18

A few days later, Papa came home, his blue eyes bright with excitement. “I’ve found a place for us.”

Mama stopped stirring the stew over the outside cookfire and straightened. “Where?”

“It’s west of Murietta, about two miles outside the town limits, across the big canal. Mrs. Miller lost her husband last year. She needs someone to work the place until her daughter finishes high school. She said she might sell the place then.”

“How long before the girl finishes school, Niclas?”

“Four years, I think.”

“You didn’t sign a contract, did you?”

“Well, I—”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“Only two years. You told me to get experience! This is the best way to get it!”

Mama walked off toward the irrigation ditch. Papa followed her. When he put his hand on her shoulder, she shook him off. He talked for a long time, but Mama kept her back to him.

Bernie stood by Hildemara, watching them. “I hope Papa wins. At least we’d have a roof over our heads instead of living in a leaky tent.”

The one house on the property belonged to Mrs. Miller and her daughter, Charlotte, but Mrs. Miller gave Papa permission to build a temporary shelter on the property, with conditions. She didn’t want a shack. Mama wanted to speak to the woman herself when she heard Papa had to pay the expenses of building the structure, but Papa ordered her not to go near “the big house.”

Over the next few days, Papa built a wooden platform, half walls, and a framework over which he and Mama stretched tent canvas. The canvas sides could be rolled up on warm days, and rolled down in an attempt to keep rain and wind out. Cold air and water still managed to seep in. Papa stacked bricks and made a lean-to where Mama could cook without jeopardizing the tent-house.

Mrs. Miller and her daughter had running water inside the house, but Mama had to use a hose near the barn and carry it bucket by bucket for tent use. Mrs. Miller also had an indoor bathroom, but Papa had to dig a deep hole and build an outhouse over it. Mrs. Miller also told Papa the children were not allowed near her flower garden. “She has prize roses and shows them at the fair each year.” The widow didn’t want the children near the house. “She doesn’t like noise.”

“Mercy, Niclas, what does she expect?”

“Peace and quiet.”

“Why don’t you ask her where our children can play?”

Papa winked at them. “Anywhere out of sight of the house.”

Bernie climbed almond trees and caught frogs in the irrigation ditch and horned toads in the vineyard. Clotilde played with her pretty china doll. Hildemara stayed close to the tent-house and Mama.

The mulberry tree provided shade, but dropped fruit on the canvas roof, staining it with red and purple splotches. Mama grumbled about living like a vagabond. It seemed the bigger Mama’s belly grew, the more her temper soured. She had no patience with anyone. Even Papa couldn’t soothe her temper.

Summer came early. Mama gave Hildemara the broom and told her to keep the platform swept. Too uncomfortable to stoop, she showed Hildemara how to peel and cut vegetables, how to fry meat, how to make biscuits. Summer boiled and the ground dried up in the heat.

Mama sewed the tent seams tighter, but short of keeping the sides down all day, which made the tent like an oven, she had to leave the canvas rolled high, which allowed dust and sand to blow in all day. Buzzing flies flew circles around Mama, who sat with a swatter in her hand waiting for them to land. Hot August nights had everyone sweating on their cots.

When the baby started coming, Papa had already gone out to work the harvest. Mama called out softly. “Hildemara, go tell Mrs. Miller I’m having a baby. Maybe she’ll show some compassion.”

Hildemara ran to the back door and pounded. “Stop that racket!” Mrs. Miller peered out through the screen without unlocking it. “If your father needs something, tell him he’ll have to wait until it cools off. I’m not coming out in this heat.”

“Mama’s having the baby!”

“Oh. Well. Congratulations. Go find your father and tell him. He’ll have to put one of the men from the work crew in charge until he can see about your mother.” She closed the door.

Hildemara ran all over the ranch looking for Papa, then finally found him loading a truck at the far side of the property. When he heard Mama was having the baby, he said something to one of the Italian workers and ran back to the tent-house. Mama lay on the platform floor, sweat pouring from her beet red face. Hildemara stood in the doorway, not knowing what to do. Mama reached out to her. “Did you talk to Mrs. Miller?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“What did she say, Hildemara?”

“Congratulations.”

Mama laughed wildly. “What did I tell you about that woman, Niclas?” Mama moaned. “We’ll get no help from her or that lazy daughter—” She cried out in pain.

Hildemara started to cry. “Don’t die, Mama.” Shaking, she sobbed. “Please don’t die!”

“I’m not going to die!” She clutched Papa’s shirt, her fingers white. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, God of mercy . . .” After a moment, she let out a harsh breath and fell back, panting. “Go on outside, Hildemara. We don’t need you.”

Papa looked around. “Where’s Clotilde?”

Mama gasped, a look of horror filling her face. “Oh, mercy. I don’t know!”

“I’m here, Mama.” Clotilde stepped around Hildemara and held out a fistful of Mrs. Miller’s perfect yellow roses.

Baby Rikka turned out to be Mama’s easiest child, or so Papa said. He tugged Hildemara’s pigtail gently. “You were so scrawny, Mama thought you’d die before the end of your first month. But you hung on like a little monkey.”

“She’s still scrawny.” Bernie gave her a pitying look. “Tony says she’s skinny as a rail.”

Rikka was so plump and sweet, even Hildemara became enamored. Clotilde liked Rikka well enough the first day or two, but when the baby consumed Mama’s attention, Clotilde asked if the stork could come back and take her away again. Papa laughed long and hard over that.

“She’s beautiful, Niclas.” Mama smiled down at Rikka as she nursed. “She has your blonde hair and blue eyes. She’s going to be even prettier than Clotilde.”

Hildemara took Mama’s hand mirror and ran to the barn. Sitting in an empty stall, she studied her face. Did she look like a monkey? She had Mama’s hazel eyes and brown hair. She had Papa’s straight nose and fair skin. Somehow, even sharing those traits, she wasn’t pretty at all. She burned instead of turning brown like Bernie. Her neck looked like a stalk growing up out of the flowered gingham dress.

Hildemara wished she had been born with Elizabeth Kenney’s long red curls and green eyes. Maybe then Mama would be proud of her. Maybe then Mama would speak to her in that loving voice she used with Rikka; look at her with that soft, doting smile. Instead, Mama often looked at her with a frown. She would let out her breath with impatience. She would wave her hand at Hildemara and say, “Go play somewhere else, Hildemara.” She would say, “Don’t be hanging on to my apron strings all the time!” Mama never said, “Look how sweet Hildemara Rose is . . . look how pretty and sweet . . .”

Maybe Mama didn’t like looking at her straight, mousy brown hair and hazel eyes, though Mama had the same. Sometimes, Hildemara wished Mama would hide her disappointment and make excuses for her the way she did the others. Maybe Mama regretted having wasted the name Rose on her. She wasn’t poised, pretty, or popular the way she imagined Mama’s friend Rosie Gilgan had been. She didn’t have Papa’s fine singing voice or Mama’s intellect. She made a “joyful noise to the Lord,” Papa said, and she had to study hard and long to get things into her head.

Whenever Hildie stayed inside the tent-house and offered to help, Mama became impatient. “If I need help, I’ll ask for it. Now go on out there! Find something to do! There’s a whole world outside the door. Stop hiding in here.”

She wasn’t hiding. “I want to help, Mama.”

“It’s no help having you underfoot all day! Go! Fly, Hildemara. For heaven’s sake, fly!”

Hildemara didn’t know what she meant. She wasn’t a bird. What had she done wrong? Maybe Mama never loved her. If Mama loved plump, pink-white babies, then having a scrawny, sickly one would have been a great disappointment. Hildemara tried to gain weight, but no matter how much she ate, she still had skinny legs and bony knees and collarbones that protruded. Clotilde, on the other hand, grew plump and pink and added inches. “Clotilde’s going to be taller than Hildemara in another year,” Papa said one evening, and Hildie felt even worse.

Sometimes Hildie felt her mother looking at her. When she looked back, Mama would get that troubled expression again. Hildemara wanted to ask what she’d done wrong, what she could do to make Mama smile and laugh the way she did every day with baby Rikka. Sometimes when Mama did smile at her, it didn’t seem to come from pride or pleasure, but sadness, as if Hildemara just couldn’t help disappointing her.

Like today.

“Why are you so quiet, Hildemara?”

She looked at Mama nursing the baby. Had her mother ever held her that tenderly? “I was just thinking about school. When does it start?”

“Not until mid-September. So you can stop worrying. You’ve got a little more time to play and enjoy your summer.”

Hildemara started praying for Mrs. Ransom. She taught kindergarten and first grade, so Hildie had only one more year to suffer before she moved up.

At the end of the harvest, Papa collected his share of the crop money. It wasn’t as much as he had hoped, but some other farmers fared worse. Some others fared better, too, Mama said. She’d been to town. She’d talked to people. Papa told her Mrs. Miller said there were extenuating circumstances. Grim-faced, Mama sent the children to bed early. Bernie and Clotilde, having played all day, went to sleep right away, but Hildemara lay awake, troubled and listening.

Papa sighed. “We’ll do better next year.”

“Not here, we won’t. Mrs. Miller told me this morning she expects me to cook and clean for her. Just to make things even, she said. She thinks I should be thankful for the place she’s given us.” Mama gave a hard laugh. “She can do her own cooking and cleaning. Or hire someone else to do it.”

“I’ll talk to her.”

“When you do, tell her to find someone else to sharecrop her place. They should know they won’t get a share of anything.”

“We’ve got no place else to go.”

“We’ll start asking around. Look what you’ve done with this place, Niclas. And think how much you learned!”

“I didn’t earn any money.”

“Because Mrs. Miller isn’t any different than Robert Madson. You’re a hard worker, Niclas. I’ve watched how you manage a work crew. The men respect you. You listen to people. You take advice, from men, at least. And with all your engineer training, you’ve been able to fix Mrs. Miller’s farm equipment and get that well pump going. We’ll find a place of our own.”

“And how do I pay for it?”

“We pay for it with the money I made from the sale of the boardinghouse.”

Papa didn’t speak.

“Don’t look at me like that. I told you why I wasn’t willing to give it to you sooner. Madson took advantage of you. So has Mrs. Miller.” She gave a soft laugh. “Well, I’ve decided if anyone is going to take advantage of my husband, it’s going to be me.”

Hildemara lay in the dark, watching and listening, holding her breath until Papa spoke quietly.

“I could lose everything you saved.”

“Not if you listen to me. I’ve talked to a lot of people around town. I’ve spent time at the library. I’ve read the back newspapers. I had to be sure this is where we belong. God may talk to you, Niclas, but He hasn’t said anything to me. If I had my choice, you’d be an engineer again. We’d be living in Sacramento or San Francisco. I’d own a hotel with a restaurant! But you hated working for the railroad. If you went back to it, you’d eventually hate me, too.”

“Never.”

“My father took his misery out on everyone around him.”

“Maybe it’s just a dream.”

Mama’s voice softened. “I’ve had bigger dreams than you. And I haven’t given up on them yet. Why should you?” Her voice grew firmer. “But you’d better decide what you want right now. I can start packing tonight. We can go back to Sacramento. You can work for the railroad.”

Bernie stirred. “Are they fighting again?”

“Shhhh . . .” Hildemara chewed her fingernails.

“I’m not going back to work for the railroad, Marta. Not now. Not ever.”

“All right. Then while you finish out the contract here, we start looking around for land with a house. By this time next year, we can start working for ourselves.” When Papa didn’t answer, Mama raised her voice. “Can we do any worse than we are right now, living here? How many times have the children been sick during the cold months? And in the summer, we bake like bread in an oven. No matter how much I sweep, I can’t keep the place clean! And the flies! I’m lucky I didn’t die of infection when Rikka came.”

Papa walked away into the night.

Mama let out her breath harshly and sat in the green-willow chair Papa had made for her. Hands folded in her lap, she waited. Hildemara fell asleep and awakened to hear them talking again, more quietly this time.

“We’ll do as you suggest, Marta. I pray to God you won’t hate me if I lose all your money.”

“We won’t lose it. We’ll stand together and fight for it. We’ll do whatever we have to do to make a go of it.” She gave a faint laugh. “Think of it, Niclas. With a permanent address, I’ll be able to get a library card.”

Papa pulled her into his arms and kissed her. He dug his fingers into her hair and held her head back as he looked down at her. “Don’t let that fire go out, Marta. The world would be too cold for me to bear.” Leaning down, he said something in a low, husky voice. When he stepped away, he held out his hand. Mama hesitated, turning her head slightly as though listening for Rikka. Then she slipped her hand into Papa’s, and they headed out into the night.