"Louise, why do you bother filling your head with these things?" complained Miss Gordon.
I ignored her remark. I was really watching for Robert"s reaction, though he didn"t seem to have one. He kept his head down as he cut his asparagus. Dared I continue? Never one to let the restraint of good judgment stand in my way, I plunged forward.
"Since we"re talking about sign language, I sent away to some organizations that help deaf children, and I received back some brochures in the mail today." I thought I had just made a brilliant segue to the topic that I had wanted to bring up all along.
Robert looked up at me sharply. "Louisa, I believe I told you William would be taught when the time was right." Abruptly, he stood up to clear his dishes.
"But Robert, maybe that time is now. From everything I have been reading, time is of the essence to help William. The younger he is, the better. And there is so much help to be had! Do you remember I told you I had met a family with a deaf child on the train? And they told me about a new clinic in Los Angeles? Well, I found out that this clinic offers correspondence courses for deaf children."
Robert picked up his plate and went to the sink.
"And it doesn"t cost a penny." I waited to let that sink in. I looked over at Miss Gordon, trying to gauge her interest. I was ready to pull out my trump card. The one piece of information I knew could greatly reinforce my position. Timing was key, and I knew this was my moment.
Strategically, I placed a piece of paper on the table. "The clinic is called the John Tracy Clinic of Los Angeles. John Tracy is the son of Spencer Tracy. You know, Spencer Tracy, the movie star." I cast a furtive glance at Miss Gordon.
"Spencer Tracy?" she gasped. "The movie star? Spencer Tracy of Boystown? Father Flanagan?"
Now I had her hooked. Boystown was one of her favorite movies. Miss Gordon picked up the paper and started skimming through it.
"Why, yes!" I said, as if I had just made that discovery myself. "The very one. His son, John, was born profoundly deaf, just like William, and his wife devoted herself to teach him how to communicate. In fact, Spencer Tracy provides financial support to this clinic. And Mrs. Spencer Tracy answers all of the letters herself." I slid the letter I"d received from Mrs. Tracy onto the table, close to Miss Gordon. Just as I hoped, she s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and started to read it.
I looked over at Robert. "She"s had so much success with John that she started this clinic to help other families. She believes in early intervention with children."
I pulled out another piece of paper from my pocket and started to read a paragraph I had previously marked. "Listen to this: "First, it"s important to make a decision, rather than no decision at all. Hearing impaired children need early language and communication intervention in order to succeed in life. Deaf children are normal children who just have a hearing problem. Their handicap is communicational, not mental"."
There. My speech was complete. I waited patiently, biting my lip, bracing myself for their response. For his response.
"You know, Robert, perhaps you should be willing to see what they offer. Just consider looking at the information from the John Tracy Clinic," Miss Gordon coaxed. "I really don"t think Mrs. Spencer Tracy would mislead you."
A glimmer of hope. If I got her on my side, I knew I had won the battle. We both looked over at him at the same time.
Leaning his hip against the sink with his arms crossed, Robert tilted his head, arching one eyebrow at me as if to convey that he was well aware of the strategic tactic that I had used to corner him. Then he sighed in resignation. "I have the sudden sense of being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. All right, all right. I"ll read the materials."
A door had opened, spilling forth light.
That night, Robert took out his guitar, and we sat on the porch to listen to him. William climbed onto my lap. It seemed Robert hadn"t played the guitar in quite a while because even Miss Gordon looked pleased. He strummed a few songs and then sang a song I recognized. It was an odd song to hear from such an erudite minister, just as odd as when I heard it from Dietrich. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Go Down, Moses." I wondered where this kind of music originated, because they were the only two men I knew who played it.
Later, I tucked William into bed, stroking his hair until he fell asleep, whispering a prayer. Thank you, Lord, for caring about this little boy in the midst of a world at war. Please help us find a way to unlock all that is in the wonderful mind you created for him.
The following morning, I reached for a juice gla.s.s from the kitchen cupboard and asked Miss Gordon more about those songs.
"They"re called gospel songs," she explained. "From the Negroes. Robert went off to seminary and made friends with a colored minister from Alabama, Franklin Fisher, while he was there. Robert and that Dietrich fellow you talk so much about, they used to go to church with Franklin in a place called Harlem. That"s where he learned those songs."
Miss Gordon seemed to be in a friendlier mood this morning than usual, so the time seemed right to show her the completed choir robe. Quickly, I went upstairs and brought down the robe.
"Miss Gordon?"
She looked up from the sink where she was washing dishes. Slowly, her face softened into delight.
"Why, it"s...it"s perfect!" She dried her hands and came over to examine every seam. I wasn"t concerned. I had antic.i.p.ated a thorough inspection. "It"s better than the Methodists" robes! Why Louisa, you"re a fine seamstress. We"ll have to show Robert. And the ladies in the choir! They"ll be so pleased. In fact, I might run it right over to Mrs. Wondowlowski."
Now I knew I had done well; Miss Gordon rarely left the house except for church, choir practice, or to exchange her rationing coupons at the grocery store. Once in a great while, she would attend a war bond rally or a recycling drive.
When I had first arrived, I asked her what the used tin cans and old toothpaste tubes she saved so conscientiously could be recycled into. "Saving aluminum cans means more ammunition for the soldiers," she answered authoritatively, as if she were in charge of supplying weapons for the military herself.
Martha Gordon might not fully understand the grim realities of war, but she took seriously her patriotic duties and united with the American people in efforts to conserve. If the government asked Americans to recycle, then she would carefully save paper, metal, and rubber. She had remarkable hunting and gathering skills.
At least once a week, I found her at the kitchen table, peppered head bent over, pasting stamps into bond books. Like many Americans, the Gordon family only served red meat once a week, ate cottage cheese by the quarts, was miserly with sugar, traded coupons with other families for favorite products, and tried not to use the car unless they had saved up their monthly gas allotment. The government had instigated such rationing to ensure that the rich could not purchase privileges. Every American was expected to do their part to help win the war.
But, besides leaving the house on an unscheduled visit, another reason I could tell she was impressed with the choir robe-she called me Louisa. Not Louise.
So I started to work on the rest of the choir robes. Miss Gordon arranged for the choir members to come to the parsonage for fittings.
As I pinned hems and chalked seams, the ladies chatted amongst each other as if I was invisible. I didn"t mind. I thought back to my summers as a teenager working in Frau Steinhart"s seamstress" shop, in the heart of the Jewish Ghetto in Berlin. Now I wondered, with a wisp of nostalgia, if that might have been where my shameful habit of eavesdropping got started.
I was waiting for the day when Frau Mueller came in for her fitting; I was planning to use the opportunity to find out more about her husband. When the day finally arrived, I spoke to her in German, hoping to coax her to reveal information.
In her husband"s absence, she was quite talkative. She volunteered that they had emigrated ten years earlier from Berlin. Herr Mueller deliberately chose Copper Springs as their destination before they had left Germany.
He bought up several copper mines in the area during the Depression when prices were devalued. He started the First National Trust of Copper Springs; he had even designed the building himself. He traveled regularly on lengthy trips, often to Mexico, she said, evidently proud of his business success.
Privately, I wondered how Herr Mueller had the foresight to buy up copper mines during a Depression. As if Herr Mueller knew a war on the horizon and gauged the time was right to stockpile.
So spun the wheels in my distrustful mind.
One afternoon, as I was finishing up another hemline, Robert knocked on my door and poked his head in. "Well now I"m especially glad you are making those choir robes, Louisa. I"d hate to have to tell Aunt Martha she couldn"t have her robes. Mr. Mueller just informed me the money we were going to use for the new roof and the paint job will have to be used for raised taxes or else the church will go into arrears."
"What? Are you certain?"
"Well, I knew our taxes had been raised; I didn"t realize by how much. Mueller has always taken care of the church"s finances. I"ve never had reason to doubt him. We never could"ve weathered the Depression without his financial ac.u.men."
"Did you already give him the money?"
"Yes, I wrote a check this morning."
After Robert left, I turned back to the choir robe in my hand, but my mind remained stuck on Herr Mueller. Somehow, I doubted his story.
A few days later, a truck rumbled up to the house early in the morning. Gruff voices carried up the stairs. I quickly dressed and went downstairs. Robert was directing the men to move a large object, covered in blankets, over to a blank wall in the parlor. I looked quizzically at Miss Gordon and William, but they looked just as puzzled as I.
Robert"s eyes shone with happy amus.e.m.e.nt. He pulled the blankets off with a flourish. "It"s a piano! Haven"t you three ever seen a piano before?" He laughed. "It"s for you, Louisa. Mrs. Drummond"s piano. Betty was in town a week or so ago and told me she was selling off some of her grandmother"s belongings. She doesn"t play the piano, so I asked if I could buy it from her. Seemed like you should have a piano to play."
This avalanche of kindness overwhelmed me. I couldn"t talk. I don"t remember that ever happening to me before. Utterly speechless.
He walked over to me, a worried look on his face. "Is something wrong? Don"t you like it? I thought you said it had a mellowed tone."
More kindness. Stunned and happy, tears sprang to my eyes. What could I say? Somehow, someway, without ever telling him, I think he understood all that a piano represented to me.
I finally gathered myself together and sat down at the piano bench. I turned on the bench and looked at Robert. "What shall I play?"
"How about that piece you played for Mrs. Drummond, the first night we drove out there?"
So I played Beethoven"s Moonlight Sonata in D.
It had a magical effect on me. I felt as if I was reliving the sweetest moments of my life, crowding out the horror of the last few years.
On the very last note of the Sonata, as if it was orchestrated, Miss Gordon interrupted my reverie. "Some of us have things to do. Not just play ditties on a piano." She frowned at me. "I suppose I"m going to have to listen to that nonsense all day long."
Ditties. What a remarkable talent she had to spoil lovely moments. I realized I would have to play the piano when Miss Gordon was gone, which wasn"t often. Silently, I wished she had more errands to run.
Chapter Four.
That afternoon, I began to get serious about preparing my Victory Garden. I pulled up deep-rooted weeds and prepared the soil for planting, tilling in the coffee grounds and egg sh.e.l.ls I had coaxed from Miss Gordon.
I recently read in the newspaper that 20 million Americans planted Victory Gardens, and that these gardens produced 40% of all the food that was consumed. Nearly half!
I planned to grow tomatoes, peas, carrots, cuc.u.mbers, beans, onions, and a few sunflowers on the far edge, marigolds and zinnias at the other, just for panache.
As I was leaning over, engrossed in my task, I suddenly felt a big, wet, scratchy tongue lick the back of my neck. I jumped up, startled. Looking up at me with his head c.o.c.ked to one side was a yellow-haired puppy with large brown eyes. My heart melted. He seemed sweet, gentle and affectionate, without trying to nip at me as I petted him. He had no collar, and his ribs stuck out of his dirty, matted fur.
William came around the side of the house and saw me patting the puppy. I waved to him to come over. He looked nervous as I showed him how to put his hand out so the pup could smell him. Soon, William relaxed. Encouraged, the puppy started licking his hand.
Then something wonderful happened. William laughed. He laughed!
At that moment, Rosita ran out of her house, waving a broom frantically in the air. "That dog is a big pest! He has been hanging around my backdoor begging for food."
"No, Rosita, wait! Don"t chase him away. Do you have any idea whom he belongs to?"
"No one! Who would want him? He"s a stray. Just a mutt. He"s a pest. Don"t feed him or he will never go." She shook her head and went back home with her broom.
I picked up a stick and threw it. The pup scrambled after it on paws as large as dinner plates, proudly returning to us the treasure between his teeth. William threw it next, and we were soon completely entertained by the game. It wasn"t long until the puppy was exhausted and crashed down on the gra.s.s, tongue hanging out of his mouth, panting heavily. William sank down beside the puppy, rubbing ears that felt like pieces of velvet. I went inside to get a bowl of water for the puppy.
As I was filling up a dish, I was struck with a brilliant idea. Brilliant! I had already enrolled William in the correspondence cla.s.ses from the John Tracy Clinic, audaciously antic.i.p.ating Robert"s approval.
The materials had come yesterday in the mail. I had spent last evening up in my room, pouring over the a.s.signments for correspondence course #1. I was confident I could teach William how to make an a.s.sociation for a word, through lip reading, by using this dog as a cue.
I hurried outside to join William and the puppy. In my eagerness, I took William"s hands in mine and placed one of his hands on the puppy. I tapped him on the shoulder to look at me and placed his free hand on my throat to feel the vibrations of my vocal chords as I said the word "dog." He didn"t understand, so I tried it again. And again. And again.
I could see in his eyes that he didn"t make the connection that there was meaning to the word. Too soon, both the puppy and William lost interest. Thirst quenched, the puppy bounded across the street to continue exploring Copper Springs.
I gathered up my garden tools and took William inside. At least Robert and his aunt hadn"t witnessed that futile lesson. This was going to be harder than I thought. I spent that evening re-reading through the correspondence course materials, feeling woefully incompetent.
I had a sweeping empathy for Robert as I could now understand his reluctance to begin this challenging work with William. I was trying to teach a child a spoken language, a deaf child who had never learned that words or letters had an a.s.sociation to an object.
And I felt a needling concern since I was doing this without his father"s permission. Or approval.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, and finally prayed a prayer over the problem before falling asleep.
Lord, you are the author of language. I believe you want William to have a way to express his thoughts, his feelings, and his prayers, and to be able to take his place in this world. Please give me the wisdom to do this. Amen.
The next morning, I came downstairs and went straight to the coffee pot, pouring myself a cup. Robert"s head was bent over his sermon notes at the kitchen table, giving them a final once-over before the church service began as Miss Gordon ironed his ministerial robe.
Not long after, William came downstairs in his striped pajamas, sleepily rubbing his eyes. He opened the pantry cupboard, got out his favorite cereal of Cheerioats, then climbed up on the counter to get a bowl. I heard a scratching sound at the kitchen door. No one else noticed; they were preoccupied with their tasks.
I went over to open the door. In leapt that big yellow puppy. He made a wild dash around the room and then happily bounced over to William, paws up on the counter where William sat, to give him an enthusiastic greeting. Giggling, William jumped down and hugged the pup around his neck.
Now recovered from their shock at this unwelcome and boisterous guest, Miss Gordon and Robert sprang into action and started shouting to get the dog back outside.
"Wait!" I yelled, holding one hand in the air. They stopped in their tracks, startled by the authoritative tone in my voice. I went over to William, and, once again, placed one of his hands on the puppy, his other hand on my throat. With great exaggeration, almost as an actress, I said the word "dog." With my left hand, I pointed to the puppy.
And just then a miracle occurred.
In William"s eyes, I could see the connection. He tilted his head to one side, looked at the puppy, and uttered a sound. A sound! He pointed to the puppy as if to say: Is that what you meant?
I nodded. I said "dog" again, and he said it back to me. It wasn"t an intelligible sound, almost a grunt, but to me, all of the music on this earth fell short of that one little attempt at a word.
I looked up at Robert. I"ll never forget the unmistakable joy on his face. Even Miss Gordon understood this was a pivotal moment. She started dabbing her eyes with her dishtowel and then went outside to collect laundry, she said, even though none was hanging.
Robert crouched down next to William and practiced right along with him. The three of us, including the puppy, delighted to be the center of attention, sat on the kitchen floor practicing how to say the word "dog."
Too soon, Miss Gordon came back inside and scolded us for neglecting the clock. We had to hurry to get to church, but it seemed the time was ripe to teach William to communicate. Robert locked the puppy in the backyard with water and William"s leftover bowl of soggy Cheerioats.
Church seemed especially worship-filled for us that morning. Robert happened to be preaching on the miracles of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew. "Ask and it will be given unto you, a.s.sured Jesus. For everyone who asks, receives." Once or twice, I caught Robert gazing at William with quiet amazement.
Just as you promised, Lord Jesus, I asked for your help, and you answered my prayers to help William.
We hurried home after church and spent the afternoon at the kitchen table, pouring over the correspondence course. I explained to Robert and Miss Gordon what I had been studying the last few nights in my room.
The John Tracy Clinic was based on the concept of oral communication. Mrs. Tracy believed deaf children could be taught to communicate with the hearing and speaking world. She had patiently taught her own son to lip read, beginning at the age of three. She felt parents were the key to help a child discover that sounds exists even if he couldn"t hear them.
"But what about sign language?" interrupted Robert, looking skeptical. "I a.s.sumed that would be the best option. The only option."
"From what I"ve read, he will always be able to learn sign language. But as far as learning to speak, there is only a window of opportunity while he is still so young. Think of it as learning a language. It"s so much easier if you"re young."
The puppy interrupted us, dashing around the kitchen table before slurping up water from a bowl near the door. Miss Gordon curled her lips with disgust.
I ignored her and carried on. "And the reason Mrs. Tracy wanted her own son to use oral communication was because she didn"t want him excluded from the world. Even though sign language is an official language, it would still mean that William could only communicate with people who knew the language."
I paused as William climbed up on my lap. "And one other thing about sign language...it is supposed to be very difficult to learn it from a book. You have to be immersed in it. I don"t think we could teach him without being fluent in it ourselves. He would probably have to be at a special school."