Dreamers of the Day Read Free Page B

finally, and sadly, still refusing to look at me. “And in the morning, try to be more cheerful. You owe me that much, at least.”
    And in the end, I was glad that Mumma’s wisdom prevailed. Studying at Oberlin College was a great opportunity, and teaching was a profession that suited me well. Indeed, everything went according to her plans for Lillian and me—with a single small detour when I enrolled in Professor Douglas Cutler’s course “History and the Old Testament.” No one was more surprised than I when Professor Cutler found something in me to admire. And no one was less surprised than I when he found even more in darling Lillie to desire.
    Douglas was in his thirties, a doctor of divinity, and a match for Lillie’s intellect and Christian conviction. The moment I introduced them, it was love at first sight. They made such a handsome couple, full of plans and aspirations. Shortly after their engagement, Douglas informed us that he’d been offered a position at the American Mission School at Jebail, just north of Beirut in Syria, which in those days stretched all the way to the Mediterranean seacoast. Lillian’s excitement over the news could hardly be contained, but Mumma wept and pleaded with Douglas to turn the offer down. She could hardly bear to think of her favorite child so far away, she told him. She had been so happy to believe that she would have a son-in-law to count on, what with her own dear Howard dead and her wicked son, Ernest, gone. It was awful to hear her distress, but Douglas had already signed the agreement, and a contract is a contract, as Mumma understood.
    As for me, well, gracious! It had long been my dream to visit Egypt and the Holy Land, and now my very own sister would be living there, as the wife of a scholar and missionary! What could be better? I would miss Lillie desperately, of course, but she promised to write home every single week and tell me all about her travels and her life.
    The wedding was to be in June, a few days after graduation. Lillie insisted that I serve as maid of honor. Eventually I gave in, though I was careful to remove my glasses and keep my eyes downcast for the wedding portrait, presenting neither my profile nor my eyes to spoil the photographs.
    Lillie and Douglas spent their honeymoon walking in the footsteps of Jesus, and afterward, they took up residence in Jebail. That September, I left Cedar Glen as well, moving a few miles away to Cleveland, where I had accepted an appointment with the public school system. As you can imagine, Mumma was distraught at being left all alone, so I had a telephone installed for her and made sure the billing went to me. “You can call as often as you like,” I told her.
    “And let those operators listen in?” she sniffed. “No lady would do such a thing!”
    She was getting on in years by then and reluctant to introduce an outlandish modernity to her home. Even so, I believe she was somewhat consoled to know that if she had a need pressing enough to summon a daughter, I was close by and lived right on the trolley line.
    The district had assigned me to Murray Hill School in the Cleveland neighborhood known to all as Little Italy. The children in my classroom were mostly immigrants. Some of their fathers were quite rough, and nearly all the parents were illiterate. Few believed that education was worthwhile beyond the fourth grade.
    “Pushcart Tony,” Mumma called that kind, though most of them were day laborers, not fruit and vegetable vendors. “Foreigners are taking this country over,” she’d say.
    “They didn’t sail on the
Mayflower,
” I’d answer, “but they came here as soon as they could.”
    “Well, I don’t know about
that,
” Mumma always said.
    This remark was never capitulation, you must understand; nor was it ever an admission of ignorance.
You’re wrong,
she meant,
but I don’t care to argue about it.
    “And don’t think I haven’t noticed—that school is right next to a