Moving to the hearth, she tilted a hanging pot of water to fill a teapot. She was making burdock tea for Margaret, who’d taken to bed with a fierce headache. When I asked what I should do next, she gestured to a barrel in the corner. “Peel and chop them old apples. They’re too sorry for eating plain.”
She set the teapot on a warm spot on the stove and plunked a ball of dough onto a floured board. I peeled apples and sliced off rotted spots into a bucket, letting the occasional worm fall. Miss Baker saw my mincing expression.
“If you want to eat apples, you’re bound to meet some worms.” She smiled. “You liking your work here?”
I nodded. “Fairly well. I’m grateful for the position. And thee?”
“It suits me.” She got out pans and buttered them. “Here and at home, I try to make folks happy with my cooking.”
“Thy cooking makes me happy,” I offered.
Miss Baker smiled, revealing buck teeth. “I’m glad.” She lifted rolled dough into the pans. “You can better the world from anywhere you find yourself.” She pressed a fork along the outsides of the crusts. “How is Mrs. Burnham? It’s hard for her in this big old house, with her parents overseas and not half as many servants as they had. Course they used to entertain.”
“Thee has been here a long time.” A worm dropped into the bucket.
“Seventeen years. Since the mistress was nine. She was agreeable then, cute as a button, with none of the sourness you see now. That’s on account of her blunted ambition, I reckon.”
“The violin?”
“The violin. Played it like the devil. Girl of her upbringing is supposed to keep quiet and pretty, not be full of passion. Her parents doused her hopes of attending music school like ten fire brigades at a fire.”
I pondered this as I inhaled the clarifying scent of apples.
“You need a sewing machine?” she asked.
“How does thee know?”
“Margaret told me. That girl thinks right well of you. Today’s your afternoon off? You going to see your baby?”
I nodded.
“Well, instead of that, there’s a rich lady downtown you oughta visit.” She explained that the woman is a sewing-machine inventor with a factory and a shop and is known for her kindness to mothers in need. “After my daddy died, Mama bought one of that lady’s machines on a time plan, with no payments due till we started scraping by.” She slid her pie crusts into the hot oven. “Then it turned out I was half good at cooking, so I got sent out. Bless your heart, Miss Lilli, Miss Bancroft is doing well with that shop, and I wager she might even give you some old machine.”
“She wouldn’t give one to an unwed mother, would she?”
Miss Baker didn’t answer. With a fork she mixed warmed vinegar and sugar in a bowl.
“Where is the shop?”
She told me the street and cross street downtown. Just then Margaret entered, having woken much improved, and poured herself some burdock tea. She heard my plan as I tossed the apples and strawberries in the sugar and vinegar and Miss Baker sprinkled cinnamon on top. Margaret assured me between sips of tea that she felt well enough to care for Henry. So I removed my apron and washed up, then gave Henry a nursing so he’d stay contented. As I sat with him, I came up with an idea.
With Henry in his crib, I raced upstairs and dug into a drawer to reach my plain poke bonnet. I hadn’t worn it since leaving home, and as I put it on, I felt how pleasantly it shields the head and hides one’s thoughts. I walked one story down to use the hallway glass, expecting to look like an imposter, someone only pretending to be respectable. Yet there was no visible difference between the young woman in the mirror and an upright Friend.
I decided not to wear the bonnet on the streetcar. That seemed too bold. I tucked it in my brown bodice, covered my head with my gray shawl, and left the house.
The streetcar let me out downtown. Soon the plate-glass windows of the store came into view. BANCROFT OVER-SEAM COMPANY OF PHILADELPHIA was painted in gold-and-brown lettering on the glass. After donning my bonnet, I stepped up and rang the bell. The gleaming machines in the windows were lovely; the prettiest was painted black and decorated with gold filigree. A light-haired matron in a plum-colored dress opened the door, and I asked to see Miss Bancroft.
“She’s not in. May I show you our machines? We have the most alternatives of any manufacturer in Philadelphia. We even have the new zigzag. Miss Bancroft invented it.” She pointed to a framed newspaper article on the wall. I nodded, though I couldn’t make out its words.
“I’d like very much to see the machines,” I said. “But first I need to speak with Miss Bancroft.”
“May I ask the nature of your business?”
As she waited for my answer, I grew more nervous to speak. But the store’s odor of metal and linseed oil brought to mind our garden shed at home, which reassured me. “I’m told she cares about unfortunate women, and if only I had a sewing machine…”
“Goodness.” The woman gestured into the shop. “Come in!”
I followed her to a counter and stood before it. She put on a pair of eyeglasses and inclined her slim face toward me.
“What’s your situation, dear?”
At the doorway to a changed self, I held my breath, then stepped through. Her mind was a blank slate for my tale to be written upon.
I released my breath. “My husband died—in a mining accident—in Easton. I was with child when he died. I have so little money left, and I’d like to sew.”
Her face flushed with compassion. “How old is the baby?”
“Just two months.” I saw Charlotte’s grinning face, her feisty fist clutching an apple blossom in Gina’s yard. I choked back a sob—a real one, but knowing it would help my case.
“Oh, my,” she replied, shaking her head. “We do like to help widows when we can. If we get an old machine in partial trade for a new one, Miss Bancroft gives it to a widow on installment. No money down, and a payment due whenever you can make it.” The woman opened a drawer and pulled out a ledger. “Mind you, sewing doesn’t usually bring much of a living. But you could earn enough to keep yourself and one baby.” She located a certain page, examined it, and shook her head. “No machines at present. But I’ll add you to our list. Will that suit you?”
Hope banged in my chest. “Yes, very well.”
“Name? Address?”
In my haste to answer, I gave the address of my former home. If the shop does send a letter, Father will have to forward it to the post-office address I left behind—the Haven’s box—and it will follow the same circuitous path as that letter from the Philadelphia Ladies’ Solace.
So be it. I thanked the woman, my eyes warmed by tears brought on by shame as much as gratitude.
I traveled back to the Burnhams’, knowing I would share my tale with Margaret and Miss Baker and feeling mixed relief and horror. People are so easy to fool. It’s not at all difficult to take convenient detours around the impediment of truth.
Sixth Month 3, First Day