Texas Born (6 page)

She sat up in bed, wiped the sleep from her
eyes, and fidgeted with the gloves. She despised wearing them. They
were hot and made her hands sweat. But she hated seeing her
disfigured hands much more.

She looked around the room, trying to orient
herself. She wasn't in her own small bunk in the circus wagon, nor
in the storeroom which Auntie had made into a bedroom for her. She
was in Auntie's bedroom, in Auntie's own bed, but Auntie wasn't
here.

Her ears picked up another muffled wave of
conversation coming from the parlor. She turned toward the door and
frowned in concentration. A woman whose heated, strident voice she
did not recognize was doing most of the talking, but she couldn't
make out what she was saying.

Drawn by curiosity, Elizabeth-Anne tossed
aside the covers and slid off the bed. The floor felt cool against
her bare feet. Soundlessly she padded over to the door, pulled it
open a trifle further, and slipped out into the hall.

As she neared the parlor, Mrs. Pitcock's
voice gained in loudness and clarity.

'I tell you, she's not normal!' Mrs. Pitcock
was hissing vehemently. 'She was with that motley group of freaks,
wasn't she? Well, this is a respectable town, and if we have
anything to say about it, we aim to keep it that way! We do not
intend for our children to associate with her kind!'

Elizabeth-Anne heard the other ladies making
indistinguishable clucks of agreement as Mrs. Pitcock continued her
tirade. She peered into the parlor from behind the door. On a side
table, Auntie's oil lamp, the one with the hand-painted roses on
the frosty yellow glass shade, gave off a wavering light, casting
the women's shadows high onto the walls. Mrs. Pitcock and another
lady were sitting side by side on Auntie's red Victorian love seat;
they were facing Elizabeth-Anne, but were too agitated to notice
her. Elender and the other women sat on the matching side chairs,
Elender's body and face in rigid, shadowy profile. Elizabeth-Anne
felt an overwhelming urge to run in and throw her arms around her,
but she hesitated and stepped back silently. Some instinct told her
that she would be intruding, so she positioned herself behind the
open parlor door. This way she could squint into the parlor through
the crack between the door and its frame.

While Mrs. Pitcock was speaking, Elender had
been studying her thin, folded hands. Now she raised her head in
dignity and rose to her feet, her long black skirt swirling about
her legs. 'But she's only a child!' she gasped in a low voice, her
hands clenched angrily at her sides. 'An innocent! How can you be
so cruel? Just this morning you were sitting in the church, not two
pews away from us!' Elender looked accusingly around the room. 'If
my memory serves me correctly, you were all there. And each of you
listened intently to the reverend's sermon on Christian
charity!'

Several of the ladies averted their eyes. It
was clear that they didn't like the direction this conversation was
taking.

Mrs. Pitcock sat forward and looked up at
Elender, careful to show the good side of her face. 'Why do you
think Moses led the Israelites to the Promised Land? So they would
be in a land of their own, among their own kind, that's why!' She
nodded her head in triumphant righteousness. 'It's not natural for
normal people like us to mix with abnormal freaks.'

'She's as normal as you and I.' Primly
Elender sat back down on the edge of her chair and folded her hands
in her lap. 'It's not the child's fault that her parents were
circus people,' she said quietly. 'Why should she be made to suffer
the sins of her elders? If sinners they were.'

Mrs. Pitcock jumped to her feet. 'I suppose
it's not that circus' fault that we suffered the worst scare of our
lives? And I suppose it wasn't that circus' fault that I ended up
looking like this?' Her voice had risen to a shrill screech and she
leaned down in front of Elender to display the burned side of her
face.

'No one likes you any the less for it, Mrs.
Pitcock,' Elender said gently, taking the woman's hands.

Mrs. Pitcock snatched her hands away. 'All I
can say,' she replied ominously, 'is that I'll not allow my
Laurenda to associate with anybody in this house! Not while you
harbor that freak. If you've got to keep that creature, I warn you,
we'll drive her out of this town, and you along with her! You and
your Boston airs! We'll have a town meeting! My husband is mayor!
These ladies all support me a hundred percent!'

'Mrs. Pitcock,
please
.' Elender fought
to keep herself under control. 'The child's suffered just as much
as you. And she's lost both of her parents, and all of her friends.
Can't you show just a bit of compassion? Can't any of you?' Elender
glanced pleadingly around the room, but the women refused to meet
her gaze.

Quietly Elizabeth-Anne slipped into the
parlor. It was a moment before the adults noticed her. Elender
spied her first and quickly rushed toward her. Elizabeth-Anne
looked up at her with wide, hurt eyes.

Elender gently placed her hands on
Elizabeth-Anne's shoulders. 'Nod hello to the ladies, dear,' she
said gently.

Elizabeth-Anne nodded shyly.

'She cannot speak,' Elender explained with
tears in her eyes. 'That's how much the fire has affected her.' She
reached for Elizabeth-Anne's hands and held them for inspection.
'She wears these gloves because she cannot bear to look at her
hands. Like you, Mrs. Pitcock, she was badly burned.' She paused to
catch her breath. 'Does any one of you have the heart to be so
cruel to someone who has suffered so? Who
still
suffers?'

The ladies looked silently at one another,
and a signal seemed to pass among them. Without speaking, they got
to their feet and filed out, leaving Mrs. Pitcock behind.

Elender looked at the woman and smiled
tentatively, but Mrs. Pitcock sniffed and marched out with self-
righteous indignation.

Elender drew Elizabeth-Anne close and held
her tightly. 'If your kin from York, Pennsylvania, don't show up, I
want you to stay here with us, Elizabeth-Anne,' she said softly.
'This will then be your real home. Would you like that?'

In reply, the child flung her arms around her
neck and kissed her gratefully.

'Just sit here while I finish up,' Elender
said pleasantly.

Obediently Elizabeth-Anne took a seat on top
of the stairs, while behind her Elender breezed into Mr. Saunders'
room and collected the sheets, blankets, and pillows which had been
airing out in the open window all day. Elizabeth-Anne twisted
around and watched her.

With an economical flick of her wrists,
Elender briskly snapped the bottom sheet and let it billow out over
the bed. Before it even settled down like a slow, soft cloud, she
quickly went from corner to corner, tucking the sheet under the
horsehair mattress, her nimble fingers stretching it taut as she
made expert, neat hospital corners. The fresh autumn air wafted in
through the open window, and it smelled good.

Elender stood the pillows up against the
shining brass headboard and plumped them with her hands.
Downstairs, a door banged shut and cowbells jangled. It was the
outside door.

Elender quickly took one last look around the
room. Convinced that it was indeed spotless and all was in order,
she briskly crossed the oval rag rug and came out onto the
landing.

She smiled at Elizabeth-Anne and then grasped
hold of the banister and leaned over it. 'Jenny? Is that you?'

Two floors below, Jenny took a few steps
backward and came into view. She leaned her head way back and
looked up. 'Yes, Auntie, it's me,' she called up sweetly. 'I'm
sorry I'm late, but Miss Welcker wanted to go over some arithmetic
problems with me. It's been hard, and I'm dead tired, but it was
worth it.' She covered her mouth and pretended to yawn. 'Can I do
anything to help?'

'Nooo . . .' Elender said slowly. 'I'm almost
done.' She waved a thin hand fluidly through the air. She had
picked up that elegant mannerism from Mrs. Cromwell, and believed
it gave her an air of 'quality.' 'There's some milk and cookies in
the pantry.

Then why don't you go and play while it's
still light? You can do your homework later.'

Jenny beamed.

'Oh, and make sure Elizabeth-Anne gets some
milk and cookies too.'

Jenny's beam froze and her voice was filled
with patent resignation. 'Yes, Auntie.' And she called out: 'Come
on down, 'Lizbeth-Anne.'

Elizabeth-Anne gazed silently at Elender, her
aquamarine eyes pale and expressionless.

'Go on,' Elender prodded gently.

Elizabeth-Anne got up and, carefully holding
on to the banister, started slowly down the stairs. At the
second-floor landing she hesitated and looked back up. Elender
smiled and clapped her hands. 'Go on, now.'

Elizabeth-Anne obeyed. She could understand
what people said and what they told her to do, but she still had
not regained her power of speech. All Elender's efforts at trying
to get her to talk had been in vain.

In the pantry Jenny quickly stuffed her
pockets full of cookies. They looked big and crunchy and smelled
delicious.

She nibbled on one and peered out into the
kitchen. Elizabeth-Anne was just coming in. Quickly Jenny swallowed
the cookie, then lifted the white ceramic milk pitcher and plate of
cookies and tiptoed with them out into the kitchen.

Jenny had grown nearly half an inch over the
past few months, and her heart-shaped face was covered with
freckles. Her eyes were a fathomless robin's-egg blue and her dark
brown hair was neatly parted in the middle and plaited in two
thick, long braids. At the moment, her lips were decidedly turned
down at the corners.

As Elizabeth-Anne carefully pulled one of the
chairs out from under the kitchen table, Jenny deliberately sneaked
behind her so that she couldn't help but back into her. 'Watch it!'
Jenny cried when she knew it was too late. Elizabeth-Anne spun
around and looked at the plate and pitcher in horror. For a
fraction of a second they seemed suspended in midair. Then, as if
in slow motion, they crashed to the floor. The pitcher shattered
into a thousand ceramic shards as milk flew everywhere and cookies
rolled across the floor in all directions.

'Now look what you made me do!' Jenny
yelled.

Elizabeth-Anne could only stare at the mess
in openmouthed horror.

Elender's footsteps came in a quick cadence
down the stairs. She stopped in the doorway, her hands on her
narrow hips as she surveyed the damage. 'All right,' she said
quietly. 'What happened?'

Jenny spun around and pointed an accusing
finger at Elizabeth-Anne. 'She did it! It's all her fault! She came
barging right into me!'

Elender stepped forward. 'You'd both better
clean up this mess immediately,' she said calmly.

'But it wasn't
my
fault, Auntie!'
Jenny wailed shrilly. 'Why should
I
have to do it?'

'I'm sure that if Elizabeth-Anne was to
blame, she didn't mean to do it,' Auntie said judiciously. 'But
you'll both clean it up.
Before
you go out and play.
There've been altogether too many accidents around here
lately.'

Jenny glared malevolently at
Elizabeth-Anne.

'I'll be back in five minutes,' Auntie
warned. 'By that time I expect this kitchen to be spotless. And for
the remainder of the day, neither of you shall have any cookies. Is
that clear?'

Jenny lowered her eyes demurely. 'Yes,
Auntie,' she murmured in a contrite voice. 'I'm sorry.'

Elender swept out, and as soon as she was
gone, Jenny raised her head. A wicked kind of triumph glinted in
her eyes.

Elizabeth-Anne stared at Jenny blankly. But
when Jenny reached into her pocket for a cookie and began nibbling
deliberately on it, the blank expression disappeared. Silent tears
of rage welled up in Elizabeth-Anne's eyes. She longed to speak
up—to cry out—against the injustice. She even opened her mouth. But
not a sound would come out.

And that only made her cry all the more, as
she cleaned up the mess Jenny had made while Jenny watched her,
relishing each bite she took of the cookie.

One morning, after several days spent
wrestling with herself about what was best for Elizabeth-Anne,
Elender dressed her in freshly laundered clothes and, holding her
hand, escorted her to the local schoolhouse, a one-room red-painted
building situated at the edge of Quebeck. Jenny and all her friends
attended the school, and Elender figured that although
Elizabeth-Anne couldn't speak, she was of school age. It bothered
her that the child had no friends. Perhaps at school she would make
some.

There were six grades in the Quebeck
schoolhouse.

The teacher, a thin, stern-faced spinster by
the name of Miss Welcker, had previously taught in New Orleans.
Tuition cost ten dollars per year for each student.

'That'll be eight dollars for Elizabeth-Anne,
since school has already been in session for two months,' Miss
Welcker told Elender.

Elender thought it a highly worthwhile
investment.

It turned out to be a waste of money.

Elizabeth-Anne neither learned anything nor
made any friends. The fact that she could not speak was bad enough,
but the fact that she had been part of the traveling circus was
worse. All the other children regarded her as a freak. She was an
outcast. A pariah.

It began that first day, during recess.

'Maybe she's a dwarf and won't grow any
more,' one of the girls whispered loud enough so that
Elizabeth-Anne could hear.

'Or maybe she'll grow hair all over her
body,' one of the boys suggested. 'Then she can go off and join a
sideshow!'

And everyone hooted with cruel laughter.