Folks
around here say that he’s the one who bit off Ninnecons’ fingers.’
“Great-grandmother laughed and turned back to her work. There was
always work to be done in the little clearing. She made her own soap
out of ashes and lye and waste fat, and she dipped candles and grew
herbs in a tiny garden at the side of the cabin, so that she could make
some of her own medicines.
“When the summer turned to fall the air was fragrant with the odor of
smoked hams and slabs of bacon. Pumpkins were gathered, and dried corn
hung from the rafters like ripe bananas. The forest turned scarlet and
yellow and orange, and the slender birch trees at the outskirts looked
like a lady’s white fingers held up to the blaze. Indian summer was
a little breath of quiet and content, a Thanksgiving at the end of a
meal. Just a moment of drowsing in the sun, listening to the ripened
nuts falling from the trees and to the partridge rising, and then fall
was over, and the northern winter roared in across the Great Lakes.
“During the winter the men worked in the woods cutting down the tall
trees, and the women spent most of their time indoors. There was always
a fire in the fireplace, and Great-grandmother would sit there spinning
and knitting. She taught the children and entertained them, and she
cooked and mended and baked and kept the cabin tidy. She sprinkled
crumbs for the birds, and once when the snow was deep they tamed a
chipmunk.
“Often, on moonlit nights, they looked out to see deer feeding in their
garden. The gentle creatures would dig down into the snow with their
dainty hooves and nibble at the frozen stumps of cabbages and the
remains of corn and chard.”
“Why did they eat that old stuff?” asked Davey.
“Because they were hungry,” said Bill. “Very hungry. Deer almost starve
in the wintertime.”
“That’s right,” said Mom. “All the creatures in the forest were
hungry, but the wolves sounded hungriest of all. When they howled at
night it seemed that they were right on the edge of the clearing, and
Great-grandmother would pull the pieced quilt up over her head and
shiver.”
“How did the children play in winter,” asked Bill. “Could they go
coasting and skating like we do?”
“Yes, but they had neither skates nor sleds as we have now. Nick
coasted on barrel staves and he had his own trap line, but Katy and
Nell spent most of their time inside the cabin playing with calico
dolls.
“One day Great-grandmother looked out to see Ninnecons and Shabeno
filing past. They were followed by their patient wives who had baskets
piled on their heads and papooses strapped on their backs.
“‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I feel so sorry for those poor women and for those
little babies. How cold they must be. I’m going to ask them to come in
to get warm.’ She threw a shawl over her head and ran to the door.
“‘Ninnecons,’ she called. ‘Shabeno, won’t you stop for a while and get
warm?’
“Without answering the four of them turned off the trail and started
up the path to the cabin. Nelly and Katy darted under the beds like
frightened rabbits, and the baby started to cry, but Great-grandmother
and Nick stood there as if they were giving a reception, and the
braves walked in. The squaws stopped at the door and unfastened their
papooses.”
Mom paused and looked around at the faces in the firelight.
“Do you know what they did then?” she asked.
Three mouths made circles saying “No.”
But James knew the answer. “I know, Mom,” he said with his eyes
sparkling. “I remember now. They parked them outside in the snowbank.”
“That’s right,” said Mom smiling. “The squaws propped their children
against the side of the cabin and followed the braves inside. The men
walked over close to the fire and sat on the floor without saying a
word. Great-grandmother offered chairs to the women, but they declined
modestly and sat on the floor near the door. You’ve often heard the
expression, ‘Like a wooden Indian.’ Well, that’s just what they were
like. They sat there absorbing the heat without moving a muscle.
After a while the girls picked up courage and edged out from under the
bed. Little Nick was braver than the others. He came over and stood
beside his mother and looked and looked. At last his curiosity got the
better of his good manners. Pointing to the fingerless hand, he said to
Ninnecons,
“‘Did a bear do that?’
“‘Ugh,’ said Ninnecons, ‘bear.’
“That was the extent of the conversation. In another few minutes the
braves got up and walked out. The squaws picked up their baskets and
babies and followed them down to the trail and then away through the
silent forest.
“Many times before spring came, the Indians passed that way, but they
never needed another invitation to come in to get warm. They just
walked in. They weren’t being impolite. They were really being very
logical and reasonable. If the white squaw wanted them in on one cold
day, why not on any cold day? Great-grandmother would hear the latch
click, and she’d look up from her spinning to see her brown-skinned
friends glide in. Occasionally she gave them something to eat, hot tea
and corn bread. Sometimes they gave her a present in return. Once she
got a basket, and toward spring there were gifts of maple sugar that
delighted the children.
“Great-grandmother longed for spring. She watched the buds grow large
on the maple trees. Morning came earlier and evening stayed longer.
One day she looked out to see a great flock of geese, with their necks
outstretched, flying in perfect formation to the Canadian lakes. She
called to the children to watch them.
“‘See,’ she said. ‘Spring is here at last.’
“The snow melted and it rained. It rained and rained. The road to the
settlement was impassible. It was so muddy that the oxen would have
bogged down at every step. Great-grandmother didn’t mind except that
the sugar barrel was empty. The flour barrel was almost empty too.
There was a little tea in the canister over the fireplace, and part of
a slab of bacon hung from the rafters.
“‘We won’t be hungry for another week or so,’ said Great-grandmother
as she poured corn meal into a bowl and stirred away at the all too
familiar johnnycake.”
“What’s a johnnycake, Mom?” asked Davey.
“It’s another name for corn bread,” said Mom and she kept right on with
her story.
“At the side of the cabin rose a brown hump of earth with a wooden
ventilator sticking out of the top. It looked like a fat brown man
sleeping with a pipe in his mouth. Do any of you children know what it
was?”
They looked puzzled, but Janie had a gleam in her eye. “I think I
know,” she said. “It must have been a root cellar. We saw them in New
Salem where Abraham Lincoln once lived. Weren’t they used for storing
potatoes and things like that?”
“That’s right,” said Mom. “It was a root cellar. Great-grandmother
searched carefully, but the potatoes were gone, and the carrot bin
was empty. The last of the turnips and pumpkins had been used in
March. There never was a root cellar that looked more like Old Mother
Hubbard’s cupboard. She picked up her candle and started to leave when
she spied a crock jar in a far corner.
“‘Why they’re apples,’ she exclaimed. ‘Enough dried apples to make a
pie, if only I had some sugar.’ She didn’t tell her husband about what
she had found. I’ll wait until the sugar barrel comes, she thought, and
surprise him.
“At last the rain stopped and the sun and the wind dried the fields and
the trails. The road to Sturgeon Bay was open, and Great-grandfather
started off with the ox team and the big-wheeled wagon. The trip took
two days, and on the evening of the second day the creaking of the
wagon wheels and the lowing of the oxen announced his return.
“How happy they were to be all together again. Great-grandfather
picked the children up and swung them in the air. The little girls each
got a stick of striped peppermint candy and Nick got a mouth organ.
Great-grandmother got a length of calico for a new dress.
“After supper they sat in the dooryard enjoying the mild spring
evening. Nick almost learned to play Yankee Doodle, and he entertained
them while his father talked of the news at the settlement.
“‘I saw a Boston paper,’ he said. ‘The Texas treaty of annexation has
been signed. Tyler will find himself in trouble over that. The Mexican
government says it means war. The Indians have pulled out of the
country along the shore of Lake Superior, and the white men are moving
in fast. Bob McIntyre says that iron has been discovered at Marquette
and copper at Kewanaw Point.’
“Great-grandfather leaned over and knocked the bowl of his pipe against
a rock. ‘I heard something amusing, Mother,’ he said. ‘Folks say that a
dentist in Hartford, Connecticut, has discovered a painless method of
pulling teeth. Laughing gas, they call it. Ha! Ha! Did you ever hear of
anything so far fetched?’
“‘What are they reading?’ asked Great-grandmother with her hand on her
cheek.
“‘Reading, indeed,’ said her husband. ‘Sure, and they’re all too busy
for that, but if it was reading they had time for it would be a book by
a Frenchman, Alexander Dumas.’
“‘Yes,’ said Great-grandmother, leaning forward. ‘What is the name of
the book?’
“‘It’s a novel,’ said Great-grandfather, ‘by the name of “The Count
of Monte Cristo”, but that,’ he continued, ‘is of no real importance.
Something wonderful and strange has happened that will conquer the
space of loneliness of this great country more than anything that has
happened so far. A man by the name of Morse has built a telegraph line
from Baltimore to Washington. Imagine that, over forty miles.’
“‘Did he send a message?’ asked Great-grandmother. ‘What did he say?’
“Great-grandfather looked up at the first star. He said, ‘What hath God
wrought?’
“Bright and early the next morning Great-grandmother took a hatchet and
opened the sugar barrel. She sent Nick to the root cellar for a crock
of dried apples, and she worked busily at her pie. The children stood
around and watched her. My! it smelled good.
“Just as it was time for the pie to come out of the oven there was a
click of the latch and who should walk in but Ninnecons and Shabeno. Oh
bother, thought Great-grandmother. They will sit here all day unless
I give them some, and if I cut it up there won’t be enough for Johnny
when he comes home for his dinner. There are no apples to make another.
Perhaps it will go around if I give them extra small pieces. She bent
over the oven and lifted out the most luscious, mouth-watering apple
pie that you ever saw. The Indians had never smelled anything half so
good. Their nostrils widened, and their black beady eyes shone.
“Great-grandmother carried it proudly over to the open window, and
placed it on the sill. ‘You mustn’t come too close,’ she warned the
eager children. ‘It’s very hot, and you might burn yourselves.’
“‘Oh please, Mother. When may we have some?’
“‘When your father comes in from the fields at noon.’
“The Indians sat against the wall and smoked silently, and the children
played on the floor. Suddenly little Katy pointed and screamed and Mom
rushed to the window. There facing her, was a great, shaggy, brown
bear! He stood up on his hind legs, and right before her astonished
eyes he picked up the pie in his paws and ran off with it.
“Now, your pioneer ancestor didn’t stop to think of the bear as a
dangerous animal. All that she knew was that a thief was making off
with her precious pie.
“‘Stop!’ she cried, picking up her rolling pin. ‘Don’t you dare run off
with my pie!’
“The solemn Indians and the goggle-eyed children followed her outside.
Across the clearing they raced, the great upright bear with the pie in
his paws, and the angry little woman brandishing her rolling pin.
“‘Stop! Stop!’ she called out. ‘Put that pie down this instant!’
“Then something wonderful happened. The heat of the pie tin penetrated
the thick leathery paws of the bear and burned him. With a roar of
fright, he dropped the pie and disappeared into the woods at the edge
of the clearing.
“Triumphantly, Great-grandmother picked up the pie with the edges of
her apron, and bore it back to her admiring family and friends. She cut
a small piece for each of the Indians and they went their way. When her
husband came in for dinner he roared with laughter.
“‘Janey, Janey,’ he cried, slapping his knee with the palm of his hand.
‘What a wonder you are! I knew that you had complete mastery over me
and the children, but I didn’t know that the wild beasts of the forest
obeyed you!’
“Ninnecons and Shabeno were profoundly impressed. The story
spread through all that part of the country, and from then on,
when the Indians spoke of Great-grandmother, they called her
Wee-a-gon-hee-meechie, which means ‘small squaw who chased large bear.’”
The fire was almost out. The children stirred sleepily. Daddy rose and
helped Mom to her feet.
“Thank you, my dear. That was a very fine story. How does it happen
that you know so much about my family?”
“Why that’s very easily explained,” answered Mom. “During the long
summer evenings when Grandma and I are sitting on the porch she tells
me everything of interest that has happened to the family as far back
as she can remember.”
_Chapter Thirteen_
_An Honest Reward_
[Illustration]
It was Saturday morning and James lay full length on the wicker
davenport reading _Boy’s Life_ and yearning for a really sharp
pocketknife so that he could whittle. “Just look at those penguins,” he
said to Jane. “Boy, I’d surely like to make some like that.”
Mom was sitting at the end of the long table. She was making her
grocery list. “I’ll give a prize,” she announced, “to whichever side
has the cleanest bathhouse, the boys or the girls.”
“What is it going to be,” demanded James. “Candy?” Mom continued to
write, and answered without raising her eyes. “I don’t know yet what
it’s going to be, but I do know that _if_ it’s going to be, there’ll be
a clean bathhouse first. My prize goes to the cleanest side.”