Uncertain Glory (2 page)

How many cents could I charge for a one-page bulletin?

And what would happen in the South tomorrow?

Chapter 2

Tuesday, April 9, midday

With my oversight Charlie'd written up the Fort Sumter story and now was focused on setting it. Typesetting's intricate work. You have to find every letter and place it, backward, in the composing stick to produce a tray of type you can print.

I was going to operate the press.

First I hung rope lines across the room, low enough so nine-year-old Owen could reach them. He was growing fast, but he wasn't as tall as Charlie or me.

“Thanks, Joe!” Owen said. “Now I won't have to stand on a chair to hang the broadsides to dry.”

“Don't knock against any of the papers when you're racing about the room, taking the damp ones from the press to the line,” cautioned Charlie.

“I'll be careful,” promised Owen, his dark eyes shining. “I won't smudge even one!”

“I know you won't,” I told him, patting him on the back. “We'd be up a tree for sure without you, Owen.” Even though I couldn't pay the boy much, he sure did work hard.

Once I'd overheard Owen bragging to another boy that he was apprenticed to me. That made me grin. Most boys my age were apprentices themselves. But Owen's family didn't mind his taking time from schooling to be at the
Herald
's office. He was bright, and I suspect caught
up quickly when he did go to class. His was one of the few families in town whose forebears had come from Africa, not Europe. It made no difference to me where someone's family came from. But I wondered sometimes if it made a difference to others. Owen seemed to have few friends his own age.

If I lost the press, how would I tell Owen his job had disappeared? I pushed that thought to the back of my mind.

I rolled ink over the type, placed a sheet of paper over the form, pulled the heavy lever down on the press, raised it, checked the resulting page, pulled the broadside off, and handed it to Owen.

“Today we have to be 'specially quick. We've got to print eighty copies of this, and at least another eighty of the sheet Charlie's setting type for now.”

Owen held the paper by its edges and read it out loud:

“Who's Miss Nell Gramercy?” asked Owen.

“The
Boston Transcript
said she's one of the few spiritualists innocent and pure enough to contact the dead,” I told him. “All I can vouch for is she's an orphan, twelve years old, and traveling with her aunt and uncle. Mr. Allen, her uncle, hired me to print these and hand them out around town.”

“Can she really talk to dead people?” asked Owen as he carefully hung the sheet over the line. “Could she talk to Caleb?”

Owen's brother Caleb had died of fever a few years back. Owen was only five then, and Caleb four, but he remembered.

“I don't know, Owen,” I told him. “I guess some people think she could.”

“I'd like to talk to Caleb. I'd ask him what Heaven's like.”

Charlie looked over at me and shrugged. I could tell he might have some doubts about Heaven, and he definitely had doubts about Miss Nell Gramercy. But he held his tongue. For Charlie, that was unusual.

“With the possibility of fighting in the South, I wonder if Mr. Allen's thought of canceling her appearance Saturday night,” I said, thinking out loud.

“Not a chance,” Charlie said. I'd known he couldn't keep his thoughts to himself for long. “People are nervous. They're afraid there'll be war. They'll be looking for answers anywhere they can get them. I'm no spiritualist, but I predict Miss Nell Gramercy will have a ballroom full of people asking her questions Saturday night.”

Chapter 3

Tuesday, April 9, evening

The rain had long since stopped and the sun had set by the time I headed for home.

I'd posted the notice of Saturday's meeting at Stacy's Corner, and then taken the bulletins from house to house on the south side of Main Street. I charged 1 cent for the page of news and handed the announcement of Nell Gramercy's meeting out for free.

Charlie'd been right. People were eager to read the latest word from the South. At least 30 cents were jingling in my pocket that hadn't been there this morning. If Charlie'd sold as many pages on the north side of town, I'd had a very good day indeed.

I'd have to check my paper supply in the morning. If this mess down south continued, more special bulletins might be needed. That would mean more money coming in. More money toward those dollars I owed Mr. Shuttersworth.

My mind was filled with dollars and cents, but my back ached from raising and lowering the devil's tail, the lever that pressed the paper and the tray of type together, and my feet were colder than frost on an iron gate.

Back in February I'd coated my boots with tallow from melted candles to keep out dampness. Tallow helped in winter, when streets were covered with snow and ice. But now we were plumb into mud season. My boots slurped as I walked through the street flooded with melted
snow. The morning's rain had made it worse. Cold water seeped in through tiny cracks in the tallow and covered my toes.

I walked faster, thinking how good it'd be to stretch those toes out by the kitchen stove.

My family lives behind and above our store. Now it's only Ma and Pa and me. Since my older brother Ethan drowned Ma's depended on me to help run the store. I help her unpack new fabrics and spools of thread and hats, or assist customers while she does the accounts, or orders new quilted petticoats or deerskin gloves or bolts of velvet.

I don't mind having to take on Ethan's share. But it's been more than that, too. After Ethan died, Pa changed. He hardly ever worked in the store or went to church or even talked with his friends. What he did I couldn't tell you, except he slept a lot, and took long walks by himself into the countryside. Whatever he was doing, he sure wasn't much help to Ma or me.

Ma hasn't complained, but it's been hard on her since I've had the
Herald,
even though I've tried to be at the store when she needed me.

I was thinking just that as I walked into our dooryard. Then it hit me: Today Ma had been expecting a big shipment of spring fabrics in on the Portland stage. She'd asked me to help her get those heavy bolts of fabric to the store.

I hadn't been there.

I felt lower than the smallest spring peeper singing his heart out somewhere down on Water Street. I'd been thinking so much about printing the handbill, and then putting out the special bulletin, that I'd fully forgotten Ma's shipment.

I splashed through deep puddles in our yard and picked up an armload of small logs from our woodpile. It'd been a long, cold winter, and the pile was low. In May we'd buy newly cut wood from Mr. Grayson, a lumberman Pa knew, and I'd begin splitting it for next winter.

I pushed open the kitchen door and dumped the wood in the box next to our iron cookstove, trying not to trip over Trusty, my happy nuisance of a small brown-and-white dog. He's been with me four years now, and doesn't understand why he can't go to the
Herald
office. He wriggled all over in excitement at seeing me.

“Good boy,” I said, scratching the little spot right behind his left ear, where he loves to be rubbed. “Sorry I couldn't take you with me today. You would have just been in the way with all those papers flying around.”

Ma and Pa had already gone to bed. A lantern was burning low on the kitchen table, and salt cod with pork gravy for my supper was in an iron pot on the stove.

I pulled off my wet boots, put copies of the news flyer and the advertisement about Nell Gramercy's meeting on the table for Ma and Pa to read in the morning, and filled my stomach.

What was happening now at that fort down in Charleston Harbor? South Carolina seemed far away. The country might have troubles, but for me, in Wiscasset, Maine, it'd been a good day. Coins were filling my pocket.

A good day except I'd forgotten Ma.

I determined to unpack the new merchandise for the store before I collapsed into bed.

Was anyone sleeping tonight down at Fort Sumter?

Chapter 4

Wednesday, April 10, morning

Charlie's father manages the Mansion House, the grandest inn in Wiscasset. He and his father live there, too, in small rooms on the first floor. Charlie's never talked about having a mother, but by all odds of nature I assume he had one once. Before last July, when he and his father arrived in Wiscasset, they'd lived wherever an inn or small hotel needed managing. Charlie calls Wiscasset “the most boring town in the world.” He's never been real clear as to where those other places he lived were, but I have a suspicion none of them were up to his standards either.

On Wiscasset's side, Charlie does grudgingly admit that Mrs. Giles, the Mansion House cook, is one of the best he's ever encountered in her profession. He turns on whatever charm he can manage when she's about. As a result, he's pretty well-fed, and as his friend, I sometimes benefit.

That Wednesday morning he'd wheedled a half-dozen rolls out of her, two of which he tossed to me. I caught them before they joined the dried mud and scraps of paper left on the office floor the day before. Ma makes good bread, but not the soft white rolls they serve at the Mansion House. The rolls were still warm. I took a generous bite.

“I stopped at the telegraph office. Only news is that some actor named John Wilkes Booth is performing
Richard III
in Portland tomorrow night, and he's announced he'll include a patriotic tribute to the
soldiers at Fort Sumter. Telegraphic dispatch said Portland folks are lining up for tickets,” Charlie said.

I shook my head. “Nothing important enough for an extra edition. Nobody from Wiscasset's going to go fifty miles to see a play. Even
with
a patriotic tribute. How much money'd you take in last night?”

“Twenty-nine cents. You?”

“Thirty-two.” I pointed to the coins on the corner of the desk.

“Your part of town had more houses. But I got some of the men in the tavern and at the inn to buy sheets.” Charlie added his coins to mine. “Not a bad day's work.”

“Especially since I'd already been paid four dollars in cash to print and deliver the broadside,” I agreed. “Too bad rich city folks don't come here every week to pay for their printing.” I opened my ledger to check the tally. Sixty-one more cents in the plus column meant I had $42.88. Every cent counted, but I still had a long ways to go. I'd already figgered in the $4 from Mr. Allen.

“I saw your Mr. Allen at the inn this morning,” said Charlie. “He's pleased with the broadside. People are already asking that Miss Gramercy conduct a smaller, more private, session—one that's open to folks who can afford to pay more than twenty-five cents.”

“Is she going to do it?” At 25 cents a ticket, how much money were Miss Gramercy and her uncle going to make? Sounded like the spiritualism business sure was an easier way to make a living than the newspaper business.

“Father's trying to set it up for tomorrow evening. Mr. Allen's insisting on having a special room, arranged a certain way.”

“So, what do you think? Can that girl really talk with the dead?”

“Nah . . . how could she?” Charlie started taking the fonts we used yesterday out of the chase so we could clean and file them.

“Lots of famous people believe in spiritualists. I read in the
Boston Transcript
that President Lincoln's wife consults them. She even invited one to dine at the White House,” I pointed out.

“The
Transcript
said that this Nell Gramercy was one of the best,” Charlie acknowledged. “It said no one had been able to prove she wasn't honest.” He suddenly slammed his fist down on the printers' table, bouncing the trays of fonts. “That's it! That's it, Joe!”

“That's what?” I was used to Charlie going off in all directions at once. Soon enough he'd tell me what bee was in his bonnet this time.