Without a word, I handed the phone to Dad and sat back down, feeling numb. Frank was missing! Somewhere between here and there. And because of Thelma’s uncle’s poor memory, we had no way of knowing how far he’d gotten.
In the snowstorm, or on a patch of unfamiliar road, something bad must have happened. And not a little problem, either. Something big enough to keep Frank from a telephone all this time. He was supposed to have been able to call yesterday! He should have been to Sam’s house the night before that! A day and a night had passed, and where was he? What could have happened?
Frank
Roads were closed in and out of Auburn all day yesterday. The winds were wild, pushing the drifts around unpredictable. Electric power was out, and phone lines were out too. I tried at least six times to place a call, but there was no getting through until the storm damage was repaired.
The hotel owner was gracious, letting me stay longer than I’d told her without adding to the price. She’d brought candles to my room and made sure I had a hot meal. I was fretting so much over what Sarah must be thinking that I would have left that afternoon if there’d been a way. But I couldn’t see six feet in front of me outside, and the roadways weren’t clear. No choice but to stay put. Despite the worries, I knew Sarah and her folks would want me to wait, hard as that was.
At least I’d gotten through to Thelma’s uncle once so Sam would understand the situation. Maybe he’d managed to reach the Worthams, if the telephone lines were all right to Dearing. I hoped he’d think to call them. I hoped they weren’t frettin’ over this.
That next morning, I’d tried to work the telephone again, but with no better luck at it. Auburn’s lines were just dead. But the roads had been plowed some, so I started out against the protests of the hotel owner and one of her neighbors. They thought the gray sky looked like more snow. But I couldn’t wait any longer.
I started out confident that I’d get to Camp Point before noon that third day even though I had to drive slower than I wanted to. But before I got to the next town the truck started spitting and sputtering, trying to stall on the road. I had to pull over best I could to figure out what was the matter. Water in the carburetor, maybe. Should a’ thought of that while I was in Auburn, with all the blowing snow there’d been. Warm engine could easily melt snow to water and give me problems.
There was water in the bowl under the carburetor, all right. I set to work taking the bowl off to empty and then putting it back together again. But after all that, the truck didn’t want to start, and when it did, it sputtered some more and then died.
Lord, I need to get to a telephone
.
Here it is morning, and Mr. Wortham’s bound to be at that service station again, maybe Sarah too, waiting for a call.
I pulled the collar of my coat up and the brim of my hat down and set to work again in the cold, glad I hadn’t forgotten my gloves. Would a’ been nice to have Sarah’s scarf, but I couldn’t recall what we’d done with it, whether it had been left in the Ensleys’ car or had gotten to the doctor with us. I doubted it was even ten degrees out, and the wind put a real bite in the air.
I ended up having to take the fuel filter off the truck and clean it up, and that was a far longer job than what I’d wanted. I did the best I could at the repair and then had the problem of getting everything set in place again. The old gasket had fallen apart, so I took the tongue from my work boot to cut another one to size. Had to take a wheel off the truck to get at some axle grease to set the gasket and filter in place. And in all that time, I didn’t see even one other vehicle on the road.
Somebody was on the porch of a farmhouse close by, but I didn’t pay much attention and thought they must have gone on in. After a while, as I was scrunched down replacing the wheel, I heard a voice calling, faint at first. I stood up, wondering where it was coming from.
“Mister! Mister!”
The voice got louder. A boy of maybe seven or eight was at that old farmhouse across the field, waving real big at me and hollering. I waved in response, thinking that would be the end of it. But his movement changed when he knew I’d seen him. Now he was trying to wave me in.
“Mister! Please help!”
He jumped off the porch and ran several feet forward.
“Please, mister! Please!”
I had no idea what was going on at that house. I was in such a hurry to get back on the road that I didn’t even want to think about it. But I couldn’t bring myself to turn my back on that pleading kid.
Lord, help. What are you doing with me on this trip? Seems like everything’s gone out of my hands.
“Mister! Mister!” the boy kept yelling. And I left my truck and tools where they sat along the road and set out across the snowy yard.
“What’s wrong?” I hollered, but the boy didn’t answer. He just kept waving me forward.
“Come in! Please, come in!” he begged when I got closer.
“Why? What’s wrong?”
“My mother. An’ my brother and sisters—they’re freezin’ cold an’ sick. Please help.”
He looked scared. And pretty cold himself.
“Please come in,” he said again.
“You got a pa?” I asked as I followed him.
“H-he went t’ St. Louis. He’s s’posed to be home tonight. But we need help
now
.”
He looked like he was gonna cry. I’d prob’ly guessed his age pretty close. And I didn’t think I had any choice but to at least talk to his mother, if I could. Maybe there was something I could do, even if it was just to take word into the next town for them, to have the doctor sent out. I could hear what sounded like at least two babies crying inside.
The boy ushered me in quick, and a woman’s voice spoke up before I even saw her. “Sir, we’ve got the chicken pox. You might not want to take another step.”
“I’ve had it,” I told her. “It won’t bother me.”
She sat on a chair with one foot propped on a footstool. Her face showed five or six red pox marks, no more than that. But her eyes looked sunk and red, and the ankle of her propped foot was real swollen. From another room, the sound of the crying continued, along with another plaintive voice. “Mama . . .”
“I’ll be there in just a minute, sweetie,” she answered the calling child, looking up at me with stark uncertainty.
Then I noticed she was wearing a coat. It was barely any warmer inside than it had been out. “The children all sick?” I asked.
“All but me,” the boy who’d called me answered. “I had the chicken pox when I was little. I been trying to help, but I don’t know what to do.”
“You got wood?” I asked, noticing the fireplace filled with only ash and dying embers. I looked for sign of a coal stove or any other source of heat and spotted a grating pretty quickly. Coal furnace, prob’ly, but the iron grate was stone cold. “Out of coal?”
“We thought we had enough. My husband’s bringing more when he comes, but I had to use the last this morning.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m so sorry, sir. I hate to beg help of anyone. But Bennie and I prayed. We asked God to make a way, and then Bennie saw your truck stop on the road. Please, just make us a fire, if you will. There’s more wood in the barn, but it needs to be split. I was going to get it, but I fell on the ice this morning. I’ve tried, but I can scarcely bear any weight—”
One of the children in the next room wailed.
“I had to put them to bed,” she explained. “All wrapped in blankets. It was the only way I knew to keep them warm. And they’re so uncomfortable with the pox . . .”
She started trying to get up, but the pain was obvious. So was the strain of all this in her face.
“I been bringin’ in what wood I could,” the little boy told me with tears in his eyes. “But . . . but the little pieces is all gone, and I can’t lift the big ones.”
“Please,” the mother begged again. “Please just make us a fire.”
She looked awful, like the wear of this was already far too much on her. And she had a bad sprain of the ankle. That was really clear. They were in awful shape.
“I’ll make a fire,” I reassured her. “Don’t try to get up. Your big boy and I’ll bring the babies in to you once it’s going good and startin’ to warm in here.”
I headed out straight for the barn.
“Bennie, go . . . go and help him,” I heard that mother call behind me. And I wondered about a father who’d leave his family in such a mess, but maybe he didn’t have any notion that all this was going to happen. Wouldn’t do for me to judge without knowing the matter straight.
Bennie showed me to the ax, hatchet, and handsaw, all of them badly in need of sharpening. And there was plenty of wood, all right. Most every bit of it needing split. From the other end of the barn, I heard a cow lowing. But I ignored it and started in immediately, dull ax and all, to split some of the driest stuff I could find, to get the quickest fire I could with only a little kindling.
I’d have to split more for them. And carry plenty in. No doubt about that, but I stopped for now with just enough to get the fire blazing. The little boy helped me carry what he could, so we both went back inside with our arms full. One of the other children was up. A redheaded girl with hundreds of spots. I guessed her to be five or six years old, and she was absolutely miserable. Unable to wait for her mother any longer, she’d come out with a blanket wrapped around her. Now she just stood there and cried. She had a bad case of the pox, I could tell. And she was so cold her lips looked blue.
God, help them.
I stirred the coals and found a few more glowing embers than I expected. There was part of a catalog next to the fireplace on top of a basket of pinecones. I tore off several catalog pages, scrunched them in my hand, and set them on the coals along with some of the cones. Blowing real hard, I finally got a flame that licked and started to spread. I put the little pieces of bark and kindling I’d stripped off on top of that, then some other wood, small stuff first. Pretty soon the fire was crackling and roaring, and I had the big boy help me make a bed of blankets for the little ones close in front of it, and then scoot his mama’s chair close beside them.
The other two children couldn’t have been more than about one and three. They had pretty bad cases of the chicken pox too, but I noticed that none of the children had the cough I was hearing in their mother now. She was worn down sick with it settling in her chest some, and I was concerned because that kind of thing not taken care of can turn into full-blown pneumony.
“Thank you,” she said. “We’re so grateful for the small relief.”
“Too small so far,” I told her. “That fire won’t last long without more wood to keep adding. Will you all be all right in here if I go and split some more?”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes, thank you.”
Once again, little Bennie followed me, but I wanted him to gain some benefit of the fire’s warmth too, so I sent him back in with the first armload split and told him to stay inside in case any of the others needed anything. “Your mother hadn’t oughta be up,” I told him. “Fetch anything she needs an’ put another log on the fire if it gets low.”
I split enough more to make all the armload I could carry and was about to head back to the house with it when that cow let out an awful mournful sort of bellow. And I’d heard that kind of complaint before. I went to take a look, and sure enough, she was bulging with milk and awfully uncomfortable. Apparently, the lady hadn’t wanted to mention that and seem to be begging for more help, but it’d do them and the cow a lot more good to have the milking done as not. So I took more wood inside and asked where to find the milk pail.
The lady’s eyes flickered with a kind of fresh hope. “You don’t have to do that, sir. I was going to. And Bennie was going to try again at the milking too. It’s just so awful hard for him to get very far with his little hands not used to it.”
“Won’t take me long, ma’am,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve done it plenty of times before.”
As I milked, I wondered if they had food in the house. None of the children had complained of being hungry, but maybe they were too sick to care, or well-trained enough not to beg and complain in front of strangers. It was awful heavy to me to be taking all this time, knowing I was already a whole day late calling and Sarah might be waiting at the station right now. But I couldn’t leave this family in a shape like this. I knew she’d understand that. If things had gone on with the house so cold as it was, those little ones or even their mother might have taken the hypothermia. They might have died.
I was glad to bring the warm milk in to them and suggest that they all oughta have a cup. The woman, who said her name was Vera Platten, insisted that I have some too. So I did, just a little, not wanting to take more than a swallow from them. Mrs. Platten cried about my help, feeling bad to need it and grateful I’d give it freely. She told me twice that she wished she could pay me, but I told her to forget it, that I couldn’t accept anything from them for this.
I split a third armload of wood and brought it in, wondering how much they’d need to carry them through until the man of the house was home. There’d be no telling, since I had no idea what time he would come. It started really bothering me what could happen to this family if I left them alone and the husband was delayed.
Mrs. Platten’s cough sounded pretty awful, and the little ones were still uncomfortable too. I fetched in a bucket of water and set a teakettle full by the fire to heat, hoping to find something to put in it for them. “Got any kind a’ tea leaf?”
“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Platten answered me. “We haven’t had regular tea in such a long time. I probably can’t offer you anything you’d care for.”
She’d misunderstood me completely. “I don’t want nothin’ ’cept to get some made for you. Got any herbs? I could look ’em over and see what’s best.”
“Top cupboard on the left,” she answered me. “We grow or forage our own. It’s so much cheaper.”
That was nothing new to me. My family and the Worthams had been gathering tea herbs for as long as I could remember. I’d never had much store-bought tea except at outside functions. So none of the contents of Mrs. Platten’s jars were strange to me. Sassafras. Chicory. Chamomile. Red sage, rosemary, comfrey. I could tell most by the look, the rest by the smell. I picked the comfrey because I’d seen Mrs. Wortham use it when someone had a cough. There was a little baking powder in the cupboard with the herbs, and a little sugar. Salt and pepper and a near-empty bag of cornmeal. Not much else.