Page 16 of The Harvey Girls

“Oh, I gave it to my younger sisters years ago. I didn’t have much time for hoop rolling, once I started helping my maw with her washing and mending business.

And when I did have a minute, all I wanted was to sit down!

” The day was warming up, spring finally asserting itself over April’s vacillations, and she undid the top button of her coat. “What was your favorite toy?”

“Couldn’t get enough of checkers.”

“Who’d you play with?”

He plucked off his cap, ran a hand back through his wayward sandy curls, then redeposited it. “Whoever was around.”

“Did your dad teach you? My dad taught all of us.”

“Loves the game, does he?”

“Oh yes. He says it keeps the mind active and the body still. He hauls bricks all day long, so he prefers his arse in a chair.”

Billie put a hand to her lips. Sweet Jesus, she’d sworn in public—in front of a young man who was not one of her mouthy brothers, nor any relation to her at all!

Leif let out a ringing laugh. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell Fred Harvey you cuss.”

“I don’t!”

“You just did.”

“I was only saying what my da would say.” She affected a Scottish burr: “ Ge’ the board, an’ sit yer wee arse doon for a game, lass. Och, there ye go, red or black? I’ll take the black now, I’m yer da after all. ”

“You want to play de sheckers? ” he answered her in a strange accent. “Yah, sure you do! Black or red, you shoose .”

Billie laughed and clapped her hands together. “Is that your da? Where’s he from—Holland?”

“Sweden.”

“And what does he think about you coming all the way to Kansas to work for Fred Harvey? I’ll bet he misses you.”

“He doesn’t think anything.” Leif tucked his hands in his pockets and squinted up the street as if something had caught his eye. “He passed.”

“I… I’m so sorry,” Billie stammered. “I shouldn’t have…”

He smiled in her direction, but only with his mouth. “Don’t fret. It was a long time ago.”

What about your mother? she wanted to ask but caught herself in time. It wasn’t right to pry, despite the fact that she wanted to know every last thing about him.

“My da lost his da at a young age,” she said quickly to fill the chasm of silence that had suddenly opened between them. “He had to work and never got past the third grade in school.”

Leif only nodded.

“I think that’s why he had so many children. He wanted us to have each other if anything happened. Also, he loves my mother.”

Lord in heaven, what was she thinking, mentioning such a thing! Leif continued to gaze up the street, but she could tell he was biting the inside of his cheek.

Well, that’s that , she thought. Between cursing and mentioning my parents’ private business, he thinks I’m either a trollop or a radical.

At least they’d gotten off the subject of his dead father, even if it had cost her his good opinion. She wondered if she should turn around on the spot and go back to the Harvey House.

“It’s that one,” Leif said, pointing to a tiny little one-story house hemmed in on either side by a fruit stand and a livery.

Her own home was tight for eleven people, but this looked like a cart shed by comparison.

The outer walls were unpainted and water stained, but the front step had been recently swept and the one window was clean.

Leif knocked on the door. No one answered at first, but then they heard slow thumping across the boards toward them. The knob turned and finally a face appeared.

“Pablocito!” Billie smiled brightly, bracing herself against the sight of him, cheeks and nose punctuated randomly with fading bruises.

“Billie,” he murmured, and attempted a lopsided smile with the less battered side of his face. “You came to see me?”

“Yes! Leif brought me. He said he saw you at the hospital, and you were on your way home.”

Pablocito opened the door a little wider and gazed up at Leif. “Aye! You look worse!”

Leif chuckled. “The bruise spread, but it feels a little better, honest.”

Pablocito ushered them into the tiny house, which Billie soon realized was only two rooms: a kitchen area with table and chairs, and a door that led to a bedroom in back.

He hobbled over to the cast-iron stove and bent to grab a log for the fire, stifling a groan.

Leif put the bag he’d brought on the board by the cupboard and hurried to take the log, as Billie helped Pablocito to a chair.

A pot on the stove already had water, and he directed her to a little canister of tea and three mugs in the cupboard.

There wasn’t much else in there except a half loaf of bread and some rotting fruit, likely castoffs from the stand next door. He offered them slices of bread.

“Oh, we’ve just eaten,” Billie said, though breakfast had been some hours before, and she could’ve done with a nibble of something.

They drank their tea and enjoyed some mild conversation about the weather turning warm and Pablocito’s imminent return to the Harvey House, which, by the looks of him, Billie very much doubted. The men joked about Leif’s future as the next Jack Dempsey.

“Where are Estephania and Guillermo?” Billie asked.

“They play with the kids outside. My wife works at the slaughterhouse, and she doesn’t want them to bother me. But they are not here, and that is what bothers me!”

“We can go and find them for you.”

“No, no. Who knows where they can be. Probably at the river throwing rocks. You will walk in the other direction.”

“We could stroll up that way,” offered Leif. “We’ll make a loop on our way back.”

Pablocito made several weak attempts to convince them that they shouldn’t go to the trouble, but Billie knew how he loved his children and must have missed them terribly while he was stuck in the hospital all week.

As they bid their goodbyes, Billie couldn’t help but add, “I’m so sorry, Pablocito.

I didn’t know people could be… like that. ”

He and Leif exchanged a look so brief she barely caught it, but it was there.

Young , that look said. And naive. She’d grown up poor, the oldest of nine, her mother’s confidante, and thus privy to much of the adult world around her.

And yet she realized in that moment that none of it had prepared her for the acts of pure malice she’d witnessed in only the last week.

As they headed the few blocks north to the river to search for the children, Billie said, “Strange how he didn’t even ask about the bag.”

“I brought one earlier this week, and his wife said he’d be mad. But he’s not making any money, and a hospital isn’t cheap. You have to fight your pride when you’ve got a family to feed, so I didn’t expect any thanks. I’m only glad he didn’t make me carry it back.”

The street ended at City Park, a lovely small parcel with a little grandstand that overlooked the Kaw River.

There were kids playing ball and hide-and-seek.

A few dipped their feet in the water, squealing and laughing as they shivered, ran out, and ran back in again.

Pablocito’s children didn’t seem to be among them.

“Mind if we sit for a minute?” said Leif. His pallor, except for the blooming bruise, had gone decidedly gray.

“Are you all right?”

“My head’s throbbing a bit. Just a quick rest.”

They sat down on the steps of the gazebo, and Leif closed his eyes and leaned his head against the banister. Billie tipped her face up to the sun and enjoyed its warmth in silence.

“You can talk,” Leif murmured.

“It’s all right. I don’t want to disturb you.”

“No, actually it would be a nice distraction.”

“What should I talk about?”

“Anything. Your family. Tell me all your brothers’ and sisters’ names.”

“Well, there’s my brother Angus. He’s a fright.”

Leif smiled and whispered, “Is he now.”

“He’ll climb anything. It’s true. From the time he could walk, he was up every tree within a mile of us. He practically lived on the roof. My father yelled ‘Get down from there, ye wee bastard!’ so many times, we felt sure he’d think his name was ‘Wee Bastard.’?”

Leif’s eyes remained closed, and he didn’t say a word, but his shoulders shook with laughter, and Billie took this as encouragement to go on.

She ran down the list of siblings, giving a little description or story about each.

It made her miss them, of course, but it didn’t cause the clenching in her chest that she’d come to expect in the last three weeks.

Maybe you’re finally getting used to being away from them , she thought. Or maybe you’re just happy to be here. With him.

Pablocito’s children never did show up, and Billie’s stomach began to rumble. Leif’s color improved a little, and they decided to head back toward the Harvey House so she could eat and he could rest in his room at the boardinghouse nearby. He did seem buoyed by her stories, though.

“That’s quite some family you have,” he said as they walked, jackets off now in the noon sun.

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” It was a fair question, but the minute she asked it, she felt his mood turn.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then it all came tumbling out of him in a rush, as if he knew he owed her an answer and just wanted to get it over with.

“I had a sister, but she died of the whooping cough when she was two. My mother was so overcome she didn’t notice a few days later that her skirt had caught fire when she was stirring a pot.

She went up so fast. I did everything I could, but I was only five.

I couldn’t carry the big bucket of water and could only splash her with cupfuls.

” His voice had gone tight, and Billie was practically in tears.

She couldn’t imagine how he’d survived watching his mother die in flames.

But then he continued. “It was just my papa and me for a couple of years until he went out to the barn during a blizzard to feed the sheep and lost his bearings coming back. He froze to death not twenty feet from the house. I found him myself the next day, but the snow was so deep I couldn’t get down the road to tell anyone, so he lay there half-buried for a week.

We had no relatives in the States, so I went into an orphanage. ”

His gaze flicked momentarily to hers, an apology on his face. “I like your stories better.” Then he looked away again.

Struggling to keep from crying, Billie didn’t trust herself to speak.

Instinctively, she slipped her hand into his, the only comfort she could think to offer, and he grasped it firmly, as if needing something to hold on to in the wake of his tragic revelation.

They walked down Adams Street without another word.

A block from the depot, he stopped, but he didn’t let go of her hand. He turned to face her, and she saw some small civil war going on behind those eyes, as if he wanted something he didn’t want to want.

“Billie,” he murmured, and his face came closer until she thought he might kiss her. Her heart pounded in her throat as her lips parted.

But then he tipped his head up and kissed her forehead. “Go on now,” he said gently, “I’ll see you tomorrow,” and turned down a side street toward his boardinghouse room.