| |
“YOU HAVE SUCH GOOD leadership qualities, Twila. The senior plague hit you hard, but at least basketball keeps you aboard.”
“Yeah.”
Mrs. Harmon brushed at a wayward hair. “Are you interested in teaching? I think home economics might suit you.”
“I’ve never been real good with kids.”
“Even little Lilly?”
“She’s an exception. And leaders have to have followers, don’t they?”
“Not always right away. Immature students perceive a natural leader as bossy and give them wide berth.”
“That describes what happened after Coach Jenkins enlisted—our team really fell apart. I did my best, but nobody listened.”
“But if you were the teacher, things would be different.”
The 1939 Lane Bryant catalog behind Mrs. Harmon’s desk announced a SALE for STOUT WOMEN and MISSES, and she noticed Twila glancing at it.
“My Dad always said a muscular build meant a strong woman.”
“But the boys have always called me a heavy Chevy.”
“Oh, pfft! What do they know? Don’t you think these women out doing men’s work need strength? This war has changed things for us in a good way, in my opinion?
“Audrey Wells has joined the WAACS. And I heard recently that Kate Isaacs went over to England on her own.”
“Isn’t her husband there?”
“He’s wounded, in some makeshift hospital in London. But knowing, Kate, she might’ve gone anyway. We always wondered what that girl would try next.
“The Register reported that another Iowa girl became a Women’s Air Force Service Pilot. Did you see the Life magazine story about them?”
“Rodney showed me, and said I’d be a good candidate. They even fly the new B-29 Superfortresses. But if you could’ve seen the look on my mom’s face when he mentioned me joining up...”
“She’s already sacrificing so much. But right here in Halberton, Glenora Carson does a man’s work in her brother’s absence.”
Mrs. Harmon scanned the deserted classroom. School let out for Christmas vacation today, but here she was, still working.
“A nurse from Cresco started working in airplanes years ago, and recruited other women. Before that, men assumed we lacked the constitution for flying, whatever that means.”
When she tossed her head, her double chins jiggled, and Twila stifled a laugh.
“But Ellen Church proved her worth and still flies with the troops today. Others operated front line telephones back then, but now anything goes. It’s a golden time for young women like you.”
“Did you want to serve in the Great War?”
“I was already teaching, and when my husband came back, we started our family.”
“Would you have become a teacher if you had a choice?”
“Goodness, yes—I love teaching. It’s my God-given talent to help others in my own unique way, like your mom up at the factory.” Mrs. Harmon rubbed her eraser. “Finding our niche may take time, but nothing fulfills us more.”
“Thanks, ma’am.” Twila picked up her books and headed out.
With only a few months of school left, the hallway seemed less confining. Beyond the principal’s office, the trophy case displayed last year’s basketball trophy—conference champs.
The glossy photograph of the team challenged her—during that season, she always found her place. Being a guard offered less glory than the forward’s position, but blocking shots and rebounding made all the difference for the team.
Her niche. But how to do that now?
Aware of incredible blue sky on this winter day, and her long wool coat brushing her calves, she set out for home. Minutes later, an a-oo-gah almost knocked her out of her saddle shoes. Lonnie, with another practical joke.
Satisfied he’d gotten a rise out of her, he idled his fancy ’39 Chevy’s engine. She’d stopped accepting rides from him last fall, but he still shadowed her.
She shifted her books to her hip, and like the power riding the electrical wires overhead, a question popped out of her mouth. “Why aren’t you in the service like everybody else?”
He sneered at her and revved the engine.
“Doesn’t your family have to ration gas?”
“None o’ your bizwacks.” He narrowed his eyes. “So, what’re you doin’ for the war?”
“My Dad’s a Great War veteran, but he volunteered again. If you had half his guts, you’d enlist.”
In a flurry of dust, Lonnie took off. Maybe his dad, a banker, had used his influence with the war board.
***
THE SNOW HAD MELTED enough this afternoon to create a pool of water where the sidewalk dipped, and by the time Mom got home, it would be a patch of ice. Twila grabbed a shovel from the shed and made a tunnel for the melt to flow down to the alley. In the dark, Mom could fall and break something.
Inside the house, she hung up her coat, and Great Grandma Brunner’s flecked hall mirror beckoned her. Same old rusty curls and standout freckles, but she paused long enough to pose her question.
“So what’s my talent?”
No answer, of course. Might as well start supper. A few scruffy spuds languished in the bin, a bit wizened by now. Why not surprise Mom for a change? Might be something in the fruit cellar.
Obsessed with preserving every food known to mankind, Mom spent every spare second in the garden. Canning season lasted through September, and they had enough stored away for years.
Green beans, carrots, peas, corn, and tomatoes—whole, diced, stewed, soup and juice—plus green tomato relish. Cucumber relish, corn relish, 40-gallon crocks of sauerkraut lined up like sentries along the wall, turnips and potatoes in burlap bags, and dried onions draped over thick crossbeam nails.
Mom accepted rationing the way she accepted everything else. She took each new announcement to heart and did her best with what they had.
But with more Hormel workers joining the armed forces and higher quotas passed down by the food production board, tensions escalated. A worker who rode the shuttle to work with her mentioned this at the café one day.
“Challenge after challenge all day long. I can’t imagine how your mother deals with it all.”
But Mom kept up with everything here, too—she deserved a good supper after another long day. Down the steep wooden steps, dank air rose, and cobwebs swayed like phantoms.
A mouse skittered across the floor, and the iron furnace, subdued until the last possible moment before the pipes froze every fall, crouched in a far corner. Any moment, it would belch forth a great groan, and heat would spew up to the kitchen through a giant metal pipe.
A stand of regal quart jars of corn brought inspiration. “Mom loves corn fritters—that’s what I’ll make. And maybe we’ll open some peach jam for syrup.”
But what was that down on that bottom shelf? Twila set the jar back to retrieve a cumbersome leather object. Back in the main room, in a swatch of light from a single high window, she perched on a rickety old chair.
Her fruitless search for information about Mom’s past had been cast aside, but she’d never thought to look in this small, cold room. Who would store memorabilia down in this dungeon?
And why should this thick old scrapbook catch her eye now, when she wasn’t even looking anymore? But here it was.
The mildew on the cover tickled her nose as the book fell open to a tattered playbill.
Earl Carrol Follies—January 26, 1917
TWENTY-SIX YEARS AGO. Mom would have been a teenager. The sketch beside the words showed a dancer with flaming auburn hair.
Mesmerized, Twila gawked in wonder. Finally, her breathless utterance broke into the basement gloom. “Mom.”
The broken whisper crackled in the musty air. The young contortionist’s limbs threaded her neck and abdomen in intricate twists, but a coffee-colored birthmark on her neck said more than the brittle black letters spelling out M y r a F o w l e r.
Mom’s birthmark always had intrigued her, and at bedtime, she used to trace it with her finger. Her teeth tingled as two yellowed tickets floated onto the floor.
Snitches of past conversations suddenly made sense.
“People eye me askance, anyway.”
“Aw, come on, Myra. You’ve surely proven yourself by now.”
After Grandma Fowler’s funeral, Pastor Jerrod said the prayer group would remember her, and out of earshot, Mom muttered, “Gossip about me is more like it. ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you, cry and you cry alone.’”
The old playbill cited Dallas, Texas. Had Mom joined this traveling troupe against Grandma Fowler’s wishes—run away with them?
A sound from the back porch alerted Twila that supper wouldn’t cook itself, so she set the book back on its shelf. A yellowed photograph floated out—two bright-eyed look-alikes—Aunt Margaret and Mom.
Reinserting the photo, she grabbed the corn and climbed the creaky stairs. This time, she didn’t hurry at the thought of some bugaboo chasing her. She had just opened the bugaboo and looked right into its eyes.
***
STAN STUMBLED ON A root and gave up the struggle—why not crawl? Steady rustling behind him heightened his sense of responsibility. Somehow, he’d become the leader.
It was crazy, three of them against hundreds of Japanese, but he refused any naysaying. One day’s trek higher into the interior —that was the goal. Just one day, and after that, one day more.
Against all odds, he and Captain Burgmeier had aimed for the mainland in a rubber raft they found hidden along the shore last spring. Two-thirds of the distance to Bataan, enemy fire found them.
Diving under water, they made for the shoreline and scrambled up as continuing sprays of gunfire evidenced other escapees. Taking cover in towering, centuries-old jungle, they kept moving higher. So far, so good—they might have died in the raft.
Three days in, they had come across Carlos. That, too, had been fortuitous—three of them still alive. Going over the details of escape heartened him. They’d come this far—they could make it farther.
Back in those early days, a low whistle behind him signaled something amiss, and he had paused to consider next move. If only he knew how many soldiers had made it across the bay—and where they were right now.
One thing was certain: they could count on the Filipino guerillas hidden in the jungle. They hated the Japanese for heinous crimes against civilians—hated them more than the Americans did, most likely.
One mission filled his consciousness. trio must locate some guerilla fighters in order to hit the enemy and gather intelligence.
A pungent odor wafted—this must be why Cap had halted. After a few tense minutes, animal grunts revealed the source; wild pigs.
Ruing the demise of his compass in forced swim, Stan waved the others on. He had no intention of stopping until they found some Filipinos who knew what they were doing.
Yes, months had passed since those tentative times. Now they had joined a Filipino band that knew the terrain and could sniff out the enemy. But rehearsing the beginning of long journey still brought comfort and hope—they’d been at large, unarmed in this wilderness, and alone.
But they’d found a certain amount of safety—right under the Japs’ noses.
