THE CALVERTS
Chapter Seventeen
February 1921
"Do we have to
move?" Mary whined, looking at her father beseechingly. John had decided
late in November that he would take the Cedar Rapids job, and had told the
girls as much. Nadia had accepted it in her usual quiet way, but Mary had been
begging him to change his mind ever since.
"Yes, Mary. We
have to move. I’m working a new job."
"I don’t want
to move. All my friends are here."
"You’ll make
new friends, and you can see your old friends when we visit New York."
"I don’t want
to make new friends. Everybody out there’s going to be a bunch of hicks."
"I bet it’ll
be nice, Mary," Nadia interrupted. "We’ll get to go to a new school,
and meet new people, and be some of the richest kids in town. We’re only in the
middle here."
"I don’t
care!" Mary snapped back. "I don’t want to move! Dad, can’t you
please leave me with Grandma?"
"Grandma has a
business to run."
"She took care
of us when you were away in the war."
"That was
different. I couldn’t take you with me then."
"But I want to
stay here!"
"Don’t argue
with Dad, Mary," Nadia told her. "Honor thy father and thy mother,
like we learned in church."
"We don’t have
a mother. I bet if we did she wouldn’t let Dad move us out into the middle of
nowhere."
"You still
have to do what Dad says."
"How can you
talk about honoring thy father and thy mother? You weren’t even born a
Christian!"
"No one is
born a Christian, Mary," John interrupted her. "You become one when
you’re baptized."
"Nadia’s just
a foreigner from a country we never hear about."
"And you and I
are foreigners from a country we do hear about. It makes no difference where
any of us came from. We’re all Americans, and we’re all moving to America’s
heartland."
"That’s not
fair!"
"Mary, you’re
eleven years old. In seven years, you’ll be old enough to go wherever you want.
Until then, you’ll go where I tell you. Understand?" John was beginning to
lose patience with his elder daughter.
Mary frowned,
shuffling her feet on the tile floor. "Yes," she said, a sullen note
still in her voice.
John sighed.
"I want both of you to go upstairs and help pack. We’re leaving in two
days." When a thoughtful look crossed Mary’s face, he added, "We are
not going to delay leaving if you’re not finished packing. Whatever you don’t
pack will be left behind and donated to charity."
John watched the
girls climb the stairs, Nadia moving quickly with Mary stomping sullenly
behind. At eleven, Mary was fast approaching adolescence, and it showed. She
considered herself to be old enough to make her own decisions, but didn’t have
the maturity or the experience to back up that view. Ten-year-old Nadia was
still largely content to allow her father to be in charge, though she would
soon be growing up too. Mary had turned eleven in November, and Nadia’s
eleventh birthday would be on April fifteenth. He wasn’t sure of Nadia’s exact
birth date, but he estimated her to be a few months younger than Mary, and he
had chosen as her birthday the date he had taken a frightened orphan by the
hand and led her from a room full of lost children.
Hearing the thump
of something being dropped, he got to his feet and hurried to the kitchen to
assist the cook in packing. The servants he had hired--a cook, housekeeper, and
governess--would be coming with the Calverts to Cedar Rapids. The entire
household had been a madhouse for the past two weeks, as they packed up
everything they were taking with them. The house itself would remain in John’s
hands until he decided whether or not he would stay in Cedar Rapids.
*****
John, Mary, and
Nadia sat in their seats on the train, watching the countryside go by. They had
been on the train for two days now, and would be reaching Cedar Rapids in a
couple of hours.
Mary had sulked and
complained throughout the first day, whining that she was bored, that the beds
were uncomfortable, that the train smelled, and that they were leaving
civilization. It had gotten to the point where even the girls’ governess
refused to tolerate her, and sent her to sit alone with nothing to keep her
entertained. When she had run to her father to complain, he had agreed with the
governess’ decision, prompting more sulking from Mary.
Now, Mary stared
out the window, trying not to look interested in the surrounding scenery.
Living in New York City, she had never seen wide open spaces covered with snow,
or cows in the fields, or small houses standing isolated in the wide, rolling
countryside. She and Nadia had been west once, to visit Rose at Christmas in
1917, but they had taken a different route, and the girls had been much younger
then.
Nadia sat quietly,
reading a book, looking up when John pointed out something interesting outside
the window. In spite of her acceptance of the family’s move, she was more worried
than she let on.
Since she had been
very young, she had been shy, sometimes painfully so, and in spite of what she
had told Mary, she was afraid of moving to a new place where she didn’t know
anyone and would have to make new friends and go to a new school. She never
complained, though, sometimes fearing deep down that if she complained she
would be put out on her own. No one had ever given her reason to believe so,
but she vaguely remembered losing her mother, and knew that she had been
adopted, and these things, combined with her natural shyness, made her fearful.
John watched his
two daughters as they sat side by side. Nadia was quiet and uncomplaining, as
usual, and Mary, in spite of herself, was watching the passing countryside with
interest. She had finally given up on sulking when she realized that all it
would get her was to be stuck in a seat by herself. No one was changing their
plans because of her sulking.
He looked around,
seeing the three servants sitting in another set of seats, and the employees of
Anders that he had selected to help start the new branch of the company were
scattered around the car. Low murmurs of conversation could be heard. In the
next car were several more employees and their families. Some had already
decided to make the move to Cedar Rapids permanent, and John only hoped that he
could make Anders Cedar Rapids work.
*****
Two days after the
group arrived in Cedar Rapids, they were moving into the three story building
that be their headquarters and hiring people to do renovations. The building
was only a few blocks from the abandoned mill that Elizabeth Anders had
purchased and ordered cleaned out and repaired.
The employees of
Anders and their families were living in a hotel in town until they could find
other accommodations. Mary and Nadia were going to start school on Monday,
three days away, in spite of Mary’s protests and Nadia’s worries.
John looked around
at the building where he would work. It was much smaller than the headquarters
of Anders New York, and he had a second floor office, rather than a twelfth
floor one. Still, for a company newly putting down roots in town, it was a good
place to start. Production would begin in mid-March, and people were already
lining up to apply for work. Elizabeth had been right when she had said there
was no shortage of people looking for work in town, and people from the
surrounding area were applying as well. He had already hired a secretary, since
his secretary in New York had refused to move.
True to Elizabeth’s
word, she had already made arrangements for him to begin attending Coe College
in the fall, once Anders Cedar Rapids had a chance to get established. John
wasn’t sure that he would fit in at the college--at thirty-four, he was much
older than most students were--but Elizabeth was insisting that he complete a
business degree, and was paying for it.
Thus far, things
were going well. They would have no trouble finding employees, and the large
number of workers they had managed to hire to do renovations were making short
work of the repairs necessary for both the headquarters and the mill. It looked
like things were going to work out, and even at this early time, John was
beginning to think of staying.