On Mondays, after the weekly wash was done and hung, the house swept, Jane would bundle up the baby and walk to Hannah’s house, where home, coffee and fresh doughnuts awaited her. His special clothes basket lined with thick flannel ready to receive him, Hannah cooed and fussed over her baby, while Jane poured over the catalogs, her heart set on a carriage like fine ladies had to wheel their babies in. But, as four dollars and eighty cents seemed too high a sum for such a luxury when their house still needed more essential things, she realized she couldn’t send off for one—so, just looked.
When Hannah decided that the making of noodles in two houses every Friday was plain silly, Jane made hers in Hannah’s kitchen. Wednesday, being the day when Hannah beat her carpets, Jane went over to help with the task. Thursdays, Hannah visited Jane, kept her company while she did the ironing, wrote her special recipes into Jane’s new household book. Saturdays, they baked together—no use wasting precious coal to heat up two ovens when one giant one would do just fine. As Sundays John and Jane were always expected to take supper at the Geigers’, that left only Tuesdays for the two women to miss each other, which Hannah said was good because that made their Wednesdays extra special.
It wasn’t all just routine, sometimes when Mr. Henry, in summer attire looking slightly undressed without his mittens, would deliver an illustrated postcard from Rumpelstiltskin, everything would stop, all work laid aside, forgotten, to appreciate it, tack it up on the inside of the larder door to join Hannah’s impressive collection of picture postcards and trade cards. Coffee cup in one hand, the back of a kitchen chair in the other, they would make their way into the larder, close its door, sit down before it and admire the colorful display.
Receiving an illustrated postcard could put Hannah in a happy haze for days, preferably from her Ebbely, who often chose ones hand-tinted with delicate colors, of views from far-off cities, or more often depicting ladies of high station enjoying genteel pastimes. Due to his profession in sales, he was particularly partial to trade cards that advertised. Sipping their morning coffee, they would feast their eyes on the treasure.
Jane learned a lot about America and its ways from Hannah’s illustrated cards. The Dutch were considered such prime examples of cleanliness that something called Old Dutch Cleanser chased dirt by a lady in wooden shoes, wielding a big stick. Buster Brown wore only the very best shoes. A gentleman by the name of H. J. Heinz was America’s Pickle King, and Lifebuoy soap was every sailor’s preference.
“Ninnie, see dat one, de one where de pretty lady is conversing into a speaking machine? Dat’s one from de Bell Company. Can you imagine? Your John, he told me it vorks. You shout into one place, but you hear from a receiver piece—see, she is holding it on her ear? De words an electricity vire up on poles, carries dem. Dis one not invention from de great Mr. Edison, dis one discovered from another smart man called Mr. Bell. Funny, no? Vit a name like dat, he invents something dat goes ring-a-ling?”
Of course, there was big excitement when Missus Adams, who ran just a rooming house, became the gloating owner of the first talking telephone in the neighborhood.
“Across de blocks she can speak wit someone who also got de special wires—and dey? Dey can hear—CLEAR! Now, dat’s an invention! A marvel! Right inside de house it is, on de wall dey got it, like a picture. Over and over I tell Fritz I want, we should have one of dose where you speak into, to people not even wit you. Does he do it? No—he says first too expensive den no wires reach us yet and, second, not for simple people like us to need. For people like de Boss and his missus, de Vanderbilts and even de president, okay—but de Geigers? No! Now dat hoity-toity, Mrs. Adams nose-in-de-air woman, she got one and us, de best boardinghouse in Highland Park we still without, like nobodies!”
By the time autumn winds whipped John’s shirts on the line, Jane was a well-schooled wife, mistress of her husband’s house, mother of his son, well spoken, versed in the language of her new country, efficient, frugal, obedient and aware that in some subtle way, she had but exchanged inhibiting mountain granite for solid clapboard and domesticity.
In their parlor, still bare except for two armchairs, a side table in between, Jane sat sewing on the snake she was making to keep the draft out from under the back porch door, John read his evening paper. The cream-colored walls reflected the light from a single standing lamp, as though there were several about the room. At first, Jane had thought she would have trouble accepting John’s unusual choice of color, but now that the days were shortening, the brightness within the house seemed to lessen the gray of approaching winter. I must tell him how his choice to paint—not paper—the walls in the burgundy I chose, is pleasing. I seldom thank him. I must learn to do that more often. I wonder if it would make a difference to him if I do or don’t? She hoped that soon the ordered material for parlor drapes would arrive, for she planned to have them finished in time for Thanksgiving but, without the aid of a wondrous sewing machine, she might not manage to get them done until just before Christmas.
John put down his paper. “I’m off to bed. You coming, Ninnie?”
“I want to finish this first.”
“Buonanotte, Ninnie.”
“Buonanotte, John.” In her pleasant beige parlor, Jane sewed on her snake in silence.
With Thanksgiving not too far away and already running dangerously low on precious spices, Hannah announced the time had come, once again, to venture into the city of Detroit. Her winter bluebird visible, announcing her long before she arrived at Jane’s front door, Hannah was impatient to get going.
“You ready, Ninnie? Cold today. Dolly get de baby?”
“No, Rosie wanted to have him.” Jane pulled on her gloves, looped a scarf around her neck. “I think now she is expecting she wants the practice.”
“Our Carl—soon a Papa! Never I believe such a ting could happen. He is a good man—but lover type? He never was until dat hot blood Irish Rosie come along. She still mooning she have to give up her good work whit de typing machine because she marry?”
“Yes, a little, I think. I like her. She is not like Frederika.”
“Nobody is like Frederika! Come, we go!”