American Progress Page 39

  Chet reached out a hand. “I grabbed for him. I felt his hat against my knuckles. Then he was gone, just slipped under the wheels of that train. He died.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The Closed Bank

  Two days later, Fred was walking quickly in the cool October sunshine. He shivered, remembering Chet’s story and the fate of his friend Ron. Fred hadn’t been able to forget the story since Chet told it to them. He wanted to do something for Chet, and he thought he knew just the thing.

  I’ll loan him some money, he thought. I have twelve dollars in my savings account. I’d rather loan it to Chet than keep it in the bank. Chet needs it more than I do.

  Fred hurried past an empty brick store. It used to be a clothing store, he remembered. Now its windows were dark and empty except for a sign someone had put on the window. Hard Times Are Still Hoovering Over Us, the sign said.

  It seemed everyone was blaming President Hoover for the bad times. Pretty soon he might not be president anymore, Fred thought. Maybe that other man, Franklin Roosevelt, will be president instead.

  He turned the corner of the business street and began walking faster. His bank was in the middle of the block, a big, brick building with tall, heavy glass doors.

  He hurried the last few feet. In just a few minutes, he’d have his money in his pockets. In his mind, he could see Chet smiling and thanking him when he handed him the money. The thought brought a smile to his face as he reached the bank.

  He pushed against the door.

  It didn’t move.

  He pushed again. Still it didn’t budge.

  Surprised, he stood back and stared at the door. Inside, the bank was as dark as the abandoned store he’d passed earlier. On the inside of the door, someone had hung a sign: Closed Until Further Notice.

  “Closed!” Fred stared. “It can’t be.”

  A strange empty feeling filled the spot where his stomach should have been. “It can’t be,” he repeated in a whisper. He stood with his hands on the glass of the door, staring at the sign and the empty lobby inside.

  Fred knew that banks could close. When they did, no one could take their money out of the bank or put money into it. It was like a store that went out of business. Lots of banks all over the country had closed in the last few years, hundreds of banks, thousands of banks. But not my bank!

  Slowly he started for home. He stared at the sidewalk as he walked but didn’t see it. A man passing by was whistling Franklin Roosevelt’s campaign song, “Happy Days Are Here Again!”

  Fred snorted. What a joke that is! he thought. I won’t be able to loan Chet any money. I won’t be able to spend my own money on anything. I feel like I’ve been robbed!

  “See you later, Martha,” Anna said as Martha started down the hall toward her classroom.

  Beside her, Dot shook her head. “I guess Mirna isn’t in school today.”

  “No, I guess not.” Sadness wound through Anna. She hated the way the depression was hurting so many of her friends.

  She watched Martha until her faded dress was lost in the crowd of other students milling about the hallway waiting for school to start.

  Martha and Mirna were twins. They were in the class ahead of Anna and Dot. Like Dot’s father, their father had been out of work for a long time. Martha had told Anna a few weeks ago that they only had one dress left that fit both her and Mirna.

  “We don’t want to quit going to school,” she’d said to Anna, “so we’re going to take turns going. I’ll go one day, and Mirna will go the next.”

  Anna had been stunned. Now she told Dot, “I guess it shouldn’t be such a surprise about Martha and Mirna. Lots of kids aren’t coming to school now.”

  Dot nodded. “Mother and Father say I will go to school no matter how poor we get. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, though, wearing old clothes and shoes with holes in them.”

  “Lots of kids are wearing old clothes now,” Anna comforted her. “And almost everyone wears cardboard in their shoes to cover the holes in the soles.”

  “At least I still have shoes to put cardboard inside of,” Dot said. “The boys in one family in my neighborhood quit going to school because they don’t have shoes. Their father says it’s too cold in Minnesota to go without shoes this time of year. There are some charities and churches that give away old shoes, but their father says he doesn’t want his family taking charity.”

  “Not even for his kids to have shoes?” The awfulness of it burned inside Anna’s chest.

  Dot shook her head. “No. My father doesn’t like taking charity, either, but he thinks the boys’ father should take the free shoes.” She took a deep breath. “I can understand how Martha and Mirna feel, though. A couple years ago, I wouldn’t have come to school without good clothes.”

  Anna knew that was true. When Dot’s father had an important job that paid lots of money, Dot had worn some of the prettiest dresses in school. But he’d lost his job three years ago, and Dot had grown a lot since then. Most of her beautiful clothes didn’t fit now. Many had been remade, but even those were faded and worn.

  Anna grinned at her friend. “You were pretty uppity back then. I like you better now, even if your clothes aren’t the best ones in town.”

  “Hi, Anna! Hi, Dot!” Fred stopped beside them. “Hey, Dot, Father came home last night with some jars of sauerkraut from the Organized Unemployed. The company Pastor Mecklenburg started must be doing pretty well.”

  A smile brightened Dot’s face. “It’s going swell!” She laughed. “A farmer gave them twenty thousand bushels of cabbage, so the company is making sauerkraut out of it to sell.”

  “Where do they make it?” Anna asked.

  “At the old Central High School. The city is letting the company use it. A restaurant gave them kitchen equipment.” Dot laughed again. “You wouldn’t believe how bad that old school smells with all that cabbage and sauerkraut!”

  Anna and Fred laughed with her.

  “Is your father still working with the company?” Fred asked.

  “Oh, yes! Pastor Mecklenburg says Father was a gift from God because he’s such a good businessman.”

  Anna smiled. She could see how proud Dot was of her father.

  “He’s even being paid now.” Dot shrugged. “In paper scrip, like everyone else, of course. We’ve used it to buy food, mostly. With that and the food we grew and canned this summer, we have lots of food now.”

  “Does your father like working there?” Anna asked.

  Dot nodded. “He says that with the money the company is making from selling the sauerkraut, it’s buying material and sewing machines. The company is going to make clothes and sell them, too. It’s opening its own store to sell the things it makes.”

  Fred raised his eyebrows. “How do the men know how to make sauerkraut and sew? Not many men know how to cook and use sewing machines.”

  “Both men and women work at the company,” Dot told him, “and there are lots of workers.”

  Anna jumped when the bell rang, warning them that classes would be starting in five minutes. Fred headed toward his class, and Dot and Anna walked toward theirs.

  “I almost forgot to tell you.” Dot’s eyes sparkled. “Mother used some of the scrip to buy flour. She let me choose which bags. I chose some with pretty pink and blue and yellow flowers on them. She’s going to make me a new dress with the bags.”

  “That’s nice!” A couple years ago, Dot would never have worn a dress made out of a flour sack, Anna thought. Of course, now lots of girls are doing that.

  The girls slipped into their wooden desks just as the final bell rang. Right away, Miss Atkins stood at the front of the class and greeted everyone with a smile. “Good morning, class. We’re going to start today with our readers.”

  Anna dutifully opened her reader to the right page. As a girl on the other side of the room began reading aloud, Anna followed along.

  After a page, Anna lost interest in the story. Her gaze slipped to Miss Atkins. The teacher was leani
ng against the front of her desk with a reader open in her hands. She was tall and very skinny. She had dark hair that she wore to the side with a ribbon. The ribbon always matched her dress. Today it was navy blue.

  Anna looked out the window. She could hear other students reading, but she didn’t pay attention. The branches outside the window were almost bare of leaves now that it was the end of October. A squirrel raced along one of the branches.

  I wish I could be outside playing like you are, she told the squirrel silently. Guilt made her squirm and look back at her book.

  Hundreds of schools, maybe thousands, had closed all over the country because cities and counties and states didn’t have enough money to keep them open. Anna knew she should be glad she could still go to school. She’d heard a rumor that Minneapolis was running out of money to pay its teachers, too. She’d asked her father whether it was true and if her school would close. He’d said he didn’t know.

  “No, Harold,” Miss Atkins told the boy who was reading, “that’s not the way to pronounce ‘hospital.’ Let me write it on the blackboard and we can all see how it should be spoken.”

  She walked to the board behind her desk and picked up a piece of chalk from the ledge. She wrote H–O–S-P—

  The chalk made a squeaky sound that made Anna shiver. Instead of an I, a squiggly line went down the blackboard.

  Then Miss Atkins fell to the floor.

  For a moment, the room was as quiet as if no one was in it. No one moved. No one made a sound.

  They waited for Miss Atkins to get up.

  She didn’t.

  CHAPTER 10

  What Happened to Miss Atkins?

  Anna’s heart started beating so hard that she could feel it hitting her chest. She pushed herself out of her desk and walked slowly to the front of the room. Miss Atkins was lying there with her eyes closed.

  Anna knelt beside her and gently pushed at her shoulder. “Miss Atkins? Miss Atkins, wake up!”

  A couple other students stood behind Anna. “Is she dead?” she heard one of the boys ask.

  Anna shook her head. “She’s still breathing.”

  Dot knelt beside her. Anna looked at her. Dot’s green eyes were huge, and her face was white. She looked scared. Do I look like that? Anna wondered. I sure feel scared.

  “What happened to her?” one of the other students asked.

  Anna shook her head. “I don’t know, but I think we’d better get the school nurse.”

  “I’ll get her.” Dot stood up and started for the door.

  Anna looked back down at Miss Atkins. She really liked her teacher. What’s wrong with her? she wondered.

  Fear skittered along her nerves.

  All day, Anna worried about Miss Atkins. The teacher had awakened before Dot returned with the school nurse, but the class still didn’t know what was wrong with her. The nurse had sent Miss Atkins home, and the class had a substitute teacher for the rest of the day.

  That evening, Fred’s father, Uncle Richard, came over to Anna’s house to talk with her. They sat down in the living room with Anna’s parents.

  “I’m Miss Atkins’s doctor,” Uncle Richard told Anna. “She came to see me today.”

  Anna scooted to the edge of the chair. “Is she okay?”

  He nodded. “She’ll be all right. Doctors aren’t supposed to tell other people about their patients, but Miss Atkins asked me to let you know she is okay.” He smiled. “She told me you were the student who thought of sending for the school nurse. That was very smart. It was just the right thing to do.”

  Happiness at his words and that Miss Atkins wasn’t terribly ill filled Anna’s chest. “Why did she fall on the floor and go to sleep like that?”

  “She fainted.”

  “Why?”

  Uncle Richard’s face grew very serious beneath his black-and-gray hair. “She hasn’t been eating enough.”

  Anna stared at him, surprised. “Why not? She has a job, so she can buy food. She doesn’t have to stand in bread lines like homeless men.”

  “Miss Atkins is the only person in her family with a job,” Anna’s uncle explained. “She lives with her parents. So do her grandparents and her two younger sisters. Neither of her older brothers or their wives have jobs, and both brothers have children. Miss Atkins’s pay has to buy food for everyone and pay all the other bills for everyone, too. There isn’t enough money to go around. Your Miss Atkins is a very nice woman.” He smiled at Anna.

  Anna gave him a wobbly little smile back. She thought Miss Atkins was nice, too, but she didn’t like it that her teacher was hungry.

  “She is very nice,” he repeated. “To make sure everyone else gets enough to eat, she skips eating meals herself. Usually she only eats one meal a day. Sometimes she doesn’t eat at all.”

  “Oh.” Anna tried to imagine what it was like not to eat anything all day. She got hungry just waiting for supper!

  Uncle Richard held up a finger. “Don’t forget, Anna, this is Miss Atkins’s secret. You mustn’t tell any of your friends.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “But I can tell Jesus and pray for her, can’t I?”

  “I’m sure Miss Atkins would like that very much.”

  Fred sat at the kitchen table, carefully telling his parents of his plan to give a loan to Chet and how the plan had fallen through when the bank closed.

  His father frowned. “Did Chet ask you for this loan?”

  Fred shook his head quickly. “Oh, no. He’s never asked me for anything. He doesn’t even know about my savings account. It was all my idea.”

  “It was nice of you to think of it,” Mother said slowly.

  Fred took a deep breath. What would his parents think of his new idea for helping Chet? “I was wondering, could Chet stay with us?”

  Father and Mother looked at him with surprise in their eyes.

  “Son,” Father said, “what made you think of this?”

  “Well, Chet doesn’t have a place to stay.”

  “What about the Salvation Army, the Union Mission, and the other charities in town?” Father asked.

  “Chet says those places only let a man stay there a few nights. They only let kids like Chet stay one night. They don’t give the kids as many meals, either.”

  “Why not?” Mother’s eyes looked troubled.

  “Because they want the kids to go back to their parents’ houses to stay,” Fred explained. “But Chet can’t go back because his father told him he had to leave.” He quickly told them Chet’s story. “So you see, he doesn’t have a place to stay.”

  Father sat with his elbows on the table. He rubbed a hand over his chin, back and forth, while he thought.

  Please say yes, Fred told him, silently. Please let Chet stay.

  Mother watched Father. She didn’t say anything.

  Father lowered his hand with a sigh. “Fred, there are thousands of boys like Chet. Almost a quarter million of them are riding the rails, looking for work. Lots of them are younger than Chet. All of them are broke and hungry and don’t have a roof over their heads most of the time. We can’t help all of them.”

  “I’m not asking you to help all of them, only Chet. We have room. This is a big house.”

  “We won’t have as much room in a couple days,” Father said. “Larry and his wife are moving back home this weekend.”

  Fred’s mouth dropped open. His oldest brother, Larry, hadn’t lived at home since he graduated from the university. “They are?”

  Father nodded. “You know he lost his job when the company where he worked closed. He hasn’t been able to get another job yet and neither has his wife. They can’t pay for their rent or their other bills.”

  Fear grew inside Fred, a fear he’d never known before. There were men all over the city who didn’t have jobs and couldn’t support themselves and their families. Even his older brother, Harry, could only find small jobs that lasted a day or two. But Harry hadn’t graduated from the university, and he wasn’t married. He’d alway
s lived at home with Fred and their parents.

  Larry was different. And it felt different when it was his brother that needed help. It felt … scary.

  He didn’t want to feel that way. He didn’t want to think about it. He remembered Chet. “Isn’t there something we can do to help Chet? Isn’t there work you can give him?”

  “Don’t you think any work we could offer should first go to Harry or Larry?” Father’s voice was low and quiet.

  “I suppose.” Fred knew Father was right, so why did the truth feel so awful?

  The next evening when the Harringtons had listened to Amos ‘n’ Andy and then the news, Anna’s father switched off the radio.

  Anna took a deep breath. Now is the time to ask, she thought. She rubbed her sweaty hands down the sides of her dress.

  Fred had told her at school that day about his conversation with his parents. “Why don’t you ask your parents if they can help Chet?” he’d asked her. She’d promised him she would ask them that night.

  Father was already settling onto the sofa and opening up the newspaper. Mother was in her rocker beside the radio, mending the heel in one of Steven’s socks.

  Anna cleared her throat. “Um, Father? Mother? There’s some thing I want to ask you.”

  Father lowered the newspaper. Mother looked up from her mending. They both smiled at her, waiting.

  Her mouth was so dry it felt like it was sticking together. She swallowed hard. “Do you … do you think maybe Chet Strand could stay here?”

  “What?” The word seemed to explode from Father’s lips.

  Mother stared at her with her mouth open.

  This is going to be worse than I thought, Anna thought. “Well, you know he’s a hobo. He doesn’t have any place to stay, and it’s almost winter.” She swallowed again. “Maybe, if he can’t stay here, you could give him some work to do.”

  “Maybe we’d better tell her,” Mother said to Father quietly.

  “Tell me what?” Anna asked.

  Father sighed. He folded the newspaper and set it beside him on the sofa. Then he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “The mill cut my hours today. I won’t be making as much money as before.”