American Progress Page 37

  “Yes, Mother.” Anna hurried out of the room to get the handkerchief. What if Dot’s father is hurt or … or dead? she wondered, hurrying up the steps to her bedroom. “Please, God, don’t let him be hurt,” she whispered.

  At church Sunday, Anna and her family slid into the pew beside Dot and her mother. Fred’s family sat in the pew in front of them, as usual. Fred whispered something to his mother, then moved back to sit beside Anna, smiling at her as he sat down.

  “Have you heard from your father?” Anna whispered to Dot.

  Dot shook her head no. Anna was sorry she’d asked when she saw Dot’s eyes grow red and glisten with unshed tears.

  When Pastor Mecklenburg got up to give the sermon, Anna was surprised. It wasn’t like any sermon she’d heard before. He faced the congregation, leaning on the podium with straight arms. “I cannot see people hungry and go on preaching,” he said.

  Anna stared at him. So did everyone else. The sanctuary became very still. Is he going to stop being our pastor? Anna wondered. She leaned forward, eager to hear what he said next.

  “I cannot keep preaching,” he started again, “unless I do something to help the people in our city who are jobless and hungry. And that is what I intend to do; help them.”

  Anna breathed a sigh of relief. How is he going to help them?

  “I’m going to help them to help themselves,” Pastor Mecklenburg said. “We hear a lot of people complaining that President Hoover and Congress and the Minnesota governor should be giving unemployed people free food or money they don’t need to pay back.” He held up his hands. “I’m not talking about the Bonus Marchers. Those men earned their bonus by fighting in the war.”

  Anna smiled at Dot, and Dot smiled back.

  “I believe most of the men without jobs do not want to be given food or clothing or money or anything else they haven’t earned,” the pastor said. “I believe they are only asking the government to help them this way because they don’t know what else to do. They’ve tried getting jobs. Many homeless and unemployed men look for jobs every day.”

  Like Dot’s father, Anna thought.

  “I believe,” Pastor Mecklenburg continued, “that men want to work, that having a job makes a man feel good about himself. He’d rather eat food he earned himself than eat food someone gave him out of pity.”

  Anna saw men in the congregation nodding. They agreed with the pastor. Anna sat up straighter. Why, that’s the way I feel about the food we grow in the garden! It tastes better because we worked so hard to grow it ourselves. Is that the way men feel about their work, too?

  Fred whispered in her ear, “That’s what Chet said, that hobos aren’t bums. They want to work for what they get.”

  Pastor Mecklenburg rubbed his hands together and smiled. “I’ve prayed about the hungry men on our streets, and this is what I think we should do. I’m going to start a company called Organized Unemployed. And that’s just what we’re going to do. We’re going to help the unemployed men get organized into a company.”

  Anna and Fred looked at each other. “How can men without jobs form a company?” she asked him in a whisper.

  He shrugged and shook his head.

  Pastor Mecklenburg leaned forward. “I’m going to need your help to get this company going. Please donate anything you can. We’ll need money, of course. But we’ll also need ideas for work the men and women can do and the tools and supplies to do the work.”

  He straightened up, smiling. “Now, you may be wondering how we can pay the people who work in this company. I’ll tell you. We are not going to pay them in money.” He stopped talking and, still smiling, watched the congregation.

  Anna glanced at Dot, then at Fred. They both looked as surprised as she felt.

  “We’re going to use scrip,” the pastor said. “For every hour a person works, they will be given scrip, a piece of paper worth twenty-five cents. Now, not every business in the city will let people pay with pieces of paper! That’s another area where you men in the congregation can help. You can agree to let people buy things in your business with scrip.”

  Adults in the congregation began to shift in their seats. Some men shook their heads. Do they think it’s a silly idea? Anna wondered. She had to admit, it sounded strange.

  “One of the things we’re going to do in the company is start our own store to sell what we make. Of course, people can buy the things from the company store with money, but they will also be able to buy them with scrip.” Pastor Mecklenburg beamed at the congregation as if he didn’t notice the men who were shaking their heads. “Let me know any way in which you can help our new company.”

  After the service, when everyone was slowly leaving the church, Anna listened to the adults talking about the Organized Unemployed Company.

  “Sounds like a dumb plan to me,” one man said to another.

  “Me, too,” the man he was speaking to agreed. “I wouldn’t want anyone buying things from my store with pieces of worthless paper.”

  “I think it’s worth a try,” Anna’s father told them.

  “So do I,” Fred’s father said. “Not much else is working. Why not try something new?”

  Anna and Fred smiled at each other. Warmth filled Anna’s chest. She was proud of her father for sticking up for Pastor Mecklenburg’s idea.

  The men who disagreed didn’t argue. They just changed the subject. “What about the army running out the Bonus Marchers?” one of them said.

  “I fought in the Great War,” the other told him. “I think it’s shameful, the president letting the army do something like that.”

  All around them, people were nodding their heads.

  “I fought in the Great War, too,” Anna’s father said. “It’s a sad thing when the army of the most powerful nation on earth attacks its own unarmed citizens.”

  An old man with white hair and a white beard leaned forward. “I fought in the Spanish-American War back in 1898. Why, when I heard our soldiers had been ordered to attack their own people, I almost broke down and cried. I won’t be votin’ for Hoover again, no siree.”

  The men and women standing around all agreed with him.

  When they reached the door where the pastor was shaking hands with everyone, Anna heard Fred’s father say to the pastor, “I think your plan is a good one. I’ll be glad to take scrip from my patients in return for services. And I know a man who would be a great help to you in getting the Organized Unemployed started.”

  “Who is that?” Pastor Mecklenburg asked.

  “He’s a man who used to work with Mr. Foshay, who built the Foshay Tower. He has a lot of good business experience. He’s just out of work now because of the depression. He’s in Washington with the Bonus Marchers now, but when he gets back, I’ll ask him to get in touch with you, if you’d like. His name is Mr. Lane.”

  Mr. Lane! Anna stared at her uncle. “That’s Dot’s father,” she whispered to Fred.

  Fred nodded, his blue eyes sparkling. “It’s a great idea, isn’t it?”

  Pastor Mecklenburg seemed to think so, too. “Sounds like a good man,” he told Uncle Richard. “Send him over!”

  CHAPTER 6

  A Surprise Visitor

  A few days later, Dot hurried into the Harringtons’ backyard, where Fred and Anna were talking. “Guess what!” A huge smile filled Dot’s face.

  “What?” Anna and Fred asked at the same time.

  “Father is home from Washington!”

  “Was he hurt by the army or police?” Anna asked.

  Dot shook her head, still smiling. “No. Well, he did get a little scratch, but he said that happened when he fell down. He fell because all the Bonus Marchers were running, and there were so many of them. But no one hit him or anything.”

  “What else did he tell you about it?” Fred asked eagerly. “Was it as bad as it sounded on the radio?”

  “Oh, it was awful!” Dot told him. “But I’ll tell you about it another time. Right now, I have something else to tell you.
Something wonderful has happened! Pastor Mecklenburg asked Father to help him with the new company, Organized Unemployed!”

  Anna grinned at her friend. “That’s great!” She felt like her whole heart was smiling. She hadn’t seen Dot this happy in a long, long time.

  “Your father will be good at that job,” Fred said, “with all his business experience.”

  Dot beamed. Anna could see she was proud to hear Fred say such nice things about her father.

  “He won’t get paid at first,” Dot told them, “not while he’s helping to get it started. But later he’ll get paid scrip, like everyone else.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Anna said in a quiet voice.

  Two months later, on a Saturday in October, Anna hurried over to Dot’s house. Colorful, dry leaves crunched under her feet as she went up the walk.

  Dot opened the door. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

  She doesn’t look very glad to see me, Anna thought. “It’s Audrey’s birthday today, so Mother decided to have a party. She said I could invite you.”

  Dot frowned. “A party? Audrey’s only turning two today. Isn’t that young for a party?”

  Anna shrugged and pulled her cardigan tighter about her. “It’s not like a real birthday party, with games and things. You don’t have to bring a present. It’s really only supper with birthday cake and ice cream for dessert. Fred’s family will be there and Addy’s family. Mother says she’s tired of the long faces everyone has because of the depression. She thought maybe the dinner and birthday cake would cheer people up. Can you come?”

  “I’ll ask my mother.”

  Dot turned to go back inside. Anna started to open the storm door to go inside and wait for Dot. Dot swung around and grabbed the door handle. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” She pulled the storm door shut, then shut the door to the house.

  Anna stared at the closed doors in surprise, shivering in the fall wind. Why is she acting so mean? She’s always let me in her house before! Then Anna remembered that she hadn’t been to Dot’s house for a couple months. Maybe Dot was upset she hadn’t come over more often.

  A minute later, Dot was back with her worn coat over her arm. “Mother says I can go.” She was smiling as if nothing had happened.

  Maybe she wasn’t mean to me on purpose, Anna thought as they went down the sidewalk together. She tried to forget the incident as she listened to her friend talk about the walnuts she’d collected at the park and laid out to dry.

  While Fred and Addy’s mothers helped Anna’s mother get the dinner ready, Anna and Dot talked with Addy in the living room.

  “Are you really over your TB now?” Dot asked Addy.

  Addy’s brown curls bounced as she nodded her head. “I sure am!”

  “I wonder how our friend Inez’s mother is doing,” Dot said.

  “Do I know Inez?” Addy asked.

  “She was a friend of ours from school,” Anna told her. “Her mother has TB and was sent to a sanatorium. But Inez’s family moved away, and we don’t know where they are living now.”

  “A lot of people have moved the last couple years,” Addy said quietly. “With the depression, many people can’t afford their homes anymore.”

  “That’s why my aunt and grandma live with us,” Dot said.

  “Do you still want to be a nurse?” Anna asked Addy. “You wrote me from the sanatorium that you thought you wanted to be one.”

  Addy’s face brightened. “Oh, yes. I’d like best to be a nurse to TB patients at a sanatorium. I need to go to school to be a nurse, though. I can’t afford it right now.”

  “That’s too bad,” Dot said.

  Addy smiled. “I don’t mind waiting. At least, not too much. I’m volunteering at one of the local hospitals now as a nurse’s aide, so I’m learning while I wait. I’m looking for a job, too, so I can make money to pay for school. But it’s hard to find work, as you know.”

  Isabel came running into the room and threw herself against Addy’s legs. “Won’t you come upstairs with me, Addy? I want to show you something.”

  “Sure, I’ll come.”

  When Addy and Isabel went upstairs, Anna and Dot wandered to the backyard. There the boys were playing with their hoops and sticks. The men were sitting on the back-porch steps, watching the boys and visiting.

  Anna’s father was shaking his head back and forth. “I won’t vote for Hoover, that’s for sure. Not after the way he treated our veterans.”

  Anna groaned and rolled her eyes at Dot. Next month was the election for president of the United States. It seemed to her the adults were talking about it all the time. She was tired of hearing about it!

  The man running against President Hoover was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He’d traveled around the country on a train called the Roosevelt Special, trying to talk people into voting for him. Anna had seen lots of posters in store windows saying Abolish Bread Lines; Vote for Roosevelt.

  “I agree with Donald,” Uncle Erik, Addy’s father, said. “Besides, Hoover sure hasn’t done anything to help the men who are without jobs.”

  “Because he hasn’t given out handouts?” Fred’s father asked them. “Hoover’s tried to make the money situation better. He got together the wealthiest, most powerful men in business and banking and asked for their advice and help. He doesn’t even take his $75,000-a-year salary.”

  “What he’s tried hasn’t helped the country,” Uncle Erik responded.

  Fred’s father sighed. “You’re right, it hasn’t. Things just keep getting worse. Roosevelt says he’ll make things better, but he doesn’t tell us how. I’m not sure Roosevelt will make a better president than Hoover, but with fifteen million men out of work, the country needs a change. Come Election Day, I’ll be voting for Roosevelt alongside you two.”

  Anna squeezed past the men and hurried toward the garage, tired of listening to politics. Dot followed close behind.

  At the garage, Fred and Steven were playing with their hoops. Some of the neighbor boys were playing, too. The hoops were old wheels with the spokes removed. Most of the hoops were from old baby carriages the boys had found at the dump. The best ones had rubber tires.

  Hollers and pounding shoes on the dirt alleyway filled the air as the girls neared the alley.

  Anna didn’t have a hoop of her own, but sometimes Steven or Fred let her play with theirs. Today the boys were racing their hoops past the garage, using their curved sticks to guide the hoops. Steven was standing behind the garage, because he was “it.” When the others rolled their hoops past the garage, Steven would try to guess when they were near him. Then he’d roll out his hoop and try to hit one of the other boys’ hoops. If he hit one, that boy would become “it.” Sometimes the boys played the game for hours.

  “It would be fun to have our own hoops, wouldn’t it?” Dot asked as they watched the boys.

  “Yes, but I wouldn’t want to go through the piles at the dump to find them,” Anna told her.

  “Hello. Do you live here?”

  Anna swung around at the sound of the boy’s voice. A tall, skinny boy in dusty clothes stood there. Anna’s mouth dropped open. It was Chet Strand, the hobo boy!

  CHAPTER 7

  Trouble on the Farm

  Chet Strand! What are you doing here?” Fred was running toward them from the alleyway, holding his hoop in one hand and his stick in the other.

  Chet pointed at the hoop. “I used to have one of those. Played with it all the time. Whenever Dad got tired of having me hanging around him, he’d say, ‘Oh, go roll a hoop.’”

  Fred and Anna laughed. Their fathers said that to them, too. Steven and the other boys were gathering about Chet, curious about the newcomer. Fred wished they’d go away. They might embarrass Chet.

  “I didn’t know you lived here,” Chet said, glancing about uncomfortably.

  “It’s my house,” Anna said.

  “Do you think I could talk to your dad?” Chet asked.

  “Sure.” Anna pointed toward t
he men on the back porch. “He’s the one with the curly brown hair.”

  “Thanks.” Chet pulled off his hat. Fred could see that his brown hair needed a haircut.

  “Who’s that?” Steven asked.

  “His name’s Chet Strand,” Fred told him.

  “Is he a friend of yours?”

  “Kind of.” He didn’t want to tell Steven that Chet was a hobo. Steven was a good kid and kind of quiet, but there was no telling what he might say if he knew the truth about Chet.

  Fred couldn’t hear what Chet and Uncle Donald were saying, but he could guess. Chet probably wanted to do some chores in return for a meal, like the other hobos who stopped at their houses.

  Sure enough, he saw Uncle Donald point toward the woodpile, and Chet headed that way.

  The back screen door opened. Aunt Lydia carried out a jar of cream and set it down beside Uncle Donald, saying something to him that Fred couldn’t hear.

  Uncle Donald looked up. “Anna, Dot!” He waved them near with one arm. “Come over and help us make the ice cream!”

  As the girls dashed for the porch, Fred went over to the shed to talk with Chet.

  Chet pushed his hat back on. He pulled off his jacket and laid it over the clothesline. With a grunt, he pulled the ax out of the stump where it was buried. “Watch out that I don’t hit you with any chips,” he warned Fred.

  Fred backed off a short ways and watched as Chet swung. A few minutes later, Steven came over. Fred was surprised his friends had left then thought they had probably gone home for supper.

  “You’re pretty good with your hoop and stick,” Chet told Steven between swings. “You steer yours really well.”

  “Thanks.” Steven pushed his straight dark hair out of his eyes. “I like playing with it, but I’d rather have a scooter. All the fellows have them but me.”

  “Why don’t you make one?” Chet asked.

  “I wouldn’t know how.”

  Chet rested the head of the ax on a log and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I know how. It’s easy. If you have an old pair of roller skates around that no one is using anymore, I’ll show you how to use them to make the scooter.”