was a fortunate young woman, to be acquiring a friend like Cora Lundeen. Nell only hoped she wouldn’t break her heart in the process.
HARVESTER HAD ONLY TEN INSTALLED TELEPHONES, yet the social news of early 1903 traveled as if over a thousand wires. George and Cora had canceled their planned trip to London in June. Cora was expecting! Over back fences, the lying-in was predicted for mid-May.
Cora wanted to deliver in Boston, near her mother, and, since Dr. Gray advised no travel during Cora’s late months, the young Lundeens journeyed east shortly after Valentine’s Day.
On the first of May, Laurence and Juliet Lundeen boarded the train to Chicago, from there traveling to Boston. Elvira was beside herself with expectation.
“May’s a good month to be born—I mean, with the weather warm and everything green. If it’s a girl, maybe they’ll name her May. If it’s a boy, they should name him George Jr. George is a . . . heroic name. Well, remember, St. George slew the dragon, and George Washington was the father of this country.”
Wednesday, May 14, after the dismissal bell rang, Elvira took Hilly’s hand and walked up Main Street toward the school. The temperature had climbed to eighty, unusual for the date. From the west, the sharp, not-unpleasant odor of manure drifted in from plowed fields, commingling with the lilac scent of town.
Elvira thought that the red-stone school, gazing down over Main Street, looked upon her and Hilly with the tender glance of an affectionate grandmother. She was inclined to make relatives of buildings; they stood in for the pitiful lot God had given her.
For instance, Lundeen’s Dry Goods, a substantial two-story brown-brick building, was the courtly yet entirely approachable uncle who took the train to St. Paul every year to serve in the state senate—and after the session closed, brought you a tiny replica of the majestic new capitol building.
The Harvester Arms Hotel was a sophisticated, distant cousin who drank champagne and thought nothing of traveling to Chicago. She let you try on her rococo hats—grand with ostrich feathers and velvet roses—and taught you songs from the latest operettas.
Thrusting open the heavy schoolhouse door, Elvira helped Hilly climb the stairs to the main floor where he ran to the third-grade room, calling, “Mama, Mama!” His voice and steps echoing in the near-empty building.
Nell was moving from window to window, closing the upper sashes with a long pole. The western sun beat in upon the oak floor and desks, releasing an exhalation of varnish and wax.
“Look who’s here,” she called, standing the pole in the corner and spreading her arms to her son. “Did you have a good day?”
“We went to the . . .” He turned to Elvira.
“Post office,” she told him.
“Post ossif.”
“And what did you do there?”
Hilly shook his head.
“We mailed a letter to Cora,” Elvira said, “telling her we are thinking of her and hoping that she is well.”
Hilly nodded. “She’s getting a baby in Boss . . .”
“Boston.”
“But we don’t know if it’s a boy,” he told Nell.
Later, on the way home, Elvira asked, “Can we stop at the store? Maybe word came on the telephone.” She grabbed up Hilly and ran with him.
At the rear of Lundeen’s, past the yard goods, an open stairway led to the office and switchboard in a loft that overlooked the sales floor. Elvira set Hilly down and ran up the stairs, calling to Anna Braun, “Any word?”
Nell and Hilly waited below. Moments later, Elvira appeared, snuffling and wiping her eyes. When Hilly saw Elvira’s face, he began to whimper.
“What’s happened? Is it the baby?” Nell seized hold of the banister.
Starting down, Elvira shook her head. “It’s a boy and his name is Laurence, after his grandpa. But Cora had a hard time.”
“She’s not . . .”
“No! But she can’t move her legs. The doctor said not to worry, it’s probably temporary . . . but still, you do worry, don’t you?”
Hilly grabbed Elvira’s skirt and bawled.
At the head of the stairs, Anna Braun sagged against the newel post. “Imagine. Our pretty little dancer.”
WHEN GEORGE AND CORA brought baby Laurence home in August, Cora was still in a wheelchair, though her Boston doctors remained hopeful.
Cora hired both the recently widowed Mrs. Krautkammer to keep house and fourteen-year-old Lizzie Jessup to help with the baby. Elvira burned with envy. Lizzie might be a willing girl, but she was also a dough-faced, pigeon-toed, ignorant one, who hadn’t finished sixth grade and didn’t know the difference between a bread plate and a pastry fork. What kind of influence was that for baby Laurence? Elvira felt passed over—unreasonably, as she would never abandon Hilly or give up her part-time work at the store. Still, wasn’t life unfair?
One day in late October, the bloodless Lizzie wheeled Cora up to the fabric counter, where Elvira stood wrapping a length of lace around a scrap of cardboard. “I’ve come to throw myself on your mercy again,” Cora said, handing the baby to Lizzie. Elvira watched the girl trail off, breathing through her mouth. “I’m planning this year’s Christmas party.”
Cora laid a gloved hand on the wooden counter and cast her eye around the store. Nothing could be further from her city background than this village dry-goods store, yet she was at ease here and grateful for its prosiness. Its very odor—offcastings of fabric sizing, plus woolen mittens, beaver felt, and dogskin coats—lent an odd sense of refuge.
In the East, refuge had never occupied her thoughts. But here, where the sky and land stretched forever, civilization felt precarious. People still spoke with sharp pain of the blizzard of 1888, which had killed so many. And they shuddered to recall the Hinkley fire, in which more than four hundred had perished.
In this dry-goods store, with a staunch country girl named Elvira wrapping lace around a bit of cardboard, Cora felt cosseted and sheltered, oddly at home.
That Sunday afternoon, in the Lundeen parlor, Cora told Elvira, “The lady’s chair by the fire is comfortable.”
Sitting in the chair, lavished with friendship, Elvira found herself borne across the boundary between Earth and Heaven, ushered into a world lovelier, more secure, more comfortable, even better smelling than any she’d dreamed of. What was that scent which seemed to be nothing laid on, but a part of the house itself?
The oil paintings; the deep, soft Turkey carpets; the upholstered furniture and shimmering draperies; the mahogany mantel and marble fireplace—surely these spoke of ease and gaiety.
Cora wheeled herself across the room, frowning and setting her mouth as the carpets resisted her. Elvira rose to help, but Cora motioned her off. “This is good exercise,” she explained, screwing up a thin smile.
From the sofa she gathered up a dress of navy-blue