Giant Steps Page 3

  Bernie groaned inwardly when Mother said, “After you girls finish your cookies, you can look through my scrap bag. I’m sure you can find something to use to make doll clothes.”

  Naturally, Lizzie thought that would be great fun. The afternoon dragged by until Alice finally came upstairs and told Lizzie it was time to go home. Bernie followed her cousins back downstairs. She was disappointed to see that, with Alice’s help, the porch painting was completed. Her brothers were nowhere to be seen. Her hopes were dashed. Now she would not be able to find out what they were going to do with their free day tomorrow.

  As the three cousins walked out to the Mifflin’s auto, Alice asked, “How would you girls like to take a ride with me out to the Wabash River tomorrow?”

  “What would we do when we got there?” Lizzie wanted to know.

  “We could take fishing poles,” Alice suggested.

  “Not me,” Lizzie said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s too gruesome to put a worm on the hook.” She skipped on ahead and climbed into the car, but Alice hung back and said to Bernie. “We might also spring a trap.”

  Bernie looked at her older cousin. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll see,” Alice said with a mischievous twinkle in her blue-gray eyes. “Be ready to leave at eight tomorrow morning. I promise you won’t be disappointed. It will be a lot more fun than watching your brothers paint the front porch,” she smiled mysteriously.

  Bernie persisted, “Do you mean my brothers have asked us to go somewhere with them?”

  “Of course they didn’t,” Alice said. “But I found out where they are going. I also happen to know they are not leaving until nine o’clock. I’ll come by and get you. We can be there to surprise them when they arrive.”

  Bernie’s hazel eyes glowed with excitement. How very clever Alice was. She had helped the boys paint in order to learn their plans.

  The Model T Ford had many nicknames, such as flivver, Tin Lizzie, and Leaping Lena. These cars were relatively inexpensive but very durable. Ford Motor Company manufactured more than fifteen million of these cars from 1908 to 1927. (William H. Bass Photo Company Collection, Indiana Historical Society)

  At dinner that night Bernie could hardly contain herself. Unlike her cousin Lizzie, she prided herself on being able to keep a secret, but she was about to burst with this one.

  As he passed the meat platter, Papa asked, “Have you boys decided how you are going to spend your day off tomorrow?”

  Bernie saw Ben and Nick look at each other like two conspirators. Ben said, “Oh, we’ll try to think of something to do.”

  Bernie didn’t dare look at him, but she could not suppress a snicker.

  Nick glanced at Bernie and asked, “What are you grinning about? You make me think of a Cheshire cat.”

  It was all Bernie could do to keep from telling him that she knew exactly what they had planned. Instead she took a bite of green beans and chewed twenty-five times—far more than was needed. With each chew she thought, “Just you wait. Little do you know what’s in store for you tomorrow.” It was going to be so much fun to beat them at their own game for once.

  Bernie was dressed and standing on the front porch eating a piece of bread and homemade grape jam when Alice drove up in front of the Epperson house the next morning. She was surprised to see Lizzie in the flivver.

  “I thought you didn’t want to go fishing,” Bernie said.

  “I don’t plan to fish, but I do want to go on a treasure hunt.”

  Bernie looked at Alice. “What does that mean?”

  “It means the boys are going out to the old fort.”

  Bernie loved going to Fort Ouiatenon (wee-ah-tu-non) where a tribe of the Miami Indians had built their village in the early 1700s. She had learned all about it in school. If you were very lucky you could still find relics from that long-ago time when French traders from Canada exchanged glass beads, pottery pipes, colorful blankets, and all sorts of metal trinkets for beaver and other furs trapped by the Indians.

  “How did you figure out where they would be?” Bernie asked Alice.

  “It wasn’t too difficult. They talked a lot while we painted. I kept very quiet, and I think they forgot I was there. Nick mentioned a certain man here in town who often buys historical artifacts. He thought they might earn some money if they could find something to sell to him.”

  As Bernie settled back on the car seat, she thought how this summer was turning out to be full of unexpected surprises. She had been so sure that her broken arm was going to keep her from doing anything that was fun. Now she was going on an adventure alongside her cousins in the Mifflins’ car.

  Something was puzzling her, though. Sure Bernie and Lizzie had always been best friends, but why would Alice choose to include the two younger girls—not quite fourteen years old—in her activities?

  The day on the banks of the river could not have turned out to be any better. It was bright and sunny. A slight breeze kept it from being uncomfortably warm. Alice parked the car behind a dense clump of bushes where it could not be seen from the road. The three girls spread a blanket and lay on it looking up at a few wispy clouds that lightly inscribed the blue above. Bernie loved the rhythmic sound of the brown river water as it lapped against the muddy bank. She had almost dozed off when she heard the sound of horses’ hooves and snorting. The boys had arrived.

  The three girls ducked out of sight and waited. They pressed their hands over their mouths to keep their giggles from being heard until Ben let out an indignant shout, “What are you doing out here?”

  Nick jumped off his horse and ran over to demand, “How did you find us?”

  “As a matter of fact, it was you who found us!” Alice said. “We were here first.”

  The boys fumed and milled about trying to decide what to do. Finally Nick said, “Well, you can just stay where you are. We’ll set up our camp downriver.”

  While Alice and Bernie fished, Lizzie made wreaths from white catalpa blossoms for their hair. They could hear the shouts from Nick each time he hooked a fish—he was the only one who seemed to be having any luck. Nick posed proudly as Ben took pictures of him holding up his catch.

  A little before noon Alice made a great show of going to the car to get a large wicker basket. Bernie had used up all the bait in her bucket and had nothing to show for it, so she was glad to help her cousin. As Alice shook out a large red-and-white checkered tablecloth and lifted the contents out of the basket, she said in a louder-than-necessary voice, “Here girls, have some of this fried chicken. There’s enough here to feed an army. Oh, and don’t forget the potato salad, Lizzie. I think there are some ham sandwiches, too. I brought a large jug of lemonade and cherry pie for dessert.”

  It wasn’t long before the three boys made their way over to where the food was and began heaping their plates. No one could resist Aunt Lolly’s fried chicken and potato salad. Her cherry pie was legendary. No one noticed that the basket contained not just three plates for the girls but enough for all six of them.

  While the Wabash River was a place for a fun afternoon of fishing and swimming, it also provided Lafayette and towns along its banks a way to transport goods. This barge traveled the Wabash River around 1920. (Martin’s Photo Shop Collection, Indiana Historical Society)

  After the boys ate, Nick and Jack went out into the meadow to search for treasures. Bernie and Lizzie followed. Nick tried to shoo them away without success. Ben, however, was more interested in taking pictures of the tall sycamore trees lifting their long white arms to embrace the sky. Alice trailed after him.

  Bernie felt that she had stepped back in time two hundred years. It was easy for her to imagine that she could smell the smoke from ancient campfires and that the breezes in the tree tops were echoes of voices from the distant past. She could conjure the sound of drums as the Indians signaled the arrival of the French traders in their canoes
filled with goods to exchange for furs.

  She knelt and with something that was almost reverence, brushed her hand across the blades of grass, longing to find some real trace of those folks from long ago. Bernie wished for something she could hold in her hand and take home with her. She remembered how her teacher had read descriptions to the class from an old book of collected writings by Sandford Cox. He wrote about how his family had been among the pioneers who came into this area back in the late 1820s and how the children of the early settlers thought they had discovered a very rich land because even the grass sprouting in the spring meadow was decorated with colored beads. Those children had not realized that this was where the voyageurs had come each autumn to trade with the Indians.

  Over the years, however, the area had been pretty well picked over. It was a rare thing these days to find a relic from those times. Bernie was more than a bit disappointed not to find a single souvenir. She decided that she would have to content herself with only the memory of a pleasant day.

  She and her cousins wandered down to the riverbank where the boys were skipping stones. A sudden gust of wind blew Alice’s straw sunhat from her head onto the brown water and the current started to carry it away. Jack jumped in with all his clothes on and swam toward it as they all cheered for him. He clambered up the slippery bank with the hat in his hand. It was a soggy mess with the top caved in and the ribbon dripping.

  Nick snatched it and plopped it on Alice’s head while Ben snapped the shutter on his camera. “That will make a great picture for the school yearbook,” he said. Alice laughed as muddy rivulets ran down her face.

  As the sun dropped lower in the sky, Bernie realized she would have to go home empty-handed. She hadn’t even caught a fish. She picked up her fishing pole and her empty bait bucket and started to put them in Alice’s car. Then she noticed her bait bucket wasn’t empty after all. At the bottom she saw something that was deep blue. She put the bucket down to examine the object more closely.

  It was a bead—a lovely bead the color of cobalt threaded onto a loop of fishing line and lying atop a small nest of green grass. How had it gotten there? She started to call to the others to show them the treasure. It was then that she noticed Jack watching her from a distance. He was grinning in a way that made her feel flustered, and she felt her cheeks burn.

  3

  Summer 1916

  Disturbing Secrets

  When the girls arrived back at the Epperson home after their day on the Wabash, Bernie said to Alice, “Today was so much fun, until you ruined your hat.”

  “That old thing was no great loss.”

  “But it will be so embarrassing—that picture of you with that hat—when it is printed in the school yearbook.”

  “I don’t care. It was worth it,” Alice said. “I like being with the boys. It’s a nice change from living in a household with all girls.”

  A disturbing new thought dawned on Bernie. It had been wonderful that her older cousin had come to visit and had taken her and Lizzie to the river. Now Bernie suspected that the reason Alice really came to the house was not to be with her, but to see the boys.

  “As a matter of fact,” Lizzie said, “She has a crush on Jack. Whenever he can get away from the blacksmith shop, Jack is with Ben and Nick. So if Alice wants to see Jack, she goes where Ben and Nick go.”

  “Thanks a lot, little sister.” Alice reached out and pretended to shake Lizzie gently but ended up by hugging her. “Do you have to tell everything you know?”

  “That’s how I am,” Lizzie said matter-of-factly.

  “Indeed I do know how you are,” Alice said. “It’s my own fault for telling you any of my secrets, but I love you anyway.” It was true—even though she was annoying, no one could help loving Lizzie.

  “But how could you have a crush on someone like Jack?” Bernie wanted to know.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Alice asked.

  “Well, he’s…he’s.…” Bernie stammered. She couldn’t really think of a good reason. “He’s different. He’s not one of us.”

  “You mean because he comes from a rough part of town and lives in a rundown house? Is it because he misses school so much because his father makes him work in the blacksmith shop? Is it because he’s younger than I am and in a lower grade? Or is it because his clothes are not a nice as the other boys’ clothes?”

  “Well, I suppose…” Bernie’s voice trailed off into nothingness.

  “Don’t you think that’s kind of snobbish?” Alice asked.

  Bernie felt angry. “I don’t think I’m a snob.”

  “I didn’t say you are a snob. I said that it’s a snobbish attitude. You don’t think Jack is good enough for us to associate with.”

  Bernie had never been forced to put her feelings into words, but she had to admit that Alice had voiced exactly what she had been thinking.

  Jack’s father owned a blacksmith shop that may have looked similar to this shop from 1907. Blacksmiths did hard, physical labor in hot conditions. In a shop such as this one, the blacksmith used fire to heat iron in order to shape it into tools, repair farm equipment, and in some cases shoe horses. Jack often helped out in the shop rather than attend school. Many teens of this era worked on farms or at other jobs during part of the school year, and many missed school because of the work. (Gift of Donald L. Dunaway, Indiana Historical Society Collections)

  Then Alice said, “Your brothers don’t seem to feel the way you do. Jack is their best friend. They accept him as he is. He’s gentle and kind. He’s pleasant to be around.”

  Bernie could not, for the life of her, think of any reason to disagree. In fact, Jack had always been nice to her, and then she remembered the lovely blue bead in her bait bucket. She stood staring at the ground until Lizzie managed to interrupt the embarrassing silence that hung between them.

  “Don’t worry,” Lizzie said, “Alice’s crush on Jack won’t last long. Mother says Alice is fickle.”

  “What is fickle?” Bernie wanted to know.

  “It means she changes her mind a lot—especially about boys.”

  Bernie felt irritated that in some strange way a very special day had been spoiled. First she didn’t like thinking that Alice only came around because she wanted to be with the boys. She also didn’t like that Lizzie could define a word she had never even heard of before today. She never liked it when Lizzie was ahead of her in anything. Now she didn’t know which disturbing thought bothered her most.

  Bernie was mulling this over when Lizzie continued, “Last summer Alice was sighing over the tennis coach at the park. Before that it was her art teacher. It will be someone else as soon as school starts.”

  Bernie sighed with relief at that thought. Maybe she could put up with Alice wanting to be with the boys for this one summer, especially if it meant she could enjoy Alice’s company. Better yet, Alice could drive her father’s automobile and that meant that Bernie could go places that her brothers went. She would not be able to go much of anywhere if it weren’t for Alice.

  Her older cousin was very smart, too. She seemed to know something about everything. Maybe it was because Alice always had a book tucked under her arm. “I always take a book with me where ever I go,” she’d said more than once. “You’d be amazed how much you can read and learn at odd times.” With her love of books, it had come as no surprise that Alice had been the top student in the junior class. Like Ben, Alice was planning to go to Purdue, and she wanted to study biology.

  Thinking about Alice, Bernie started carrying a book, too. She read at every opportunity. Even Papa, who usually seemed kind of distracted—unless he was scolding her—noticed. One morning at the breakfast table, he looked up at her over the top of his newspaper and asked, “What’s that you’re doing?”

  “I’m reading a book.”

  “It’s not polite to read at the table,” Papa said.

&nb
sp; “But you’re reading,” Bernie countered.

  “That’s different.” Papa sputtered. “This is a newspaper.”

  “But you’re still reading at the table.”

  “Can’t a man have a bit of peace and quiet to read his newspaper before going off to work to support his family?”

  “If it’s okay for you to read the paper, why can’t I read a book? Alice says that it’s always good to have something to read when you have a spare moment.”

  “That’s a commendable idea,” Papa said, folding his newspaper and putting it beside his plate. “I am glad she seems to have more common sense than her father.”

  Bernie noticed that Mother opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again, choosing to ignore the insult to her brother, Bernie’s Uncle Leroy.

  “Maybe that girl will be a good influence to help Bernie grow up and not to be so impetuous. Maybe she’ll learn to think before she acts,” Papa said.

  That was what Papa thought about Alice’s influence at the beginning of the summer. But by summer’s end, he was not so certain about it. He became grumpy whenever Alice came over, mumbling, “Doesn’t that girl ever stay home?”

  Papa never said such things about Alice’s little sister, Lizzie, who had been Bernie’s closest companion for years. Most of the time Bernie liked being with Lizzie. Sometimes, though, she got tired of her cousin because it seemed that all Lizzie wanted to do was play with dolls. That was probably because Lizzie had no brothers whose activities seemed a lot more fun than girl stuff.

  On the other hand, Alice was so much fun to be with. Alice seemed to be everything that Bernie wasn’t. Alice was tall like her mother. Bernie was only five foot three inches. Alice was on the girls’ basketball team. Alice claimed she joined the team because her father had four daughters and no sons. Lizzie said Alice had joined because the new coach was so handsome.