Through Tender Thorns

told me my father was a good man—smart, the color of coffee with lots of cream. She told me he had a beautiful singing voice that lifted her soul and a laugh that filled her heart. What girl wouldn’t be proud to have a father like that? The stories of my father stopped when my mama died. I’m alone now, like my mama was. I have no family. My mama is gone but I remember her stories. My mama often talked about ranches. She always said she would find us a ranch someday. She’d heard about a ranch in her family when she was just a little girl. She wanted to live on a ranch where birds sang and bluebells grew in the spring. She’d been hearing about a ranch five miles from Springfield. She said that maybe we could look for a job there. She said they had jobs for cooks, housekeepers, stable hands, and handymen. Well, I sure wasn’t one of those, but I hitched a ride there anyway. I knew how to hitch a ride—my mama taught me. Been doing it since I was little.

I wasn’t sure I could even get a job, being so young. I had no place else to go except back to the shelter and I didn’t know how much longer I could stay there. They were good to Mama and me when Mama was so sick. But seemed life might have something else in mind for me, since Mama died. There is something about being alone that made me brave.

It’s real tough times right now for most folks. Even folks been doing jobs for years can’t get work. Some folks don’t have food to eat. Seems a lot of rich folks lost money in the crash two years ago. I’m learning when the rich don’t have money, the poor suffer for it.

When I got to the ranch, my eyes couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t like any ranch I’d ever seen. Why, there was a horse racetrack and stables and bunkhouses. There were other folks waiting for an interview. Seemed like everyone was looking at me suspicious like, like I was trash or something. But I’m not. I know right from wrong, mostly. The sun was shining really bright and folks were getting hot and sweaty. I think ’cause they were nervous. I was.

When it was my turn, I went into the house carrying my mama’s old satchel. The room was big and beautiful. I saw one like this in a movie at the free picture show downtown, but never been in one. The stone walls and huge wood beams made you feel like you were in nature somehow. The fireplace was so big you could get in it and stand up straight. There were leather couches, fancy chairs covered in cow hide, and a big piano.

It was cool and pretty in the room where I was interviewed. A woman sat at a desk and smiled at me. She asked how old I was. I lied, told her I was twenty. She smiled again, really nice like, and wrote that down. I must have looked hungry ’cause she asked me if I’d had anything to eat. I told her I was fine, but I wasn’t. She also asked about my family. Now this was hard, and my eyes tried to cry, but I wouldn’t let them. She asked again, quieter this time. Your family? I told her I didn’t have one. Then I saw tears in her eyes.

Mrs. Glidewell spent a lot of time with me. She asked me what I thought I could do to help out at a ranch. I know some things, but I don’t know nothing about a ranch. I didn’t know what to say. So she started by asking me if I could sew. I said no. ’Cause I don’t know how. That was the truth. She asked me if I could cook. I said no, not really. She asked me if I could play a piano. I said I sure can’t do that. She laughed and said, “Well, I can’t either.” She asked me if I had good penmanship. Now here was something I was good at. I learned it in school. Even shelter kids had to go to school in Springfield. I got my hand smacked with the ruler when my letters weren’t pretty, so I learned to make them real nice. I said yes, I’m good at writing letters. I know the Palmer Method I said, and that was the truth. I told her about how I liked to write stories ’cause my writing was so pretty. I thought the two kind of went together. Now that I come to think about it, that is probably why she gave me this diary, ’cause I said the thing about writing down stories.

Then she asked me what year I was born. Now here is where I should have stopped and thought for a moment, but I said 1915 real fast. She looked down at her paper for just a minute, and then with sad eyes she said: “If you were born in 1915, you are only fifteen or sixteen, Maizie, not twenty.” She had me in my lie. I was embarrassed. I stood to leave, and Mrs. Glidewell looked at me real warm like, kind of like she knew all about me. I don’t know how she was so smart. “Maizie, I’d like to hire you today,” she said. “Would you consider being my assistant?”

I never went back to the shelter ’cause I didn’t have anything to get. The clothing on my back and my mama’s satchel was all I had. My mama always said when something good happens there is a guardian angel somewhere near. I looked around for a guardian angel. But I saw no one other than Mrs. Glidewell.

Now about a secret. In my mama’s satchel, there is a calico print flour sack filled with my mama’s things. The shelter folks didn’t think they