Maud was ten years old when she first discovered that possession was nine-tenths of the law. She was hitching up her infernal skirts, hightailing it away from Philip Marvel, who had just lost his precious amber cat’s-eye marble to the neighborhood’s fiercest girl. Maud clutched the marble in her sweaty palm, her rawhide marble pouch banging against her wrist as she ran. Now, as always, she longed for the pockets that all the boys had. She had long been a faster runner than anyone on the street, and this in spite of her greatest handicap—her petticoat and skirt. Philip and the rest of her schoolmates were jeering at her. She could hear their footsteps pounding behind her, and the sound of their familiar taunts. She was still half a block away from home, lungs burning, but she kept running. She had won the amber cat’s-eye fair and square; she knew Philip and his gang were hoping to take it back through their advantage of numbers and brute force. She had no intention of giving it up.
The Gage house in Fayetteville sat on a street corner next door to the dwelling of Mr. Robert Crouse. The fastest way to the safety of her own back porch was across the corner of his garden—but she didn’t like to take this route. Perched in the center of the neighbor’s kitchen garden was a scarecrow clad in a long black frock coat, a floppy black preacher’s hat shading its terrifying face of straw. Maud was not generally a fearful sort, but the scarecrow bore a strong resemblance to his daunting owner, Mr. Crouse, so much so that when she was younger, she used to confuse the two. At night, before Maud fell asleep, she often imagined that the scarecrow had escaped from his perch, climbed up the rain gutter, and was peering through her bedroom window.
Maud ran on. The boys’ footsteps were getting closer. Rounding the corner, she reached the bushes that ran along the side of Crouse’s garden, where she caught sight of the frightful face of the scarecrow staring down at her. The boys had almost reached the corner, so she darted through a hole in a hedge of lilac bushes. Hidden among the leaves, Maud panted silently as they ran straight past. From her vantage point, she saw them slow to a walk and stop, looking around but unable to see her in her hiding place.
“Where’s Maud?” Philip called out. “Gone to vote with her mother?” The boys tittered. Encouraged by the reaction, Philip raised his voice, looking around, hoping to catch sight of Maud. “At ten a little pet, at twenty a sweet coquette, at forty not married yet, at fifty a suffragette!” The boys exploded in laughter.
Maud’s face flamed, and her fist closed tight around her marble. Unable to rein herself in, she called out from her retreat in the bushes, repeating every word she’d heard her mother say at home: “Women will vote! And we’ll never vote for a dumbskull like Philip Marvel or his boring, long-winded, small-minded Methodist anti-suffrage father!”
At the sound of her voice, the boys whirled around. Knowing they would discover her hiding place momentarily, Maud had no choice. She had to cross Mr. Crouse’s garden and climb over his side fence. If Crouse saw the girl in his yard, he’d give her a good scolding. Holding tight to her marble, she counted to three, then burst from the bushes, into Crouse’s yard.
A few paces into the yard, she heard a strangled cry. She jumped back, heart pounding in her throat. At first she saw nothing, but when she crouched down to see from a different vantage point, she came face-to-face with a beak and two bright blue eyes.
It was a baby crow, hopping awkwardly across the grass, injured and probably too young to fly—ready prey for the many cats who roamed the neighborhood. Maud squatted lower to get a better look, then quickly glanced back toward Mr. Crouse’s house. The door was shut, and the windows were blanks framed by curtains.
Very slowly, Maud reached out her hand. The crow peered at her with his blue eyes, as if he were considering whether or not he wanted to be Maud’s friend.
Maud watched without moving until she started to feel pins and needles in her legs, but still the little black bird just stood there, cocking his head, yet not trying to escape, either.
“Maud,” her mother’s voice called out the back door. “Maud, it’s close to supper.”
Maud glanced up at Mr. Crouse’s house; there was no sign of movement, so she set her marble down on the grass, then gently coaxed the injured bird onto her skirt, flipping up the cloth so that the bird was caught in its folds. Just then, she heard the creak of a door, followed by Mr. Crouse’s voice calling out, “Young lady, stay out of my garden!”
Maud skedaddled fast as she could across his yard, making a beeline for the stockade fence, which separated the Gage and the Crouse properties. She had reached its wooden slats and grabbed hold, ready to climb, when she realized that something was wrong. Her hand was empty—she had set her marble down to retrieve the bird and, in her haste, had left it there. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she could feel the tiny bird restlessly scratching the inside of her skirt.
“Maud?” Her mother’s voice was just over the fence. So close to safety! She spun on her heel and ran back across the yard to the spot near the lilac bushes where she had left her marble.
Maud pounced on it, then—skirt in one hand, marble in the other—bolted back across the yard. When she got back to the fence, she faced another dilemma. With one hand clutching her skirt and the other holding the marble, how was she to scale its boards?
Mr. Crouse was crossing the yard toward her at a rapid clip. Now was not the time to hesitate. She popped the marble into her mouth and, one-handed, climbed the fence.
Just as she straddled it, Mr. Crouse reached her. He tried to catch Maud’s sleeve, but it was too late: she was already sliding down the Gage side of the fence—only as she slid to safety she felt her petticoat catch, followed by a loud tearing sound. By the time she arrived, red-faced and winded, at the back door, she was wearing only her pantaloons—her skirt was still folded up, the crow scrambling inside. Maud spit the marble back into her hand. Triumph!
She looked up to see her mother peering sternly at her, but Maud couldn’t miss the merriment in Mother’s eyes.
“What have you got in your skirt, and where, mind you, is your petticoat?”
Maud turned to gesture at the fence, but no sooner did she point it out than mother and daughter saw the crinoline and lace disappearing as if being yanked from the other side.
Gently, she unfolded her skirt, and there was the baby crow, looking startled but none the worse for wear.
“Stealing crows from the Crouses’ scarecrow?” her mother asked, with obvious amusement.
“I think he fell out of his nest. We need to feed him and find him a place to sleep.”
Without a word about Maud’s dirty skirt, unbraided hair, or lost petticoat, Matilda set to work with utter seriousness. She found an empty flour crate and helped Maud fashion a bed from straw. After bringing up some dried corn from the cellar, she gently placed some kernels next to the bird.
Matilda then pulled out one of the old medical volumes from her grandfather and mixed up a syrup of cane sugar and water. “If it’s good enough for human babies, it is most likely to be good enough for crow babies, too.”
Mr. Crow was quite settled and comfortable when a sharp rap sounded on the front door.
Matilda, smooth as always, glided across the room and opened the door.
There stood Mr. Crouse. In his hand, he held Maud’s lace petticoat.
“Mrs. Gage,” he said, tipping his hat. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Gage.”
“Mr. Gage is not at home right now,” Matilda replied. “But I’m standing before you, so please speak your piece.”
Just then, the baby crow decided to open his beak and let out a loud squawk. Maud giggled.
Mr. Crouse peered over her mother’s shoulder as Maud struggled to put a serious expression on her face.
“Your youngest,” Mr. Crouse said, “was not behaving in a manner that is suited to a young lady.”
Maud’s mother raised her chin and snatched the petticoat out of his hand.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Crouse,” she said. He tipped his hat again and had not even turned all the way around when she shut the front door firmly.
Matilda was not a woman to be trifled with, and she did not appear amused. She said nothing about Maud’s petticoat—just tossed it in a heap on the table.
“The simplest way to avoid needing to speak to Mr. Crouse about your petticoat,” she announced, “would be for you to stop wearing them.” She marched upstairs and shortly came downstairs with two pairs of T.C.’s old short pants.
“From now on, why don’t you simply wear these?”
It did seem like a splendid idea. Maud envied the boys their short pants and despised the skirts that slowed her down, but she got teased enough already and she couldn’t imagine what would happen if she went out wearing her brother’s hand-me-downs.
“Oh, Mother! Are you sure that’s wise?” Maud’s sister, Julia, had just entered the room, a basket of mending balanced on her hip. “Everyone will call her a terrible tomboy. Doesn’t Maud get tormented enough?” Even though she was a decade older than Maud, she was not much taller. Her long, fawn-colored hair was twirled in an enormous coil atop her head, with a few curls pulled out to frame her face. Now her eyebrows slanted down like a line of geese heading south. “You’ve ripped your petticoat, Maudie? Again? I just mended it last week.”