Moon Over Manifest

There was a big gingerbread-like house sorely lacking in paint. A proper-looking lady sat quietly in a rocking chair on the porch, not having the life in her to rock. The barber, leaning against his shop door, stared as I passed. A lady in the grocery store fanned herself as a little dog yapped through the screen door. From some of the glares I got walking up the board sidewalk, I figured these folks would rather suffer through hard times on their own than have a stranger come in to witness their misery.

We didn’t slow down at the post office. “I thought we were picking up the mail.”

“Not mail. A letter. From Hattie Mae at the newspaper.”

“Hattie Mae Harper? Huckleberry Queen of 1917?”

“She’s Hattie Mae Macke now, but that’s her.”

At least there was something familiar in this town. I wondered if Hattie Mae had kept up her “News Auxiliary.”

The Manifest Herald newspaper office was about centered on Main Street and we walked into a holy mess. Newspapers were stacked two and three feet tall. A typewriter sat on a cluttered desk, its keys splayed open with some scattered on the desk like it tried to spell explosion and the explosion happened.

“Shady? That you?” a woman’s voice hollered from the back. “I’m just getting ready to close up. Thanks so much for coming by to pick up—”

A large woman came out from the back room, her hair in a frazzled bun. She caught sight of me and her hands went to her face. “Well, aren’t you a little darling? You must be Abilene.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“My, but you do look like your daddy.” She pressed me to her warm bosom and I felt her catch her breath. When I looked up at her again, her eyes were wet. “Would you like a soda pop? Of course you would. You go right on back and get yourself a nice cold bottle. We’ve got Coca-Cola and Orange Crush. Take your pick. And there’s a couple of sandwiches in there. One’s cheese and one’s meat loaf. You help yourself, now, and don’t tell me you’re not hungry.”

“Okay,” I said. I started to make my way through the maze of newspapers. Those sandwiches sounded good.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess. Uncle Henry insists on saving all these old papers but my husband, Fred, is finally going to build a storage shed out back, so I’m trying to get them organized.”

“I’ve had your very first ‘News Auxiliary’ my whole life,” I blurted out.

“Oh, my heavens. How’d you get ahold of that piece of antiquity?” She laughed and her body jiggled.

“Have you been writing that column all this time?”

“You mean all the whos, whats, whys, whens, and wheres? Yes, I suppose I have. And thanks to the Depression, I’ve also been promoted to copy editor, typesetter, and coffee maker extraordinaire.” She laughed. “Say, if you find yourself with any spare time, you could come and help me if you’d like. As you can see, there are plenty of old newspapers that need to get put in order. If you like reading ancient history, you might find it kind of interesting.”

I nodded, thinking that I would find that interesting.

“Now go get your pop and a sandwich, sweet pea. And help yourself to whatever newspapers you want. Uncle Henry won’t mind giving them away to someone who actually wants to read them. And that’ll be all the fewer I’ll need to sort through later.”

I found the pop chest easy enough and picked out an Orange Crush and the meat loaf sandwich. There was a built-in opener right on the side of the chest. Shady and Hattie Mae were talking about how hot it had been and how there wasn’t even a hint of rain. I gobbled down half the sandwich and let my hand run over one stack of newspapers after another. I felt like I was floating in a cloud that was passing from one year to another in no particular order. 1929—STOCK MARKET CRASHES. 1927—BABE RUTH HITS 60 HOME RUNS IN ONE SEASON. 1927—CHARLES LINDBERGH FLIES SOLO ACROSS ATLANTIC IN 33½ HOURS.

Then a particular year caught my eye. 1917—BONE DRY BILL MAKES ALCOHOL ILLEGAL IN KANSAS. That was the same year as Hattie Mae’s first “News Auxiliary.” That was when Gideon had been in Manifest. My heart picked up speed. I didn’t really expect to find Gideon’s name in the headlines, or anywhere else in the paper, for that matter. But I might come to know this town a little better through the articles and stories. This town where he had spent time as a boy. This town where he’d chosen to send me.

“You find yourself a soda pop, sweet pea?” Hattie Mae called. “Do I need to come and rescue you from that bottomless pit of newspapers?”

“Coming,” I called. “You sure it’s okay if I take a couple papers? Something to read while I’m here?”

“Go right ahead.”

I thumbed through a stack of papers and chose the only two I found from 1917. July 16 and October 11. I tucked the papers into my satchel and went back to the front room.

Hattie Mae was talking in a hushed voice to Shady. Her face looked a little drawn and worried as she whispered, “Shady, she needs to know—” but she perked up when she saw me.