Furnace Mountain: or The Day President Roosevelt Came to Town Read online

  Alice stole a furtive glance at him while he rambled on about himself. He didn’t look at her while he spoke, which made it easier for her to study him. In the late afternoon sunlight, his hair appeared dark brown and hung jaggedly around his ears. He had tried to cut it himself again, something that he mistakenly thought he was good at doing.

  His britches were too snug, but they were pressed and clean. He was very conscientious when it came to hygiene, but cared little where fashion was concerned. And while his mother might nag him about his grades and his future, she seemed oblivious to things such as good haircuts and clothes that fit him well.

  Still, he had extraordinarily long eyelashes for a boy and the skin on his face was smooth and soft. Had he been a girl, he would have been very pretty.

  “Don’t you want to leave?” he asked at last.

  She didn’t realize he’d been asking her questions and now she had to return her attention back to him.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I don’t think so. Not forever anyhow.”

  “But you used to love going to the train tracks when we were kids,” he protested. “You liked hearing the engines roar and adored watching the people debarking.”

  “Yes,” Alice replied, her eyes sparkling. “I did. It was always such a happy time, watching people’s eyes light up as their loved ones stepped onto the platform. Little children throwing themselves into their daddies’ arms, young couples embracing sweetly, oblivious to anyone who might be watching.”

  “But you don’t want to be a part of that at all? You’re happy just sitting back and watching everyone else?” Nicholas’ face was incredulous, like he couldn’t believe what he thought he was hearing.

  Alice reached her hand over and gently patted his knee. “I like watching. It makes me happy. And besides, I was always more interested in those getting off the train. Not on. I liked watching the people come home.”

  She’d never had much interest in those doing the boarding, not those who were leaving. That’s where she and Nicholas differed.

  “I just don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head. “What are you going to do when I am gone?”

  Alice rolled her eyes. As though her entire existence was wrapped up in him. She would miss him dearly, of course, and the idea of him being gone was crushing. She had no other close friends. But she would continue to live, the same way she continued to live after her mother passed. Unfortunately, life continued. It was a cruel, hard fact.

  “Well, I still have another year of school with Miss Casteel. And while you’re away in Boston, getting to know new people and experiencing the big city, I’ll remain here in Furnace Mountain. I’ll go on with life as always, just a little sadder.”

  He looked up at her with big, brown eyes and for a moment her heart melted, remembering the little boy he’d been. The one who had caught frogs and fireflies with her–the one who had held her hand at her mother’s funeral and then tried to watch the sky with her, to see if there really were angels looking down.

  “You’ll miss me?”

  “Of course,” she laughed as she ruffled his hair. “You’re my best friend. And you? Will you want to return once you’ve finished college?”

  Somehow, she didn’t think so. What would there be for him to do in such a small town once he had an education and could go anywhere in the world? He would have outgrown it. That’s what happened in the books Alice read; people were always leaving home and then finding that they no longer belonged there.

  Her own father often ranted about Nicholas and what would happen when he returned. “When he comes back with that college degree, he’ll be able to come back and take any job he pleases,” he was fond of saying. It was a fact that somehow bothered Robert. Alice would smile and nod, knowing his return was unlikely.

  “Of course I’ll come back,” Nicholas said. “Do you, um, think you’ll be married to Logan Sturgill? Or to anyone?” He asked this last part shyly, barely able to meet her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “Do you want me to be?”

  “No.”

  Alice reached out and lightly touched his face. His tan skin was warm from the sun, the stubble of hair beneath her fingers was a sharp contrast to the softness of his cheek.

  Their eyes met and she felt, for the first time ever maybe, that he was truly looking at her as a person–and not just the little girl and friend she’d been to him. But then he looked away and broke contact.

  Alice had always somehow assumed that their relationship was a temporary arrangement. Although he did not have any other close friends, and he had earnestly pledged his faithfulness when he was eight years old, she had never felt a permanency in their relationship. He had always seemed to be somewhere else to her. Even now.

  When she removed her hand, the spell was broken. Nicholas looked away and picked his stack of forms back up again. Alice rested her chin on her knee and watched the sun cast shadows over Furnace Mountain.

  Soon, Nicholas was back to rambling on about his upcoming adventures, getting his things in order, and the extra studying that he would have to do over the summer.

  “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly. “I’ve been sitting here talking for the last hour and I completely forgot that you wanted to talk to me about something.”

  Alice smiled. “That’s alright. I enjoy listening to you blather on, most of the time. I wanted you to help me with something. There’s a meeting in town this evening about Mr. Roosevelt. I want to help and, well, there’s not much I can do, but Miss Casteel said that when he came we were going to have a nice spread out in front of the depot. You know, with picnic tables and food and lemonade and things.”

  Alice could feel the anticipation of something wonderful bubbling inside as she talked. Just imagining the pretty tables set with flowers and the heaps of glorious food in front of the beautifully restored depot had her skin tingling.

  “She said that the ladies at the church talked about putting pretty tablecloths on the old tables from the railroad room and making it all look nice,” Alice continued. “Well, I’m real good at embroidery and I decided to volunteer to do some work on the tablecloths to make them all look uniform.”

  Nicholas nodded. “I think that’s a fine idea. Only I can’t sew.”

  Alice giggled and pretended to punch him in the stomach. “I didn’t expect you to do the sewing, silly. I was just hoping that tomorrow you could go around with me and help me gather up some white tablecloths. There are lots of folks that have cloths that they don’t mind getting rid of, only they’re not all the same color. I thought that maybe we could bleach them all white and I could hem and embroider them. Louella Marcum is going to give me thread.”

  “I could help you bring them all back here and bleach them!” Nicholas looked thrilled to have come up with this idea, even though Alice had thought of it first and had been gently leading him to it.

  She nodded patiently and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Yes, I was hoping you could. Only…”

  “What about the bleach?”

  “Exactly.” She had been embarrassed to tell Miss Casteel that she didn’t have enough bleach for all of the cloths and that her family didn’t have the money to purchase any.

  “We could ask at the store. Maybe they could sell us some, cheap, if they knew what we were using it for.”

  “Maybe.”

  But even cheap is too expensive when you don’t have any money, she thought to herself.

  Suddenly, the tips of Nicholas’s ears turned a bright shade of red, his sign of embarrassment. “Oh. Well, don’t worry, Alice. You leave that up to me. I’ll figure something out.” He spoke with authority and patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

  Gathering up his stack of college papers, he began sorting through them again. Alice sighed and let her head rest back on her knees. Her dress had been washed so many times that it was soft against her cheek and she let herself enjoy the remaining moments of his company.

  He would thi
nk of something. He usually did.

  Chapter Ten

  NICHOLAS KICKED AT A LOOSE ROCK as a June bug buzzed around his head. As a child, he had tied string to their legs and made noisy toys. Now they just annoyed him, much in the same way that he was annoyed with himself.

  “Shouldn’t have told her we’d get a discount,” he muttered aloud.

  How could he have been so dimwitted? He knew as well as anyone that she didn’t have any money. Every cent she earned from her sewing and mending and ironing went straight to her father–and everyone knew he turned promptly around and spent it on drink.

  Heck, Nicholas didn’t have much money himself. He couldn’t pay for the bleach even if they did get it cheaper. But it had been just as stupid to talk about college.

  “I can go out on a boat,” he said mockingly, chastising himself for blathering on about things he knew Alice couldn’t have. What was wrong with him?

  His walk home that afternoon felt longer and hotter than normal. Furnace Mountain followed him the entire way; he could feel her watchful eyes beneath her thick blanket of pines, oaks, and maples securitizing him. It made him uneasy.

  Nicholas could hear saws in the distance and wondered if they had already started on fixing the depot. His father had scoffed at the idea at first, but he figured that sooner or later he would volunteer his time, too. Nicholas didn’t know what his father would be good at doing, other than ordering people around, but he was a thinker, and he was a good newspaper man. After all, theirs was the only newspaper in three counties that was still running and that had to mean something. Some people still wanted to read what his father had to say anyway.

  Nicholas was a thinker, too. He knew that sometimes he frustrated Alice. Alice liked to act on things. When she got an idea, she put it into motion, whether it worked or not. He admired that in her.

  He had no idea how she took care of her house, her father, and herself the way she did. Although Nicholas had been more or less looking after himself for a while, his mother was too busy with other things to be very concerned; he never had to worry about things like housework or food. Alice did, though, and he felt a certain sense of pride in that. Not that it had anything to do with him.

  “Why don’t you just do it,” Alice would demand from time to time. His hesitancy drove her crazy.

  “I have to think about it first!” That was always his response–that he had to think. But sometimes that thinking took so long that he let the opportunity pass him by.

  The truth was, Nicholas was not someone who liked to act. He did take action, eventually, but not until he had given the situation some serious thought and even made a few lists to evaluate the various outcomes.

  “You’re a scientist,” his teacher, Miss Casteel, was fond of saying. “You think like a scientist.”

  And so that was what he was going to college for–to think like and become a scientist.

  He would get that bleach for her. He’d said he would, and he aimed to come through on that promise. “I’ll do it,” he said out loud. And then louder, with more force. “I’ll do it!”

  Nicholas knew that he should be going home, but the last thing he wanted to do was listen to his mother lecture him about all of the things that he needed to do over the summer. Most of the shops had closed for the day, but the café was open. He thought he could start there. With a sigh, he mustered up as much courage as he could and walked into the dimly lit, noisy room.

  ***

  Louella was satisfied. The other ladies looked sufficiently exhausted which, to Louella’s way of thinking, meant they’d done their job.

  The men were stepping up to work on the old depot. About time, too. She shuddered to think where they would be getting their wood from, seeing that some of the best wood was on government land, but that was between God and themselves. Homer had spoken to her about his concern for the glass, but he hadn’t brought that up publicly yet and she could understand why. No need to stir up any negativity while spirits were high.

  “The good Lord always provides,” she sang aloud. And she believed that.

  The rest of the work would be taken care of as well. The schoolteacher was organizing a clean-up of the sidewalks and yards. They’d be pulling weeds around the track and platforms, throwing rubbish away, and showing pride in their town. About time for that, too.

  Nothing they could do about the vacant buildings but perhaps that would change.

  She allowed herself a slight smile at the thought of Nicholas Lewis, solemn and regal, coming into her office and inquiring about linens.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” he’d started nervously. “I was wondering if maybe you have some tablecloths you’re not using, or white fabric. You see, we’re wanting to decorate the tables for the president…”

  She already knew that he had been all over town inquiring about donations. Everyone also knew that they were for little Alice Johnson, who due to her small stature would forever be referred to as “little”, even when she progressed into old age.

  Of course, Nicholas hadn’t come outright and said that she couldn’t afford to buy them herself, but whoever didn’t know that was a fool. Robert Johnson was a no-good scoundrel and would take his daughter down with him if someone didn’t stop it. Louella was tired of hearing, “It’s none of our concern,” when it came to Alice. It certainly would be of their concern if something terrible happened.

  Standing there in her office, the single piece of cloth in his hand, Nicholas had looked embarrassed. People hadn’t been willing to part with anything, despite their big talk and the fact that it was for a good cause.

  Louella had taken care of that, however. During her meeting she had spoken intensely of the goodness of the youth of Furnace Mountain and how “little Alice Johnson”, a child that had seen more suffering at her young age than most people see in their lifetime, was making a noble attempt to show pride in her community. Louella had discreetly skirted around the issue of Robert’s drinking, but had laid down the law regarding Alice’s patriotism, the hard times that the entire community was facing, and how the time to pull together was now. She might have issued some guilt in there, too.

  By the end of the evening, Louella had a stack of twenty-six cloths, as well as two bottles of bleach. She didn’t have the slightest idea as to where the bleach had come from, especially considering how everyone had denied having any left at the beginning of the meeting. On her way out of the door, however, the two bottles had been setting on the steps, waiting. One appeared brand new while the other was dusty. Did that mean that two different people had brought them? Perhaps. If she reached two souls that evening, it was a good start.

  Louella walked down the quiet street to her small house, the cloths in her arms. She would take them to Nicholas in the morning.

  Chapter Eleven

  RUTH WALTERS HAD ATTEMPTED to leave bed all day. She actually had, twice in fact, risen to use the pot in her room.

  Both times, she’d stood just feet from her door and considered it with determination.

  Both times, she’d given up and returned in defeat, promising herself she’d do better next time.

  Now, Ruth found herself sitting on the edge of her bed and crying. “Terrible, terrible,” she whispered to the darkness. “Terrible mother, terrible person.”

  The urge to change, to do something, was so strong it hurt her belly. But the fear of messing up was overwhelming. So was the lack of motivation. She had the desire, oh yes she did, but not the gumption.

  For gumption, she needed courage. She would have to stand with feet that felt unsteady. Walk with energy she didn’t have. Dress in clothing that was worn and ill-fitting.

  And the decisions, my God, the decisions. So many of them. What to wear, what to eat, when to eat, how to arrange her hair, where to walk, where to go, what to say, what to do…Did she even remember how to do those things–how to cook?

  She didn’t want to make decisions.

  I want someone to take care of me, she th
ought hopelessly.

  And the irony was, of course, that her son was taking care of her. That just made her feel worse. He was so little, so brave. And she was ruining life for him. On those days, she realized why her Jimmy had gone out to the barn.

  Ruth knew that she was sleeping away her life, but there didn’t seem to be any way she could fight it.

  Earlier that day, she had lain in bed and thought about getting up, fixing supper for Sam before he got home from school. She’d even managed to work up enthusiasm for the act.

  Then she’d remembered that his school was out already and had been out for a week. The very fact that she’d forgotten, and didn’t even know where her baby was, sent her in such a spiral of guilt-laden sadness that she’d been able to do nothing but lie there.

  “Sam,” she’d called out his name in a whisper, but he hadn’t come. “Oh, Sam.”

  She had a vague memory of him telling her about something he needed to do, something in town, but she couldn’t remember if that was today or a week ago.

  Sometimes, when she was feeling less cloudy, she thought about their food. She knew their garden produced enough vegetables, Sam saw to that, and that their cow was still good. She also knew that they still had chickens and pigs. She could hear them in the mornings, clucking away at one another and snorting under the house at night. On her good days, she worried about what they would do if they ever ran out of food. Sometimes, she even thought that maybe it would be better if they did and the people from the children’s home in Four Tree came and took Sam away.

  He would be better off somewhere else, she would reason. But then she would feel a sudden shock, a jolt, a wild panic at the thought of losing her baby. That would sometimes be enough to force her into getting out of bed and moving around the house.

  Today, however, was different.