Let's go For Broke Page 9

  She knocked gently, but no one stirred. Then a little louder, but still no answer. Finally she pushed the door open. Their guest was gone, along with the sheets, the pillowcase, the cotton blanket, and even the makeshift pair of old curtains Mrs. Rasmussen had put up to keep the light out of her eyes. Even Miss Tinkham’s good flashlight was gone. The nightgown and robe, too. Slowly she turned and went back to the kitchen.

  Taking in a total stranger, who knew scarcely more than a few broken words of English, taking her out of the hands of the police, off the city dump, one might say, it was unrealistic to expect anything else.

  But Miss Tinkham had expected something else. Her friends had, too. Mrs. Rasmussen had five plates set out and five cups. She had a bowl of batter ready and was greasing the top of the stove lids with bacon fat, getting ready to fry the cakes. When she saw Miss Tinkham’s face, she stopped…bacon rind poised.

  “She’s gone…and nearly everything in the room with her,” Miss Tinkham said in a weak voice.

  Mrs. Feeley sat down with a thump. “Wouldn’t that curdle ya?” she said at last. “They ain’t never done me nothin’, I always got along good with ’em counta talkin’ the language some, but lots o’ people won’t have nothin’ to do with ’em. Say they ain’t trustworthy…They’ll tell you Mess-skins ain’t got no stay-ability.”

  “Stability is an individual characteristic,” Miss Tinkham said. “We can’t label a whole nation that way, and I’ve known more loyal Mexicans than disloyal ones. We’ll have to try to be more detached in the future and not give so much of our affection so quickly.”

  “We ’spect too much of people,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “I don’t believe in passin’ no judgment till we know somethin’. ’Course it ain’t too likely we’ll ever see her again…spendin’ her life on the dodge like that, she can’t hardly trust nobody, I guess. But I sure hope she’ll come back. She’s a good little thing, an’ clean as a new pin. How she ever got herself washed an’ clean, I’ll never figure out.”

  She poured on the first hot cakes with an experienced hand and Mrs. Feeley poured out the coffee.

  “Spry as a cricket, even if she was scared half to death,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “I wonder how many homeless people there are in the world? I mean real drifters, with practically no identity or identification and no address?” Miss Tinkham mused, thinking how close she had come to being one of the Homeless Ones herself.

  “Aw, the ball game ain’t over till the last innin’,” Mrs. Feeley said as she went to the door and looked on the back porch:

  “Lookit them damn cats sittin’ in a ring smellin’ the hot cakes, with a million rats an’ mice to be had for the takin’!”

  “We were too emotionally exhausted to unpack the antiques,” Miss Tinkham smiled. “Our little friend was so much more interesting.”

  “We gotta pull up them weeds in the garden an’ see if there’s anythin’ we can eat out there,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “I found a onion growin’ by the back door last night an’ there was some ol’ sparrow grass tops back o’ the fence.”

  “There is certainly too much to do to waste time bewailing human frailty,” Miss Tinkham said. “I’ll have to see what we can dig up to paint signs on.” She stopped suddenly: “We haven’t any paint; I don’t think we brought the odd bottles and cans since we packed so hastily. Doesn’t it give one a peculiarly naked feeling not to have even one copper cent?”

  “Our credit’s good,” Mrs. Feeley said, “but that’s clear back in Dago, and no tellin’ when we’ll afford any gas. You’ll just have to burn the end of a stick an’ write with that. Put your stoutest britches on, Mrs. Rasmussen. Them brambles an’ weeds is fierce. It’s time you an’ me went foragin’. I’ll take the axe an’ my shovel. You take the hatchet and machete. Better take a can or basket in case we do stumble onto somethin’ to eat…don’t wantta be runnin’ back an’ forth all the time.”

  “I’ll unpack and make a list of the antiques,” Miss Tinkham said. “The living room will be the best place for them, the mantelpiece and the rail on top of that wainscoting will do for the time being, until we can get shelves or tables.”

  “No use to pertend N. Carnation runnin’ off like that didn’t hurt,” Mrs. Rasmussen said softly.

  “Aw, that’s what we git for tryin’ to mother everythin’ that shows signs o’ life. Don’t look now, but if them ain’t sweet potato vines, I’m a monkey’s uncle.”

  Behind an overgrown hedge of raspberry vines was a large patch of dark green leaves, thick and tightly inter-grown. Mrs. Feeley ran her shovel straight down at the edge of the patch and pushed on it with her foot. The soil was loose, sandy loam liberally mixed with leaf mold. The shovel struck something solid and Mrs. Feeley called to Mrs. Rasmussen, who was already exploring deep under the raspberry vines, thrashing the underpart with a stick.

  “Dinner!” Mrs. Feeley yelled, holding up a clump of yams with the soft earth clinging to them. “Music roots! We’ll roast ’em. At least they’re somethin’ to eat. No tellin’ what-all we’ll find if we look good. Let go like this, the ground will grow anythin’, if we just had money for seeds an’ plants.”

  “It’ll come,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Them’s fine yams. Don’t dig no more’n we need. See what I got?” She held out the gallon can she had brought with two or three pints of ripe red raspberries in it. “There’s loads of ’em down underneath. The birds don’t like to get under things. I’m goin’ back for a bigger pan.”

  Mrs. Feeley handed her a fine big clump of sweet potatoes.

  “I’ll stick these in the stove now,” the chef said, “be ready when noon comes. Glad I brought that can o’ bacon grease we saved.”

  “Them berries is named Indian Summer,” Mrs. Feeley tasted one. “Two crops a year.” She was planning to root a lot of sweet potato draws to continue the supply of food that grew itself.

  Over at the asparagus patch, she found nothing but tall wiry plumes. “But I can fix that,” she muttered, whacking the tops off with the machete. She piled them up neatly over the rows to form a mulch and went off in a trot to the empty chicken runs she had seen that morning. She had forgotten to bring a carton with her, so she settled for an old newspaper lying nearby. The compost was thick and loose, well decayed and would not burn. She made three or four trips spreading the fertilizer over the cut asparagus tops. Then she dug some of the rich loose earth and sprinkled it over the rows. “Now, when I soak that in good with the hose, won’t be but a few weeks till them big shoots will start out.” Then she remembered and laughed to herself: “No hose! No water if we had the hose. Somethin’ has to be did!”

  Further on she saw coarse mustard plants gone to seed and some dried spindly stalks of okra with a few pods still clinging on. Three or four large, woody squash vines caught her eye. Hubbard blue, she thought, have to be cut with a axe, but they keep good an’ we can use all o’ them seeds. She saw three large warty squashes, hard as a board but sound. Beyond them a few rhubarb plants were in bloom and she cut them back the way she had the asparagus.

  Mrs. Rasmussen had two gallons of fresh raspberries.

  “Miss Tinkham’s got lots o’ loot outa them boxes,” she said. “Some of it real purty. She’s got it in the front room and she’s swep’ up an’ it looks nice. She’s dustin’ the lights now. She says we can sell them berries easy this time o’ year.”

  “We sure gotta sell somethin’.” Mrs. Feeley finished dividing a clump of onions into sets and started digging a little trench. “First time in my life I ever wished for water!”

  At the scant noon meal the four friends seemed withdrawn, each occupied with his separate thoughts.

  “Separate, but the same,” Miss Tinkham mused as she sprinkled plenty of salt and pepper on the freshly baked sweet potato. “We are each trying to keep the other from finding out how great is our disillusion over N. Carnation’s disappearance with the bedding.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen had done her best by the potatoes. She brou
ght out everything she had in her condiment box and lined it up on the table. She learned years ago that condiments should always be kept together and in a portable form, in case anybody had to move or go somewhere in a hurry. The seasonings so necessary to make cheap food palatable were expensive and broke a body up in business if he had to start from scratch.

  “You can always make do if you have an onion,” she said as she passed a saucer of the pungent bulb finely chopped. She had considered for a minute what she could do with the half bottle of Burgundy she had. There was a pint of sherry, but alas, no ribs or even oxtails to use those fine seasonings on. She couldn’t see wine on sweet potatoes. It looked like an all-time low. The meager stock of canned goods had to be kept back for really dire times, when maybe there was not even a baked sweet potato and a slice of toast to eat.

  Mrs. Feeley’s brow was puckered as she pondered on ways and means to stock that conservatory with flowering plants. Take months to get them going from seed. She ate her potatoes doggedly, but without relish.

  “I am convinced that there are many prospective customers who do not know of our existence,” Miss Tinkham said. “The antiques, while not very authentic, are the usual assortment of secondhand articles the public calls antiques. We are cut off from the main arteries so abruptly that I see little chance of luring trade down onto this little private island of ours. This would be a real problem for the most gifted huckster on Madison Avenue. I am sure they won’t let us put up signboards on the freeway…and if they did, it would cost money. What we need is an eye-catcher, a real traffic stopper. Once we can get the attention of the public, the rest is easy. Those cars are going by at sixty miles an hour, and it’s got to be good to make them take a second look.”

  Mrs. Feeley nodded in sad agreement.

  “Those old-time medicine shows were great, based on sound psychology,” Miss Tinkham said. “People were entertained and amused, so naturally they were in a humor to buy something. I’ll finish unpacking the boxes if you two don’t need my help for something else. One huge crate contains one thousand styrafoam snowballs! Nothing in the world we need so badly! Maybe something will come to me, but up to now, I have drawn one blank after another. The well has gone dry.”

  “Dry!” Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen spoke in chorus.

  “An’ you’re not just whistlin’ ‘Dixie’!” Mrs. Feeley said. “Five bottles ’twixt us an’ Kingdom Come—an’ them hot!”

  “I’ll make a fresh pot o’ coffee,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “It’s the next best thing.”

  “Bound to be lots o’ bulbs gone wild out there,” Mrs. Feeley brooded. “Some of ’em’s bound to bloom soon. Can’t go in the flower business without no flowers.”

  “I’ll keep scroungin’ round to see what else we can eat,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Old-Timer finished calling his coffee up out of the cup with loud slurps and departed in the direction of the barns playing “Turkey in the Straw” on his harmonica.

  “Lookit our clothes,” Mrs. Rasmussen said suddenly. “Wore thin. Lookit them dishtowels, threads! The bath towels is so wore out your head comes through ’em every time you dry your face. Not a whole pair o’ nylons among the lot of us.”

  “Yeah, an’ I’m wearin’ lace pants,” Mrs. Feeley said, “not that they was lace to start out with! We’re like Moody’s goose that went all of a heap.”

  “Not a single thing, hardly, that we couldn’t use,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  “Except a thousand artificial snowballs.” Miss Tinkham smiled. “We are depressed and in a financial recession, but we…”

  “Nothin’ that a cold case o’ brew wouldn’t cure,” Mrs. Feeley said.

  “Or the sound o’ them little mincey-meat steps on the porch,” Mrs. Rasmussen sighed.

  “I’m goin’ out an’ hoe up a storm,” Mrs. Feeley said. “I’m just like an Indian: if I don’t sweat, I don’t sleep.”

  Mrs. Rasmussen treated herself to a little hot water and did up the dishes. Some kind of chore always helped a body over the rough spots. If they were not on short rations, she would bake a whipped-cream cake. Not that any of the crowd cared particularly for sweets, but all her life baking some toothsome delicacy had been a source of comfort to her. In the old country as a young girl she used to have spells of unexplained sadness. Her mother would look up from her weaving and say: “Bake a whipped-cream cake.”

  She knew how to make wonderful marmalade from the sour oranges, and the strawberry guavas were loaded, but all those things took sugar and she only had a pound or so left.

  “But I’ll make hush puppies for supper,” she said aloud. “They’re a meal just by themselves, an’ I’ll put green onion tops in them. Sure go good with the beer…” She grinned as she went out to the side porch to get some more wood. No use letting the fire go out, they were low enough in the boots without that.

  Bless his heart! she thought. Old-Timer had dug out lots of big stumps, old rotten fence posts, and fallen limbs. They were cut and stacked into a fine rick of stove-wood. A cat came by and rubbed against Mrs. Rasmussen’s ankles. She eyed it speculatively.

  “Not yet, bud,” she said. “But if things get much worse…” Old-Timer was plowing his way through the high growth carrying something raw and red in his hand.

  Mrs. Rasmussen went to meet him, full of curiosity.

  He handed her two medium-size carcasses, cleaned and dressed.

  “Rabbit!” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “You catch ’em?”

  He nodded in the direction of the big hedge by the barn. She followed him to see how he had done it. There was a heavy wooden box that had once held Scotch whiskey sitting on the ground. Old-Timer had made a figure-four trap out of it and showed her how it worked. She was not one to question the ways of providence, although she did wish fleetingly that dressed rabbits did not look quite so much like new born babies.

  Back in the kitchen she disjointed the rabbits and made a dip out of vinegar and Burgundy, some chopped onion and mashed garlic in which to marinate the meat. There was a little spice vinegar left in a jar of sweet pickles and she added that, carefully picking out the cloves and bits of cinnamon to add flavor.

  Be a nice surprise for Mrs. Feeley an’ Miss Tinkham, workin’ so hard, she thought.

  She put some of the fine big chunks of wood into the stove and put in some more sweet potatoes to bake in order not to waste the fire she had going.

  Money or no money, gasoline or no gasoline, I’m fixin’ a big boiler o’ hot water so they can all have a nice wash. We’ll all feel better for it.

  Out in the yard she found a big bottle-brush shrub in bloom. She broke off a lot of the flame-colored blossoms and took them inside. After she wiped the dusty leaves off, they looked fine in an unused beer stein. Don’t have to live cloddish just because we’re broke, she thought.

  Clouds of dust, twigs and limbs flew under Mrs. Feeley’s machete and hatchet blows. Mrs. Rasmussen took her out a cup of coffee and came back with a huge clump of garlic and a whole bush of violently hot little red and green peppers. Mrs. Rasmussen braided the garlic and hung it up to dry. She picked off some of the peppers and then hung the bush over a gaslight fixture for the rest of the peppers to dry. She checked her scanty larder again to see just what fat she could afford to anoint the rabbit with. There was an almost full two-pound can of Crisco, a pint of corn oil, and about half a cup of olive oil. She mixed some of the olive oil with a little corn oil for flavor and heated it in a frying pan. She shook the marinated rabbit pieces in a bag with flour, pepper, and salt and then browned them in the oil.

  I’ll use the same flour to thicken the gravy, she thought. Be lots nicer if I had a few gingersnaps to thicken it with, but this is sure better than what we was expectin’ for supper! The rabbit livers were fresh and clear, so she left them in the wine marinade, until time to make the gravy. When the pieces of rabbit were browned, she covered the skillet and stuck the whole thing in the oven, and closed the damper to keep the fire low.


  She went to see if Miss Tinkham needed a hand. Ruby glass bowls, Japanese figurines, gilt picture frames, imitation Dresden vases were lined up on the rail above the wainscoting. Miss Tinkham looked weary.

  “Them snowballs, ain’t it?” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Miss Tinkham nodded and sat down on the lowest step of the staircase. On a piece of paper she had noted down everything acquired from Ben Hur Grossman. The two huge Chinese vases stood on either side of the fireplace.

  “There are just three more boxes,” Miss Tinkham said, “but I was too weary to cope with any more today.”

  “I fixed hot water for you to have a wash,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  Miss Tinkham put her arm around her: “Always doing something for somebody! I’m too tired to dress, but I’ll put on a little of the good cologne I got last Christmas.”

  “Ah-purge is nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said.

  No matter how you pronounced it, Arpège was a spirit lifter: “It ripples up to the sky like a harp,” Miss Tinkham said.

  It was dark when Mrs. Rasmussen fixed up a pan of warm water for Mrs. Feeley and carried it to the bathroom for her. Her face was streaked with sweat rivulets when she went in, but when she came out, her face was powdered and her hair combed. She had shucked off her dirty dungarees and sweat shirt and wore a clean dress and a pair of pumps to rest her feet from the sneakers she’d worn all day.

  “Whew!” she exclaimed as she sat down in the kitchen. “Some smell! If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was meat! Maybe it’s the fruity c’logne! But it sure smells good in here…not quite so poverty-stricken! I hate a poor smell…like damp matting an’ kerosene oil an’ sprouted potatoes. Yeah, an’ navy beans. Don’t know why but they always smell so poor! Man, we’re in fine trim for the depression, ain’t we? It’s been a long time since I had to wash my feet in the same bucket o’ water I washed my face in!”