HOW OLD MUST YOU BE before you learn to hide yourself completely and thus protect yourself? When Mrs. Gross stated that she was going to ask Mr. Willard personally if Marcia couldn’t share David’s French lessons next fall, Marcia was bursting to say, “But I won’t be here this fall. I’ll be working some place far off, because the first chance I get I’m going to run away.” But she dared not even trust Mrs. Gross. Mrs. Gross might say that nice children didn’t run away, and think how it would hurt her parents’ feelings; then Marcia might blurt out something about Her and being whipped and all the things that no one should know or they would feel sorry for her, and the worst thing that could happen to anybody was public pity. Mrs. Gross was likely to report her plan to Papa “for the best,” and Grandma might tell “for the best,” too. Either people spoiled your plans because they were downright mean or because they meant it “for the best.” When Marcia felt her secret unbearably near her lips, she started talking giddily about a riddle, a book she had read, or something that happened a long time ago. Her stepmother declared she never heard so much nonsense in all her life, and there wasn’t a truthful bone in Marcia’s whole body. Marcia did not shake inside with rage at this the way she used to do, because she had ten dollars pinned in a sachet bag to her undershirt, and ten dollars was better than the Holy Bible to make you feel calm and safe from wounds. She woke up often in the night with a shock of fear, remembering that she was going to do something tremendous, something was going to happen to her, to her alone, not to Florrie and Lena. This wasn’t pretend either. It was as if she was bewitched by that other person inside her making her do something instead of pretending. She didn’t know how or when she was going to do this, but every day seemed the last. Every moment sharpened her sensations. This is the last time I will pass the burned Holy Roller Church, she would think every day; this is the last time I’ll wait by the Gross barn for the wind to shake down crab apples; this is the last time I’ll start numbing myself coming in the back door in case She’s laying for me with a switch or scolding; this is the last time I’ll walk past Mary Evelyn’s front porch hoping she and Lena will wave and ask me to come and play with them. It was funny knowing you were gone, but not knowing where, and having other people treat you as if you were still present. It was funny having that other person inside you, strong and invincible like Lena, when outside you were resigned to whatever came up. The very wind, heady with dying lilacs and the constant smell of train smoke, apples rotting in roadside ditches, the heavy sweetness of preserve kettles boiling over in hot kitchens bore a solemn warning to Marcia that this is the last summer, this is the last time, the very last. She saw each familiar face and spot with the desperate clarity of farewell and this time she knew it was not pretending. She tried to remember when she found out pretending was no good. Was it when she gave up waiting for Aunt Lois or Grandma or Cousin Isobel to come rescue them, or was it the day she met the Putneys and discovered that reality could be as good or better than pretending?
She knew the day had almost come when the newspaper told the details of the new school and set Papa to raging. It seemed that the town fathers had decided to charge tuition in the new high school. Papa stormed about this at supper time, declaring that between Lena’s and Marcia’s fees he’d go bankrupt. He said the best people in the Junction had gotten along without any new expensive schools (gymnasiums, domestic science and manual training departments, business courses, and all those newfangled ideas), and he guessed his daughters could do the same.
“You mean we have to quit school?” Lena asked, eyes wide. Bad girls and poor children who had to work in the mills quit school. “If we don’t go everybody will think it’s because we’re too poor to pay the tuition. All the other girls are ordering gym suits and domestic science aprons from the Fair Store already. Oh, Papa, we just have to go.”
“Aprons! Gym suits! I never heard the like,” gasped Mrs. Willard, eyes darting from one to the other and resting sympathetically on Papa. “Harry, I do think you ought to get up at the chamber of commerce meeting and give them a piece of your mind! The way youngsters now are pampered; why, I never in all my life! And what good are they at the end? A lot of good-for-nothings that expect you to do and do for them the rest of their life! The house needs painting, we have to make a payment on the car before they’ll deliver it, there’s our lodge dues, and our vacation expenses next month at Silver Lake, and the new washer; but, oh, no, we have to take our last penny to buy school trash for the girls!”
“But everybody in town is doing it,” wailed Lena.
Marcia looked stonily into space.
“Lena’s so full of boys and dates behind the schoolhouse—oh, yes, don’t think I don’t hear all about it!—and Marcia’s so full of crazy ideas she moons around like a lunatic, don’t know anybody’s talking to her half the time. No siree, Harry Willard, you don’t need to ask me for my money, and I won’t have you taking the household money either. No siree. They’re not my flesh and blood. Let them go to their Aunt Lois or their grandmother or some of those relations they’re always telling about. When it comes to laying out any more money I wash my hands.”
As this outburst said all and more than Papa had in his mind, there was nothing left for him but to glower at his plate.
“What’s the good of us getting high honors if we can’t go to the new high school?” Lena inquired. “Our own mother wouldn’t want us to quit school. I’ll bet we don’t get allowed to ride in the automobile when we do get one. I’ll bet only Minelda gets allowed in it.”
Minelda’s mother’s bony hand flashed across Lena’s cheek in a smart slap which brought Lena to her feet, scarlet with indignation.
“I won’t stand it! I’ll go away and never come back, never! I’ll tell Aunt Lois, I’ll tell everybody!” She ran out of the kitchen door, giving it a good bang. Papa got up and walked slowly toward the door, not looking at his wife. She sat gnawing her fingernails nervously. Florrie got up and went over to Papa, slipping her hand in his. Minelda screwed up her little white face into crying position and made whimpering demands to go bye-bye. Marcia could see Lena running down the street toward Mary Evelyn’s or maybe Grandma’s. Now Lena would be the one to run away, and that meant she’d have to stay, at least for a while. Lena always got first chance at everything.
“Goodness only knows what stories she’s started telling this very minute,” muttered Mrs. Willard. “I won’t dare lift my head by the time she’s started her lies.”
Marcia thought Lena wouldn’t tell though, because Lena didn’t want the town feeling sorry for them any more than Marcia did. With a sudden sinking feeling she remembered that Lena had borrowed her five-dollar goldpiece that afternoon to show Myrtle Chase. Now Lena would keep it. She’d run away with it, and it was just like her, Marcia thought with rising wrath. She had even guessed that Marcia was planning to run away with it, but Marcia wouldn’t confess it when she challenged her. So now Lena would run away with it. You couldn’t trust anybody. Well, she would show her soon enough that two could run away as well as one.
“Never fear, she’ll be back, Harry,” said Mrs. Willard. “Come and finish your supper.”
Papa sat down and nobody said anything. Marcia hoped he would mention the rice being burned and the bread being mildewed, but he didn’t seem to notice, or if he did his wife’s bad cooking was by this time no cause for comment. Suddenly Florrie began to sob softly.
“I hope Lena won’t get killed like Grandpa Willard,” she moaned. “Can’t you do something, Papa?”
But Papa only took out a cigar and smoked morosely, never looking up to meet his wife’s watchful eyes. At dark he went out. Marcia and Florrie went upstairs whispering, and watched the front window for his return.
“Maybe she ran away to California to Aunt Lois,” said Florrie. “Do you think maybe she’s gone to live with Mary Evelyn? Maybe Grandma will let her stay with her.”
When Papa came home they heard him haranguing his wife in the bedroom, and in the midst of this they thought they heard something about Mary Evelyn’s mother saying Lena was spending the night there. Mary Evelyn’s mother had had the nerve to tell Papa he would have to do something about the way his children were neglected, especially Lena, before she, Mrs. Stewart, would even advise the child to go home. Papa was pretty mad at Mrs. Stewart, who he said had always had her nose in everybody’s business from way back, but he was mad at his wife too. The girls could hear her protesting, “But, Harry—” and finally Papa shouted, “Goddamn it, why can’t you cook rice without burning it? I don’t ask for any Hotel Astor cooking; all I ask is a little rice that’s not burned once in a while.”
Florrie was desperately worried about Lena, but Marcia’s concern was for her five-dollar goldpiece and the way Lena always got there first, and the way Lena never got reality and pretending mixed up, but went straight out and did things. She and Florrie could hardly sleep for the fear that Lena would never come back and they would never see her again. Now she was out in the world maybe, like the honest Irish lad or poor little Joe. Marcia thought of the time their hearts had been wrung with woe over these sad songs; maybe it wasn’t the songs but the dim knowledge that the same fate was waiting in the future for themselves.
The next day Lena did not come back and Papa said he was not going to give Mrs. Stewart the satisfaction of asking her where his daughter had gone. At noon he came home early to see if there was any word from Lena, but there wasn’t. Mrs. Willard buzzed around him uneasily, telling him that Lena had been getting out of hand lately anyway, and was up to plenty of mischief that Papa didn’t know about. She said many was the time she had spotted Lena and a girlfriend walking down dark streets with boys on evenings Lena was supposed to be at Epworth League meetings or doing her homework with Mary Evelyn. She said that her brother Vance had told her that everybody in town knew Lena left her home looking one way, the way a girl should, but as soon as she got to Mary Evelyn’s she put paint on her face and did her hair up and put on high-heeled slippers. She never intended to mention this to him, since he wouldn’t ever listen to any criticism of his children, but did Papa know that Lena had been buying clothes and charging them to him at the Fair Store? Just ask Mrs. Stewart that, if you please, and see what she had to say. Maybe it was just as well the young lady had cleared out when she did. Maybe she had reasons of her own, but had aggravated people on purpose so as to put the blame on them. If Papa wanted to find out the sort of goings-on Lena had been up to this last year, just take a look at her diary, the one she had stolen out of the parlor bookcase and kept hidden — or rather thought she kept hidden—in the pocket of her winter coat. Papa listened to this without comment, scowling into space. Marcia and Florrie were surprised at the cleverness of their older sister as they heard this report; Marcia felt hurt that she hadn’t been allowed to share all this intrigue and that Lena had shut her off utterly again. She hastily went upstairs to get Lena’s diary, but Papa came up for it before she was through.
The entries in Lena’s diary, written in purple ink, were not too revealing of her criminal tendencies. They went along pretty much in a monotone: “May 9—From this date on I am going to keep a record of everything that happens to me. May 10—Nothing doing. May 11—Ditto. May 12—Nothing doing. May 13—Ditto. May 14—Cora Bird’s party. Not invited. May 15—Nothing doing. May 16—Circus. Not allowed to go. May 17—Nothing doing. May 18—B. G. walked home from meeting with me. May 19—B. G. and L. F. came to Myrtle’s house. May 2—Had fight with B. G. May 21—Nothing doing. May 22—Ditto. May 23—Made fudge at Mary Evelyn’s. We raised Cain. May 24—N. D. May 25—Ditto. May 26—Made up with B. G. May 27—Meeting of U-No-Us-Kids at Myrtle C’s. We raised Cain. Pinocchio. We made a rule to keep diaries all our life, so we can show our children. May 28—Nothing doing.” There was never any mention of anyone in the family, Lena’s private life deliberately excluding these necessary evils. Papa stood in the bedroom doorway frowning over the little book, then tossing it on the dresser.
“Where’d she get this book?” he asked.
“We both got them from Cousin Isobel for Christmas but She—I mean Mother—locked them up and wouldn’t let us write in them,” Marcia said. “I guess Lena took hers out anyway.”
“Where’s your Aunt Lois now?” Papa asked.
“She’s coming home pretty soon, I guess,” Marcia said.
When night came there was still no word of Lena. Papa didn’t come home for supper, but went to Grandma’s and called at the Fair Store, where Mrs. Stewart gave him a suit box.
“You can give these old rags to Mrs. Willard,” she said. “They’re the clothes she had Lena wearing while she herself went around in all her finery. I fixed up Lena to look decent just like I would my own Mary Evelyn, and you can tell your wife I said so. You’ll get the bill, never mind.”
Papa was in such a rage that he vowed if Lena came home he wouldn’t let her in the door, making him the laughingstock of the town. This scandal was as much as his job was worth, he said. His wife was openly pleased to find him in this frame of mind, and told Florrie that her cot was going up in the attic because from now on she would sleep with Marcia. It was as if Lena was gone forever.