Kathy Little Bird by Nancy Freedman, Benedict Freedman Page A

properly hitched into the team. I managed a few deep breaths. I was even able to assess the situation. My grocery bag had split its seams; canned goods and vegetables strewed the street. A large lettuce was rolling toward the drain and I dived for it.
    So did someone else, the person who owned the horse. We reached for it, trying to stop its progress, and nearly bumped heads. The owner of the horse stood up, lettuce in hand. “Sorry. So terribly sorry. Are you all right? Shaken up, I suppose? Anyone would be. Oh, here is your lettuce, and don’t worry, I’ll retrieve the rest of your purchases.”
    I let him pick up celery, parsnips, lard, and a loaf of bread. There was nothing to be done about a smashed bottle of vinegar.
    He was standing in front of me, arms full. “I have a flour sack in the wagon. I’ll just put these things in it.”
    I followed him to the wagon. He was still talking. “I hope you’ll forgive me for frightening you to death. Although actually, I find it hard to forgive myself.”
    I thought he was being a bit dramatic. “It’s all right. It was an accident. No harm done.”
    “That’s very generous of you, Miss, eh…?”
    “My name is Kathy.”
    He removed his cap, revealing a mop of curly carrot-red hair. “Jack Sullivan at your service.”
    I had to smile at the grand manner he assumed.
    “I know I’m presuming on a very short acquaintance, butas proof of your forgiveness, would you perhaps have a soda with me?”
    “A soda?” That was a rare treat indeed.
    We didn’t sit at the counter, but at one of the small round marble-topped tables. The chairs were wire-backed with cushions of red and white stripes. Sitting across from him, I had an opportunity to size up Jack Sullivan. He wasn’t in overalls like the Mennonite boys and men, or the farmers. That set him apart. That and the red hair. His sleeves were rolled up and there was a sprinkling of light red fuzz on his arms. He was freckled and his eyes a sort of dancing green with laughing lights in them.
    He described himself as an entrepreneur, travelling between Canada and the States, selling the ponies he raised here for American dollars across the border.
    “I’ve never been in the States.” Then I found myself saying, “But I’m planning on going.”
    “You’ll like it. Americans are free and easy, not formal and tied in knots. And the cities—big-time, glittering, exciting. You’d fit right in.”
    “I would?”
    “A girl with your looks? I’ll say. It doesn’t seem right to waste it on the cows. When are you thinking of going?”
    “Well, I’d like to go soon.”
    He peered at me intently, and his eyes were not all one color, but many. His face too was never in repose for long at a time. Ideas, thoughts, schemes chased across it. Smiling broadly, he said, “Just remember, I’ve room for one more in my wagon.”
    I laughed too. And that was the end of it. At least I thought that was the end of it.
    Jack talked about the Big Apple and Chi. I didn’t realize at first they were New York and Chicago. You had to know them pretty well to call them by their nicknames. The Loop, that was downtown Chicago, right on Lake Michigan, with a zoo and fancy hotels, and apartments with doormen, and glamorous restaurants.
    In the next breath—Broadway. “They have human signs walking up and down the street.”
    “No,” I said in amazement.
    “I kid you not. Those old Bowery bums are paid maybe fifty cents to walk around advertising Coca-Cola and Philip Morris.”
    “But that’s awful. It takes a person’s dignity away to be a signboard.”
    “It means a bowl of soup, a cup of coffee, or more likely a spot of gin.”
    Of all the places he’d seen, Broadway made the biggest impression. The names of stars were outlined in bulbs that flashed on at night and lit up the world of entertainment. Cabs came and went, disgorging theater parties. “Talk about handsome couples. But most of those sophisticated women couldn’t hold