A Place to Belong (8 page)

There was silence for a few seconds, as everyone turned to stare at the man who had spoken, Wilmer’s father.

Miss Clark made little shooing motions, as though she were trying to clear the room, and called out, “Thank you for coming, everyone! I hope you’ll all be at our Christmas pageant! December twenty-second. Don’t forget! Thank you, thank you.”

But one of the other fathers, a muscular, red-faced man who spoke with a thick German accent, had stepped up to face Wilmer’s father. “You’re a hothead and a
troublemaker, Jobes,” the man said. “What are you trying to do? Start a war right here and now?”

“I got a right to speak my piece,” Mr. Jobes said.

“Not here in a schoolroom. Not among peaceable people.”

People around Danny began pushing forward, and he could hear muttering.

Alfrid leapt to the bench, where he towered over the others like a strong tree in a forest. “Everyone outside, right this minute!” he demanded in a loud voice. “The spelling bee is over. Harvey Greenwood, you’re nearest to the door. Please open it wide so that everyone can leave this room!”

Mr. Greenwood did, letting in a blast of cold night air. Shivering people began struggling into their coats and snatching up their baskets.

Danny was amazed. Alfrid had done the same thing that Andrew had done. Both men had given strong orders, and people had obeyed. Did most people want someone to tell them what to do?

The school yard was soon cleared of buggies and wagons. Olga rested against Alfrid on the way home, her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Alfrid, how will it all end?” Danny heard her murmur.

“For the best, I hope,” Alfrid answered.

They rode in silence for a few minutes until Alfrid spoke in a hearty voice. “Danny did us proud tonight. This is a time to celebrate.”

“I didn’t win,” Danny said.

“You came very close,” Alfrid said, “which is all the more amazing because you’ve had no formal schooling up until now.”

“He studied very hard,” Olga said proudly.

“I’m sure he did,” Alfrid said, “but I think the real answer is that Danny’s own mother and father were good teachers.”

“Yes, sir. They were,” Danny said, his heart so filled with love for Alfrid that he wished he could leap up from his seat in the buggy and throw his arms around him.

When Alfrid went into town to cast his vote for Abraham Lincoln in the presidential election, he took the rest of the family with him. “This is an important moment,” Alfrid said to Danny as he guided his buggy through the crowded streets. “I want you to remember it always.”

Danny nodded. “Yes, sir!” he said, excited about the crowds, the banners hung on poles, the street-corner orators, the band in the city square, and the festive air in St. Joseph.

They left the horses and buggy in the livery stable and walked toward the courthouse. Danny stopped in front of a wide open door to watch a blacksmith who was heating metal in a forge, the muscles on his bare arms glowing red-gold with sweat. He was a wide-shouldered, handsome man with a shock of black hair. When he looked up to see Danny watching him, he smiled.

Alfrid, who had come back to see why Danny was lagging, waved and called, “Good day to you, John.” Then he turned to Danny, saying, “Come along. The others are waiting. We’ll watch John Murphy at work some other time.”

Olga had packed a generous picnic lunch. Although the air was nippy, the day was bright, and there was room in the park to spread a quilt on the ground for a picnic.

Peg was the first to spot the high, brightly painted wagon at the north end of the park. “Is that a medicine man? Do you think he has a monkey?” she asked.

Alfrid took her hand. “Let’s take a look,” he said. “We may enjoy a show before we eat.”

He led the way, Olga and Danny following. They
joined a small crowd gathered around the open end of the wagon, on which bottles of tonic and pills were displayed. A gentleman wearing a black frock coat and tall silk hat raised his right hand, and a small bouquet of brightly colored paper flowers suddenly appeared in it. People in the crowd gasped and applauded.

Danny gasped, too, but for a different reason.

“A magic show!” Peg shouted, as Alfrid swung her to his shoulders for a better view.

The magician turned and smiled at Peg, and Danny had a good look at him. Heavy, dark eyebrows and beard, a large nose and ruddy cheeks. Danny knew that face. He tugged at Alfrid’s arm. “I have to talk to you,” he whispered.

“Can you wait just a minute, Danny?” Alfrid asked.

“No,” Danny said. “It’s important.”

The man had now displayed an oversize pack of brightly painted playing cards. Although two or three women in the audience murmured their disapproval at the sight of playing cards, which suggested wicked pastimes, no one left. Others joined them, and the crowd grew larger.

Alfrid turned Peg over to Olga and walked to one side of the group, bending down to hear what Danny had to say.

“I know that man,” Danny said. “He calls himself Dr. Claudius Mundy, but he’s not a real doctor.”

“How do you know?” Alfrid asked.

“He used to live in New York City. I saw him, and Mike told me …”

The memory was vivid in Danny’s mind—the two of them craning their necks to find out what the crowd was watching. Mike knew everything and everyone on the New York streets. “See that man?” he had said in a low voice. “That’s Mundy. He’s running a shell game—he’ll get all those people’s money.”

Danny had watched, fascinated, as the man deftly scooped up a pile of coins. “He’s the worst kind of snake-oil merchant, too,” Mike went on. “Sells stuff in a bottle that’s supposed to cure people, but you can bet it only makes them worse. Some doctor.”

Now, looking into Alfrid’s concerned face, Danny told him the rest. “Later Mike found out—and he told me—that Mundy’s medicine really did kill somebody, and that the police were after him but he’d disappeared.”

Dr. Mundy had finished his magic act and had begun talking about the wonderful curative powers of the tonic he had for sale.

“I learned the secret formula from an Indian medicine man,” Mundy was saying. “It’s full of rare herbs that will cure neuralgia and pleurisy and do wonders for the rheumatiz.” A few people edged forward to buy bottles of the tonic.

Alfrid thought a moment, then said, “Maybe we should find out what’s in those bottles.”

He strode through the crowd until he reached the side of the wagon, Danny following in his wake. Alfrid picked up the nearest bottle and held it up to the light, peering through the dark green glass.

“That tonic costs fifty cents, mister,” Dr. Mundy said. “Pay up before you help yourself.” He laughed, and a few people standing nearby smiled.

“I’m only looking,” Alfrid said.

Dr. Mundy frowned. “Pay up, or put it down,” he demanded.

Danny saw the muscles in Alfrid’s jaw tighten, and Alfrid took a firmer grip on the neck of the bottle. “What’s that residue at the bottom?” Alfrid asked.

“Residue?” For a moment Dr. Mundy looked flabbergasted, but he quickly regained his poise. “Why, that’s the secret Indian herbs what will make folks feel healthy and energetic again, once they drink it.” He turned to the
crowd. “A spoonful a day, folks. Best tonic you’ve ever tried. A real cure-all.”

“It looks like river sediment to me,” Alfrid said, “Missouri River mud.”

Dr. Mundy growled a curse and tried to snatch the bottle Alfrid was holding, but Alfrid pulled some coins from the watch pocket in his coat and slapped them down on the gate of the wagon. He deliberately unscrewed the cap of the bottle and held it under his nose.

“Ugh!” Alfrid said. “This is river water that has stood too long. It stinks of slime and scum!”

A few people nearby exchanged murmured comments, and a hand that was holding out some coins quickly pulled back.

“You’re scum yourself! Get out of here!” Mundy hissed at Alfrid. “You got no call to interfere with my business.”

“And you’ve got no right to try to poison people,” Alfrid said.

One of the men in the crowd elbowed forward with an opened bottle. “This isn’t tonic! What are you trying to get away with?”

“Give us back our money!” a woman shouted.

Dr. Mundy, his face dark red with anger, struggled to stay in control. He raised his voice and said firmly, “No need to shove or shout. If you’re not happy, I’ll refund your money. Folks know my good reputation wherever I go.”

“Not in New York,” Danny said. “Your tonic killed a man there.”

“A lie! The boy is lying!” Dr. Mundy shouted, glaring at Danny.

“I am not lying,” Danny said. “You aren’t a real doctor, either.”

“The man’s a crook!” someone yelled.

“A cheat! Give back our money!”

A woman screamed as the crowd pushed toward the wagon.

Dr. Mundy handed back coins as fast as he could, tossed bottles of pills and tonic helter-skelter into the wagon, and scrambled to lift and lock the wagon’s gate. He paused in front of Danny, grabbing the collar of his coat and poking his face close to Danny’s. “I won’t forget you, brat!” he said. “I’ll get you for this.”

Alfrid roughly shoved Dr. Mundy aside. “Get out of this town and don’t come back!” he warned.

“I’m going!” Dr. Mundy untied his horse’s reins and jumped to the seat of his wagon. “But I’ll be back!” he snarled. “You can count on it!”

“Don’t be afraid of him,” Alfrid said to Danny as they watched Mundy’s wagon rattle down the street. “He’s known in St. Joe now. He won’t want to come back.”

But Danny suspected that for once, Dr. Claudius Mundy was telling the truth.

8
 

T
HE NEWS FINALLY
arrived by telegraph that Abraham Lincoln had been elected president of the United States.

“When the Southern Democrats split from the Northern Democrats, dividing their vote, it allowed the Republicans to win the election,” Alfrid explained. “In St. Joe, Lincoln got 410 votes out of the 452 votes cast!”

Danny was delighted. He was sure that now everything would begin to change for the better.

But it didn’t. The people who had worried that war might be possible were now positive that war was inevitable. Word came that raids along the southern Missouri-Kansas border had increased in violence. Men had been shot and their farms burned. On the streets of St Joseph there were heated discussions about secession.

During this turmoil Danny accompanied Alfrid on his trip to town to purchase supplies. He leaned from the wagon to peer at a group of men who had crowded around a speaker and were interrupting his speech with enthusiastic shouts and cheers.

“I wonder what they’re so excited about,” Danny said. “I wish I could hear what the man is telling them.”

Alfrid glanced at the group and sighed. “I know some of the men in that group. I’m afraid they’re Southern sympathizers. The speaker is probably trying to raise money for the Southern cause. Unfortunately, he’ll probably be successful.”

People in the crowd shifted, some of them contributing to a hat that was being passed around. Danny sucked in his breath as he thought he spied a familiar face. “Mundy! He came back!” Danny cried.

Alfrid drew the horses to a halt and craned to study the faces in the crowd. “I don’t see him, Danny,” he said. “Can you point him out to me?”

As the crowd began to disperse, Danny tried to spot Mundy again, but he finally shook his head. “I don’t see him now. Maybe he went down that side street.”

“I think you must have made a mistake,” Alfrid told him. “It’s hard to believe that the man would return to St. Joe. I honestly don’t think you have anything to fear from Mundy.”

But Danny did fear Mundy. It was hard to get the man’s twisted, angry face out of his mind.

Every day at school there were arguments between the abolitionists and the antiabolitionists. One afternoon the hostile feelings erupted into an uncontrollable fist fight involving every boy over the age of nine and a few of the older girls.

Miss Clark rushed frantically around the schoolroom, trying to separate the fighters, but she couldn’t be everywhere at once.

Wilmer’s fist collided so hard with Danny’s right cheek that he staggered backward. Danny gasped with shock and shouted at Wilmer, “I thought we were friends!”

His whole body shaking in anger, Wilmer spat back,
“We can’t never be friends! Not as long as you and your family are dirty abolitionists!”

Danny, sobbing with hurt and fury, flung himself at Wilmer.

In spite of Miss Clark’s tearful efforts, the blows didn’t end until the fighters were too exhausted to continue. Surveying the array of blackened eyes, bleeding cuts and scrapes, and torn clothing, Miss Clark announced that, as a suitable punishment, there would be no Christmas pageant.

Peg cried all the way home and into the parlor, flinging herself into Olga’s arms. “I was going to be an angel!” she wailed. “And now I can’t, and it’s Abraham Lincoln’s fault!”

“It is not!” Danny shouted at her. “It’s the fault of the stupid people who believe in slavery!”

Gussie roughly grabbed his shoulder and jerked him back. “Look at you!” she said. “You come in the house all dirty, with your eye puffed out to here, and your clothes torn and bloodied, and then go blamin’ other folk. For shame!”