Free The Dance Boots by Linda L Grover Page B

walked out of the dormitory room and down the hall toward the toilet, moving more quickly and quietly as he passed the door, and then sprinted down the stairway and out the front door, where he was caught by Mr. McGoun, who wrapped one heavy arm around Louis’s skinny waist and the other around his skinny neck and half-carried the boy, who struggled like a cat, to the solitary room in the basement of the laundry building, where he spent only one night, because it was his first offense.
    His mother’s family, the Eberts, were known for their patience; his father’s, the Gallettes, for their ability to endure discomfort, even hardship, without complaining. Louis bore each confinement, beating, and deprivation of food with calm, dry eyes and watched and waited for the next opportunity to escape.
    â€œAre you hungry? I have brought your supper.” He watched Maggie, through a series of strips and squares, set the plate and cup on the floor. “How does the door open?”
    He told her where the key to the padlock was kept, how it needed to be pushed deeply into the keyhole and forced to the right.
    She tried it several times, thinking, “What if the laundry building caught fire? The boy would die.” On the fourth try, the side of her index finger caught on the padlock as it clicked open. She wound her handkerchief quickly over the bleeding finger and opened the door. The boy blinked in the half-light.
    â€œYou must sit on the bed.” Orders from the matron. “I will put your food on the chair.”
    â€œI can carry it in for you. Did you hurt your hand?”
    Louis stepped outside the cell, which was strictly forbidden, Maggie knew; she stepped inside. She saw a cot with a dirty mattress and a moth-eaten, linty blanket, a wooden kitchen chair, and in the corner a chipped and rusting chamber pot. It was so dark, the smell so foul. She turned back to the doorway, to the boy whosedirty, dark-red hair gleamed like feathers under the gaslight. “Just a moment, I will tidy this.” Would he run? “Wiisinin,” she said, to comfort him. “Eat your supper.”
    He had intended, once he maneuvered her into the cell, to push past her and run up the stairs and out of the building. It was nearly dark; she didn’t know where McGoun would be. She did not look as though she would want to scream. She would have to try to find McGoun, to find help. This would take time; he would have a good start. By morning he could be nearly halfway to Duluth; by night he could be in a boxcar, on his way home to Grand Bois.
    â€œGii bakade, ina?” she asked. “Are you hungry?” In English, her soft voice had a slight accent; in Ojibwe, an inflection of home. “Namadabin. Wiisinin.”
    He didn’t run. He sat on the floor and ate, watched her bend to pick up the chamber pot and carry it to the slate tub next to the furnace, where she poured out the urine and then rinsed the pot with water from the cistern. She carried it back into the cell and came out with the blanket, which she brought up the cellar stairs. Seated on the basement floor, outside the cell door, he heard the dull flap of the blanket being shaken in the night air, of a woman’s hand swatting dust out of woven wool. He watched her walk back down the stairs. Her feet, he saw, were small; her shoes were ladies’ boots, like a teacher’s, with high heels, laced severely at slender ankles.
    â€œWill you help me turn the mattress?”
    The cell was so small that the young woman and boy had to carry the mattress out into the basement in order to turn it. Under gaslight, the stains took on brilliant incandescent colors: blood was maroon and pink, urine sepia and mustard. He turned his head, ashamed, wanting to lie, to tell her that he had not caused this, to spare them both the embarrassment.
    The other side of the mattress was as stained, but in duller hues, and she thought it felt dryer.
    â€œThis