Someone to watch over me

the first time she’d admitted to strangers that she and Robert were poor, and it was something of a relief to actually speak the words. But she wasn’t ready to go further with the complicated reason. “Tell me about yourselves.”
    One of the girls was making sandwiches of the bread and ham and slathering them generously with mustard. She handed one to Judy. Judy picked off a tiny bit of the ham and gave it to Agatha, who for once took food politely.
    “My mother wanted me to have a way to support myself if I needed to. She’d been a classical violinist herself and made her own living before she married my father, and this“—she tapped on the violin case—“is hers. She played in a good orchestra when she was young. I had the best teachers and was supposed to go to music school, but my mother died of pneumonia and my dad lost his job. He wanted me to go work in one of the cotton mills down south where he came from. Wanted us to move to South Carolina where they make cloth.“ ·
    “Did you run away instead?“ Lily asked.
    “No. I did what he said. He was my father and I was only just seventeen. We moved and he got me a job, but before the month was out, I nearly caught my hand in a piece of machinery. I lost only the nail on my little finger.”
    She held up her right hand to show Lily.
    “Right then,“ she went on, “I knew I’d betray my mother’s dreams if I hurt my hands. So I took to the road. Met up with other girls along the way and found a few musical ones. Cynthia plays a harmonica. She also plays a trumpet but doesn’t have one now; she sold it for food. And Ellie sings wonderfully. We stand on sidewalks and make music, and sometimes a few people put coins in the box that’s on the ground. Josephine isn’t musical,“ she said, with a smile to the prettiest girl, “but she keeps an eye on the money.“
    “Couldn’t you get a job at a theater or movie house? Or even a speakeasy?“ Lily asked.
    “We was offered one,“ Cynthia said, her temper mellowing considerably, now that she had a sandwich inside of her. “But they wanted us to dress up and we couldn’t afford to buy clothes.”
    Lily was thinking of all the fancy dresses she’d brought to Grace and Favor in one of her trunks that no longer fit her or were in style. Three of the girls were close to her size, and Josephine was smaller and could take something and cut it down to make it fit. But a small, cynical voice in the back of Lily’s mind warned her not to get involved.
    She stood up. “You’re welcome to stay another day or two. I’ll see if we can spare a little more food tomorrow. I can’t promise it, though. Come on, Agatha. Stop begging.”
    Lily and Agatha went back to Grace and Favor, and Lily pulled the smaller trunk out of the closet and looked over her old clothes. Most hadn’t been worn more than once or twice. And they were so out-of-date she’d be embarrassed to wear them now, even if they still fit. She’d been considerably plumper before 1929, and for all Mrs. Prinney’s fine cooking, hadn’t put back on much of the weight.
    “I’ll never wear these again,“ she told Agatha, who cocked her head alertly, as if she understood. “Why am I so reluctant to let them go? The past is the past.”
    She sorted through the dresses and put about eight out on the bed to study. Four of them were in shades of red and pink and apricot. She set these aside and removed an assortment of shoes she hoped would fit the girls. Two of her perkiest hats had been made to go with two of the dresses, and she set them aside as well. She put the other dresses back.
    She considered talking to Robert or Mrs. Prinney about her plan but decided it was really up to her. She’d made her decision. She smiled wryly to herself at the thought of what her mother might have thought about giving half her once-stylish wardrobe to hoboes. She hoped and believed, if her mother had lived in these dreadful times, she’d have done the same thing.

Chapter 19

    Jack spent most of the first couple of days hiding out at Mary Towerton’s house with his typewriter. He knew no one would be at her house and nobody would think of looking for him there. He was typing out everything he’d seen, heard, thought, remembered, assumed. Thank God he’d rescued his notes! He pounded the typewriter like a madman all night Wednesday, all day Thursday. Someday there might be a book in it. He couldn’t possibly compress the experience he’d had to a