Читать книгу Intruders at Rivermead Manor - Kathryn Reiss - Страница 7

“THERE YOU ARE, Kit.” Mrs. Kittredge, her face flushed from the warmth of the stove, reached out to squeeze Kit’s shoulders in a quick hug. “Mrs. Howard is in bed with a terrible cough, so I’ve been short a pair of hands—just when we have a new boarder!”

Kit put her schoolbag in the corner of the kitchen and hung her coat on a hook. She tied an apron behind her back. “Who is it?” she asked.

“His name is Mr. West, and he’s just arrived. I’ve put him in with Mr. Peck. He’s—” She broke off, shaking her head. “Here, dear, will you take these bowls to the table? Everyone will be down in just a minute. Then you’ll meet the gentleman for yourself.”

Kit pushed through the swinging door into the dining room, where several of their lodgers were already assembled.

Mismatched chairs were pulled up to the long dining room table. Mr. Peck was already seated. He was a friendly man who sometimes entertained them all by playing his double bass. Miss Hart and Miss Finney, two nurses just home from their long shifts at the hospital, settled into their places. Beside them was Mr. Bell, an out-of-work actor who spent his days cleaning windows now. Kit’s friend Stirling Howard sat across from Mr. Peck. The chair where his mother usually sat remained empty as the room filled with the hungry boarders. There was no sign of the new Mr. West.

Mrs. Kittredge entered with a tureen of fragrant vegetable soup. “Will you dish up?” she asked Kit. “I’m going to prepare a tray to take up to poor Mrs. Howard.”

As Kit was ladling out bowls of soup, her father passed bread, applesauce, and the heavy teapot. Just as everyone began eating, a tall, middle-aged man with a shock of graying hair appeared in the doorway. In one hand he carried a notebook, in the other a pencil.

“Good evening, Mr. West,” said Kit’s father. “Everyone, please welcome Reginald West.”

Mr. West nodded from the doorway. “So this is how it’s done,” he said genially. “Dinner at a boarding house.” He flipped open his notebook and jotted something with his pencil. “And what’s on the menu? Soup?” He made another notation. “Very nice. Economical and filling.”

Mr. Kittredge motioned to the empty chair next to Stirling. “Sit here for now, Mr. West.”

“Ah,” said Mr. West, sitting down. “Enough chairs need to be found for all the boarders.” He made another note.

Kit watched him curiously. She wanted to be a reporter when she grew up, and she often made notes in notebooks, though Mother would frown on such behavior at the dinner table.

Mrs. Kittredge returned to the room with the news that Mrs. Howard was resting comfortably. As everyone started talking about their day, Kit watched Mr. West. Every now and then he jotted something in his notebook.

“You are to be commended, Mr. and Mrs. Kittredge,” he said when he’d finished his soup. “You are providing nourishing food and a clean place to lay our heads during these hard times—even though it means your home is no longer your own. We salute your generosity!”

The other boarders looked surprised at this little speech, but nodded their agreement. “Hear, hear,” said Mr. Peck, applauding lightly. Under the table, Grace thumped her tail hard. Everyone laughed.

But Mr. West looked serious. “There are many homeowners in town who might also open their homes, but choose not to.”

“We feel lucky to have you all,” Mrs. Kittredge said. “Running a boarding house is how we keep our home.”

“There are plenty of large homes in the wealthiest areas of town that could shelter local homeless people,” Mr. West said, frowning. “But do those people open their homes? No! In the name of public service, they should!”

“He makes a good point,” Miss Finney murmured to Miss Hart.

Kit thought about Uncle Hendrick’s large home, with only him living there. She thought about Miss Mundis, alone at Rivermead Manor.

“Are you a Communist?” asked Mr. Bell, frowning.

“Indeed I am not!” protested Mr. West. “But I believe in sharing good fortune. Rich people in big houses should help hardworking people down on their luck.” He patted his notebook. “I may write up my idea for the newspaper. A plan to get more boarding houses up and running in our city.”

“I’ve heard of parents putting children into orphanages because they can’t keep a roof over their heads,” Mr. Peck said, and Kit remembered poor Mrs. Addison.

Miss Hart spoke softly. “Times are so hard that even the soup kitchens don’t have enough food.”

“Better to light a candle than curse the darkness,” Mr. West said passionately. “To get housing for people in need, I’ve begun canvassing the entire city of Cincinnati, starting with the wealthier neighborhoods. If enough homeowners rented out rooms cheaply, we could get many more people fed and housed.” Mr. West flipped a page in his notebook and wrote furiously. “Simple as that.”

...

During school the next day, Kit’s class walked to the public library for a special presentation. “Pay close attention,” their teacher, Mr. Leiser, told them as they entered the building. “You will be responsible for group presentations about what you’ve learned today.”

The librarian, Mrs. Newcomb, greeted Kit’s class and invited them to sit in the chairs arranged in rows in the children’s room. Kit sat in the first row next to her good friend Ruthie Smithens and watched as children from other schools filed into the large room. She noticed that one was a class of colored children. They sat at the back. Kit’s eyes widened as she recognized one of the girls. Jessamine Porter! She’d known Jessamine when they were little. Jessamine’s father had worked for Kit’s father’s dealership before Mr. Kittredge lost his business.

Kit turned in her seat and waved to catch Jessamine’s eye. Jessamine looked up and saw Kit. With a leap of happiness in her eyes, Jessamine raised her hand to wave back.

“Who’s that?” whispered Ruthie, and Kit quietly told her.

“We used to play together,” Kit said. “My father let us sit in the new cars, and we had such fun pretending to go on journeys.”

“I never had a colored friend,” Ruthie whispered, peeking over her shoulder at Jessamine.

Kit glanced back at Jessamine, too, and saw that the other girl was looking right at them. Kit grinned at her and moved her hands as if driving a car. Jessamine giggled and quickly put her hands over her mouth. Kit hastily turned around again before Mr. Leiser could scold her.

She murmured to Ruthie, “Jessamine’s nice. We played on the weekends. Her father worked on the cars. Sometimes he would push us on the big tire swing that Dad hung behind the shop.”

Mrs. Newcomb welcomed her audience. “Has anyone heard of the Underground Railroad?” she asked.

Stirling’s hand shot up. He spoke with assurance. “It wasn’t a real train,” he explained. “It was a way people escaped slavery. Back in the time of slavery, Ohio was a free state, and Kentucky, to the south of us, was a slave state. Lots of escaping slaves came through Cincinnati because it was right on the border.”

Kit smiled. Before the Howards came to live at Kit’s house, Stirling’s mother had worried a lot about his health. She’d kept him indoors, and he’d spent a lot of time reading. The things he’d learned made him one of the smartest pupils in class.

“Thank you, Stirling, that’s correct,” said Mrs. Newcomb. “Escaping slaves would come across the Ohio River and find shelter here for a night or two until they could move on. The people who opposed slavery were called abolitionists. And the whole secret enterprise of people moving along, stop by stop, to freedom in the North was called the Underground Railroad.”

Kit listened intently. Could her own house have been part of the Underground Railroad? No—her house was too new.

There must be a lot of people who didn’t know about the part Cincinnati had played in helping slaves escape to freedom, Kit thought. This topic might make a good newspaper article. The editor of the paper had said that when Kit wrote something good enough to print, he’d print it. Once she’d had a letter to the editor published, and a couple columns on the children’s page. She wanted her next story to be printed in the main section of the newspaper, the part with important news.

Kit listened closely as Mrs. Newcomb told the students about Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, brought to life the misery of slavery. Harriet Beecher Stowe had come from a whole family of abolitionists. Slaves on the run had found shelter in her house. But hers was only one of several homes in Cincinnati that had been stations on the Underground Railroad. Some homes were even rumored to have secret hiding places. “Besides the Stowe house,” said Mrs. Newcomb, “there were the Wilson house and Rivermead Manor, among others.”

Kit caught her breath. Rivermead! That was Miss Mundis’s house! She could interview Miss Mundis for her newspaper article.

Then Mrs. Newcomb read them a dramatic folk story about slaves using the stars to find their way north to freedom. Kit listened carefully in case the information might be useful for her article. She noticed that Ruthie was listening attentively, too.

When the librarian finished, all the children applauded. Then Kit hurried over to speak to Jessamine.

“Hi, Jess!”

“Hello, Kit. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I’m not so different—just taller. You’re a lot taller, too.” Kit and Jessamine looked at each other, and Kit suddenly felt shy. But Jessamine seemed pleased to see her.

“Which school do you go to?” Kit asked.

“I’m in a new school now.”

“Is it near here?” Kit asked.

Jessamine pointed down the street. “It’s that way, all the way past the railroad tracks.”

“Oh!” Kit said. “I think if you turn and go up the hill instead of crossing the tracks, that’s where my Uncle Hendrick lives.”

“Right…” said Jessamine slowly. “I know what neighborhood you mean.”

“So where do you live now?” Kit asked.

Jessamine busied herself with her jacket as if she hadn’t heard Kit. The teachers were lining their classes up, and Kit knew she had only a minute before they’d leave the library.

“It’s nice to find you again,” Kit said. “Maybe sometime we could…” But they couldn’t really play in the cars anymore, or swing on the tire, and white children didn’t usually play with black children in their city. But…why shouldn’t we see each other sometime? thought Kit.

“Where do you live?” she asked Jessamine again.

“We’ve got a long walk back to school now,” Jessamine said abruptly, not meeting Kit’s eyes. “Good-bye.” She moved away.

“Wait!” Kit called.

Mr. Leiser motioned Kit into line. As they walked back to school, Kit told Ruthie how Jessamine had turned away. How Jessamine wouldn’t tell her where she lived.

“She was always so nice,” Kit said sadly. “I thought she’d want to play together again.”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” asked Ruthie.

Kit raised her eyebrows. “What?”

“Well, your father lost his business. So her father lost his job, too.”

Kit nodded slowly. “You’re right. We were able to keep our home by taking in boarders, but maybe Jessamine’s family lost their home.” Her heart felt heavy. Were the Porters living in a hobo shack down by the train tracks?

Kit decided she would ask her parents if there was any way to help Jessamine’s family. If only there were more rooms in Kit’s house! But…would a colored family move into a white family’s boarding house?

Kit didn’t think so. She remembered how Jessamine’s class had sat at the back of the semi-circle in the library, even though they had not been the last to arrive. There were no black children in Kit’s class, and there were no white children in Jessamine’s class.

For a second, an image like a moving picture flickered in Kit’s mind—of two girls hanging together on a tire swing, flying through the air, shrieking with laughter. It seemed to Kit that it should be a simple thing to be friends with Jessamine, but she realized it was not.

...

As they walked home after school, Kit, Ruthie, and Stirling discussed what sort of presentation to do for their class assignment. Kit suggested their group write a report about the local homes that were part of the Underground Railroad. They could start by talking to Miss Mundis! Maybe she had some historical records packed away.

“There’s nothing I’d like better,” Kit said, “than reading an old diary left by an escaping slave. Wouldn’t that make an amazing primary source for my newspaper article? Mr. Gibbs at the newspaper always says that primary sources are better than gold to a reporter!”

“Well, I don’t think most slaves could write,” said Stirling. “They weren’t allowed to learn.”

Ruthie said she’d rather do a play of the folktale Mrs. Newcomb had told them.

“But that’s not real,” Kit protested.

“Well, it’s more interesting than writing an old report,” Ruthie responded. “If we put on a skit, we can have costumes and props and maybe even special light effects!”

“Well, what if you play Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Kit plays a reporter interviewing you?” suggested Stirling as a compromise. “That’s factual, but you’d still get to wear old-time costumes.”

“Good idea,” Kit said. “And you could play the photographer,” she told Stirling.

Kit left Ruthie and Stirling discussing how to stage the skit and hurried along on her way to Rivermead Manor.