Tuesday, April 9, evening
The rain had long since stopped and the sun had set by the time I headed for home.
I’d posted the notice of Saturday’s meeting at Stacy’s Corner, and then taken the bulletins from house to house on the south side of Main Street. I charged 1 cent for the page of news and handed the announcement of Nell Gramercy’s meeting out for free.
Charlie’d been right. People were eager to read the latest word from the South. At least 30 cents were jingling in my pocket that hadn’t been there this morning. If Charlie’d sold as many pages on the north side of town, I’d had a very good day indeed.
I’d have to check my paper supply in the morning. If this mess down south continued, more special bulletins might be needed. That would mean more money coming in. More money toward those dollars I owed Mr. Shuttersworth.
My mind was filled with dollars and cents, but my back ached from raising and lowering the devil’s tail, the lever that pressed the paper and the tray of type together, and my feet were colder than frost on an iron gate.
Back in February I’d coated my boots with tallow from melted candles to keep out dampness. Tallow helped in winter, when streets were covered with snow and ice. But now we were plumb into mud season. My boots slurped as I walked through the street flooded with melted snow. The morning’s rain had made it worse. Cold water seeped in through tiny cracks in the tallow and covered my toes.
I walked faster, thinking how good it’d be to stretch those toes out by the kitchen stove.
My family lives behind and above our store. Now it’s only Ma and Pa and me. Since my older brother Ethan drowned Ma’s depended on me to help run the store. I help her unpack new fabrics and spools of thread and hats, or assist customers while she does the accounts, or orders new quilted petticoats or deerskin gloves or bolts of velvet.
I don’t mind having to take on Ethan’s share. But it’s been more than that, too. After Ethan died, Pa changed. He hardly ever worked in the store or went to church or even talked with his friends. What he did I couldn’t tell you, except he slept a lot, and took long walks by himself into the countryside. Whatever he was doing, he sure wasn’t much help to Ma or me.
Ma hasn’t complained, but it’s been hard on her since I’ve had the Herald, even though I’ve tried to be at the store when she needed me.
I was thinking just that as I walked into our dooryard. Then it hit me: Today Ma had been expecting a big shipment of spring fabrics in on the Portland stage. She’d asked me to help her get those heavy bolts of fabric to the store.
I hadn’t been there.
I felt lower than the smallest spring peeper singing his heart out somewhere down on Water Street. I’d been thinking so much about printing the handbill, and then putting out the special bulletin, that I’d fully forgotten Ma’s shipment.
I splashed through deep puddles in our yard and picked up an armload of small logs from our woodpile. It’d been a long, cold winter, and the pile was low. In May we’d buy newly cut wood from Mr. Grayson, a lumberman Pa knew, and I’d begin splitting it for next winter.
I pushed open the kitchen door and dumped the wood in the box next to our iron cookstove, trying not to trip over Trusty, my happy nuisance of a small brown-and-white dog. He’s been with me four years now, and doesn’t understand why he can’t go to the Herald office. He wriggled all over in excitement at seeing me.
“Good boy,” I said, scratching the little spot right behind his left ear, where he loves to be rubbed. “Sorry I couldn’t take you with me today. You would have just been in the way with all those papers flying around.”
Ma and Pa had already gone to bed. A lantern was burning low on the kitchen table, and salt cod with pork gravy for my supper was in an iron pot on the stove.
I pulled off my wet boots, put copies of the news flyer and the advertisement about Nell Gramercy’s meeting on the table for Ma and Pa to read in the morning, and filled my stomach.
What was happening now at that fort down in Charleston Harbor? South Carolina seemed far away. The country might have troubles, but for me, in Wiscasset, Maine, it’d been a good day. Coins were filling my pocket.
A good day except I’d forgotten Ma.
I determined to unpack the new merchandise for the store before I collapsed into bed.
Was anyone sleeping tonight down at Fort Sumter?