Evangelina Takes Flight Read online

You know where I live. My medical practice is downstairs. It’s the same home my daddy built 30 years ago. I usually take lunch between 12 and 12:30 and finish up for the day around 6 pm. Please let me know your decision.

  Sincerely,

  Doctor Russell Taylor

  Doctor Taylor doesn’t look or dress like anyone else I know. He has light slicked-back hair with a little gray at the temples, blue-green eyes, a thin mustache, round glasses, shiny black shoes and a dark blue suit with a red and blue striped bow tie. His outfit is much more formal than the jeans, shirt, suspenders and cowboy boots Papá wears.

  “Tengo que preguntarle a mi padre,” I say.

  “I hope that’s a yes,” he answers back as he hoists himself up and over Tilly, lifts his hat, tips his chin and rides off.

  Papá stands by the front window and rubs the stubble on his chin.

  “He wants me to work at his house,” I say nervously.

  “I see that,” Papá says, glancing the letter again. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with this, Evangelina. How can we tell if he’s an honorable man?”

  “Well, he must be trustworthy to be the town doctor. And . . . his mother lives there.”

  “Did you agree?”

  “Of course not,” I assure him. “I said I’d ask you for permission. Of course, that was in Spanish, but he tipped his hat before he rode off.”

  “You’ll be in school soon.”

  “I can work on Saturdays and maybe one day after school. I promise I won’t let it interfere with my studies. Maybe he can help me with my English,” I add hopefully.

  “M’ija, the man is a doctor with important work to do. I don’t imagine he’ll have time to help you practice your English.”

  “I want to help,” I plead.

  “Help who?”

  “Money, I want to make some money so we can move out of Tía’s house.”

  “You are a very thoughtful girl, and I appreciate your offer. Maybe you can keep half and contribute half to our little savings. Does that sound fair? I got an offer to work at the brick factory in the next town over. They pay fifty cents a day, which is absolutely pitiful, but it’s the only offer I’ve gotten. Your little bit plus my little bit plus what Emilio can send from his job in New Mexico . . . it’ll add up.”

  “Does that mean I can do it?”

  “Your mother asked Enrique to start going into town to sell bread and empanadas and anything else she has time to make. If he accompanies you, I’ll agree to this. He can sell nearby and make sure you get home safely.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ideal American

  August 7, 1911

  I’ve only been outside for two minutes and already my dress is sticking to me. It was almost as bad inside. Hot and damp is my least favorite combination of weather, especially on my first day of school when I want to look my best. Maybe there will be boys my age there. Handsome boys. Mamá finished my cream colored dress with the red sash last night with fabric left over from a quilt Tía Cristina made before the baby . . . babies were born. A braid on each side of my head coils into two buns that cover the tops of my ears, which is good. I’ve always thought my ears were too big, mostly because Enrique makes fun of them. Will I be dressed like the other kids? My boots are worn, but everything else looks nice.

  A tortilla wrapped in brown paper fills one pocket and a pear fills the other. The one with the pear bulges out, but where else can I put it? Mamá said she’d make me a lunch sack soon.

  “I still wish you were going to school with me, not just walking me to the school,” I say to Elsa as we round the corner hand in hand. I see the Seneca Courthouse and School up ahead. “My stomach hurts,” I announce and bend over a little at the middle.

  “You’ll do fine, and you look very pretty,” Elsa says and smiles.

  “You’re the one that turns heads, not me.” I press my hand into my stomach to calm it down.

  “Don’t say that.” Elsa blushes.

  “I hope no one thinks I’m eight years old or something!”

  “That’s crazy. Why would they think that?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I roll my eyes.

  “Well, you may be short, but you look like a fourteen year old in every other way, maybe even fifteen!”

  “Can I practice my English with you?” I clear my throat. “Mee nehm ees Evangelina. Whas yorss? Orr how bout, watt thime ees eet?”

  “That sounds good!” Elsa clasps her hands in amazement as if I just recited the Book of Genesis in English. “The lessons with Señora Martínez have really helped. You’ve picked it up better than the rest of us.”

  “I have to. I’m going into that school in a minute! You think the teacher will speak Spanish?”

  “There’s a better chance you’ll sprout wings and fly. But there might be other Mexican students. We can’t be the only ones in town who are sending their children to school, although I have to admit I haven’t met any. With the revolution getting worse, more Mexicans come to the neighborhood every week.”

  Elsa puts her arm around my shoulder and starts walking again. We stare at the school just across the street. Horses and buggies line up alongside the building. A man in a fancy long coat and top hat walks by. A grayhaired woman exits a fancy carriage. Her driver ties up the dappled gray horse as she saunters inside the first floor door, her lacy pink parasol by her side.

  I crinkle my nose. “Who are those people?”

  “The bottom of the building is a courthouse. Señor Martínez said that when we first walked into town.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember. It will be interesting going to school in a courthouse. Maybe they’ll teach us something about the law!”

  “You’re smart enough, that’s for sure. I’m proud of you. I must tell Mamá and Papá how brave you’re being.”

  A band of children runs out from behind the building, whooping and hollering as they tag each other. A girl with yellow ringlets points at us, and one by one the rest of the children stop in place. The happy voices and laughter become an unsettling stillness.

  One boy sits by himself on the lowest step leading up to the front door. He jumps up and runs toward us, thankfully breaking up the standstill.

  “Hello. How are you?” he asks in Spanish.

  He wears shorts, a striped shirt with suspenders, a bandana around his neck and a brimmed straw hat. The other kids gawk at us.

  “We’re fine, thank you. My name is Elsa. This is my sister Evangelina, who will go to school here. What is your name?”

  “My name is Alfonso Antonio Coronado. Come with me, Evangelina. I will show you everything. Do you want to come, Elsa?”

  “My sister needs to go home,” I say, swallowing hard and grabbing Elsa’s hand. I squeeze it tight. “Good bye. Wish me luck!”

  “You don’t need luck.” She squeezes my hand back and lets it go.

  I turn to face the school. The kids go back to chasing each other around, but the girl with the yellow hair stands firm, hands on her hips.

  “You new in town?” Alfonso asks as he grabs my hand and pulls me behind him. He must be ten or eleven years old.

  “Yes, we’ve been here a few months only,” I say. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To see the school, silly,” he giggles.

  The hands-on-her-hips girl pulls a boy aside and whispers in his ear. He’s as tall as Enrique and must weigh as much as Papá.

  “Over here.” Alfonso pulls me past the group of children.

  The tall boy takes two steps towards us and spits at Alfonso, who jumps back just far enough to avoid getting it on his shirt.

  “Sometimes they spit at me.” Alfonso moves along unfazed.

  “They?”

  “Lots of boys and girls here don’t like us Mexicans. The call us ‘lazy’ and ‘dirty’ and things like that. But don’t feel too bad, it’s only the boys who spit at us. They don’t like foreigners, not just the Mexicans and the Negros. Only, they hate us worse.”

  Every bit
of excitement I felt ten minutes ago evaporates.

  “Where is the outhouse, Alfonso? I don’t feel well.”

  “Sure, right behind the building, but you can’t use it.”

  “Why not?”

  “The teacher says if we go where the Anglos go, they’ll get our germs.”

  “So where do I go?” I start to panic.

  “Out in those woods, silly! Where else?”

  “I can’t do that.” Sweat breaks out on my forehead and upper lip.

  “Well, it’s the woods or nothing. Or, you can hold it all day.”

  “I’ll hold it,” I say meekly.

  “Here, come up here.” He bounds up a few steps and motions for me to follow him up the long staircase. “The classroom is up there. I’ll show you that first, but the room the other lady teaches us in is downstairs. I’ll show you that later. I better take my hat off before Missus Abbott sees me. She gets real mad.” He shrugs his shoulders. “I guess it’s not proper. They’re trying to teach us some manners.”

  We get to the top of the stairs. I peer inside the large white room. No one there, just long wooden tables with four chairs at each one, a large desk near the front and a blackboard longer than two men lying end to end.

  “I’m glad you speak Spanish. Do the other Mexican kids speak Spanish at school? My English is terrible, but a lady we know is teaching me.”

  “Oh no, you must never speak Spanish where Missus Abbott can hear you, or any of the other adults here. You’ll get in trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  He pulls off his hat and scratches his head. “I spoke Spanish on my first day. I didn’t know English either, but now I do, of course. Lived here over a year. Anyway, me and Jorge got a whipping in front of everybody. Missus Abbott called Judge O’Leary from downstairs to come up and do it . . . in his long black robes and everything. Used a board with holes drilled into it. Called it the Board of Education. He made us stand with our noses touching that wall for the rest of the day,” he says, pointing to a spot next to the bank of windows. “Didn’t let us eat or go out into the woods or nothin’, if you know what I mean. I nearly wet my pants.”

  “Alfonso? Why are you in here?” A shrill voice rings out. “Class doesn’t start for another ten minutes.”

  The woman in the doorway is broad as a horse’s behind. Her long black dress falls in pleats under the belt cinched tightly around her thick middle. A section of smaller pleats starts on top of the sash and runs up the center of the bodice where it meets with a button-up black collar. A white net holds her giant gray bun in place on her head. Her eyes are small as beans and dark as a raven.

  “And who are you?” she demands.

  “Mee nehm ees, ees . . . Mee nehm. ¡Ay Dios mío!”

  I clutch my stomach, run out of the room, down the stairs, behind the building and throw up behind a bush. Oh dear God, what have I done? What have I done? Grab some leaves and cover it up! I look around. No leaves.

  “Evangelina! Where are you? It’s Alfonso.”

  I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and run out from behind the bush. Smile, smile, it’ll be okay. Elsa said I’m brave. Be brave!

  “Oh. I see you found the Mexican outhouse.” He grins at me sheepishly. “If you want to do the big stuff, there’s more bushes further out. Come on. I told Missus Abbott you’re the new girl. I told her your name, too. Your first name that is. What is your last name anyway?”

  “de León,” I say. Pretend like nothing happened, pretend like nothing happened.

  “Oh, you’ll want to tell her that when you get inside. She needs to know your name and age. She might ask you more stuff, too. I can help translate if you need me to.”

  “Fourteen,” I say. “I turned fourteen in July.” At least my stomach feels better.

  “Oh, you’ll be one of the oldest ones. There are lots of girls in the class your age. But there’s one you should stay away from. Rosemary. You saw her. She’s the one with the fancy blonde hair. She’s not very nice to us Mexicans. She’s sneaky, too. She made Victor put a dead rat in my lunch bag. Scared me so bad I cried, and everybody made fun of me. I’m ten now, so I wouldn’t cry anymore. I’m braver now than I was when I was nine.”

  “Is the girl, Rosemary, the daughter of the man from the funeral home?”

  “Her father is someone important in town. She brags about it all the time. Brags about all their money, too. Now, come on. Class will start any minute.” He starts up the staircase again and turns back. “I almost forgot. There’s another kid your age. He may even be older than you. His name is Selim, from Leb, Leb . . . some country even farther away than Mexico. Back up the stairs we go. I bet the rest of the kids are already in there.”

  I look up the stairs and let out a deep breath.

  “You know you have to come up here if you want to go to school, right?” Alfonso waves me up.

  I step inside the classroom. All the children face forward in their chairs at the long tables. A small chalkboard and piece of chalk is on the table in front of each student.

  Alfonso announces something: I hear my name. I can understand that much. The children turn around. Missus Abbott frowns, says something sharp and points to an empty chair behind the table closest to the door.

  “Sit here,” Alfonso pulls out the chair for me to sit. His chair is next to mine. The two Negro girls sit next to him. A dark-haired boy smiles at me from the end seat, says something and slides his chalkboard and chalk toward me.

  “He says you can use it until you get one,” Alfonso tells me. I nod to the older boy and gulp.

  “So how did it go, m’ija? Tell me all about it!” Mamá says, sitting me down on the sofa and patting my leg. “Did you enjoy it? How was the teacher? What did you learn?”

  “The day went so quickly.”

  “What is your teacher’s name?”

  “Missus Abbott. She seems mean, but I didn’t understand much of what she said, anyway. She’s strict and never smiles.”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “She didn’t say too much to me, but there was a boy named Alfonso. He’s knows English, so he translated for me. There are other Mexican children, all younger than me: three boys, including Alfonso, and two girls, seven or eight years old.

  “There’s an older boy. I don’t know where he’s from.” My breath catches in my throat as I think of the older boy’s handsome face. “And two Negro girls . . . sisters, I think, or maybe even twins. We all got sent downstairs to another classroom in the afternoon, but not the Anglo kids.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Alfonso said we had to go downstairs and get lessons from a lady named Missus Clayton. She talked a lot, but I didn’t understand her much, just a few words and some numbers. That’s all I can remember. She sent us out to play after lunch, talked at us some more, then gave me a letter to bring home.”

  “Did you read it?”

  “No, I didn’t think I was supposed to read it. It’s for you.”

  “All right, let me see it.”

  Mamá takes the letter and pulls a sheet of paper out of the envelope.

  “Well that’s a surprise, it’s written in Spanish. I’ll read it to you.”

  This letter is for the mother of the foreign-born child or children in your household. Your son or daughter is now attending Seneca School in Cutler County, Texas. As a good Christian and servant of the Lord, I have been asked to teach your child how to become an ideal American.

  I, along with the other good women of Seneca, want you and your child to learn important lessons which will be more in line with traditional customs and foster greater respect for our law-abiding country.

  First, let me say that I am encouraged by what I’ve experienced so far with the other foreign women and children with whom I’ve been asked to train, and it is my pleasure to do so. Your son or daughter will be learning things like how to set a table and serve food, how to dress properly and attend to basic hygiene, as unsanitariness will
not be tolerated. As we all know, that can spread disease. Our collective health is of utmost importance as I’m sure you’ll agree.

  This will require patience on my part to be sure, as I know you come from a country with very different habits. But if we work together as Christians for the good of the community and America at large, I’m sure we will all be proud when you learn and apply the essential things you need to be valued here and help us solve the social problems that come with so many foreigners crossing our borders.

  Once the first lessons are complete, we will move to the decorative arts, as the foreign-born mind expresses itself best through activities rather than abstractions, such as arithmetic or science.

  I look forward to the progress that is sure to come. I also offer my services should you want me to come to your home and impart these lessons on other members of your household. May God bless.

  Sincerely,

  Mrs. Richard Clayton

  Mamá drops the letter.

  Chapter Twenty

  Hard to Believe

  August 14, 1911

  It’s five in the morning, and I sit alone at the kitchen table, ankles crossed, mindlessly sorting a mound of pinto beans into two piles; in one pile—cream colored beans with little brown spots and in the other pile—shriveled black beans, tiny pebbles and clumps of dirt. The tick tock rhythm of the clock in the next room keeps me company. A door opens and closes down the hall. The wood floors creak noisily under someone’s feet.

  Papá walks in and puts a hand on my shoulder.

  “Buenos días,” I whisper.

  “Evangelina, will you please come with me?”

  I can’t read the expression on his face. Am I in trouble?

  “Tía asked me to sort the beans. They have to be washed and put in to soak before I go to school.”

  “Let’s go outside.”

  We sit on a bench under a loquat tree in the backyard. Tiny, round, bright orange loquats in various stages of decay dot the grass. Normally, I would pick up one of the good ones and pop it into my mouth, but right now, the last thing I want is something to eat. I sit down beside Papá.