Chapter 57

From the Journal of Maisie McGinty May 29, 1938

Hooray! Grace has agreed to teach me how to drive this summer. She has the time now that she is working fewer hours at CRNB and fund raising for the Republic is slowing down. She agrees that if I'm going to be a doctor, I will need to be able to drive so that I can make house calls.

Nothing can bring me down, not even Henry teasing me that both Grace and Van will be risking their lives this summer. At least he had the good sense not to say it when Grace was around to hear him. I still told him to put a sock in it.

Driving lessons were only part of the talk Grace and Mrs. Bailey had with me last night. Mrs. Bailey says that her health has improved to the point that she doesn't need me at home as much in the evenings. Volunteering at the hospital is good experience for someone who wants to become a doctor, and I should keep doing it.

However, I am old enough to have a paying job. Mrs. Cathcart at the telephone exchange is about to start looking for a part time operator. I agreed that Mrs. Bailey should put in a good word for me with her.

From the Journal of Honey Sutton May 31, 1938

I thanked Lawrence Bridgeman when he came to take Althea home from the Ladies' Sodality meeting for letting Hub talk to Laura while she is in New Bedford visiting them. With Hub going to work at Alawanda and Laura spending the summer in Toronto with her grandparents, they won't be seeing each other again for a long time if ever. With Hub looking towards the priesthood, it isn't likely that they will ever be sweethearts, but they have been friends. They deserved a chance to say goodbye.

Mr. Bridgeman admitted that Althea and Laura had used the same argument to persuade him to let them meet. He complained that Grace has been a bad influence on his daughter. She has been alarmingly strong-willed lately. She only agreed to let her grandparents sponsor her as a debutante in the fall on condition that she be allowed to study art at St. Michael's College at the same time.

Mr. Bridgeman is proud of her talent for sketching and painting. If she really wants a career as an artist, he will accept that, but would feel more at ease if she had a husband to steady her instead. It isn't a good thing for a girl to be so headstrong. It's a man's world. She could be hurt trying to compete in it. All I could tell him was what I have had to accept myself when it comes to Hub. "Any child who goes out into the world can be hurt. All we can do is prepare them as well as we can and hope for the best."

As I walked into the lobby of the New Bedford Inn, Mrs. Cramp came out from behind the reception desk and collared me. I could tell something was up from the avid gleam in her eye. She asked if I had heard the news yet. I had no idea what news she meant. She explained, watching closely for my reaction. Less than two hours ago, Alice MacFarlane had returned to New Bedford.

Vanaver Mainwaring to Grace Mainwaring June 1, 1938

I have my old rank of sergeant again and a squad made up mostly of Spanish farm boys who wouldn't be old enough to vote back home. [At that time, the minimum voting age in the United States and Canada was 21 years old. Ed.] Fortunately, they are young enough that many have benefited from the network of public schools established by the Republic to combat the widespread illiteracy that the Rivera dictatorship happily tolerated.

Most of the aristocrats and industrialists who supported Rivera and now support Franco had the same attitude towards the common people that white Southerners in my country have towards Negroes. There was a Southern senator once who said that "The only effect of Negro education is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook." Not that the worst Negro cook was ever half as insolent as the average Southern senator.

Fortunately, one of my more experienced Spanish privates, Enrique Barros, made it across the Ebro after the fighting in March and rejoined the battalion. After a well-deserved promotion to corporal, he is helping me train the squad. With enough time, we may be able to shape our boys into something that won't do too badly on the battlefield. Tell Maisie that I have stopped smoking even my one [censored] a day.

I am not sure if the New England Journal of Medicine article she told us about is right about there being a link between tobacco and cancer. My maternal grandfather did die a miserable death of throat cancer after smoking all his life. However, my other grandfather also smoked all his life with no apparent harm unless tobacco had something to do with his fatal heart attack. What I do know is that a smoker's cough on a night patrol can get you killed just as surely as cancer or a bad heart, so it's best that I take no chances.

… Oscar is worried about whether or not his parents' potato harvest will fetch enough this year to let them stay ahead of the mortgage. His little brother stayed on the farm after high school to help them. He works a second job in town and still doesn't know if he will ever be able to afford to marry his girlfriend.

I believe that Harry's fearful experiences on the retreat to the Ebro have affected him powerfully. He has taken to singing the old spirituals his mother taught him. When asked about this, he explains that he does so for the same reason Paul Robeson does. Spirituals are songs of the people calling for deliverance from sorrow and injustice. They express their deepest hopes and yearnings for a better world than this one.

Harry still doesn't believe that a loving god will come out of glory to answer those hopes and yearnings. He hasn't since it first occurred to him to wonder why a loving god would only console the victims of injustice. Why not prevent injustice in the first place?

Harry's unbelief doesn't make the hopes and yearnings in the spirituals any less genuine. He admits that he became a Communist to try to fulfill them. I don't know whether God, if he exists, or Marx or something else is the cure for human ills. Maybe there isn't one. All I know when I hear Harry sing, "There is a Balm in Gilead," is that there is comfort in such songs for any heart that has broken too often and endured too much. …

May Bailey to Jessie Buchanan June 3, 1938

You could have knocked me over with a feather when Grace told me that Alice MacFarlane has returned to New Bedford where, two years and some months ago, she gave birth to a son out of wedlock. I was glad to hear that she has graduated from the Wills Secretarial School and has a job waiting for her in Toronto. I certainly didn't need Grace's warning not to share that last morsel of news with anyone in town, especially anyone who keeps in contact with friends or relatives in Toronto.

The poor child has worked hard to rebuild her life and deserves a future free of interference from any of the nosy busybodies we have here. I still don't know if I should be appalled at her nerve or in awe of her courage in coming back. In my day-I must be getting on if I'm using that phrase-when a girl was foolish or unfortunate enough to get in trouble and had to give her baby away, she usually never saw it again. I cannot, for the life of me, see what good it does for mother or child to look back.

Still, all parties seem to have handled the situation with a commendable degree of civility and maturity. According to Grace, Ollie and Marjorie were reluctant to let her see Jacob, but he is Alice's son. Alice was hurt that the boy didn't recognize her, but understood that when he last saw her, he was a newborn baby.

Fortunately, Jacob is a friendly child, and, by the end of her visit, he was comfortable enough around her to play with her a little. Before she left, she saw enough of the loving care that Ollie and Marjorie are giving him to confirm that she had made the right decision in letting them adopt him. Grace was moved by the gratitude with which she thanked them for all they have done for her son.

From the Journal of Maisie McGinty June 4, 1938

Sometimes, people make me sick. When Alice was expecting her baby, Hub was one of the few people in New Bedford who would talk to her. What was his reward for sticking by a friend? This town's gossips spread ugly rumors that he was the father. Now that Alice is back, so are the rumors.

Of course, Jim Cole, Tony Piretti and their gang of poolroom no accounts couldn't resist putting their two cents in. Jim wasn't happy when Hub refused to take the blame for the bigoted graffitti he and the McPhee brothers painted all over the front of CRNB. Instead, he turned them in to Sgt. Stoneman. However, that was nearly five years ago, and Jim hasn't brought it up in almost as long, so I'm not sure if he still holds a grudge. Maybe he and his pals just couldn't resist throwing mud on someone they considered a hopeless goody goody.

Hub and I were walking from the pawnshop to the New Bedford Inn after he invited me to lunch with his family. Jim, Tony, and their friends started up the moment we walked past the poolroom. Hub tried to ignore them. He stopped cold, when one of the boys accused Alice of buying his friendship by putting out.

I almost told them where to go for that one, but Hub put a firm grip on my shoulder that prevented me from turning around. We might have kept walking, but then Tony shouted out that they all knew that Alice is just a cheap tramp.

Hub took his hand from my shoulder and turned on Tony with a fury that shocked me speechless. "Don't you ever call her that! She was an unhappy girl who made a mistake. She gave her son away to the Jeffersons because they could give him a better life than she could. It broke her heart, but she did it because she loved him and wanted what was best for him. I doubt any of you have ever done anything that unselfish for another person in your lives."

There wasn't any way to answer a rebuke like that. Tony, Jim, and their gang didn't even try. They stood on the sidewalk with their jaws hanging open for a moment. Then they just turned and slunk away.

In two weeks: Unexpected support. A mother's departure. Summer jobs. Journey to Alawanda.