Moon Over Manifest

“That’s Velma T.’s mailbox,” Lettie said. “I know because that time she went to visit her cousin in Oklahoma—remember that, Ruthanne, when her cousin had the shingles? Velma T. had me pick up her mail for her.” Lettie paused in thought. “Come to think of it, she had one of those same yellow envelopes once a week. Now, why would Ivan DeVore put a letter in her mailbox when he sees her all the time? He could just say what he wants to say. Unless, do you think they’re both spies and they have to talk in code or secret notes?”

We studied Mr. DeVore as he whistled and moved about the room. “Spies don’t write spy notes on pretty yellow paper. I think he’s sweet on her,” I said.

“Then why doesn’t he just tell her?” Ruthanne asked.

“He’s probably scared to. I bet he doesn’t even sign those notes.”

Just then the telegraph machine began clicking and Mr. DeVore sat to take down the message. One long click, followed by two short. One short. One short, one long. Short, long, short.

Gideon had worked for a time in a freight yard in Springfield, Illinois, and Miss Leeds, the lady in the office, had taken me under her wing. She could work a telegraph machine like nobody’s business. She said that over time, she could tell a woman operator from a man, as each operator developed a style, or a voice, so to speak. The operator in Decatur was a woman who displayed a precise staccato touch. Each letter came across the wire sharp and pointed. “She probably has a pointed nose, too,” Miss Leeds would say. The operator in Peoria had a harsh, hammering quality. Miss Leeds imagined him to be a gruff man who would pound his fists on the table when demanding his dinner. But the operator in Quincy, he had a firm, steady touch. One that indicated a fair hand and well-mannered demeanor. Truth be told, I thought she was real fond of him even though she’d never laid eyes on him.

Now, as we sat hunched just outside the door, listening to those first four letters, I felt my insides ball up. D-E-A-R. Someone was being addressed. Someone who was dear to the person sending the telegram.

I slumped down, not wanting to decipher the rest of the message. What did I care what sweet words this someone away had to say to their “dear” someone here. My eyes stung a little. I tried to let the clicks, long and short, blend into each other so I wouldn’t make out the words. But they kept clicking into my head. M-I-S-S Y-O-U.

I knew Gideon was busy. He was probably working hard to make enough money to send for me. Why, here it was July already. He’d be coming to get me himself in a few weeks. Sometime in August, probably. H-O-M-E S-O-O-N. I didn’t want to hear any more. I started running, my feet pounding as loud as my heart.

Gideon’s sending me a telegram wouldn’t speed things along anyway. Still, my heart ached like it was being squeezed in two.

I kept running, knowing that eventually I’d find myself at Miss Sadie’s.

Miss Sadie’s Divining Parlor

JULY 3, 1936

I made it to Miss Sadie’s house but all I found was hot dirt and a cranky old woman. Miss Sadie was in a mood and she was not going to be coaxed, cajoled, or otherwise budged from it.

All day I slaved away, scrubbing down her porch, sorting buttons, picking dead flies from her screen door. Why, she even had me pull the big Persian rug out of her divining room and beat the dust out of it with a broom. I can tell you that was a pure waste of time, as the dust kicked up in the air like someone kicking a bad habit, only to settle into its old ways, right back on that rug.

She kept me busy doing anything but working in the garden. And anywhere but near the garden shed.

When I first started working off my debt to Miss Sadie for breaking her Hungarian pot, she said I’d know when I was done. I knew I’d worked off more hours than was needed to square my debt. But I also knew I wasn’t done. I wasn’t done hearing her story of Manifest.

I could have asked Shady to fill in the rest and saved myself some work. But somehow I knew he would know only his piece of it, like Hattie Mae would know just her piece of it. Only Miss Sadie knew the whole story. She was the one who’d watched and listened all these years. Even now the people who came by her place, they talked and talked, unburdening themselves of all manner of tales and stories. And she listened to them all.

I was also becoming more interested in Miss Sadie’s own story. What had brought her to America? Why did she stay in Manifest if she was such an outcast? There was more to Miss Sadie than baubles and beads.

Her mood was putting me in a mood. I was working and she wasn’t talking. I tried to find a way to bait her into a story, and I figured there’s no better bait for a storyteller than to get part of the story wrong.