But given Mother’s complaints about money, I did not understand how or why Papa now planned to buy her something from a jewelry store. Apparently he had some funds of which I wasn’t aware, because he leaned close and smiled. “Come on, Budgie. Wouldn’t you like to look at some shiny baubles?” And I was won over.
“Hey there, Burtie.” The bell overhead tinkled as Papa greeted the clerk inside the jewelry store. Papa knew everyone in Battle Creek, it seemed.
“Marjorie, this is Mr. Harold Burt,” Papa said. “You’d best be nice to him if you want a good deal on your jewelry when you get a bit older. Burtie, this here is my little Budgie. Marjorie. Ain’t she just about the loveliest thing?”
“She sure is, Mr. Post.” Mr. Burt wore spectacles and a crisp suit, and he stood behind a display case of women’s brooches, where he appeared busy polishing the glass with an off-white rag. As the front door clanged shut behind us and we walked up the store’s central aisle, Mr. Burt eyed Papa with the same expression I had come to recognize on so many of our neighbors’ faces: a combination of incredulity and wonder. “Sure is good to see you looking so fine, C.W. Why, to see you now, I’d never guess you’d been in such a bad way.”
Papa spread his thin arms wide in front of him, a beam lighting his face. “God is good, Burtie. God is good. That’s the truth. And now I’m here to show my pretty little thing some of your pretty little things.”
“You let me know if you have any questions.” And with that, Mr. Burt went back to polishing his glass display case. I could smell the aroma of his cleaning solution—a tangy mixture of vinegar and lemon scents. Papa began to whistle as I looked at the display cases that met my eye level, marveling at the rings and bracelets, a necklace with a large red jewel, cameo pins, and women’s combs crusted in shimmering blues and greens.
As Papa’s eyes traveled across the crowded space, they fixed on the far corner at the rear of the shop, where piles of clutter were stacked by the back door. He crossed the store toward the heaps. “Hey, Burtie, what do you make of this?” Papa asked.
“That? That’s old junk,” Mr. Burt answered, barely looking up from his cleaning to glance in Papa’s direction. “A rusty corn toaster. I’m fixing to throw all of that out back into my wagon, take it over to the junkyard. Doing a late spring-cleaning even if it’s summertime.”
“You’re planning to throw this one out?” Papa was fixated; I could tell from the way he flipped the machine over and studied its underbelly. “Mind if I take it home? Fiddle with the thing a bit?”
Mr. Burt chuckled, inspecting the glistening surface of his glass display case from all angles. “You’d be doing me a favor, C.W. One less piece to load.”
“Change of plans, Budgie,” Papa declared, crossing the store toward me with the toaster under one arm and taking my hand in his free one. “The jewelry will have to wait. We’re taking this home to your mother.”
An old corn toaster? I suspected Mother would prefer the jewelry, even if we couldn’t afford it, to a piece of rusted old scrap plucked from Osgood’s junkyard pile.
* * *
—
Mother had risen from bed, and she eyed Papa with obvious misgivings when she saw his arms laden with Osgood’s toaster. “What are you doing with that…thing?” she asked as we approached the front of the Gregory house.
Papa’s ebullient mood would not be pierced. “This here, Ella, might just change our future.”
Mother scowled. Papa didn’t notice, lugging his haul toward the back and setting it down in the garden. Mother and I followed. “What is it?” she asked me.
“A corn toaster from Mr. Osgood,” I answered.
“The jeweler?” she asked. I nodded. Mother’s face told me that she wanted more information, but I only shrugged, as confused as she was.
“What are you intending to do with a rusty toaster?” Mother asked Papa, her gray eyes narrowing as she pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders.
Papa rolled up his sleeves, hoisting the machine to examine its underside as if he hadn’t been near-crippled just a few weeks earlier. “I figure I can putter with the thing.”
“What for?” Mother asked.
“See about making some dry food, like what the poor souls are served up at the San. Only, something with taste.”
“Why?” Mother asked.
For the first time since we’d returned home, Papa paused, standing upright and pressing his hands to his hips as he turned toward Mother and explained: “Who knows better than I do the power of the foods we eat? I will create a food that can nourish and heal, just as I have been healed.” He looked at me, and I saw that deep flicker in his eye, one that I would come to know well. And then he winked at me. “No more of this poisoning ourselves with our food, Budgie.”