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  Yashew Gregorivitch was a big shambling classmate of Louise’s. He’d left school to join the navy. He was stuck down front, fighting to get up to his friends, who were all fighting to help Paul. He threw his popcorn box over his shoulder.

  “You’ll get popcorn in my organ!” yelled Keith.

  Yashew began to part people in the aisle like Moses did the Red Sea. “For Christ’s sake, the only organ you need to worry about is between your legs.” Whistles blew, but that stopped no one. The house lights went up, all the better to see who you were punching. Harper Wheeler, a young cop on the beat for South Runnymede, pushed into the fray. Outnumbered, he yelled for the ticket taker to call for reinforcements. And he asked the fellow also to call the North Runnymede police department.

  Within fifteen minutes, police from both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line filled the theater, hauling out pugilists, one by one. The paddy wagons filled up with men.

  A confused Harper asked the police chief, now on the scene, “What do we do with the women?”

  Chief Archibald Cadwalder, a handsome man now in his mid-sixties, grinned and answered, “Get the hell out of their way.”

  As the two paddy wagons drove off in their separate directions, the girls finally wore themselves out. They tore posters off the wall, emptied out the popcorn machine, but other than that, most of the damage they did was to one another.

  Al Dexter, the theater owner, also called by ticket taker Robbie Anson, flicked the lights then pushed the females out of the theater. He locked the doors, leaning against them.

  “My God, Robbie, what in the hell happened?”

  “I don’t rightly know. I heard Louise Hunsenmeir holler and then all hell broke loose.”

  Al surveyed the damage. “Could have been worse. Tell you what, Robbie, let me call my wife so she doesn’t have a cow since I’ll miss dinner. Then you and I and Walter can clean this up.”

  “Archie took Walter in the paddy wagon, boss.”

  “Ah.” He thought some more. “Well, let me call her. We can at least sweep up the popcorn.”

  Leaving open the door, he walked into his small office. The upright phone squatted on his desk. He dialed knowing full well that telephone operator Martha Shortride was listening in.

  “Honey pie, I’ll miss supper—”

  Minta Mae interrupted him. “Why? You know the Creightons are coming.”

  “There’s been a, well, a riot among my customers. I’ve got a lot of cleaning up to do.”

  “A what? A what? Alvin, if any one of those rioting miscreants is a Sister of Gettysburg, you tell me, you tell me right now and I will eighty-six her, oh yes, I will.”

  Minta Mae Dexter presided over the Sisters of Gettysburg, which she considered the pinnacle of acceptance for anyone living in North Runnymede. The Daughters of the Confederacy, South Side, obviously thought differently.

  “Honey, these were young people.” The minute this escaped Al’s mouth he was sorry, adding quickly, “Most of your troops, sugar, lack your youthful good looks.”

  Smiling, she replied sweetly, “Were there any Daughters there?”

  “If there were, I would have had to call an ambulance. Those poor girls need canes now and they can barely see to swat anyone.”

  That satisfied Minta Mae. “Well, you just get here when you can, darling. If you’re late, I’ll keep Katie and she can warm up the food, but of course, you know Fannie Jump Creighton will want to know everything, so I hope you make it.”

  “I’ll do my very best.”

  He would, too, because when Minta Mae called him “darling,” a nighttime reward came his way. Al often wondered if other husbands were kept on thin sexual rations. They never discussed it.

  —

  Louise, Juts, and Orrie walked along the south corner of the square along with other ladies, to await the Emmitsburg Pike trolley. Lottie and her crew headed toward Baltimore Street to tend to one another’s wounds at Lottie’s house, a lovely white-painted-brick affair built in the mid–eighteen hundreds.

  Juts, the youngest of the group, laughed. “We look like something the cat drug in.”

  Louise raised her voice. “I tore Lottie’s shirt. I nearly exposed her breasts then stopped myself. She’d enjoy it too much. You know, she would cry out, run out into the lobby, and let all the men see both of her assets. I hate her. I truly hate her.”

  Boots Frothingham, a class ahead of Juts at South Runnymede High, chimed in. “We all do, Louise, and her sister is even worse.”

  “You can’t get any worse.” The temperature had dropped into the twenties. Louise hoped the trolley would soon arrive.

  “Oh, yes, Dimps Jr. is worse. She rouges her nipples,” Boots declared, and this was seconded by others in the group.

  Louise was aghast. “What?”

  “She does. In gym class when we shower, she turns her back, towels off, then goes to the mirror and dabs on a little rouge.” Boots blinked with disgust.

  “Whatever for? Who is going to see them?” Dumbfounded, Louise was curious.

  “When it’s warm, she wears a brassiere and a thin blouse. You can see, and you know what else she does? Oh, this is even worse.” Boots took a deep breath as everyone leaned forward toward her. “She will pick up a cold pop bottle and hold it next to her breast so her, you know, stands out.”

  “She freezes her nipples!” twelfth grader Anselma Constantino shouted.

  “Why do boys pay attention to all this?” Juts wondered. “We don’t care.” Juts considered the difficulties of protuberances. “Why would anyone want to get smacked in the face with a big breast? They get in the way.”

  “You’d have to ask the boys,” Boots sensibly said.

  Anselma airily answered this. “My brother says it gets them hard. Just thinking about breasts does it, so anyone pushing them onto a boy can usually get what she wants.”

  Boots shook her head. “Anselma, that’s horrid.”

  “Maybe, but that’s what he said. But he added, much as they like it, they would never marry a girl like that.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a big relief,” Juts sarcastically said as the trolley at last pulled up to the corner.

  Winter, long and cold this year, offered no relief. The light snow of yesterday became heavier. The trolleys still ran but people didn’t linger after church in the morning. Everyone knew how easy it was to get stranded. You couldn’t trust the automobiles either. Even with chains on the tires, a machine could get stuck in a snowdrift.

  There were more and more automobiles in Runnymede. Trucks hauled tools and heavy supplies. Once businessmen figured out the cost of maintaining a truck, many switched because in some ways the machines proved easier to repair than horses. Even throwing a shoe could cost half a day’s work, because you had to get the animal to the blacksmith, and hope there wasn’t a backup and that he hadn’t quicked the hoof, which would keep the animal off hard work for some days. However, many folks still swore by their draft horses or their harness horses because they sure were reliable in snow and muck and they loved them to boot. It was harder to love a truck.

  Louise and Juts lived at the top of Emmitsburg Pike on a small farm called Bumblebee Hill. The trolley line on Emmitsburg stopped at the bottom of the hill, which made for a strenuous walk down, but with a setting this beautiful, the journey was well worth it.

  The young ladies’ mother, Cora Hunsenmeir, fed small, precisely cut logs into the wood-burning stove and checked a pork roast, the glorious aroma of which filled the small wooden home, much to the delight of the dog and cat.

  A chug, chug, chug drew Juts to the window.

  “Momma, there’s a truck outside,” she exclaimed. “It’s one of Douglas Anson’s paint trucks.”

  Cora wiped her hands on a dish towel, straightened her apron, hurried to the door, and opened it after a few knocks.

  “Mrs. Hunsenmeir?” Cuts on his face, flowers in one hand and a small box in the other, Paul Trumbull raised his hat. “I’ve come to apolog
ize.”

  “Well, sweetie, no need to apologize in the cold. You come right on in here.”

  He stepped in, bashfully looked toward Louise, who stared blankly at him. “Miss Hunsenmeir, I am so sorry.”

  She set aside the socks she’d been darning in front of the tidy living room’s fireplace, and stood up.

  Juts, astonished, kept her smart mouth shut.

  Paul walked over, handing Louise the bouquet. “You should have flowers every day.” His wide grin made him more appealing. “I…your coat looked so much like my date’s and there was the seat she’d been saving and, well, you know the rest. I meant no harm and I am deeply embarrassed to have troubled you.”

  Louise, tongue-tied, took the bouquet of perfect pink roses.

  “Oh, here.” He handed her the box.

  Juts wordlessly took the flowers her sister handed to her as Louise opened the box. She stared, then pulled out a roll of tickets.

  He grinned again, looking right into her wonderful gray eyes (all the Hunsenmeirs had lustrous light-gray eyes). “Movie tickets for the rest of the year.”

  Louise looked at Paul, then back at the tickets. She laughed. “I’ve never been given anything so wonderful. Ever.”

  Cora stood behind him. “Let me take your coat. You need a hot meal. Bachelors always do.”

  “Oh, ma’am, I couldn’t put you out.”

  “You aren’t putting me out one bit. I haven’t cooked a meal for a handsome man in too long.” She took his coat then ordered Juts quietly, “Come on in the kitchen and set the table.”

  “Yes, Momma.” Juts reluctantly followed her mother as the two young people stood facing one another in the living room.

  Louise motioned to a rocking chair. “Oh, please sit down.”

  She sat opposite him on a worn old wingback favored by Felicia, the cat, attesting to her clawing prowess.

  Resting at Louise’s feet, the handsome English setter, General Pershing, was satisfied that this young man passed muster.

  “How did you find us?” asked Louise.

  “Well, once I was released from jail, I walked back down to the Capitol Theater. I wasn’t kept long in jail. I knocked on the door and Mr. Dexter came to the door, I offered to pay damages and he said forget it, wasn’t much. I asked if he knew who was the young woman whom I inadvertently kissed and he said, ‘Louise Hunsenmeir.’ He told me where you lived and you know, what a nice fella, he called his friend Mr. McLaughlin, the florist. He said he’d stay open if I hurried over to the shop. So I did.”

  “Thank you. You did give me a scare.”

  “You gave me one.”

  They both laughed uproariously, the awkwardness evaporating.

  “I don’t know your name,” she said.

  “Paul Trumbull. People call me Pearlie.”

  “Come on, you two,” Cora called from the kitchen. “Dinner’s on the table.”

  Paul inhaled spoon bread’s odor, the pork roast, wonderful green beans that Cora and the girls put up in August. On the kitchen table covered with a checkered oilcloth, a glass of water sat by his plate

  Cora had overheard his name. “Mr. Trumbull,” she said.

  “Pearlie, please call me Pearlie.”

  “Would you like something stronger? I have home brew and some beer.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Hunsenmeir. I have to drive the Anson truck back.” He smiled.

  Once Cora convinced Pearlie to call her Cora, they all chattered away. The cat, Felicia, proved an even bigger pest than General Pershing.

  “Lots of Trumbulls Green Spring Valley way,” Cora said, referring to a lush part of Maryland a bit east of Runnymede.

  “I’m one of them. I came home from the war and couldn’t find a job. I might have found one in Baltimore but I can’t live in a big city. My mother reminded me that my grandfather was once a constable in Runnymede. I was kind of curious, so I came out here and found a job with Anson’s. Mr. Anson has been real good to me.”

  “They’re good people.” Cora nodded. “I know there are many of you fellows looking for work. Hard times. I’m so glad you found a job.”

  “I like it and I like Runnymede.”

  Paul was reluctant to talk about the war, but he did offer that he’d seen a part of the world that he would have never seen otherwise.

  Juts couldn’t help herself. “Was it awful?”

  Louise quickly corrected her sister. “Juts, that’s not a proper question.”

  “I’m sorry,” Juts replied.

  “It was awful,” said Paul. “I don’t know what was worse, when the big guns fired all the time or when they stopped.” He paused. “I hope there is never another war again.”

  “Me, too,” the two sisters said in unison.

  “Jigs for coke!” Juts happily crowed.

  “All right.” Louise laughed.

  If two people say the same thing at the same time, the first one who says, “Jigs for whatever” has to be awarded the desired item by the other person.

  “Juts, let’s clear.” Cora, after clearing all the dishes, brought out an apple pie while Juts carried a large pot of tea.

  Now as warmed up as the tea, Juts giggled. “I bet you won’t go out with Lottie Rhodes again.”

  Put on the spot, Paul took a moment to reply. That moment seemed an age to Louise. If he disparaged Lottie, he wouldn’t be a gentleman.

  Finally, he replied. “No, I expect I won’t, but I am grateful to her for introducing me to people here. If you think about it, Louise, she introduced me to you.”

  This made them all laugh.

  “I go to school with her little sister and she’s worse than Lottie,” said Juts. “She rouges her nipples.”

  Shocked, Cora sputtered, “Juts, control yourself.”

  Too late, Paul’s face shone beet-red, as did Louise’s. Then Cora rumbled a little, Juts started to laugh, and then all laughed until tears rolled from their eyes.

  After the pie, Paul offered his help to Cora. “I can wash dishes with the best of them.”

  “Pearlie, you will never wash a dish in my house. You go sit by the fire.”

  He glanced out the window. “Oh, ma’am, the snow’s really shaking down and I have to get this truck back. Your hill’s pretty steep.”

  “It is that.”

  “I thank you for this wonderful meal and for making me laugh, and”—he looked at Louise—“for forgiving me.”

  “Well, we certainly started a rumpus.” She laughed, then abruptly changed the subject. “Pearlie, are you a churchgoer?”

  “Not much before the war but I learned to pray there. I was baptized an Episcopalian.”

  “I’m a Catholic,” Louise said with pride.

  Juts sighed. “Momma and I are Lutheran. It’s a long story.”

  Cora handed Paul’s coat to Louise, which she held for him to put on. “Pearlie, all roads lead to God. We just keep walking.” Cora smiled.

  As though a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Louise nodded. “Yes. It’s true.”

  The three women walked him to the door. He put his hand on the old porcelain knob. “Thank you again, and”—he looked at Cora—“I hope you will allow me to call upon Louise.” He looked to Louise, whose face glowed.

  “Then the house will be filled with laughter.” Cora gave him a motherly peck on the cheek and all three watched him start down the hill.

  Stirling Chalfonte’s mahogany-paneled office looked down into the ball bearing factory through large, spotless interior windows. Exterior windows afforded a view of downtown Baltimore, with glimpses of the harbor and Fort McHenry.

  Celeste put her hand over her heart. “Always makes me want to sing ‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ ”

  “Does, doesn’t it?” said her elder brother, Stirling, standing next to her.

  Every one of the five Chalfonte siblings born of T. Pritchard Chalfonte and Charlotte Spottiswood possessed good looks and good minds. Both parents—now deceased, for T. was born in 183
9, died in 1897, and their mother, born in 1849, had passed in 1902—had also been highly intelligent. Both sides of the family could trace their entry into the New World to the mid-1660s and both the Chalfontes and the Spottiswoods seized the main chance, acquiring and controlling thousands of acres of land before 1865. T. Pritchard joined the cavalry, while Armand Spottiswood, Charlotte’s father, older, was made a brigadier general of Artillery, and they both lost all their holdings but not their intelligence nor their ability to learn from even a dreadful, wasteful war that both sides now pretended had been inevitable. It was not, and mother and father drummed that into their children’s heads.

  Stirling soaked up his father’s teachings and business acumen. The war veteran said over and over again that one of the reasons the Union won was their rail superiority. Railroads would become the arteries of commerce far superseding our rivers. So T. Pritchard had no problem making alliances, thanks to his wonderful ability to make mergers with men like Thomas Fortune Ryan, a Virginian, and J. P. Morgan. He invested heavily in railroads along with others. Every penny the young Marylander made he poured into railroad stock.

  Armand, on the other hand, thanks to his military training and his facility with math that every artillery officer must possess, started a ball bearing factory in Baltimore. He could ship his product anywhere in the United States, thanks to the railroads. And with Baltimore’s harbor, he could do business with other countries, something he aggressively pursued. When he died, the company passed to his only child, which meant that T. Pritchard took over. Business boomed under his prudent management and his ability to ship goods out in a timely manner. He still bought stock in western railroads, favoring Union Pacific. He even invested in tinned foodstuffs. In time, T. Pritchard and Charlotte were fabulously wealthy.

  Stirling loved his youngest sister and vice versa. They were much alike. Given their age difference, the elder brother lorded it over his sister, who hotly resented it.

  “Sit down, Twink.” That was her childhood nickname.

  “Thank you. You know why I’m here?”

  “I believe I do.”