Page 39 of The Harvey Girls

Twenty-Nine

When Billie got up to their room, there was an envelope on her bed.

Leif!

She’d secretly started to hope he might send her a letter sooner than her birthday, which was a month away. She’d written him one and delivered it personally. Was it too much to ask that he respond?

But the return address on this envelope was her own in Table Rock. The handwriting wasn’t her mother’s, though. It was from Peigi, dated a week before.

Dear Billie,

Da is sick. Right after you left, he started coming home tuckered.

He said it was just a little cough, but after a while it got worse, and he ran so hot he couldn’t work.

Maw had him over a pot of steam with some mint in it for days, and that helped some.

They didn’t want to call the doctor because we were losing money as it was, with him not working.

Finally a couple of days ago, the doctor came. He said Da’s lungs crackled like a bonfire. He’s got the newmonia.

Maw says not to tell you, because she doesn’t want you to worry, and by the time you’d get a letter, he’ll be right as rain. And God willing, he will be. Also, she thinks you’ll want to come home, and we can’t afford it. We need your tips.

But I’m thirteen now, and I have my own mind. You’ve a right to know about your own da, and he needs all the prayers he can get. Just don’t come home, because she’s right about the money.

All the rest of us are fine, so don’t worry about that. If I have to quit school and help Maw with the laundry business, it won’t be a calamity.

Yours very sincerely,

Peigi

“What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked when she came up to the room an hour later. “Are you sick?” The girl was positively ashen.

“I got a letter from my sister. Da’s got the pneumonia. Peigi sent it a week ago, so he might be better by now. Or he might be…” Billie chewed her lip to keep from crying.

Charlotte scoured her brain for words of encouragement, but she had never been good at false cheer. She had never really been good at genuine cheer, either. She wasn’t a cheery person.

“I’m so sorry” was all she could think to say. “You must be very scared.”

Billie nodded, chin trembling.

“Do you want to go home? I’m sure they’ll let you—”

“We can’t afford it. What with him laid up and having to pay the doctor, they need me to stay here and work.”

Charlotte frowned in thought. These were the types of problems she’d never had to worry about in her old life. Her mother called the doctor every time she felt the least bit lightheaded, and it was always just that her corset was too tight.

“I’ve been praying,” said Billie. “I don’t know what else to do.”

The poor girl looked so alone in her worry. “Could I…? I’m not Catholic, but I do know how to pray.” She hadn’t in quite some time, but she assumed the general idea hadn’t changed.

“Oh, Charlotte, would you? That’d mean the world to me.”

Charlotte pulled her dress up a little so as not to get dust on the hem and knelt by the bed. Her knees immediately began to ache against the wooden floorboards, and she wished there were a nice thick carpet like there was in her room in Boston. But this was no time to be a fussbudget.

Billie dropped down beside her and clasped her hands together in prayer. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Charlotte had thought they would pray in silence, but clearly Billie expected something different. She cleared her throat to give herself a moment to think.

“Dear Lord, we pray that… um… Billie’s father—”

“Malcolm MacTavish,” whispered Billie.

“—that Malcom MacTavish returns speedily to good health. He is a hardworking man and a loving father, and we ask your intercession on his behalf. We also ask that you hold the entire MacTavish family in your heart and comfort them as they await his recovery. Amen.”

Billie crossed herself and whispered, “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, amen.” She opened her eyes with a grateful smile for Charlotte. “That was nice.”

Charlotte was relieved that her rusty prayer skills had served their purpose. She reached under the bed for her little string purse, extracted a ten-dollar bill, and held it out to Billie.

“Oh, no, I can’t take that.”

Charlotte put it in Billie’s hand anyway. “Doctors are expensive.”

“But you need that in case… And anyway my maw would never accept it.”

“Put it in the envelope along with your own money the next time you write to your mother, and don’t mention me. Just think of it as sending my prayers to your family, but going by way of the US Postal Service.”