The Friendship Doll by Kirby Larson

out of some foolish book.” Ma rocked Franklin all herky-jerky in the hickory rocker. “You be a good boy, Franklin, and fall right to sleep. I got piecing to do.”
    “Here, Ma. I’ll cozy him.” Marvel took the baby as well as Ma’s place on the rocker seat. Ma situated herself closer to the kerosene lamp, where her quilt lay wrapped in a frayed white sheet to keep it clean. Since Mr. Pritchard over to Wisdom told her he’d pay twelve dollars for any quilt she made, Ma had turned into a whirling dervish of a quilter.
    That white sheet put Willie Mae to mind of MaryRose. Ma had worn a groove in the floor, rocking
that
child when she was a baby, all the while singing hymns and such in that cherry-sweet voice of hers. That was before the mine accident where Pap’s back got all stove-in and his insides were hurt so bad. It wasn’t two weeks after Pap’s funeral that Mary Rose got the fever and passed over herself. Ma didn’t sing anymore, not even the smallest lullaby to baby Franklin.
    “You need something to read, Willie Mae, you could read Theodore’s letter again.” Marvel’s mind wasn’t as quick as some her age, but her heart was bigger than the entire state of Kentucky. She knew how much Willie Mae loved to read, loved words, and encouraged her every which way. Ma frowned but didn’t say anything on account of it being Marvel doing the suggesting. “It’s still there, in the sugar bowl.”
    This was a safe spot for Theodore’s letters, now that sugar was on the list of the many groceries the family couldn’t buy. It was a good thing Theo sent them stamps from time to time or they’d never be able to write him back.
    Willie Mae wrung out the last diaper and pegged it to the line strung across the room. What with the steam from the wash water and the damp from the diapers and the cold wriggling its way around the rags stuffed in the broken windowpanes, the room felt clammy as a grave. Willie Mae dried her hands and tugged her sweater tighter. Three years ago, when she was a chubby eight-year-old, she could barely button it around her. After thelast few years of slim pickins at the table, the sweater hung on her like she was wearing one of Theodore’s. She fetched the letter and began to read it aloud: “My dearest family—”
    “That’s about my favorite part,” Marvel interrupted. “We are dear to Theo, ain’t we?” Shivering, she wrapped a corner of the quilt Ma was piecing around her bony shoulders.
    Ma looked up from the squares of blue shirting. “If that boy says something, it is so,” she said. She sighed before bending over her work once more. “He’s as honest as the day is long.”
    “My dearest family,” Willie Mae read again. It was a comfort to her, too, to see those words on the page, and to taste them in her mouth. Reading them twice was as sweet as getting a whole peppermint stick all to herself.
    I think you would find me quite handsome in my new beard. I’m so good-looking that folks keep mistaking me for that movie star Basil Rathbone
.
    Marvel laughed. “Think of it—our Theo a movie star.”
    Ma harrumphed and bit off a length of thread. She handed the needle to Marvel, who quickly threaded it. Ma’s eyes had weakened so, she couldn’t see to do that herself anymore.
    Some of the fellows here have spent more time in an office than out of doors and so whimper like kicked
dogs at the end of the workday. Me, I suck up all the fresh air here in Oregon that I can. Fresh air was in short supply in the mines. The work I do ain’t all that much different—I’m still swinging a pickax—but it’s where I’m doing it that makes all the difference. If you precious ones was here with me, I’d say I’d found heaven on earth. But a CCC camp’s no place for women. Our new barracks are so small there ain’t room enough to cuss a cat without getting a mouthful of fur. But we manage
.
    Willie Mae was thankful for Theo’s CCC job. The Civilian Conservation Corps—even