Chapter 4: The Letter
The roar of the vacuum woke Elyse out of a dead sleep and she groaned at the disturbance. A very different way to wake than the day before. Something had to have happened for her mother to start with the noisy chores so early. The vacuum was Ann’s way of getting the up without actually getting them up.
Elyse pulled the pillow out from under her head and placed it over her ears to muffle the vacuum. It never works enough to where she can go back to sleep, but at least it helps the transition. She knows when she leaves her room, she’s going to walk out to her mom agitated about something and that never bodes well for Elyse.
After a few minutes, she rolls over swinging her legs off the bed, just laying there for a second trying to savor the last bit of peace among the noise of the house. Luke is still with Grandma, staying long stretches as he learns the farm.
Elyse pulls her blanket around her shoulders to preserve some softness and heads out the door. Her mother is pushing furniture around in the living room and has two vacuum cleaners out and plugged in. Through the window behind her, Elyse can see the dreariness of the day. It had rained and looks like it will be raining again.
No going back into the woods. And fortunately, that also mean no cleaning out the barn.
Ann sees Elyse walking in wrapped in her blanket and laughs, ‘Good morning, sleepyhead. Big day today. Go get some breakfast and then get dressed.’
Elyse goes into the kitchen, evidence of toast was on the cutting board, but nothing was out for her. Cereal it is, thinks Elyse.
She goes over to the Kik-step stool and moves it around the kitchen to reach what she needs. Finally, pouring milk over her Kix and setting herself up on the counter stool.
Still a little groggy from her mother’s morning wake-up call. Elyse sits quietly thinking if very little as the cold milk stirs her more awake by the bite. It’s dark and gloomy outside and Elyse can smell the rain in the air and feel the cooling affect it had on the air around her. Things slow down a bit on a rainy day. In a good mood, Ann would be baking something. Elyse would wake up to pie bars and bread. But in a sour mood, maybe even one that came from a morning spat with George, some type of cleaning project that will take most of the day.
Elyse’s mind flashes back to the orphanage and the tin. Still nestled in the bin with her Barbies. Things are typically safe in that bin. Her mother’s reprise of organization never gets that detailed, but still, hopefully bedrooms are not on Ann’s radar.
Elyse finishes her cereal and drinks all the milk out of the bottom. She wipes her upper lip with her blanket and slides off the stool walking the bowl over to the sink. She slips around the back hall to her bedroom to change, taking her time. She’s still a bit tired and not ready for the big energy in store for her in the living room.
After pulling on old shorts and a tank, Elyse slips into the bathroom to brush her hair. She grabs a ponytail holder from the drawer, takes a deep breath and walks out to the living room. Much of the furniture had been moved to the middle of the room and Ann was fussing with a cord behind something.
‘Mom?’ Elyse says tentatively.
Ann’s head pops up and looks at her daughter. Elyse holds out the brush and band as a plea for help. Ann sighs and gestures for Elyse to come closer by pointing at the floor in front of her.
Elyse walks up to her and turns around. Even though she had already brushed her own hair, her mother takes the brush through her hair with such force Elyse’s he’d jerks back each time. Ann ties the ponytail so tight, Elyse can feel all the pull on her head and when she goes to put the brush away, she reached back to loosen the tie so it stopped pulling at all the little hairs around her head.
‘Did you already undo that?’ Ann glares at her with her hands on her hips.
‘It hurt my head, Mommy,’ Elyse said in a small voice.
Ann shook her head and pointed at a clean rag and furniture polish. ‘We’re dusting baseboards today and you’re my helper!’ Then turns back to the cord she’s trying to fish out from behind something.
Elyse looks around, ‘Do you want me to start in here?’
‘No, you can start in the dining room and work your way around,’ Ann says not looking up.
Elyse lets out a little sigh. Baseboards aren’t the worst chore. Due to her being small, she can make her way around easily and as long as she looks busy, her mother will largely keep her foul mood to herself.
This went on all morning. Else scooting along the walls wiping down all the trim with furniture polish, her mother moving furniture and vacuuming under it, occasionally coming to get a squirt of polish from Elyse as she also dusted high pieces of furniture.
Her mother had clicked on the TV to a morning program and turned the volume up, so any uncomfortable silence was drowned out by cooking demonstrations and weather forecasts for all over the nation.
While Elyse polished, she started thinking about her next plan for learning more about the orphanage. Still not wanting to disclose anything to her parents, especially her mother, Elyse decided to wait until the next day to do more digging. They go to the library on Wednesdays and Ann drops them off for an hour as she goes down the street to visit with Great-Grandma Dot. Hopefully, between now and tomorrow, Elyse will have time to crack open the tin.
The morning continues on and Ann seems to fixate on deep cleaning the living room, maybe because the tv is in there and it’s helping her relax a bit. But after they clean everything, Ann starts to move the furniture around in different configurations. As they are moving things, Elyse helping as much as she can, Ann’s mood is improving.
‘This will really piss him off,’ she says to herself, but also out loud and also so Elyse can hear.
Elyse doesn’t have to ask, she already knows Ann is talking about George, and in that moment, it’s confirmed in Elyse’s mind that there was some sort of disagreement that happened that made Ann take out her frustrations with vacuum cleaners and furniture polish.
After the morning shows finished and more channels switched over to soap operas or The Price is Right, Ann gives Elyse a few more directions on how to finish in the living room. All the furniture had been restyled and Ann steps back to look everything over.
A little smile forms at the corner of her mouth and she heads into the kitchen to make lunch.
Elyse proceeds to replace the doilies and things back on the tables, folds the blanket along the floor and holding it carefully in both hands, slowly works her way onto the sofa with the blanket to drape it over the back, careful to center it and smooth it out.
Cooking noises are coming from the kitchen and when Elyse is done, she heads in, clicking off the tv as she goes.
‘You can go play until I call you to set the table for lunch,’ Ann says without looking up.
Elyse dashes off to her room and quietly shuts the door. She can still hear Ann moving around in the kitchen through the thin veneer door, so she will also be able to hear her coming if she needs to stash the tin quickly.
Elyse sits on the floor next to her bed, slides out the bin and lifts the lid, the bag is still there, undisturbed. She lifts the bag out of the tub and hears the rattle of the pocket knife hitting against the tin.
She reaches in and feels the foil under her hands. Whoops, she forgot the granola bar she put in there. She places it on her bed, she’ll eat that later. Reaching back in her hand finds the tin, feeling the rough surface. She pulls the tin out of the bag, hearing the contents shift, and starts to look it over.
What the tin originally was used for has been worn away with age, but there are parts that still display the original purple paint that once decorated the outside. Elyse looked closer at where the lid connects to the box. At first, she uses her hands to try to work the lid off with no success. She places the box upside down and reaches in the bag for the pocket knife. Opening the blade she slowly starts to insert the tip of the blade under the endless of the lid. She can hear the grit of the rust moving against the blade as she works her way down one of the long sides. Taking a few passes until she is satisfied it is as loose as it can be, she turns the box clockwise so the shorter edge lines up with her dominant left hand. She continues this for all four sides. Once she’s done, she turns the tin over and places it on the floor. Little crumbs of rust are on the carpet, and she brushes the evidence away and it looses itself in the shaggy carpet.
Holding a corner with her right hand, Elyse starts to work off the lid. She can tell immediately that her effort was worth it as the lid reluctantly started to separate. Working each corner gaining a millimeter of space before turning the box to work the next corner, it took her a couple minutes, but she eventually got the lid off!
Elyse to a sign of relief as she held the lid in her hand and peered into the contents of the tin.
Inside, the tin was still bright and smooth, the rust sealing it off from the elements it had been exposed to all this time. As she looked in the tin she saw a cobalt blue marble, a stack of letters, a wooden bobbin and something else. Elyse lifts the letters and sees a key resting on the bottom of the tin.
-
After lunch, George headed back to work and Ann headed outside to work in the gardens, freeing Elyse up to play. Elyse had other ideas on how she was going to spend her time. She told her mother she was going to play in her room and fortunately, Ann didn’t argue.
After Ann was outside and settled on a stool picking green beans, Elyse went back to her room. Sliding the bin out from under the bed, she lifted the tin out and removed the stack of letters.
Ann had always pushed her children to read early by doing word-of-the-day each morning on the fridge. By the time Elyse went to kindergarten she was already ahead of other kids with reading and writing. Having access to the library at school and the library in the town nearby, Elyse got to find new characters to spark her mind like Ramona Quimby, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and her favorite, Laura Ingalls Wilder. Elyse felt very connect to Laura due to her rural upbringing and being a middle child.
Elyse’s reading level tested a few years ahead of her age and the school librarian noticed this about her and offered other books like Nancy Drew and The Westing Game that Elyse devoured. Every now and again, she would have to go into her dads office and pull down the large dictionary to understand a new word, but that was part of the challenge and the fun for Elyse. She thought all the stories were little bits of magic to get lost inside of. Often at night she would dream she was the one finding the clue in the old clock or tumbling through the false panel in the wall. To her old homes and buildings held stories just waiting to be uncovered.
Elyse gazed down at the stack of envelopes. She hand’t really fixated on who the letters were made out to before her mother called her in to lunch. Now she had a second to look at the cursive writing sprawled across the envelopes.
All the envelopes were brown from age and some of the writing was faded with time. The tin rusting shut did a service to the paper keeping it intact, but still, the paper was rather fragile.
Elyse remembers being around her great grandmother’s attic and how Grandma Dot would show her how to handle things carefully, as to not damage them. Elyse was usually given such tasks other kids wouldn’t get because she could be careful.
All the openings on the envelopes were on the side with a clean edge, Elyse held the sides gently and pointed the open end at her face. Blowing gently the two sides began to separate and turning the opening down, the paper slid out onto Elyse’s lap.
Each of the envelopes were made out to:
Pike River Orphanage
Ellsville, Illinois
Elyse carefully opened the letter, it was not as fragile as some newspapers she’s encountered with Grandma Dot, but she still didn’t want to force it.
At the top right corner the date: November 2nd, 1878
To Whom it May Concern,
I am hoping this letter does find the right hands. I have sent several letters to inquire about the location of two children and have yet to get a reply.
In previous correspondence, I have informed you Mr. Hopkins at the Chicago City Orphanage knew of Lizzie and Samuel Jenkins and how they were put in the care of Pike River Orphanage, your organization. I hesitate to say organization as I have yet to get a reply. I had hoped to move quickly for the sake of the children, but I find myself at an impasse.
I am writing to inform you of my intent to travel to your facility to learn the whereabouts of these children in my charge. I shall be there within the fortnight.
Sincerely,
Arthur Thomas Wexley Esq.
