Giant Steps Page 13

“I guess no one thought it was important,” Ben answered. “You were just a little girl and nobody thought you would pay any attention to a bunch of made-up war stories.”

  “But someone should have told Nick the truth. Why didn’t you straighten him out?”

  “Well, back then we didn’t know there was going to be a war, did we?” Ben said. “Nobody thought he’d have a chance to pull a dumb stunt like this.”

  15

  October 1917

  Mother’s Secret

  It was now two weeks since Nick and Jack had run away to join the army. Mother was still having a difficult time accepting the fact that the boys were gone. Aunt Rose and Aunt Lolly took turns coming over to stay with her every weekday until Bernie came home from school.

  Papa didn’t want Mother left alone. She had hardly stopped crying since he returned from Indianapolis after his unsuccessful attempt to find the boys. The recruiter there had told him that he could not locate anyone in the enrollment lists named Nick Epperson or Jack McClarty. He suggested that they had changed their names when they signed up. It was not uncommon.

  Papa had insisted that someone should have realized that Nick was too young to join the army. He was told that if an enlistee swore he was old enough, no one had the time to check and see if it was true. Nick certainly wouldn’t be the first underage boy to lie about how old he was. The boys probably vouched for each other. The recruiters had quotas to meet. The boys would probably get in touch with their parents one of these days. All they could do was wait for a letter.

  Bernie hurried home from school. She stepped inside the front hallway and called, “Aunt Rose?” There was no answer. “Aunt Lolly? Anybody?” Still no response.

  Bernie climbed the stairs and dropped her schoolbooks on the desk in her room. She walked across the hall to her parents’ room. The door was open and she could see that the curtains had been pulled open and fastened to let in the sunlight. Mother was not lying on the bed with a cloth over her eyes, as she had done so often lately.

  This photo, ca. 1917, depicts a girl wearing an outfit that Bernie might have worn to school: a middy blouse, dark skirt, and long black stockings with sturdy leather shoes. (Courtesy of Mary Blair Immel)

  Bernie knocked softly before she stepped tentatively into the room. She still didn’t see anyone. “Mother? Where are you? Are you all right?”

  “I’m here. Come in, dear.”

  Bernie looked about the room. She was surprised to see her mother sitting on the floor at the far side of the bed. There was a small trunk open nearby.

  “Come here and sit beside me,” Mother said. “There are some things I want you to see.”

  Bernie waited as Mother lifted various items out of the trunk and placed them on the floor. At last, she found what she was looking for. She handed it to Bernie. It was a theatrical playbill. The date on it was June 3, 1896.

  Bernie was puzzled. “What is this all about?”

  “Look at it carefully,” Mother said.

  Bernie read the words aloud: “The New Touring Players Proudly Present: ‘Midnight in the Sheik’s Harem.’” The drama was described as “a thrilling account of an escape from a fate worse than death.”

  Bernie was still puzzled, but Mother did not say anything. Bernie read on, looking at the list of cast members. Near the bottom she saw: “Fatima—A beautiful damsel in distress played by Melisande Mifflin.”

  Mifflin! That was Mother’s last name before she and Papa were married, but who in the world was Melisande?

  “Is she a relative of ours?” Bernie asked. “I’ve never heard of her.”

  “Perhaps you can you guess?” Mother smiled a strange little smile and Bernie saw her mother’s cheeks turn a rosy color.

  “Not you?”

  Mother nodded.

  “Where was this play performed?”

  “It was presented in several different towns. You will notice that the acting company was called ‘The New Touring Players.’”

  “How did you get to be a part of this?” Bernie stared at the play program and could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  “I suppose that my love for the dramatic started in school. I always won prizes for recitation. It was exciting to be the center of attention.” Mother removed the lid of another box she held on her lap. It was full of ribbons and rosettes, certificates, and two small silver trophies.

  “Did you win all of these?”

  Mother nodded. “People told me how much talent I had. I began to dream that I could become an actress. The summer I was nineteen, a theatrical company came to town. They advertised in the newspaper that they needed townspeople to act as background crowd for their production. I auditioned and showed the manager my awards. He said I was perfect. I appeared on the stage for the next few nights while the company was in town. On the final night of the production, the manager said that they had a small part for me in a play. He asked if I would like to travel with them. I was thrilled and foolishly said that I would love to go.”

  “Secretly, I packed a bag and went with them. I left a note telling my parents what I had done, but not who I was with. It wasn’t hard for them to figure out, because they knew I had gone three nights in a row to the theater. They didn’t know what to do, but your Uncle Leroy said he would find me. When he heard about it, Edward—your Papa—insisted that he would go along. Of course, he wasn’t your father then. We weren’t even engaged to be married.”

  Bernie sat and stared at her mother as she spoke. She simply could not imagine her doing such a thing. “But why is your name listed as Melisande Mifflin in the play program?”

  “I thought it was a beautiful and romantic name. If I was going to be an actress, I needed a name more dramatic than my own. Martha Jane Mifflin seemed far too plain for an actress.”

  Traveling theater companies, such as this one out of Mankato, Minnesota, stopped at many rural communities throughout the United States, bringing much-needed entertainment to the people who lived there. Bernie’s mother joined a group similar to this. (Courtesy of the Blue Earth County Historical Society, Mankato, MN)

  Mother continued, “I was gone almost three weeks before Leroy and Edward managed to track the company by following the newspaper announcements and billboards. They went to each town where the New Touring Players had appeared. One night Leroy and Edward showed up at the stage door of a theater in Peoria, Illinois. They demanded to see me. At first the doorman claimed they had never heard of me, but Edward insisted that he and my brother be allowed to go inside for a look around. When they found me, they took me home. At first the doorman would not allow me to take my belongings. He said I owed the company money for my lodging and food.”

  “Do you mean you had to leave your clothing and everything?”

  “I would have if Edward hadn’t looked the man straight in the eye and threatened to call the police if they did not return my things. He was very forceful. The doorman seemed to wilt and got my things immediately. I can tell you that it was much more dramatic than anything I had seen on the stage.”

  “Were you upset when Uncle Leroy and Papa forced you to come back home with them?”

  “Oh, my goodness, no. I was never so happy to see anyone in my life,” Mother said. She fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed at her overflowing eyes. It was a few minutes before she was able to continue.

  “You see, I found out the hard way that show business wasn’t the lovely, glamorous dream I imagined it would be. Oh, yes, I had my name printed in the program, but I only appeared on stage to carry a tray or announce a visitor. A few times I got to scream and then faint on a couch. I never had many lines to say. My costume was tacky and smelled so awful I could barely stand to put it on. I tried not to think who had worn it last. I don’t think it had ever been washed. Most of the time I ran errands for the real actors and actresses. I did whatever anyone t
old me. Sew this button on, find my hat, go get this and go get that. And they didn’t always tell me in a nice manner.”

  “Why didn’t you try to get away from them?”

  “I couldn’t. I didn’t have any money. I quickly spent what little I brought with me. The manager had promised to pay me but he never did. He always had some excuse. We moved from town to town continually. Half the time I wasn’t even sure exactly where we were. We stayed in terrible run-down boarding houses with dirty sheets. Once I got out of bed in the middle of the night and stepped on something that crackled unpleasantly under foot.” Mother wrinkled her nose and shivered at the memory. “It was a cockroach. One time we even had to sneak out during the night because the manager said our last performance hadn’t earned enough money to pay the hotel bill.”

  “Why didn’t you go to the police and tell them you needed help?”

  “I suppose I was afraid to have my family find out what a terrible mess I had gotten myself into.”

  Bernie cringed as she tried to imagine her mother as a frightened young woman.

  “I was surprised that Edward came after me. I was even more surprised when he said he wanted to marry me. The whole thing was a bit of a scandal in town. I learned later that his parents ordered him to break off the engagement. They wanted him to have nothing to do with that ‘wild Mifflin girl.’ Later, I learned how Edward stood up to them.”

  Bernie could hardly take in everything that Mother told her.

  “Furthermore, he told them he would not be a part of his father’s business if they made any trouble about the marriage. He said he would move away and take me with him.”

  “It’s like a novel by Jane Austen or Emily Bronte,” Bernie gasped.

  Mother laughed softly. “When I think back on it, it seems the same way to me. It is like a story that happened to someone else. When his parents relented and said we could marry, I made a promise to myself that I would be the ideal wife and never cause him any more trouble.”

  Bernie wondered if that episode explained why Mother was so careful about visiting Grandmother Epperson regularly to keep in her good graces. It might also explain why Mother was always so prim and proper. This must be why she seemed to care so much about what other people thought.

  Mother started to weep again, softly. “Now, I feel that I have failed.”

  “Mother, please don’t cry anymore,” Bernie pleaded. “It frightens me.”

  “I can’t help it. I keep thinking that maybe it’s my fault that Nick ran away.”

  “How could that be?”

  “Because Nick did the same thing I did.”

  “Papa thinks Nick ran away because of Uncle Charley and all of his boasting about things he never did.”

  “I can’t help but wonder if running away is some trait inherited through the Mifflin family. Maybe his parents were right and Papa should not have married me. Maybe I was not good enough for him.”

  Bernie leaned close to her mother and hugged her. “Mother, I don’t believe that. You must not blame yourself. Nick got carried away by all the excitement. He thinks being a soldier will be a glorious adventure. Remember, the recruiter told Papa that Nick is not the only boy who has ever run off to join the army.”

  Written in 1915, “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” was the first commercially successful anti-war song. It is a mother’s lament over the loss of a son and how victory is no consolation. (Library of Congress, Notated Music, M1646.P)

  Mother and daughter sat quietly together, each lost in her own thoughts as the afternoon began to fade away. Bernie recalled that Aunt Rose had told her on the train that she was more like her mother than she realized. This must have been what she meant. Of course, she had not run away as her mother had done, although she had gone off to Washington, DC, without revealing the full reason for the trip. Bernie had to admit she was impetuous. Whenever Papa scolded her, he said that she must stop and think ahead about the consequences of her actions. She knew she caused Papa a lot of worry. She remembered the words that Mother had whispered to her when she broke her arm. What was it she had said? Something about the pain of learning lessons the hard way.

  Sometimes Bernie felt as though her life was like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. Little by little, as she put more pieces together, she was seeing a picture of her family emerge that she had not been aware of before.

  It seemed odd to think of Papa doing what he did when Mother ran away. He was not just the man who got dressed up each morning, read the newspaper, and went to work. Now, he seemed kind of like a brave knight who had rescued a damsel in distress. He loved that damsel, no matter what foolish thing she had done. And he had stood up to his parents in order to make Martha Jane Mifflin his wife.

  Bernie knew that Papa loved her, too, no matter what she did. She made up her mind that she would be a bit more cautious and try to think things through more carefully before she acted. However, she was determined not to let anyone stifle her dreams. But, how could she manage to do both?

  Part 3: 1918 to 1920

  16

  March to July 1918

  Ben Answers the Call

  Papa no longer read the morning newspaper at the breakfast table or settled down with his evening paper in the parlor after supper. In fact, he allowed no papers in the house anymore. Bernie knew that Papa was doing his best to shield Mother from any news about the war. She worried enough about Nick as it was.

  Bernie also knew that Papa spent more and more time in his small office at the rear of Epperson’s Emporium. It was where he went to read the newspapers. She often stopped in at the store after school for a brief visit with him. He had removed the large map of the world from the wall in Nick’s room. It was now installed above his desk at the store. Papa kept track of all war action, just as Nick had done. The number of colored pins increased daily. She supposed he wondered, as she did, if Nick was involved in any of those terrible battles. Nick never wrote letters home, so there was no telling where he was.

  Though World War I was fought along several different fronts, American soldiers such as Nick were sent to the Western Front, depicted by the bold line on this map, spanning France and Belgium. British and French troops had been fighting German troops along this line since 1914. The Western Front moved very little in the years before the Americans joined the fight. On the ground, it consisted of two sets of deep trenches or ditches, one on the German side of the line, and one on the side occupied by the French, British, and their allies. Hundreds of thousands of young men died violent deaths in these trenches over the course of the war. Many of the survivors suffered illnesses such as trench foot, a fungal disease that could cause rotting of the skin and lead to amputation, due to water collecting in the ditches, where the soldiers were forced to stay. (Frank M. McMurry, The Geography of the Great War (New York: Macmillan, 1918), 35.)

  One late-March afternoon, Bernie learned that the Germans had begun a major attack and had broken through British lines south of the French town of Arras. When she visited Papa’s office, she noticed that there was already a colored pin sticking out of that part of France. Bernie thought that might have been what made him seem especially subdued during the evening meal that night.

  Mother, too, was especially quiet and seldom spoke except to ask if anyone wanted more green beans or potatoes. Even Ben seemed far away in a world of his own. Bernie listened to the pendulum of the tall grandfather clock as it swung rhythmically back and forth. It seemed to match the beating of her aching heart. She wished that she could end the silence but could think of nothing to say.

  She did not like the change that had come over their household. Nick had always made them groan with laughter at his clowning around. There were no longer any arguments. She was surprised to find that she missed the teasing she used to endure from her brothers.

  When the serving bowls had been passed around a second time, but no one w
anted any more to eat, Mother said, “Bernie, you can start clearing things from the table. I’ll get the dessert ready.”

  Mother left the room with a swish of her long dark skirt. It was strange, but Bernie had a premonition that she would always remember that sound. It would forever bring back the memory of what happened that evening, for in the next moment she heard a tone in Ben’s voice that filled her with dread.

  He said very quietly, “Papa, I need to speak with you privately right after dinner.”

  The American military segregated its forces until 1948, so in World War I, whites and African Americans served in separate divisions. The majority of white units, such as the 16th Infantry, 1st Division, participated in some fierce fighting during 1918. While many African American soldiers were relegated to supply jobs, there were African American combat soldiers, as well. The first image shows Indiana soldiers from the 16th Infantry. The African American soldier in the second image is Les Brown from Indianapolis.(Gift of Wayne Sanford, Indiana Historical Society Collections)

  Bernie did not eat her dessert but went immediately into the kitchen to start the washing up. As soon as she and Mother had finished in the kitchen, Bernie hurried upstairs before Papa and Ben came up to talk in her brother’s room. When she saw that Ben had not closed his door all the way, she positioned herself in the hallway at a point where she could overhear the conversation.

  Bernie knew she should not eavesdrop. Mother always warned her that those who listen in on other people’s conversations never hear anything good about themselves. This time, however, what she heard was nothing about herself; it was news that sent a cold chill slithering up her spine.