Maud stood on her tippy-toes and kissed him on the lips, feeling the tickle of his moustache. “Blue gingham!” Maud exclaimed. “It’s perfect. It will set off the blue-violet in her eyes.”
After supper one night, Frank sat in his usual spot at the table with a pen and ink, writing up advertisements for his store’s grand opening. Maud sat across from him, her sewing basket out, working on Magdalena’s new dress. All of the children were asleep, even baby Jamie, and Julia had retired early. Maud’s deft fingers moved steadily as she enjoyed the peaceful house—just the sound of the wood crackling in the stove and the scratching of Frank’s pen on the pad of paper. Frank sometimes mouthed the words as he wrote, his expression amused. He seemed to enjoy writing—so different from her mother, who had always looked fierce at her desk, and woe upon anyone who interrupted her. Frank appeared just the opposite, as if he were reading a book that he just happened to be writing. She knew that he wasn’t thinking up any new plays at the moment, just jingles and advertisements for the store, but still, he seemed to be having fun.
“You’re hard at work,” Maud said.
Frank glanced up at her with a smile. “Work? Not at all…I’ve invented a poetry grinder. You turn the crank, and out pop clever advertising rhymes.”
Maud smiled. “Fancy that! And perhaps you could also invent a prose grinder for Mother—you turn the crank and out pour important women’s suffrage tracts!”
“Why, I imagine that I could! Give it a whirl.”
Maud laughed, setting aside the blue-and-white-checked sleeve. She held her hand up to his ear and pretended to turn a crank.
Frank straightened up, cleared his throat. “Women are granted natural and inalienable rights…” Maud tried not to laugh. Her husband could do a wicked impression of Matilda. She cranked again. “Votes for the women of Dakota!”
“All right,” Maud said, picking up her sewing again, “let’s leave dear Mother alone. And let’s see what you’ve come up with for the store.”
He began to read, cranking his arm alongside his ear:
“At Baum’s Bazaar you’ll find by far,
the finest goods in town,
the cheapest, too, as you’ll find true,
if you just step around…
“Much easier than making it up myself, don’t you think, dear?” Frank asked, then read on a bit, all the while cranking, as if he needed to operate the crank in order to turn the gears in his head:
“And then the toys for girls and boys
are surely—”
He stopped, pretending that the crank was stuck, and jerked his head back and forth and up and down with the most theatrical motions, as if he were a marionette and someone was pulling his strings.
“Oh, dear!” Maud laughed. “What happened?”
“The machine broke,” Frank said.
“Broke?”
“Too much fun jammed up inside!”
“You do love toys, Frank Baum! You’re as bad as the children.”
“Did you know that on opening day, we’ll have one hundred and ninety-six different toys? Why shouldn’t the children of Aberdeen be visited by the same Santa Claus that visits Syracuse?”
“Why not indeed?”
Nothing—not sickness, nor bad weather, nor the trials of life—could dampen Frank’s love of children, and more than ever she felt the burning deep within her, the desire to have another child. In the cold light of day, she knew the facts. If she died in childbirth, her boys would be left behind, motherless. To Maud, this was an unacceptable risk. But slowly, over these last few weeks, as she’d watched little Magdalena start to blossom, she knew it would be hard to let her niece go when the time came.
* * *
—
JULIA HELD A LETTER in one hand, baby Jamie, asleep on her shoulder, in the other. She was frowning.
“What is it?” Maud asked.
“It’s James. He wants to know when I’m coming home. Says he hasn’t eaten a decent meal or had time to do a washing since I left.”
“But you can’t go back now!” Maud said. “The baby is on the mend, and the cold weather is settling in. You and the children need to stay through the winter. What if the baby takes sick again—what if there is a big blizzard? You’ll be stranded with no access to help.”
“He says to come now as the weather may turn and we’ll be stranded.”
“Julia, be sensible. Better that you be stranded here than there!”
She shook her head. “He’s right. We need to head back north before we get snowed in here. The weather has been pretty mild the last few days, but you know it won’t last.” She peered down at the baby. “He’s doing better now. Dr. Coyine said so. I’m going to wean him from the wet nurse and keep him on the concentrated milk day and night.”
Maud tried to hide her frustration. She knew that if Frank were in the same situation, he would put the children’s safety over his laundry and cooking. Already, just caring for the baby was exhausting Julia. How could she cope with the baby and the work of the farm, not to mention looking after Magdalena?
“Tell him no!” Maud said. “Explain yourself. Surely he’ll understand.”
Julia’s face clouded as Maud spoke.
“It’s not like that,” Julia said. “He’s not like Frank. You wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t understand what?” Maud said, putting down her sewing and looking her sister in the eye. “It would be crazy to leave Aberdeen now. What is there to understand?”
“James doesn’t like to be challenged.”
“Challenged? You are not challenging him. You are looking out for your family, as any woman would do.”
“It’s different for you.” Julia sounded peeved. “Frank is so good-hearted. James doesn’t like it when I act too independent. He thinks Mother encouraged me to speak my mind too much.”
Maud’s mouth fell open. “He wanted a potted plant and got a sentient human being instead? Julia, that’s nonsense!”
Julia’s face turned sheet white. She raised her voice: “Don’t tell me that’s nonsense! Tell me nothing unless you’ve walked a mile in my shoes. What do you know about anything, Maud Gage? Everyone has always indulged you. Beautiful Maud! You think my life has been as easy?”
“Dear sister, please don’t get vexed with me.” Maud’s voice was placating. “Forgive me if I’ve offended you. But surely James would understand that the baby is sick—that you need to think of the children first.”
Julia’s pallor had taken on a yellowish cast, the color the Dakota sky turned when storms were brewing. “James expects me to obey. I didn’t drop that pledge from my wedding vows, as you did.”
Maud folded her hands in her lap and regarded her sister with dismay. How many times had she heard her mother repeat that a married woman was at the mercy of her husband, whether he be drunkard or sober, wise man or fool? And despite all of Mother’s protesting and speechifying, here was her own daughter yoked to a man who seemed to think of nothing but himself and his own selfish interests, with Julia lacking the backbone to stand up for herself. She was blind to her own situation, just as blind as the day James had chased Maud into the storeroom and had then had the audacity to present her sister with a ring!
Maud gave up her hope of convincing Julia. Instead, she nursed a quiet plan. Magdalena needed a mother, and whatever mothering instincts Julia possessed seemed to be used up by caring for the baby. When it came time to leave, Maud would insist that she leave the girl in Maud’s care.
* * *
—
AT LAST IT WAS opening day for Baum’s Bazaar. Maud had not seen Frank so buoyant since his theater days. Julia insisted on staying home to look after Jamie, so Maud decided to bring Magdalena along. She had finished her blue gingham dress, shined her shoes, and tied her hair up in rags the night before so that it fell in curls that framed her face. Even Magdalena’s doll, Dorothy, had a new dress, sewn from the leftover gingham scraps. Maud made each of the children line up so she could put a last bit of spit and polish on them, and last of all she checked her own hair in the looking glass.
It was mid-October and the sky was bright, but a cold wind whipped across the prairie, carrying a crisp scent of clean air and drying grass. Maud and the children settled into the back of T.C.’s wagon and trotted the short distance into town. As they approached, Maud saw a gay crowd of well-dressed men and women, so large that it spilled right out the front door of Frank’s shop. Men carried silver-tipped walking sticks and sported bowler hats. Women wore dresses sewn in the latest eastern styles. Frank was constantly bringing home snippets of information about the citizens of the boomtown of Aberdeen—the young town now had seven newspapers, three hundred pianos and organs, seventy lawyers, seventeen doctors. Today, all that boomtown prosperity was on display.