Face the Winter Naked (6 page)

"Dunno.
Maybe."

They
clutched their bundles and hurried to the train as the man with the light—a
detective hired by the railroad to apprehend vagrants—jumped down from the car
and continued searching. He moved away from them, shining his light inside the
freight cars.

"Ready?"
Daniel asked.

The
train lurched backward then moved forward very slowly, accompanied by a long,
shrill whistle and belching black coal smoke from its stack. The officer
disappeared into a boxcar a good distance ahead as the freight came to a halt,
and before the wheels turned again, Daniel grabbed a hand rail and hauled
himself aboard. He was getting better at hopping a boxcar while still hanging
onto his pack. He steadied himself in the doorway and waited for George to
catch up.

"Here
... grab my hand ... careful ..."

He
pulled George up into the car just as loud shouting erupted ahead. Several men
jumped to the gravel bed and scattered in different directions to evade the
officer's club, escaping into the night. A loud cry pierced the air as one
unfortunate passenger caught the blows from the club and was dragged away to a
vehicle parked on the other side of the shack.

The
freight picked up speed and clacked along at a good pace as the new stowaways,
feeling their way in the dim light, stumbled away from the big sliding door and
moved into a far corner. Safe for now, they lowered their packs to the dusty
floor and lay with their heads against them.

"Reckon
some poor soak got it," Daniel said.

"Damn
railroad bulls. Oughtta be a law against clubbing people."

"Better
get some shuteye, George. Morning'll be here before we know it."

"I'm
damn near tuckered out."

It
was close to midnight, that summer of 1932, and the two men were already asleep
as the B & O freight smoked up the tracks on its way through Ohio, stopping
at small depots along the way for as long as an hour at a time as it headed
west toward southern Illinois and the Mississippi River.

Chapter 4

Elizabeth
brought her baby in the house and handed him over to LaDaisy. Ralph Channing
squirmed and fretted, turning his mouth toward LaDaisy's chest, his curled
fists hammering and digging at her smock.

"Would
you look at him?" exclaimed his mother. "He's starving. He couldn't
wait till we left the doctor's to start raising cane. Even the sugar tit didn't
console him."

Elizabeth
looked frazzled, from the heat and from coping with a hungry baby for the drive
from town. She was a petite woman next to LaDaisy, with a small turned-up nose
and frosty, light brown curls. LaDaisy was no match for Elizabeth's perfect
complexion and delicate features, but she was far ahead with bosom, for
Elizabeth Channing was built like an undernourished boy.

Ralph
whimpered and grunted as his mother trailed LaDaisy to the rocker. There was a
spark of jealousy in her eyes as she watched her son attack with gusto the
stiff brown nipple of a stranger; however, Elizabeth had learned to wear a
smiling mask.

LaDaisy
adjusted the baby's head to a more comfortable angle and rested her arm on the
arm of the rocker.

She
had heard that when wet-nursed babies grew up, they snubbed the women who'd
given them life. It wouldn't bother her, of course—she felt no maternal
leanings toward Ralph Channing. She was simply a milking machine. Sometimes she
was irritated because he seemed to be having a good time tugging at her own
baby's breasts. It was a horrid feeling, and she resolved never to wet-nurse
another.

"What
did the doctor say?" she asked.

Elizabeth
laughed. "Ralph weighs almost sixteen pounds. Your milk certainly agrees
with him."

"That's
good."

LaDaisy
nodded and patted the baby's rompered bottom. He didn't resemble his mother in
the least, but instead his father, with deep brown, wide-awake eyes and a
headful of dark curly hair. As he nursed, he stared at her face.

Elizabeth
glanced toward LaDaisy's bedroom. "How's your baby? Mind if I take a
peek?"

Without
waiting for an answer, she tiptoed into the room and peered in the cradle. Coming
back, she smiled wistfully at LaDaisy.

"She's
beautiful. Peaches and creamy. I'd give anything for a little girl. I love my
Ralphie. Don't get me wrong, you know, it's just—"

LaDaisy
smiled. "Maybe you think you can dress a girl in fancy bonnets and lacy
dresses. But when you turn your back, they're out playing in the mud. Or
letting the hound jump in their faces. They might get a bloody nose and bleed
all over the starched little pinafore. The boys will yank the ribbons out of
their pigtails. It doesn't matter if you birth boys or girls—they all end up
looking like the devil's pigpen a couple hours past breakfast."

She
observed Ralph's white kid-skin shoes and turned to Elizabeth.

"Will
you go in my bedroom and bring me the little wooden box on my dresser? Looks
like a trinket box."

Elizabeth
got the box and brought it out to her.

"This?"

"Open
it."

Elizabeth
lifted the small metal clasp and raised the lid. She looked in the box, then
back at LaDaisy.

She
removed a small brown baby shoe—soft and wrinkled, with tiny buttons running up
one side of the high-top leather. She turned it over and over in her hand, then
looked back at the woman in the rocker.

"Which
one of your babies wore this?"

LaDaisy
stared hard at Elizabeth before replying in a low voice.

"The
dead one."

"Th-the
dead one? Do you mean? Oh my God, you don't mean a-a dead baby."

LaDaisy
nodded.

"Whose
baby?" Elizabeth returned the shoe to the box and gently lowered the lid
before sitting on the davenport.

"Our
first baby boy, little Wayne. He died of pneumonia."

LaDaisy
gentled Ralph against her breast, recalling those final hours before her baby's
soul slipped away.

"His
fever was one-hundred-six degrees. He was too weak to cry. He was so sick. My
poor baby pulled his hair out by the handfuls."

"Oh,
don't!"

"I
was holding him. He went limp in my arms. I couldn't stop screaming."

"Please
don't talk about it! I don't want to know. Please stop."

But
there was no stopping.

"Daniel
and I, we lost our minds." She closed her eyes. "We buried him next
to Daniel's grandmother."

She
opened her eyes and looked at Elizabeth Channing, who wept quietly.

"It
seems so long ago he went in the frozen ground." Her tears broke loose and
flowed down her cheeks as the other woman sat in stunned silence.

"I—I
wanted to go to the cemetery and put a blanket on him—it was so cold—and change
his diaper. If Daniel hadn't been there to stop me, I might've gone and—and dug
up his casket with my bare hands." A choking sound came from her throat.
"Part of me wonders if there's really a God. A God who could tear a living
child from its mother's arms—"

Elizabeth
rose. "I don't know why you're putting yourself through this." She
wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, then went to the bedroom, returning
without the box.

"You've
upset yourself," she said. "And me, too."

"I
know and I'm sorry. Guess I needed to tell someone." She glanced down at
Ralph. "It won't bring Wayne back."

"No."

"My
husband made the box to keep the baby shoes in."

It
was Wayne for whom Daniel had also built the large cradle, and each child right
on down the line had used it. It was made of black walnut wood with a small
white lamb inlaid in the high-backed headboard. The baby's grave had a small
concrete statue of a reposing lamb; but someone had been mean enough to break
it year before last. Daniel's father, Saul, had mended it so well you couldn't
see the damage.

Elizabeth's
voice intruded on LaDaisy's thoughts.

"By
the time Mr. Tomelin returns to build Ralphie's cradle, I'm afraid Ralphie's
grandson will need it."

Now
what brought that on? Where on earth did she get the idea Daniel would make her
a cradle?

"He's
coming back, isn't he?"

"Well
I ... of course, I'm sure Daniel ..."

"I
want a cradle like the one he made for Fannie Gudgell—"

LaDaisy
interrupted. "I—I don't believe he built a cradle for Mrs. Gudgell,
Elizabeth. I remember her asking, but he never mentioned doing it." Could
Daniel have done the work without her knowing? It wasn't like him to change his
mind once it was made up. Surely he would've told her.

Before
she could organize her thoughts, Elizabeth said, "Of course he did. Fannie
showed it to me. It's a beautiful piece of work." Then she smiled.
"But instead of the lamb, I want a big letter 'R' for Ralph. I'll use it
for my other babies when we decide to have them."

LaDaisy
glanced at Elizabeth's chest.
You might have them, girl, but I ain't nursing
them.

"I
never understood how other women actually plan their families," she said,
"as if they were planning to get their hair permanent-waved. Do they tell
their misters 'no,' and risk an angry husband for weeks at a time?"

Elizabeth
looked stricken. "Oh, my, you do know there's protection?"

"That's
true. But a woman in her right mind won't say 'no' to her husband. The Bible
says a wife has to submit."

"Well,
I—"

"Only
a few times did I have courage to reject Daniel," LaDaisy admitted.
"He understood I was out of sorts, or having my monthlies. But there were
times even the monthlies couldn't stop him."

"Oh,
a wife never refuses if she can help it, and—and a real gentleman would never
ask at the wrong time. But there are
ways
."

"I
don't know what he did to relieve himself when I refused," LaDaisy said,
enjoying Elizabeth's discomfort. "Spilled the seed on the ground, I
suppose. I imagined a crop of babies sprouting up behind the outhouse."

She
smiled at Elizabeth, whose embarrassment bordered on apoplexy. The woman had no
choice but to listen.

Suddenly,
Ralph clamped his gums on LaDaisy's nipple hard enough to bring tears. For an
instant, she wanted to slap him. But she caught herself in time and slipped a
finger in a corner of his mouth to break the suction, then pushed him away from
her breast.

"What
is it?" Elizabeth asked.

"The
little shit bit me!"

"Oh,
dear, I'm sorry."

"Must
be getting a tooth."

"So
soon? Oh, it must hurt. The biting, I mean."

Elizabeth
came over and gently scolded her baby.

"Bad
Ralphie. You can't bite the nice lady who feeds you."

LaDaisy
grimaced.
Biting your nice old cow, Ralph. But it's all right. They won't be
fit for anything when you get done with them.

Some
days Ralph's nursing made her so nervous she could scream. With her own babies,
she'd sometimes felt a pleasant little jolt in her privates—she'd never tell
anyone, but it was much better than the biting.

Now
she changed the subject. "About the cradle—"

"Oh,
look who's here," Elizabeth cried.

The
silver-haired toddler stood in the other bedroom doorway, holding onto the
jamb. He stared at Elizabeth and rubbed sleep from his eyes with a fist.

"Baby
Ralph's here, Bobby." LaDaisy poked her nipple back in the baby's mouth.
"See?"

Dressed
only in a diaper, the little boy appeared too thin. LaDaisy could never get the
right food down him, and his appetite was poor. When she could afford it, she
gave all the children cod liver oil, a thankless chore just getting them to
lick the fishy oil from a teaspoon without gagging. She didn't know if cod
liver oil would help this boy or not. How could anything put meat on a child's
bones if he refused to eat?

Bobby
came over and touched Ralph's head.

Elizabeth
spoke softly to him and patted the davenport.

"Climb
up here with me, sweetheart."

Bobby
stayed by his mother, watching Ralph Channing nurse.

LaDaisy
had been about to say that Daniel would never build a cradle for any other
baby. But perhaps he might, when she told him how kind Elizabeth was to their
children. Besides, who was she to know what Daniel would or wouldn't do when he
made up his mind?

When
Ralph had nursed his fill and fallen asleep, LaDaisy closed her brassiere and
rose to pass him back to his mother.

Elizabeth
placed her son against her shoulder, patted and crooned. She smiled as LaDaisy
snapped her smock.

"Oh,"
she said, "we mustn't forget to bring in the milk and eggs. They should go
right in the icebox."

LaDaisy
took Bobby's hand and led him outdoors, his small bare feet running to keep up.
They returned with a gallon lard can of fresh milk and a sack of large brown
eggs. She'd fix jamboree for tomorrow's supper. Too bad Daniel wouldn't be here
to eat one of his favorite dishes, the scrambled mixture of eggs, onions,
peppers, and tomatoes. But LaDaisy knew she could always eat her husband's
share. With two nursing babies, her appetite was enormous.

Was
Daniel getting jamboree and pap, the simple chocolate pudding his grandmother
had often served the kids for breakfast? Did anyone else know how to cook
things the way he liked them? Or care?

She
watched from the front door as Elizabeth laid her son beside her on the
passenger seat, started the auto and drove up the road in a cloud of dust.

In
the kitchen, she pried up the tight lid of the milk can with a table knife,
then poured off the thick yellow cream to save for making butter.

She
poured herself a jelly glass of milk and offered Bobby some, which he declined
with a frown and a shake of his head. She opened the icebox; the ice was almost
gone. She sighed, knowing she'd have to dig into her precious store of pennies
to buy another block. Bobby reached in the ice pan below and found a sliver of
ice to suck on.

"You
eat ice, but won't drink milk. What'll I do with you?"

In
winter the Tomelin family saved the price of ice by storing perishables in a
special window icebox Daniel had built. But summer was expensive. Ice didn't
last long in the Missouri heat and humidity. Food spoiled quickly. Of course,
now there wasn't much food left to spoil. They were scraping the bottom of the
bowl.

Daniel
had delivered ice to the community when he and LaDaisy first met, carrying
burlap-wrapped blocks over his shoulder all day. Some blocks had weighed a
hundred pounds, and by the end of the day, he could barely straighten up. But
he'd enjoyed the work during hot weather, when the ice melted and soaked his
shirt.