Sra: Imagine It!, Themes, Taking a Stand, Ancient Civilizations Ecology, Great Expectations, Earth in Action, Art and Impact, Level 6
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- Great Expectations: Theme Connections
- Concept/Question Board.
- I Was Dreaming to Come to America selected and illustrated by Veronica Lawlor Genre An oral history
- LAZARUS SALAMON
- Vocabulary: Warm-Up Read the article to find the meanings of these words, which are also in "The Electric Summer"
- Sometimes you can use word structure to determine the meaning of a new word. For example, knowing the prefix con- means "together or with," the Latin root duc
- As you read the selection, make predictions about what will happen next in the story. Revise these predictions when necessary.
Meet the Author and Illustrator Joe McKendry Beneath the Streets of Boston is McKendry's first book for young readers. He works primarily as a commercial illustrator. He decided to create the book after returning to Boston from Rome, Italy. At first he wanted only to focus on images of Boston's underground geography, but almost immediately he became interested in how people built a subway system at the beginning of the twentieth century using handheld tools and steam power. McKendry, who lives in Boston, now has a greater appreciation for the subway he rides frequently. 419 Great Expectations: Theme Connections Within the Selection 1. What events led to crowding in the streets of Boston? 2. How did the new transit system change the lives of workers in the Boston area? Across Selections 3. What is similar about the achievements in "Beneath the Streets of Boston" and "One Fine Day"? 4. How were the "sandhogs" in this selection and Sir Arthur Evans from "The Island of Bulls" engaged in a common pursuit? Beyond the Selection 5. Where in the United States are public transportation systems least needed? Why? 6. How did "Beneath the Streets of Boston" add to your understanding of the theme Great Expectations? Write about It! Imagine you are a passenger on the first Boston subway ride. Write a letter to a friend describing your feelings about the experience. Remember to look for pictures of subways and elevated rail lines for the Concept/Question Board. 420
Social Studies Inquiry: Transportation of the Future Genre
Expository Text tells people something. It contains facts about real people, things, or events. Feature
Charts help readers see ideas at a glance and organize information in their minds. What will transportation be like in the future? Engineers, governments, and businesses are all working on improving modern transportation. Their hopes are that new transportation methods will be able to move people around faster, avoid accidents, and reduce traffic. In addition, they hope transportation will be modified so that inefficient energy use and pollution will become things of the past. European engineers are developing a high-speed train that can reach 700 km (435 miles) per hour. The train uses a combination of electricity, magnets, and metal coils to achieve its speed. However, high-tech trains can help only if people use them. In some areas, officials encourage people to use the trains, buses, and subway stations already in operation. For example, city planners in San Mateo, California, cluster housing, shops, and services near a rail station, or hub . An increasing number of buildings now have landing pads for helicopters. People are using helicopters to travel short distances between buildings or from airports directly to buildings. Perhaps in the future, more people will travel within cities by helicopter. Still, automobiles will remain the main mode of transportation for many years to come. Steps must be taken to make automobiles safer on the road. Technology is being developed to allow cars to "talk" to one another, sensing one another in blind spots. Computer sensors can keep cars from crashing into one another. Cars are also being designed so that they can apply their brakes automatically. 421
However, one important question about cars in the future is what will power them. Scientists have already designed vehicles that run on hydrogen gas. Hydrogen is the most plentiful element on Earth, and it can be made from water. Also, since most hydrogen-powered vehicles only release water vapor, there is no pollution. By making automobiles that run on hydrogen, we are helping to save the environment. The future of transportation must not be focused only on speed and convenience but on the future of our planet.
Think Link How does the chart help you learn about the future of transportation? Aside from providing public transportation, what do city planners need to do? Explain. What technology do you think is the best for public transportation? What would you like to see used in your area? What predictions can you make about future transportation? Try It! As you work on your investigation, think about how you can use charts to organize your information. 422 Vocabulary: Warm-Up Read the story to find the meanings of these words, which are also in "I Was Dreaming to Come to America": transplant optimistic despaired bound capacity
nationalities circulated embraces clustered acquaintances Vocabulary Strategy Word Structure Greek and Latin roots can often help you when you encounter an unfamiliar word. For example, the word transplant comes from the root word plant and the Latin prefix trans- , meaning "across." When Greta learned her family was going to move to America, she cried for days. Her mother had mixed feelings. She wondered whether it was a mistake to uproot her children from their home. Could she successfully transplant them to another country? Greta's brother Gertz was optimistic about the new country. Greta despaired over finding friends as good as the ones she was leaving. On a cloudy day, a train took them to a harbor. There they boarded a boat bound for America. It was filled to capacity . Greta had never been around people of other nationalities . She had always been with other Germans. Now she was traveling with people from different countries. While Gertz circulated among all the passengers, Greta stuck close to other Germans. By the end of the trip, her brother had learned words from several languages. Once they reached America, Greta felt better. Her relatives greeted her with warm embraces . She found that the Germans lived clustered together in their own neighborhoods. In Greta's new town, everyone was from Germany.
"Everyone here values the freedom America offers," explained Greta's mother. "But they keep their German customs." German was spoken in all the stores. Signs were printed in German. At dinnertime, the smell of sauerkraut and sausage drifted from kitchen windows. German songs echoed through the neighborhood. It felt as though parts of Germany had been transplanted in the United States. Greta spoke German with her neighborhood friends. She spoke English with her acquaintances at school. In a few months, one of Greta's acquaintances became a friend. Greta decided to invite her home. As they walked through the neighborhood, her friend's eyes danced with excitement. "I love your neighborhood!" she said. "My neighborhood is so boring." She watched Greta greet neighbors in German. "You are so lucky! You speak both German and English! I only speak one language." Suddenly Greta felt very proud. "Will you teach me German?" her friend asked. "Of course," said Greta. She smiled happily. Her new friends suddenly seemed as good as the ones she had left behind. Game You Are the Author! With a partner, write a story using the vocabulary words. Begin by writing a sentence that uses one of the words. Then have your partner continue the story with a sentence that uses another vocabulary word. Continue until all ten words have been used in sentences. Share your story with the class. Concept Vocabulary The concept word for this lesson is reinvention. Reinvention is a noun that comes from the verb reinvent , meaning "to make over in a new way." How might people immigrating to a new country reinvent themselves or their lives? How does reinvention connect with the theme Great Expectations? 424 I Was Dreaming to Come to America selected and illustrated by Veronica Lawlor Genre
An oral history is a compilation of memories and reminiscences that gives a picture of a certain time, place, or person. Comprehension Skill: Making Inferences As you read, use the information from the text along with personal experience and prior knowledge to gain a better understanding of the selection and its implications. 425
What emotions about coming to the United States do these memories recall? How do the memories differ from one another? 426
"My first impressions of the new world will always remain etched in my memory, particularly that hazy October morning when I first saw Ellis Island. The steamer Florida, 14 days out of Naples, filled to capacity with 1,600 natives of Italy, had weathered one of the worst storms in our captain's memory. Glad we were, both children and grown-ups, to leave the open sea and come at last through the narrows into the bay. "My mother, my stepfather, my brother Giuseppe, and my two sisters, Liberta and Helvetia, all of us together, happy that we had come through the storm safely, clustered on the foredeck for fear of separation and looked with wonder on this miraculous land of our dreams." EDWARD CORSI ITALY
ARRIVED IN 1907 * AGE 10 "My father, who had by now moved from New York to Milwaukee, was barely making a living. He wrote back that he hoped to get a job working on the railway and soon he would have enough money for our tickets.... I can remember only the hustle and bustle of those last weeks in Pinsk, the farewells from the family, the embraces and the tears. Going to America then was almost like going to the moon.... We were all bound for places about which we knew nothing at all and for a country that was totally strange to us." GOLDA MEIR RUSSIA
ARRIVED IN 1906 * AGE 8 427
"[The] time between meals was spent on the deck if the weather was good. In the evening there was usually dancing and music. Some immigrant would always come out with a harmonica or some musical instrument and the dance would follow. And during the day, of course, there were always acquaintances to be made, discussions about America, the conditions in America, and preparation for life in America. Right among the people themselves, I circulated around quite a bit. I knew a few words in English, in French, and in German already at that time, so I was able to understand some of the talk, even from the sailors." PAUL STURMAN CZECHOSLOVAKIA ARRIVED IN 1920 * AGE 16 428
"When I was about 10 years old I said, 'I have to go to America.' Because my uncles were here already, and it kind of got me that I want to go to America, too.... I was dreaming about it. I was writing to my uncles, I said I wish one day I'll be in America. I was dreaming to come to America.... And I was dreaming, and my dream came true. When I came here, I was in a different world. It was so peaceful. It was quiet. You were not afraid to go out in the middle of the night.... I'm free. I'm just like a bird. You can fly and land on any tree and you're free." HELEN COHEN POLAND
ARRIVED IN 1920 * AGE 20 429 "I never saw such a big building [Ellis Island] -- the size of it. I think the size of it got me. According to the houses I left in my town, this was like a whole city in one, in one building. It was an enormous thing to see, I tell you. I almost felt smaller than I am to see that beautiful [building], it looked beautiful. "My basket, my little basket, that's all I had with me. There was hardly any things. My mother gave me the sorrah [a kind of sandwich], and I had one change of clothes. That's what I brought from Europe." CELIA ADLER RUSSIA
ARRIVED IN 1914 * AGE 12 "Most dear to me are the shoes my mother wore when she first set foot on the soil of America.... She landed in America in those shoes and somehow or the other she felt that she was going to hang on to them. They are brown high-top shoes that had been soled and resoled and stitched and mended in Sweden to hold them together till she could get to America. We just kept them. And then ... as I grew up and everything, I said, 'Don't ever throw them away.'" BIRGITTA HEDMAN FICHTER SWEDEN
ARRIVED IN 1924 * AGE 6 430
"It seems to me now, as I look back, that in those days there were crying and laughing and singing all the time at Ellis Island. Very often brides came over to marry here, and of course we had to act as witnesses . I have no count, but I'm sure I must have helped at hundreds and hundreds of weddings of all nationalities and all types. "There is a post at Ellis Island which through long usage has come to earn the name of 'the Kissing Post.' It is probably the spot of greatest interest on the island, and if the immigrants recall it afterward it is always, I am sure, with fondness. For myself, I found it a real joy to watch some of the tender scenes that took place there ... where friends, sweethearts, husbands and wives, parents and children would embrace and kiss and shed tears for pure joy." FRANK MARTOCCI INSPECTOR, ELLIS ISLAND ITALY ARRIVED 1897 * AGE 30 431 "I feel like I had two lives. You plant something in the ground, it has its roots, and then you transplant it where it stays permanently . That's what happened to me. You put an end ... and forget about your childhood; I became a man here. All of a sudden, I started life new, amongst people whose language I didn't understand.... [It was a] different life; everything was different ... but I never despaired , I was optimistic . "And this is the only country where you're not a stranger, because we are all strangers. It's only a matter of time who got here first." LAZARUS SALAMON HUNGARY
ARRIVED IN 1920 * AGE 16 432
Meet the Editor and Illustrator Veronica Lawlor Lawlor is an artist as well as an art instructor at Parsons, The New School for Design in New York. She has worked as an illustrator, graphic designer, animator, fashion designer, and photographer. Among her clients are the film/television studio Warner Brothers and Marvel Comics. Lawlor's art has been displayed in museums and galleries.
Within the Selection 1. How does Helen Cohen describe the way her life changed after coming to the United States? 2. How is the experience Frank Martocci describes different from the experiences of the other immigrants? Across Selections 3. What does "Beneath the Streets of Boston" add to the story of the immigrants coming to the United States? 4. How did the achievements of the Wright brothers change the experience of immigrating to the United States? Beyond the Selection 5. Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "And this is the only country where you're not a stranger, because we are all strangers. It's only a matter of time who got here first." Explain your answer. 6. How has immigration enriched your community? Write about It! If you have come to the United States during your lifetime, write about your experience. If not, write about what it would be like for a sixth-grader to arrive in this country for the first time. Remember to look for newspaper or magazine articles about modern-day immigration for the Concept/Question Board. 434
Social Studies Inquiry: Returning Home Genre
Expository Text tells people something. It contains facts about real people, things, or events. Feature
During the 1800s, the first Asian immigrants were Chinese. Most were single men. Many saved their money and returned home. They worked in gold mines and on farms, and they built railroads. Some, however, opened their own businesses or stayed at their jobs. With their families, they settled in the United States. Families from Japan soon followed. Bound for the United States, the Japanese fled hard times at home. Some educated Asian immigrants went to college in the United States. Most of them stayed in the country after graduation. They worked in fields such as technology, medicine, and science. The trend is now reversing. More Asian immigrants are leaving the United States and returning home. Some, like the first Chinese, come to the United States with plans to return. Students may intend to work in Asia after earning their college degrees in America. Others leave to make more money. Opportunities sometimes dwindle in America while they open up in Asia. During the late 1990s, many Internet companies in the United States failed. In the early 2000s, many jobs were lost, and new jobs were hard to find. Educated workers lost jobs. Meanwhile, the economies of some Asian countries were growing. Workers felt more optimistic about a future in Asia. 435
Globalization has played a role as well. Many U.S. companies are moving their operations to Asian countries. While labor in Asia is cheaper, moving a company's operations overseas takes jobs from the United States. Some U.S. businesses cannot compete with cheaper goods from other countries, forcing them to shut down. Some Asian countries work to encourage Asians overseas to return. They offer them tax breaks or sometimes lend them money to start businesses. Cities, schools, and businesses also try to encourage educated Asians to return home. In today's world, economic opportunity moves around. As it does, immigrants will follow. Think Link How does the cause/effect diagram help you figure out the main idea? How are today's immigrants and the first Asian immigrants alike? How might expectations play a part in the decision to return home? Try It! As you work on your investigation, think about how you can use cause/effect diagrams to organize your information. 436 Vocabulary: Warm-Up Read the article to find the meanings of these words, which are also in "The Electric Summer": * ornamental * foretold * literature * conducted * informed * pondered * giddy * deliberately * grandeur * humbler Vocabulary Strategy Sometimes you can use word structure to determine the meaning of a new word. For example, knowing the prefix con- means "together or with," the Latin root duc means "to lead," and the suffix -ed signals use of the past tense allows you to gain a meaning of conducted. Rosemary sat and waited for her friends. She watched as some volunteers watered the ornamental gardens in the middle of the fairgrounds. The morning sun was bright, though it was surprisingly cold outside. It was the late summer, but it certainly did not feel like it. The weather reports had foretold that it would be a brisk day at the state fair. She did not care, however. Rosemary had been looking forward to attending the fair for three months now. She thumbed through the literature from the visitor's tent, looking at pictures of what she would eventually see. As more and more people filed into the fairgrounds, Rosemary finally caught sight of her friends, Mark and Linda. Mark was disappointed because the fair had already conducted the livestock auction. Each year, he loved seeing the many horses and cows. Rosemary informed him that there was supposed to be a second farm auction later in the day. There would be a great deal of farm equipment for sale, but farmers sometimes brought along cattle. 437 The previous year, Linda remembered visiting the fun house. She loved the mirrors that made everyone's reflections look strange. Since most of the exhibits seemed different, Rosemary pondered the possibility that there was not a fun house this year. Mark, however, located the fun house on a map of the fairgrounds. It looked even larger, which made Linda giddy at the thought. There were dozens of tents selling every type of food imaginable, including flavored popcorn. Rosemary, Linda, and Mark deliberately tried as many as they could. Shortly thereafter, they were full. They wandered into the shadow of a Ferris wheel. The other rides seemed too fast and noisy for Rosemary's liking. She preferred the slow and steady pace of the Ferris wheel. Mark was afraid of heights, so he watched as Rosemary and Linda climbed aboard, rising higher and higher in the air. Even though the wheel was not as large as the one from the St. Louis World's Fair, Rosemary could see the entire fairgrounds below. The grandeur of the fair made her feel humbler by comparison. She smiled, knowing that the fair had not only met her expectations but exceeded them. Game
Vocabulary Riddle Work with a partner. Write each word on an index card. Mix the cards up and place them facedown in a pile. Take turns drawing cards. The partner drawing the cards gives the definition of the word or a hint about the word. Then the other partner has to guess the vocabulary word. Continue until all the cards have been drawn. Concept Vocabulary The concept word for this lesson is futuristic. Futuristic means "very modern; related to the future." Why might someone call the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair futuristic?
Genre
Historical Fiction involves characters, settings, and events drawn from the distant or recent past. The use of era-specific details makes historical fiction realistic. Comprehension Strategy: Predicting As you read the selection, make predictions about what will happen next in the story. Revise these predictions when necessary. Production note: this image crosses the gutter to appear both on page 438 and page 439 in the print version. 439
The Electric Summer by Richard Peck illustrated by Carol Newsom Focus Questions How does the fair symbolize the promise of the new century? What effect does the trip to the fair have on Geneva? Production note: this image crosses the gutter to appear both on page 438 and page 439 in the print version. 440
Officially known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904, the world's fair celebrated the centennial of the Louisiana Purchase. Spread across two square miles, the fair's major goal was to demonstrate technological innovation and progress to its visitors. The fair also introduced patrons to hamburgers, hot dogs, peanut butter, iced tea, cotton candy, and ice-cream cones. Geneva and her mother anxiously wait for the day they will board a train to St. Louis and enter a place where ambition, originality, and progress are on proud display. That's how Mama and I went to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis that summer of 1904. We studied up on it, and Dad read the Fair literature along with us. Hayseeds we might be, but we meant to be informed hayseeds. They said the Fair covered twelve hundred acres, and we tried to see that in our minds, how many farms that would amount to. And all we learned about the Fair filled my heart to overflowing and struck me dumb with dread. 441 Mama weakened some. She found out when the Schumates were going, and we planned to go at the same time, just so we'd know somebody there. But we didn't take the same train. When the great day came, Dad drove us to town, where the Wabash Cannonball stopped on its way to St. Louis. If he'd turned the trap around and taken us back home, you wouldn't have heard a peep out of me. And I think Mama was the same. But then we were on the platform with the big locomotive thundering in, everything too quick now, and too loud. We had to scramble for seats in the day coach, lugging one straw valise between us and a gallon jug of lemonade. And a vacuum flask of the kind the Spanish-American War soldiers carried, with our own well water for brushing our teeth. We'd heard that St. Louis water came straight out of the Mississippi River, and there's enough silt in it to settle at the bottom of the glass. We'd go to their fair, but we weren't going to drink their water. 442 When the people sitting across from us went to the dining car, Mama and I spread checkered napkins over our knees and had our noon meal out of the valise. All the while, hot wind blew clinkers and soot in the window as we raced along like a crazed horse. Then a lady flounced up and perched on the seat opposite. She had a full bird on the wing sewed to the crown of her hat, and she was painted up like a circus pony, so we took her to be from Chicago. Leaning forward, she spoke, though we didn't know her from Adam. "Would you know where the ladies' rest room is?" she inquired. We stared blankly back, but then Mama said politely, "No, but you're welcome to rest here till them other people come back." The woman blinked at us, then darted away, hurrying now. I chewed on that a minute, along with my ham sandwich. Then I said, "Mama, do you suppose they have a privy on the train?" "A what ?" she said. 443 Finally, we had to know. Putting the valise on my seat and the hamper on hers, Mama and I went to explore. We walked through the swaying cars, from seat to seat, the cornflowers on Mama's hat aquiver. Sure enough, we came to a door at the end of a car with a sign reading LADIES. We crowded inside, and there it was. A water closet like you'd find in town and a chain hanging down and a roll of paper. "Well, I've seen everything now," Mama said. "You wouldn't catch me sitting on that thing in a moving train. I'd fall off." But I wanted to know how it worked and reached for the handle on the chain. "Just give it a little jerk," Mama said. We stared down as I did. The bottom of the pan was on a hinge. It dropped open, and there below were the ties of the Wabash tracks racing along beneath us. We both jumped back and hit the door. And we made haste back to our seats. I guess we were lucky not to have found the lady with the bird on her hat in there, sitting down. Then before I was ready, we were crossing the Mississippi River on a high trestle. There was nothing between us and the brown water. I put my hand over my eyes, but not before I glimpsed St. Louis on the far bank, sweeping away in the haze of heat as far as the eye could see. 444 We didn't stay at the Inside Inn. They wanted two dollars a night for a room, three if they fed you. We booked into a rooming house not far from the main gate, where we got a big square room upstairs with two beds for a dollar. It was run by a severe lady, Mrs. Wolfe, with a small, moon-faced son named Thomas clinging to her skirts. The place suited Mama, once she'd pulled down the bedclothes to check for bugs. It didn't matter where we laid our heads as long as it was clean. We walked to the Fair that afternoon, following the crowds, trying to act like everybody else. Once again I'd have turned back if Mama had said to. It wasn't the awful grandeur of the pavilions rising white in the sun. It was all those people. I didn't know there were that many people in the world. They scared me at first, but then I couldn't see enough. My eyes began to drink deep. We took the Intramural electric railroad that ran around the Exposition grounds, making stops. The Fair passed before us, and it didn't take me long to see what I was looking for. It was hard to miss. At the Palace of Transportation stop, I told Mama this was where we got off. 445 There it rose before us, 250 feet high. It was the giant wheel, the invention of George Washington Gale Ferris. A great wheel with thirty-six cars on it, each holding sixty people. It turned as we watched, and people were getting on and off like it was nothing to them. "No power on earth would get me up in that thing," Mama murmured. But I opened my hand and showed her the extra dollar Dad had slipped me to ride the wheel. "Dad said it would give us a good view of the Fair," I said in a wobbly voice. "It would give me a stroke," Mama said. But then she set her jaw. "Your dad is putting me to the test. He thinks I won't do it." Gathering her skirts, she moved deliberately toward the line of people waiting to ride the wheel. We wouldn't look up while we waited, but we heard the creaking of all that naked steel. "That is the sound of doom," Mama muttered. Then, too soon, they were ushering us into a car, and I began to babble out of sheer fear. 446 "A lady named Mrs. Nicholson rode standing on the roof of one of these cars when the wheel was up at the Chicago fair, eleven years ago." Mama turned to me. "What in the world for?" "She was a daredevil, I guess." "She was out of her mind," Mama said. Now we were inside, and people mobbed the windows as we swooped up. I meant to stand in the middle of our car and watch the floor, but I looked out. In a moment we were above the roofs and towers of the Fair, a white city unfolding. There was the Grand Basin with the gondolas drifting. There was the mighty Festival Hall. Mama chanced a look. "How many wind pumps high are we?" Mama pondered. As we began to arch down again, we were both at a window, skinning our eyes to see the Jerusalem exhibit and the Philippine Village and, way off, the Plateau of States--a world of wonders. Giddy when we got out, we staggered on solid ground and had to sit down on an ornamental bench. Now Mama was game for anything. "If they didn't want an arm and a leg for the fare," she said, "I'd ride that thing again. Keep the ticket stubs to show your dad we did it." 447 Braver than before, we walked down the Pike, as it was still broad daylight. It was lined with sidewalk cafes in front of all manner of attractions: the Streets of Cairo and the Palais du Costume, Hagenbeck's Circus and a replica of the Galveston flood. Because we were parched, we found a table at a place where they served a new drink, tea with ice in it. "How do we know we're not drinking silt?" Mama wondered, but it cooled us off. As quick as you'd sit down anywhere at the Fair, there'd be entertainment. In front of the French Village they had a supple young man named Will Rogers doing rope tricks. And music? Everywhere you turned, and all along the Pike, the song the world sang that summer was: "Meet me in St. Louis, Louis, meet me at the fair." 448 I can't tell all we saw in our two days at the Fair. We tried to look at things the boys and Dad would want to hear about--the Hall of Mines and Metallurgy, and the livestock. We learned a good deal of history: the fourteen female statues to stand for the states of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and the log cabin that President U. S. Grant had been born in. But most of what we saw foretold the future: automobiles and airships and moving pictures. Our last night was the Fourth of July. Fifty bands played, some of them on horseback. John Philip Sousa, in gold braid and white, conducted his own marches. Lit in every color, the fountains played to this music and the thunder of the fireworks. And the cavalry from the Boer War exhibit rode in formation, brandishing torches. Mama turned away from all the army uniforms, thinking of my brothers, I suppose. But when the lights came on, every tower and minaret picked out with electric bulbs, we saw what this new century would be: all the grandeur of ancient Greece and Rome, lit by lightning. A new century, with the United States of America showing the way. But you'd have to run hard not to be left behind. 449 We saved the floral clock for our last morning. It lay across a hillside next to the Agriculture Palace, and it was beyond anything we'd ever seen. The dial of it was 112 feet across, and each giant hand weighed 2,500 pounds. It was all made of flowers, even the numbers. Each Hour Garden had plants that opened at that time of day, beginning with morning glories. We stood in a rapture, waiting for it to strike the hour. Then who appeared before us with her folding Kodak camera slung around her neck but Aunt Elvera Schumate. To demonstrate her worldliness, she merely nodded like we were all just coming out of church back home. "Well, Mary," she said to Mama, "I guess this clock shames your garden." Mama dipped her head modestly to show the cornflowers on her hat. "Yes, Elvera," she said, "I am a humbler woman for this experience," and Aunt Elvera didn't quite know what to make of her reply. "Where's Dorothy?" Mama asked innocently. 450
"That child!" Aunt Elvera said. "I couldn't get her out of the bed at the Inside Inn! She complains of blistered feet. Wait till she has a woman's corns! I am a martyr to mine. I cannot get her interested in the Fair. She got as far as the bust of President Roosevelt sculpted in butter, but then she faded," Aunt Elvera cast me a baleful look, as if this was all my fault. "Dorothy is going through a phase." On the train ride home we were seasoned travelers, Mama and I. When the candy butcher hawked his wares through our car, we knew to turn our faces away from his prices. We crossed the Mississippi River on that terrible trestle, and after Edwardsville the land settled into flat fields. Looking out, Mama said, "Corn's knee high by the Fourth of July," because she was thinking ahead to home. "I'll sleep good tonight without those streetcars clanging outside the window." But they still clanged in my mind, and "The Stars and Stripes Forever" blended with "Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis." "But Mama, how can we just go home after all we've seen?" 451 Thinking that over, she said, "You won't have to, you and the boys. It's your century. It can take you wherever you want to go." Then she reached over and put her hand on mine, a thing she rarely did. "I'll keep you back if I can. But I'll let you go if I must." That thrilled me, and scared me. The great world seemed to swing wide like the gates of the Fair, and I didn't even have a plan. I hadn't even put up my hair yet. It seemed to me it was time for that, time to jerk that big bow off the braid hanging down my back and put up my hair in a woman's way. "Maybe in the fall," said Mama, who was turning into a mind reader as we steamed through the July fields, heading for home. 452 Directory: books -> 0-00-NIMAC books -> Active Vocabulary books -> Books we finished XIV books -> The theology of the balaam oracles: a pagan diviner and the word of god books -> The rhetoric of the father books -> You Can If You Try Unit 7 Nonfiction books -> How to Get the Most Out of books -> The tregenza family books -> Unconditional hatred 0-00-NIMAC -> Sra: Imagine It!, Themes, Risks and Consequences, Nature's Delicate Balance, a changing America, Science Fair, America on the Move, Dollars and Sense, Level 4 [Grade 4] Download 1.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
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