Red Berries, White Clouds, Blue Sky by Sandra Dallas Page B

smiling as she told Mom, “I think my husband has some indigo cloth from Japan left from the store. It is just cotton and was used to make work shirts a long time ago. The people who took over the business wanted only silk. The blue cotton is very old and very beautiful. I will ask my husband if the people in San Francisco will send it to us for a quilt.” She took Mom’s arm and smiled at her. “Perhaps we could make a Japanesedesign with your squares and triangles.”
    Then she asked if Tomi was going to help piece the quilt.
    “Who, me?” Tomi asked and made a face. “I don’t care about sewing. But I’ll sell raffle tickets. Maybe everybody in camp will buy one. What’s five cents times five thousand?”
    “A lot,” Ruth replied. “You know, I think quilting takes Mother’s mind off Ben, at least for a little while. She seems happier when she’s sewing. But other times …” Ruth shrugged. Then she said, “I don’t want to talk about Ben.” She changed the subject. “Who’s that new girl in your barracks? She looks familiar. She was standing in the hall when I came to your apartment yesterday, and she looked angry.”
    “You mean Helen,” Tomi said. “She lives there with her two brothers. They’re orphans. Her mom died just before Helen came to Tallgrass.”
    Ruth stopped and cocked her head. “Now I remember. I think I know her. She used to sing in the choir at our church in San Francisco. She’s a bobby-soxer. She has a beautiful voice.”
    “She doesn’t sing here. Mostly, she just looks mad,”Tomi said.
    “That’s too bad. I was mad when I came here, but now, I’m not so mad. Does she work?” Many of the internees held jobs in the camp. They weren’t paid much. Most received twelve to sixteen dollars a month to work in the post office or the print shop, where they produced posters for the war effort. Professional people, such as doctors, made only nineteen dollars. But the jobs filled their time and made the people feel useful. It also gave them a little money they could spend in the camp store or on items they sent away for in the Montgomery Ward catalogue. Mom was paid twelve dollars a month for teaching the quilting class, and she’d promised to spend her first paycheck on boots for Tomi.
    “Helen doesn’t work even though she’s old enough to have a job. She doesn’t go to school either. She has to take care of her little brother. She’s like a mother to him. The camp was going to divide up the three of them and put them with different families, but Helen said no. She wouldn’t give up her brothers,” Tomi told Ruth. “It’s not fair.” She remembered that she had once told Ruth it wasn’t fair that Pop was in prison, and Ruth had replied that it wasn’t fair her brother, Ben, had died.
    “There are a lot of things at Tallgrass that aren’t fair.”
    The two hurried to catch up with their mothers when something occurred to Tomi. She put her hand on Ruth’s arm, and the two stopped. “I have an idea …”
    Ruth looked at Tomi, a question on her face. “What?”
    “I have an idea,” Tomi repeated. “Your mother …” She paused, thinking that what she was about to say was none of her business.
    “My mother what?”
    “Helen needs somebody to watch her brother Carl. He’s four, the age you said Ben was when he died.”
    “And?”
    Tomi took a deep breath. “What if your mother took care of him?”
    “You mean you want her to work as a nursemaid? Mother would never do that. She’s never worked a day in her life except for helping Father at the store. We could use the money, but Mother would think taking a job was … well … disgraceful. It would be as if she said Father couldn’t provide for us and she had to help out. It would make Father feel useless.”
    “What if it’s not a real job? Helen probably couldn’t even pay her if she wanted to. Maybe your mother couldjust ‘help out.’ With your brother gone, she might like having Carl