“Honey, couldn’t you tell they were cold-blooded killers?”
“Well, no, I didn’t even know she smoked. They just looked like a nice couple to me, and what I don’t understand is why would that girl want to rob and kill people when she could have made a good living fixing hair?” Then Elner had an alarming thought and looked at her husband. “Oh, Lord, Will, you don’t think the police will trace those fig preserves back to me and think I was one of their accomplices, do you?”
“Well, I don’t know, Elner. Nobody makes fig preserves like you do. They could.”
Elner’s eyes got wide.
“Just kidding, Elner. Of course not.”
The other thing Elner hadn’t known about was that the day the two had stopped at her house, they’d planned to rob the bank in Elmwood Springs on their way to Joplin to meet up with Clyde’s brother, Buck. But after meeting Elner, they had changed their minds.
Another thing she didn’t know was that Bonnie had lied about having been a hairdresser. It was Buck’s wife, Blanche, who was the hairdresser. And although it was never reported, the police had found a half-eaten jar of fig preserves at their hideout in Joplin. Elner was lucky they hadn’t checked it for fingerprints, or she would have had a visit from the sheriff for sure.
1934
In 1934, thanks mostly to the continued growth of the Sweet Clover Dairy, Elmwood Springs got its own train station. The train came through once a day, and its long, sweet whistle was so pleasant to hear. It stirred up memories of the past for some up on the hill. The first time she heard it, Katrina said to Birdie Swensen, “I still remember that first day when you and Lordor met me at the station in Springfield.”
“I remember it, too. Just like it was yesterday,” said Birdie. “You were so stylish. I never dreamed that we would turn out to be lifelong friends.”
“And even after,” Katrina said.
Birdie laughed. “That’s right…and even after.”
—
ALSO THAT YEAR, KATRINA’S GRANDSON, Gene Nordstrom, and his friend, Cooter Calvert, on a dare, were determined to climb to the top of the water tower. Gene, with a pocket full of red balloons, went first. He didn’t let on to Cooter that he was scared to death, and since it was July, the higher they went, the hotter it got. By the time they reached the landing, they were both exhausted, red, and sweaty, but triumphant. After they blew up the balloons and tied them to the railing to prove they’d been there, they stood up and surveyed the land and the town, full of the hopes and dreams of a glorious future, laid out before them.
Gene said, “I’ll tell you what I want to do when I grow up. I’m gonna be a newspaper reporter and travel all over the world.” He was presently reading the book Billy Banyon, Cub Reporter.
Cooter was impressed. “Wow…can I come?”
“Sure. Then I’ll start my own newspaper, like The Joplin Globe, only bigger! I might even get to interview Babe Ruth…or the president. Won’t it be great?”
Cooter said, “You know, Gene, when you think about it, you’re already in the newspaper business in a way, ain’t you?”
Gene, who had a newspaper route at the time, looked at his friend and said, “Yeah, Cooter, you’re right. I am. I never thought of it that way. I’m kinda a newspaperman already.”
—
AT STILL MEADOWS, OLD Man Hendersen, the first to see the red balloons dancing in the wind, announced, “Look at that. Some idiot gal-darned fool’s climbed the water tower again.”
—
THAT NIGHT, GENE AND Cooter both had blisters on their hands and were so sunburned they could hardly move. Gene, the fairest of the two, was so sunburned, he couldn’t wear clothes and had to stay in his soft cotton pajamas for two days. But he was happy. He and Cooter had passed the bravery test, and the balloons were still flying.
Later that year, when Hazel Goodnight found out that her daughter Ada had just climbed all the way to the top of the water tower, she had been appalled. She told Ada that it was “a disgrace” that a girl would do something so dangerous and unladylike. But Ada’s grandmother said, “Oh, horsefeathers, Hazel! If my mother could give birth in the back of a covered wagon in the morning and fix dinner for ten men that night, Ada ought to be able to do anything she wants to.”
This daredevil action only portended what was to come. Ada would go on to do many more dangerous and unladylike things, just like her idol, Amelia Earhart. Ada’s identical twin sister, Bess, had other ideas. She wanted to grow up, marry Tarzan, and live in a tree.
By 1936, a lot of new businesses had opened, and, as someone said, Elmwood Springs was “getting to be a regular metropolis.” While the statement was a slight exaggeration, the downtown area was now almost two blocks long and growing. Merle and Verbena Wheeler opened the Blue Ribbon Dry Cleaners next door to the post office, and a new brick Masonic Lodge that doubled as an Odd Fellows meeting hall had been built on the corner. A brand-new swimming pool named Cascade Plunge had opened in the spring, and, last but not least, there was now a Cat’s Paw shoe-repair shop across the street from Nordstrom’s Swedish Bakery that had a pink neon shoe in the window.
Ted and Gerta’s Swedish bakery had now expanded to include the room next door. Their thirteen-year-old son, Gene, had just received his junior lifeguard badge, and he and his friend Cooter would be working at the pool that summer. All in all, people seemed happy and content. Except, that is, for those up at Still Meadows.
In the past months, an unforeseen problem had developed. Counting the original settlers, and with the usual number of heart attacks, cancer, deaths of old age, accident victims, and so forth, the place was filling up fast…and it was becoming sheer chaos.
At present, when a new resident arrived, everybody started talking to them all at once. Some got so excited to say hello that they talked over the others to be heard. And for the poor newcomer, waking up at Still Meadows was confusing enough, and all the people talking were just too much.
Finally, Lordor Nordstrom addressed the problem at hand. He said, “Now, folks, I know you’re happy to see your loved ones, but just because we’re deceased is no reason not to have a few rules.”