The Four Winds(43)

Tony snapped the reins and Milo plodded forward. In the wagon bed, soap clattered in the slatted box. Elsa kept one gloved hand on the stack of eggs to keep them from falling. “You know, Loreda, if you joined us just to get warm, I promise I would still know that you are angry.”

“Very funny.” Loreda crossed her arms; her teeth chattered.

“You’re turning blue,” Elsa said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Sorta red, though,” Ant said, grinning.

“Don’t look at me,” Loreda said.

“You’re directly across from us,” Elsa said.

Loreda pointedly looked away.

Ant giggled.

Loreda rolled her eyes.

Elsa turned her attention to the land.

Snow-covered, this landscape looked beautiful. There weren’t many dwellings between town and the Martinelli farm, but several of the places along the way were abandoned. Cabins and shacks and dugouts and homes with boarded-up windows and FOR SALE signs plastered over foreclosure notices.

They passed the abandoned Mull place. Last she heard, Tom and Lorri had followed their kin to California on foot. On foot. How could anyone be that desperate? And Tom had been a lawyer by trade. It wasn’t just farmers going broke these days.

So many were leaving.

Let’s go to California.

Elsa pushed the thought away with force, although she knew it would come back to haunt her in the dark.

In town, Tony parked the wagon and tied Milo to a hitching post. Elsa retrieved the wooden box full of eggs and butter and soap and hefted it into her arms. On the few still-open storefronts, placards announced the arrival today of Hugh Bennett, a scientist from President Roosevelt’s new Civilian Conservation Corps. In an attempt to put Americans back to work, FDR had created dozens of agencies, put folks to work documenting the Depression in words and photographs and in sweat labor, building bridges and fixing roads. Bennett had come all the way from Washington, D.C., to finally help the farmers.

Inside the mercantile, Elsa was struck by the empty shelves. Even so, there was a tantalizing collection of colors and aromas. Coffee, perfumes that hadn’t been purchased in years, a box of apples. Here and there on the barren shelves were utensils and dress patterns and shade hats and bags of rice and sugar and tinned meat and canned milk. Stacks of gingham and polka-dot and striped fabric lay gathering dust, as did the stacks of eyelets and lace. Grain sacks had become the only fabric used for clothing.

She went up to the main counter, where Mr. Pavlov stood, wearing a weary smile and a white shirt that had seen better days. Once one of the richest men in town, he was now hanging on to his store by his fingernails, and everyone knew it. His family had moved in above the store when the bank foreclosed on his house.

“Martinellis,” he said. “You in town for the meeting?”

Elsa set the box of goods on the counter.

“We are,” Tony said. “You?”

“I’ll walk over. I sure hope the government can help folks around here. I hate to see people give up and leave.”

Tony nodded. “Most are staying, though.”

“Farmers are tough.”

“We’ve worked too hard and made too many sacrifices to walk away. Droughts end.”

Mr. Pavlov nodded and glanced at the box Elsa had laid on the counter. “Chickens still laying. Good for you.”

“That’s Elsa’s soap, too,” Rose said. “Scented with lavender. Your missus loves it.”

The children came up to stand beside Elsa. She couldn’t help remembering how they’d once run around in here, oohing and aahing over candies, begging for treats.

Mr. Pavlov pushed the rimless glasses higher up on his nose. “What do you need?”

“Coffee. Sugar. Rice. Beans. Maybe some yeast? A tin of that nice olive oil, if you have it.”

Mr. Pavlov did calculations in his head. When he was satisfied, he yanked on the basket that hung from a length of rope beside him. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote on it: Sugar. Coffee. Beans. Rice. Then said, “No olive oil in stock and no charge for yeast,” and put the list in the basket and pulled a lever that lifted to the second floor of the store, where his wife and daughter did the receipts.

Moments later, a heavyset girl came out from the back room hauling a sack of sugar, some coffee, a bag of rice, and another of beans.

Ant stared at the jar of licorice whips on the counter.

Elsa touched her son’s head.

“Licorice is on special today,” Mr. Pavlov said. “Two whips for the price of one. I could put it on a tab.”

“You know I don’t believe in handouts,” Tony said. “And I don’t know when we could pay.”

“I know,” Mr. Pavlov said. “My treat. Take two.”

His kindness was the sort of thing that made life bearable out here. “Thank you, Mr. Pavlov,” Elsa said.

Tony stowed the new goods in the back of the wagon and covered them with a tarp. Leaving Milo tied to the hitching post, they walked along the icy boardwalk toward the boarded-up schoolhouse, where several other horse-and-wagon teams waited outside.

“Ain’t many folks here,” Tony said.

Rose reached for his hand. “I heard Emmett got a postcard from his kin in Washington State. Railroad jobs there.”

“They’ll be sorry,” Tony said. “Those jobs are a pipe dream. Gotta be. Millions are out of work. Let’s say you do run off to Portland or Seattle and there ain’t work. Then where will you be—in a strange place with no land and no job.”