Days passed, while our family settled into a new routine. I’d hear Mama getting up in the night and tiptoeing down the stairs to the kitchen to warm a bottle of Mary Ellen’s milk. From the first, Mary Ellen hadn’t wanted to nurse the baby. She turned her head away and cried when Mama tried to help her get the baby to suckle.
“Mary Ellen, you have to try,” Mama said. “The baby needs to eat.”
But Mary Ellen only cried harder. “I can’t,” she whimpered. “I don’t want to. It hurts.”
I could tell Mama was exasperated by her sharp tone and the way she raised her voice when she spoke next. “Then you shouldn’t have gotten yourself in this fix in the first place,” she scolded.
I felt sort of sorry for Mary Ellen, but on the other hand, Mama was right. She’d let herself get into this predicament by going off with whoever it was, and now she should be thinking about the baby and not just herself.
But in the end, Mary Ellen won out. Mama helped her do something they called “expressing the milk,” though they wouldn’t let me watch. As if I had never seen Mary Ellen naked and didn’t know what breasts looked like, including my own. But then Mary Ellen’s milk dried up. Mama had had to give the baby some cow’s milk, diluted with a little water and a bit of sugar added. Baby Grace didn’t seem to notice the difference and sucked it down happily.
The first time Mama appeared in church, carrying the baby, people crowded around with congratulations. I suspected that Mama was nervous about facing so many of our friends and neighbors. She had been cross with all of us that morning, including Papa, snapping at us to hurry, while she herself changed her dress several times and was the last one to be ready.
When we made our way to our pew, Mama acted flustered, reaching up to secure the hatpin holding her hat, smoothing her skirt, then pulling Grace’s blanket tighter, anything to avoid meeting peoples’ eyes. I couldn’t help wondering what those around us were whispering behind our backs, but no one said anything directly. Uncle Bert and Aunt Fanny and Sam had already spread the word that there was another daughter in the Tilton family, and that it had been a bit of a surprise even to Mama, who hadn’t suspected she was that far along. Loyal-hearted Lena had backed them up.
Rose and I both loved feeding the baby and rocking her by the kitchen window, but Mary Ellen ignored her. She was slow to regain her strength and spent a lot of time lying on the couch and staring out the window. It was as though she had forgotten that the baby was hers. When I asked her one day if she minded that Grace was more Mama’s baby than hers, she looked at me blankly and said, “Why would I?”
It seemed very strange that Mary Ellen hadn’t even been interested in picking out a name. If I had a baby, I wouldn’t let anyone else decide on an important thing like that. But Mary Ellen refused to even discuss it, and had let Mama choose. I thought we should name the baby Rebecca, like Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. She didn’t end up very well, but I liked that she had a lot of gumption. Mama chose Grace instead, after Papa’s younger sister.
“It will please your Papa,” she said. “And it might help Aunt Grace—”
Mama’s voice stopped abruptly, but I didn’t pay much attention. I was thinking how glad I was that Mama wanted to do something nice for Papa. She was so sharp with him sometimes, but then she’d turn around and do some little thing to please him, like surprise him with a strawberry rhubarb pie, or fetch him a footstool when he came in tired at night and sank into his favorite chair.
Papa’s sister, Aunt Grace, lived in town with Uncle Tony, who worked at the bank. Their home was large, surrounded by green lawns and Aunt Grace’s rose gardens, but I always felt uncomfortable on our visits there. The parlor was furnished with heavy dark chairs, brocaded sofas, and fancy carpets that covered the polished wood floors. Tasseled drapes at the windows shut out the light. The house lacked the warm cheerfulness of the farmhouse at home, and I was always glad to leave.
Mary Ellen, though, welcomed the chance to spend a few days with Aunt Grace whenever Mama could spare her. She liked the social life in River Heights, going to luncheons and teas with Aunt Grace, and being waited on at dinner by Betty, the hired girl, instead of having to help in the kitchen. Aunt Grace had taught Mary Ellen a way of painting on velvet, and Mary Ellen was quite content to sit and paint endless vases of flowers on squares of black velvet. I couldn’t think of anything more boring. Sitting like that for hours would have driven me mad.
* * * *
Aunt Grace and Uncle Tony came to Cedar Crossing for the christening when the baby was two weeks old, “So this is Grace, my little namesake,” Aunt Grace said, standing beside the baby’s cradle. Her voice sounded flat and her smile was stiff.
“Would you like to hold her?” Mama asked.
Aunt Grace stepped back quickly. “No, thank you, Ellen. She looks quite content where she is.”
“Suit yourself,”, Mama said. “But she’s very good with people. She’s used to all of us handing her around. I get a lot of help from her big sisters.”
I thought Mama gave Mary Ellen some kind of a look, but it disappeared so quickly I wasn’t sure. Mary Ellen was paying no attention. She sat twirling one of her blond curls on her finger. I wondered what she was thinking, or if she was thinking at all. These days she often had that blank look and sometimes didn’t answer when people spoke to her. Just the day before, I’d gotten fed up with the way she was acting, and I’d given her shoulder a little shake. “Come on, Mary Ellen,” I said. “Snap out of it, for Heaven’s sake! I just asked you a question.”
But she pushed me away and went on staring out the window.
Mama and Papa had gone to River Heights a few days before and came home with some papers that Mama locked in a desk drawer. When I asked if the baby was now adopted, Mama nodded yes. Then she said, “It’s over and done with and we don’t need to discuss it again.”
“But Mama, who is the baby’s father?”
Mama’s mouth got that tight look again. “That’s neither here nor there. She’s ours, and that’s what matters. No more questions now. Come help me hang out the sheets on the line.”
I followed my mother outside, annoyed that she wouldn’t tell me, and still feeling sure that it must have been Russ.
* * * *
The christening was held in the little white church at the crossroads, during the regular Sunday service. Bars of sunlight shimmered through the stained glass window above the pulpit, setting millions of dust mites dancing in shades of red and gold and blue. The familiar smell of warm varnished wood and old books rose from the pews and the hymnals. Aunt Grace and Uncle Tony sat in the pew with the rest of the family and stood up with Mama and Papa as godparents when it was time for the christening. I sneaked a look at Mary Ellen, but she was staring straight ahead, her face expressionless. Aunt Grace allowed Mama to place the baby in her arms while Reverend Whitby named her, but handed her back quickly when some milk bubbled out of the baby’s tiny mouth and onto Aunt Grace’s blue dress.
About halfway through the service. I thought I felt someone’s eyes on me. I glanced across the aisle and saw a boy staring at me. The minute our eyes met, he looked away, a faint flush creeping over his face. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t think who he was. Tall, thin, with bristly blond hair, he looked as though he spent a lot of time outdoors. I wondered why he was looking at me. Boys didn’t usually notice me when Mary Ellen was around.
I turned my attention back to Reverend Whitby’s sermon, and when the service finally ended I followed my family out the door. The boy was leaning against the churchyard fence, waiting for me. “Hello, Anna,” he said.
I blinked in surprise, squinting in the bright sunlight.
“You don’t remember me, do you? I’m Mark. Mark McKelvey—remember?”
“Mark! Of course I remember! I didn’t recognize you at first. You look so different. You’re so tall.”
Mark had been one year ahead of me at the Cedar Crossing one-room school. The teacher had us study together, especially for reading, something we were both good at, and something we both loved. When I was in third grade and Mark in fourth, he also had us spend part of each morning tutoring the five-and-six-year olds in learning to read. By then Mark and I had become friends, even outside of school, when we found that we both also loved climbing the tallest trees in the woods, catching tadpoles in the creek, or wading there on hot summer days.
Mark’s mother had died when he was ten, and his father sold their farm and went to live with his sister in Pennsylvania, taking Mark with him. I didn’t realize how much I would miss him until he was gone and I had no one to share lessons with, or anything else. Since then, Mary Ellen had been my best friend, except when she was with Lena. The two of them would start talking about hairdos and clothes and parties and boys, and I’d lose interest and go off on my own.
“You’re taller too,” Mark said now. “But you haven’t changed that much.” He grinned. “I knew you right away.”
“But, Mark, what are you doing here? Have you moved back to Cedar Crossing?”
“No, I’m spending the rest of the summer with Jim Pierce, helping out on the farm. His hired man broke his leg last week.”
“Yes, I heard.” I saw out of the corner of my eye that my family was getting into the carriage. ”I have to go, Mark. Maybe I’ll see you at church next Sunday.”
“Probably will. Mr. Pierce likes me to come with him, so I do.”
On the carriage ride home, I thought about all the times Mark and I had spent together. After we‘d gotten to know each other better, he’d told me how worried he was about his mother. She was sick a lot, and Dr. Simpson didn’t seem able to help her. No matter how sick she was, though, she always encouraged Mark to try his hardest in school. He rewarded her by getting the best grades of any of us. Even then, he knew he wanted to become a teacher some day.
I remembered wishing I could become one too, and do something interesting, instead of spending my life with the endless chores on the farm.
* * * *
Uncle Tony and Aunt Grace stayed after church for Sunday dinner. Mama had set the table in the dining room instead of the kitchen, and had baked a ham from one of the pigs. Mary Ellen and I peeled and cooked the potatoes and turnips that Mama always mashed together—in my opinion, a terrible thing to do to perfectly good potatoes. There were beans from the garden, and a platter of fresh sliced tomatoes. I ate ravenously, but Mary Ellen picked at her food as usual. Probably worried about getting her figure back.
Uncle Tony ate heartily but Aunt Grace helped herself to tiny portions when the bowls of food were passed around. She was particular about her appearance, her blond hair never out of place, her clothes the latest fashion, her body corseted to perfection. Today she was wearing a blue silk dress and a sapphire pendant that matched her earrings. She had taken off her white gloves and the wide-brimmed straw hat trimmed with blue roses that she’d worn in church. During dinner she chatted with Papa about mutual acquaintances in town. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but several times I heard Papa laugh. At the end of the meal, Aunt Grace offered to help clean up, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it.
“The girls can do it. Let’s you and I go sit in the parlor and visit till the baby wakes up.”
Papa excused himself to go to the barn and check on Dolly, who he thought had been limping a little on the way back from church. When we finished washing up, Mary Ellen joined Mama and Aunt Grace in the parlor. Rose ran outside and jumped on the swing, and I followed her out of the hot kitchen. Uncle Tony was sitting on the back step, smoking his pipe.
I liked Uncle Tony. I felt much more comfortable with him than I did with Aunt Grace. I was a little in awe of her. She always looked so perfect and so in charge, with a manner that took for granted that people would do as she said. Usually, they did.
I sat down by Uncle Tony. “It feels good to be outside,” I said.
He nodded and grunted his agreement. I drew in a deep breath, inhaling the summer scent of fresh mown hay from the nearby field.
“I love the outdoors,” I said. “Women have to spend so much of their time inside, doing housework. That’s the trouble with being a farmer’s wife. It’s the man who gets to work outdoors.”
Uncle Tony tapped out his pipe beside the step. He looked at me and smiled. “What would you like to do, Anna, if not be a farmer’s wife?”
“I want to go to high school. Maybe I’ll end up married and living on a farm somewhere around here, but I do know one thing. I wish I could just go to high school first.”
Uncle Tony looked thoughtful. “And why can’t you?”
“It’s just a dream, Uncle Tony.”
“Now why is that?
“I don’t think Mama and Papa would let me. No girl has ever gone to high school from Cedar Crossing, and only a couple of boys.” I shifted uncomfortably on the step. “Anyway, it would probably cost too much money. I’d need a way to get there, and money for books. And besides, Mama needs me here.”
Before Uncle Tony could say anything, we heard Aunt Grace calling. “Tony? Time we were going! Wherever has that man gotten to, anyway?”
Uncle Tony got up and brushed off his pants
“Sounds like I’ve got my orders.” he said. “I’d better be going.” He ran his hand through his thick brush of gray hair. “But Anna, don’t give up your dream. Maybe somehow you can make it happen.”
I watched his tall figure as he went back in the house. If only Uncle Tony were right. If only I could find a way. Uncle Tony was the only one who seemed to understand why high school was so important to me, the only one who was even interested enough to listen.
I got up off the step and went over to where Rose was swinging back and forth, humming to herself. “Want a push?” I asked. She squealed with delight as I pushed her higher and higher, until she almost touched the lowest boughs of the old maple. “You’re flying, Rose,” I said. And I want to fly too. Fly away to River Heights. To England and other far places. But what I had said to Uncle Tony was probably true. It was an impossible dream. With a sense of desolation, I felt my resolve slipping away.
I grabbed the swing and brought it to a stop. “Come on, Rose, let’s go see if Mama needs help with the baby. She’s probably awake again by now.”
I took Rose’s hand and together we went back in the house to find Baby Grace.