It was just after David started school again in January that J-P thought of a way he might be able to help his young friend get to Seattle. But Mrs. Freedman hadn’t heard anything yet from anyone she’d written to, and J-P couldn’t think of anything David could actually do to find his uncle if he got there. So he didn’t say anything for a while. But then, at the end of January, Mrs. Freedman finally got a letter from someone in Seattle. The man who had written her hadn’t been able to locate anyone named Danny Embury, but the news wasn’t entirely bad.
“Far from it,” Mrs. Freedman said. “In fact, I’d say we’ve gotten some very promising clues.”
“What kind of clues?” David asked.
“Well, it seems there are several families in Seattle your Uncle Danny could be related to. We’ve been spelling his name E-M-B-U-R-Y, but that isn’t necessarily correct, is it?”
David realized that was true. He’d never actually seen the name written down. He’d only heard his mother say it.
“We haven’t found a Danny Embury, but there are five families in Seattle named Embree and two named Embery. He could be part of one of those families. There’s even someone named Irving Embury who might be a relative. The man who wrote back from The Jewish Voice — it’s the Jewish newspaper there — will try to find their addresses and then he’ll send them to me. Once we’ve got them, I can start writing letters to those people and we’ll see if any of them can tell us something about your uncle.”
When David told J-P the news, J-P realized there was now something David could actually do if he got to Seattle. He could find these people and talk to them himself. It was time to tell David what he’d been thinking.
The Stanley Cup final was going to be in the west this year, and if the Canadiens won the NHL title, they’d be the ones facing the championship team from the PCHA. There was no guarantee that team would be Seattle, but there were only three teams in that league, too, and Seattle was always a top contender. A job with a tailor or in a clothing store would probably make more sense for David in the long run, but there was plenty of time for that later. Right now a job mending uniforms for the Canadiens might help him find his uncle.
“Remember when I told you my bruder used to wrestle for Mr. Kennedy?” J-P asked David. “Well, he doesn’t know me at all, but I’m sure as a favour to Jacques he’d meet with me.”
“About what?”
“About you. Maybe if I talk to him and explain, he’d give you a job. Dere must be someone who has to sew up da holes players get in their uniforms.”
“Do you really think he’ll hire me?”
“I don’t know. But I do know one thing. He’ll probably see me because he liked my bruder, and he might even agree to meet with you, but dere’s no way he’ll give you a job just because of Jacques. Mr. Kennedy never does anything unless it makes sense … Dollars and cents. So you’ll have to show him you can do da job … if dere’s even a job to do.”
J-P shook his head. “I wish I made you help Mrs. Wolfe after you fixed my coat. Then you could’ve been sewing all this time. But dere’s nothing we can do about that. You’ll just have to start now … even if da other boys pick on you for it.”
David and J-P spoke to Mrs. Freedman about their plan. They showed her how well he’d fixed J-P’s coat, and she agreed that if David was going to quit school to start working in the fall, anyway, he might as well begin working now if J-P could get him this job. Privately, she never thought it would happen, but she also didn’t see any harm in trying.
“You should keep going to school for now,” she told David, “but if you think it’ll help you to assist Mrs. Wolfe with the sewing, I’m sure she’d be glad to have you lend a hand.”
So every day after school for the next few weeks, David helped Mrs. Wolfe whenever there was sewing to do. Some of the boys thought it was strange, but no one ever bothered to make any trouble. Boys and girls all had to do the dishes after dinner and take turns sweeping the floors in their dorms. No one really cared who did what as long as everything got taken care of.
With only three teams in the NHL, the regular season was just eighteen games long. It lasted only two months and was over by the middle of February. Two teams made the playoffs, and their series started one week later.
The Canadiens went on a hot streak in January, and they clinched a playoff spot before the end of the month. Although the Habs slumped subsequently, J-P paid Mr. Kennedy a visit after the team played its final game on February 15. Mr. Kennedy made no promises, but he agreed to meet with David at the Canadiens’ practice on Friday before the playoffs started on Saturday, February 22.
The Canadiens always held their workouts at noon, so David had to skip school to attend the practice. He was going to drop out soon enough, anyway, so what did it matter?
J-P had to be at the Home to assist with lunch, so David had to go to the rink alone. He caught the streetcar at Saint Lawrence at ten o’clock to make extra sure he wouldn’t be late. He arrived at Jubilee Rink shortly before eleven. The door was open, so he went inside.
There was no lobby inside the rink as there had been at Westmount Arena. Instead the doors opened right into the playing area. David stood just inside the door. He was pretty much in the exact same place where he and J-P had stood to watch the game. There were no players on the ice yet, but there were a couple of workmen. They were patching up a couple of ruts with a bucket of snow and a pail of water.
After a little while, David heard the door open behind him.
“Excusez-moi,” a man said as he walked past David.
David looked over. He recognized the man right away. It was Georges Vézina!
During the next few minutes, the rest of the players arrived, too. All these men he’d read about in the newspapers and seen pictures of were walking right past him! They were close enough that he could say hello … if he hadn’t felt too nervous to do it! Most of them hurried by to get to the dressing room. Newsy Lalonde actually smiled at David as he walked by. He seemed much smaller in real life than David had expected. Joe Hall, too. They were both much smaller than Didier Pitre.
David was beginning to wonder if Mr. Kennedy was really going to be there when all of a sudden a pack of men entered the rink. David had seen pictures of Mr. Kennedy in the newspaper and picked him out immediately. As a former wrester himself, Mr. Kennedy was much larger than most of his hockey players. Of course, the expensive fur-and-leather winter coat he was wearing made his big body seem even bulkier than it was. He also had a wide moon face that seemed much rounder under the bowler hat he wore.
Mr. Kennedy spotted David as he came inside and realized who he must be. “Give me a minute, will ya, boys?” David heard him say to the reporters around him. “I gotta take care of something first. I’ll meet you by the bench in a couple of minutes and we’ll talk.”
The men made their way around the rink, and Mr. Kennedy motioned for David to come over. “You’re the kid Jean-Patrice talked to me about, right? Danny or David, or something?”
“David, sir. David Saifert.”
“Have a seat, kid. Might as well get a good one. The team will be out on the ice pretty soon. You can watch them practise for a bit.”
David Saifert followed Mr. Kennedy around the ice surface and sat behind the bench where he’d indicated.
“J-P tells me you’re a whiz with a needle and thread,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I’ll bring you a sweater in a few minutes and we’ll see what you can do. But first I have to speak to the gentlemen of the press.” Mr. Kennedy looked over at the group of newspapermen waiting for him. Then he looked back at David and winked. “Gotta give ’em something to write about.”
“What do you think, George?” David heard one of the newsmen ask Mr. Kennedy. “Ottawa’s had your number lately. Can the Canadiens turn it around?”
“Can and will, boys,” Mr. Kennedy said confidently. “We wrapped up a playoff spot early. There hasn’t been anything for the team to play for lately. Now there is.”
One of the reporters didn’t seem convinced. “It can’t be as simple as that, George. You’ve only had one win against Ottawa the last four times you’ve played them. The Senators whipped you 7–0 just last week. Now you’ve got to beat them four times in seven games. You really think the team can turn it around just like that?”
Mr. Kennedy smiled. “Can and will, boys. Ottawa’s got a good team — don’t get me wrong — but ours is better. We’ll beat them, and I’ll tell you what. We’ll go out west and we’ll beat whichever team we have to face there, too. We’ll bring the Stanley Cup back to Montreal this year, boys. Just watch.” He waved his arms toward the ice surface. As if on cue, Newsy Lalonde led his teammates out and began putting them through their paces.
David had never seen NHL players perform when the arena was empty. It was a lot different without the roar of the crowd. David could actually hear the sounds as their skate blades cut into the ice. Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Tingles went up and down his spine. David was always amazed at how fast the players moved. The Canadiens weren’t called “The Flying Frenchmen” for nothing, and few men in all of hockey were as speedy as Lalonde.
He watched Lalonde dash up the ice and close in on an unsuspecting player. When Lalonde was right behind the man, he lifted the player’s stick and stole the puck. Then he shifted his weight so quickly that it looked as if he’d fall over. Instead, he spun gracefully and raced off in the opposite direction.
As David watched Newsy flip a soft shot at Georges Vézina — there was no point in wearing out the team’s only goalie in practice! — Mr. Kennedy returned with the damaged sweater. “Joe Hall’s,” he said.
David’s face went blank.
“Don’t worry, kid. We’ve washed all the blood out.” Mr. Kennedy chuckled as he tossed the sweater into David’s lap.
Was he joking? David picked up the sweater and studied it. If there had been blood on the sweater, it wasn’t there now.
“There’s a tear in the left shoulder,” Mr. Kennedy told him.
David spotted it. He could fix that easily.
“Follow me, kid. You can’t sew properly sitting here in the stands. Your hands will freeze. There’s a maintenance room around back with a stove to keep it warm.”
David smiled when he saw it was the maintenance room he and J-P had climbed into that night. Even the stepladder was sitting in the same place against the wall. David hoped that was a sign his luck would be good again. Or was it an omen that he was going to be punished because he’d done something bad by sneaking in without paying?
He sat on the stool in front of the workbench and took out his sewing kit.
“There should be some of the proper red thread in the top drawer,” Mr. Kennedy said.
David opened the drawer and pulled out a spool.
“Okay, kid, go to it. That’s why you’re here. I’ll be back in a little while to see how you’ve done.”
After Mr. Kennedy left him to do his work, David looked more carefully at the tear in Hall’s sweater. It was really more of a hole than a tear. The simplest thing to do would be to stitch the hole closed, but that would make the fabric pucker a bit. It wouldn’t be nice and smooth anymore. David knew it would be better to use a darning stitch. Darning was a process of weaving over a worn-out portion.
David pushed his needle into the sweater a little above the hole and began working down. He was careful to weave over and under the proper threads in the sweater. Then he pulled the thread in his needle across the space of the hole and back into the sweater again on the other side. He carried his weave a little beyond the other end of the hole, then turned and worked his way upward, careful to pass under the threads he’d worked over while coming down and over the threads he’d worked under!
He went back and forth across the hole in that up-and-down fashion until he’d covered the entire thing. But he wasn’t done yet. Next he turned the sweater sideways and worked the same series of stitches back and forth across the patch he’d made until he did a complete weave over the hole. It took a lot longer to do it like that, but when he was finished the hole had been filled in perfectly.
Mr. Kennedy returned to the maintenance room just as David was wrapping up. Another man was with him.
“Well, let’s see it,” Mr. Kennedy said. David handed him the sweater, and the owner-manager inspected it carefully. He nodded. “Looks good. Real good. What do you think, Al?”
Mr. Kennedy passed the sweater over to the man who had come in with him. Al gave David a hard look, but when he checked the sweater he also nodded. “It is good. Better than I could do.”
David smiled.
“But he’s kinda scrawny,” Al added.
Mr. Kennedy grinned. “What he means, kid, is that it’s a lot of hard work if we hire you. There’s no job just sewing. In fact, the players usually take care of any problems with their sweaters and socks themselves. Or their wives do, anyway.”
David’s face clouded.
“Then again, if we do go out west, we’ll be on the road for almost a month and it would be nice to have someone who can keep the uniforms looking nice for the Stanley Cup playoff. But we still have to know you can do the whole job. So I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you come down here tomorrow before the game? Get here by five o’clock, and Al will put you to work. Then we’ll know if you’re any good.”
“I’ll do whatever you tell me. I can do the work. You’ll see!” David was so excited he could hardly wait to tell J-P the news.
“But listen, kid, I know you heard me boasting to those reporters out there about how we’ll beat Ottawa. Truth is, though, I’m worried. The Senators have been playing much better than us down the stretch, and they may well beat us. Your friend Jean-Patrice told me why you want to go to Seattle so badly, but we might not get the chance. We might not win. And even if we do — and even if you prove you can do the job — there’s still no guarantee we’ll take you with us. It’ll mostly depend on the deals we can make with the railways and the hotels. We’re not going to take any more people on this western trip than we can afford. You understand me?”