Jane Smiley - Some Luck

AND SO Rosanna was saved in March — March 24, to be exact — and the baby, Lillian, was born six months to the day and the hour later, September 24 at about eight in the evening, and from the first time Rosanna looked at her (oh, the birth was so easy!), she knew that Lillian was God’s own gift to her. Never had she seen such a beautiful baby. Not even Frankie was a patch on her — her mother said so, Granny Elizabeth said so, and Walter just stared at the infant without saying a word. She was a healthy one — plenty of flesh, but not too much, eager to suck, and relaxed in her body. Rosanna had noticed that each baby, even from birth, had a way of being hugged. Frankie’s way had been to kick his legs, Joey’s way had been to go a bit limp (just a bit, he was fine), and Mary Elizabeth’s way had been to remain a little package, allowing the embrace but not yielding to it. These qualities stayed with them. Lillian’s way was to relax as if her mother’s embrace was just the most wonderful thing she could possibly know. The birth was so easy that Rosanna was wide awake and feeling fine afterward, so once everyone else had gone off to bed, around eleven or so, she sat up, staring at Lillian, who was nestled in her cradle. Walter was bunking in with the boys for the night, so the two of them were alone.

Something no one had mentioned for weeks was that four days would bring them to the first anniversary of Mary Elizabeth’s death. Rosanna suspected that at least Walter’s mother and maybe a few of the other relatives thought that the brevity of the interval between the death and the birth was a little unseemly, but Rosanna could not possibly see it that way, now that she knew that Mary Elizabeth was looking down upon her and Lillian and blessing them from Heaven. Her cousin had had a baby a year after miscarrying a previous one, and had once said to Rosanna, “Just think, if I hadn’t lost that one, I wouldn’t have Arne,” but Rosanna didn’t see this at all like that. She would have had Lillian no matter what, but Lillian would not have been so blessed — she would not have been named Lillian, but probably something like Helen. What happened was that one day in the summer, for some reason, Rosanna kept humming a hymn to herself, it was “God Sees the Little Sparrow Fall,” and she paused to attend to the words she was singing—“He paints the lily of the field, / Perfumes each lily bell,” and she knew that the baby she was carrying was a girl, and would be named Lillian, even though there wasn’t a Lillian to be found anywhere among the Langdons or the Cheeks or the Chicks or the Augsbergers or the Vogels. She never even thought about a name for a boy. Walter didn’t say a word when she declared that the baby was a girl, nor did he say what boys’ names he liked. And so Lillian had been Lillian—“Lillian Elizabeth”—for months now, at least in Rosanna’s mind. Rosanna knew that her mother was superstitious about using a baby’s name before he or she was born — she also didn’t like this idea of nightly Bible reading — you never did that in the Catholic Church — but Rosanna was finished with that sort of superstition. Lillian was blessed. Mary Elizabeth herself had blessed her.

NOW THAT IT WAS JANUARY, and Frank was going to school every day, even in the snow and the cold, he understood many things better than he had, and it wasn’t only ABCs and 123s. The first thing he understood was that he was taller than the other seven-year-old boy, Luke Kasten. Luke understood that, too, and stayed out of his way. He was also taller than the eight-year-old and one of the nine-year-olds (Donald Guthrie and Matthew Graham). The rest of the boys (five in number) were taller than he was and stronger, but not as smart. A couple of the big ones could hardly read, which perplexed Frank a bit, since reading was the easiest thing in the world. There were seven girls in the school, all older. The nicest one was Minnie Frederick, who lived near them and was eight. She sometimes held his hand if any of the boys happened to bully him. She would say, “Oh, Frankie, forget them, they’re stupid.” But Frank wasn’t about to forget a thing — nosirree, as his uncle Rolf would say.

So far, since school started in September, the boys had done six things to him: Lured him into the coal shed and locked the door on him. Peeked at him in the privy. Stolen his coat and kept it for the entire very rainy day. Splashed mud on him by stomping in a puddle. Kicked him. Poured dirt down the back of his pants. It wasn’t as though Frank was the only victim — the big boys had done ten things to Luke Kasten, nine things to Matthew Graham, and six things to Donald Guthrie. Maybe those boys were not keeping track, but Frank was, because keeping track was easy for him. Wasn’t he already doing multiplication? As for Miss Jenkins, the teacher, she was always peering at them the way Irma had done before Irma got her glasses, so Frank was pretty sure that she couldn’t see much of anything. Maybe, like Irma, she didn’t know she needed glasses — what Irma said was “Leaves! Birds! I never saw any of those before!” Or maybe she didn’t have the money; glasses were expensive, according to Mama, who told Irma that if she lost hers she didn’t know how they would afford another pair. Anyway, the boys who couldn’t be seen in the back rows or at the far end of the schoolyard were getting up to plenty of trouble, climbing trees and pelting each other with acorns and worse. And then, today, at the end of recess, when Frank was just standing there, Bobby Dugan and Howie Prince had run up to him, pushed him flat on his back, rubbed his face with snow, and run away laughing. Frank was keeping track.

Aside from Minnie Frederick, two of the girls were nothing much to look at, two were big and imposing (they reminded him of Eloise), and two were very pretty. One of these was Alice Canham and the other was her sister, Marie. Alice was nine and never looked at him. Marie was ten and thought he was a pest. The only pretty girl who liked him was Minnie, but she liked him a lot. Her father’s farm was on his way to school, big, three hundred acres, and paid off. Frank had heard Mama and Papa talk about “the Frederick place,” but the Fredericks were Quakers, so they didn’t visit much back and forth. But that was a great thing, to say what Papa said, “free and clear.” And Minnie’s ma was known all over for her baking. All the farm ladies were proud of their baking, but Mrs. Frederick tried special things — not just bread and pies and pound cake, but drop doughnuts and cookies that Minnie brought to school and shared. When Minnie had a birthday in November, her mother sent a checkerboard cake, where all the slices were laid out on the plate like a checkerboard, chocolate and white. Frank thought this was wonderfully luxurious, but it was just the sort of thing that Mama did not have time for and Granny Mary and Granny Elizabeth thought was silly. And so Frank was friends with Minnie, also because Minnie held up her head and stabbed those big boys with her always sharpened pencils if they gave her any trouble.

Frank stood up, brushed the snow off as best he could, and made his way toward the schoolhouse door, where Miss Jenkins was ringing the bell. She peered at him as he came toward her, then said, “Young Frank, best to develop a habit of promptitude early in your life. You’ll never regret it!” As he entered the school door, she followed right behind him, but she didn’t say a word about the snow and water dripping off his backside. All through reading and arithmetic, and then when they ate their lunches and progressed through singing and spelling, Frank dried without once shivering, and pondered his plan. This was episode four for Bobby Dugan and episode three for Howie Prince, and that was just counting what they’d done to him . All told, Bobby went after someone or other once or twice a week, and Howie helped him at least half of those times. Bobby most often helped an even bigger boy, Dallas Coggins, but Dallas was home with the grippe. Dallas did something to someone almost every day — sometimes his victim was Bobby, in fact. But Dallas was fourteen. Fourteen was two times seven. Frank didn’t think he stood much of a chance against Dallas.