Manroot by Anne Steinberg

Author:Anne Steinberg [Steinberg, Anne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Two days later, the air around Castlewood and the surrounding county came alive with the shriek of sirens, and church bells rang – each bell blending with another over the Missouri foothills. They rang incessantly and did not quit. Their frantic sound sent Katherine running down the hill to the house.

Hannah, crying, answered the door. “It’s the war. Listen, we’re at war,” and she scooped Katherine in and they sat by the radio. “It’s President Roosevelt. We’re at war. Japan has attacked American troops at Pearl Harbor.”

It was two weeks after that horrendous day that Frieda came. She had hired a cab all the way to Castlewood…she even made it wait! First, she stopped at the big house, but Hannah sent her up the hill to the cabin. Katherine answered the door to her. She grabbed her and hugged her, and the older woman allowed this. “Katherine…I can’t stay. I’ve a cab waitin’.”

“A cab?”

“Yes. I had to bring you this letter that came for you, and ask if you want to go with me to St. Louis. They’re hiring men, women, and boys to work in the war plants. Why, Ama Tarp in St. Louis have already hired me. They make torpedoes – pay good money. It’s a chance to be a person…no one’s servant no more.” She reached up and touched her barren ears, where the cameos no longer glittered. “I left ‘em behind. Women, we sell ourselves too cheap. We shouldn’t have had to sell ourselves at all, but times were hard.”

Katherine knew what she was saying, but she heard a different drummer. She heard the beat of her sons’ hearts and knew she couldn’t leave them. Someday they would need her, and so would William. She had not sold herself to William. She belonged to him…and he to her. “I can’t go. I really don’t want to go,” she told the older woman.

Frieda knew the girl was different from most. She looked around the cabin. It belonged to a different time – but then so did Katherine. She looked down at the letter that the young woman now held. “Aren’t you gonna open it?”

Katherine saw her father’s scrawled handwriting and felt relieved that he wasn’t down there, caught on a branch in the river. Nevertheless she lifted the grating on the stove and fed the letter to the fire, which licked hungrily at the edges and soon devoured the paper.

She didn’t need to know; her destiny was here, she knew that now.

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