See A Curious Chat on Renee Duke's Blog.
Through
some type of eerie, time-jumping technical cross-up, it appears a
Victorian street urchin from my novel The Mud Rose, has come
in contact with 1930s era boy named Eddie, who relates his real-life
exploits in Marva Dasef’s Tales Of A Texas Boy. Neither
Hetty nor Eddie seemed aware that anything too strange had occurred,
but Renee and I thought it was worth recording. Their conversation is
being posted on both our blogs, and we’re offering free copies of
our respective books to two randomly picked commenters who indicate
they’ve visited both blogs (Details at the end.)
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Eddie
Perkins, age twelve, Hereford, Texas, 1933.
I
wanted ta talk with Uncle Harley ‛bout comin’ ta visit in the
Spring. Since we didn’t have a telephone out at the farm, I had to
use the phone here at the mercantile. I asked Mr. Brown, and he said
it was okay longs I ask the oper...the lady what answers how much it
costs. I picked up the earpiece, spun the hand crank to ring up, and
talked into the horn. I said I wanted Mr. Harley Granger in Linden.
She says fine, and I wait awhile. Pretty soon, I hear a some scratchy
sounds and I yell, “Hello, hello. Is anybody there?”
Hetty Styles, age
ten, London, England, 1888.
I was in the front
hall when that telephone thing went off. It’s some new-fangled
contraption what Mrs. Granger says Paige, Dane, and Jack’s Uncle
Clive had put it a month or two back. I let it ring a few times
thinking she’d come to answer it, but she didn’t, so I figured
I’d better. I picked it up a bit ginger-like, and said, “Uh,
um, London 2-1-6.” Think that’s what Mrs. Granger says. I’d
never talked into one of them things before, so I figured they’d
have to excuse me if that weren’t right. “Who’s calling,
please?” That’s the other thing what she says.
Eddie:
This
is Eddie. I’m tryin’ to talk to my Uncle Harley Granger in
Linden, Texas, but I don’t think I’m talking to who I want. You
don’t sound like a Texas gal. Do you know my Uncle Harley? He don’t
have any young girls and you don’t sound like you’re any older
than my sister. If you don’t mind, would you tell me yer name?
Hetty:
Hi-ya, Eddie. I’m
Hetty, and I’m coming on for ten. I’m in London, England. And
there in’t no Mr. Granger here, just a Mrs. You say you’re in
Texas? That’s in the United States of America, innit? Hard to
believe I can be talking to someone that far off. But then, lots of
things has been happening lately that’s kinda hard to believe.
Until recent, me and our Pip – that’s me brother, he’s six –
was dossing down in a shed of a night, and going hungry more often
than not, but now we’s staying at a toff’s house with lotsa grub,
and feather beds, and everything.
Eddie:
Well,
I was tryin’ to reach Linden, not London, but it’s okay if this
is a Granger’s place. I don’t know any Toff’s, though I think
it’s nice you got a feather bed. If ya can tell me who you are,
maybe I can figger out how I got to talkin’ to ya.
Hetty:
Not Toff like in a
name. Toff’s just a fancy word for rich people. Me and Pip’s
staying here ’til we goes to Canada. The Barnardo folks is
arranging for that. My Canadian mates say it’s freezing cold in
Canada in winter, and blistering hot in summer. It like that where
you live?
Eddie:
Well,
Canada is pretty far away from our Texas farm, so it’s maybe not as
hot. It surely is hot here in the summer. We can get frost and
occasional snow though. I recall a midnight ride crossin' the prairie
in moonlight when the frost was on the ground. I thought it a mite
perty, even if boys aren't supposed to think about such things. Worst
part was findin' our neighbor lady dead in her kitchen.
Hetty:
Pip and me’s seen
a few dead folk lying in the street. You kinda gets used to it. It’s
how things is in a big city like London. Not likely to be in a city
once we gets to Canada though. We’s
probably gonna be on a farm or summut.
You like living on a farm?
Eddie:
Oh,
yeah! A farm is a great place to live. You shouldn't fear that at
all. Mosta my good times have to do with the farm animals. We got
horses, naturally, and pigs, chickens, a coupla milk cows. Our big
money comes from our jackass, Beau. He's a frisky fella and all the
folks round here like to use him for a stud. Mules are very important
to farmin'.
Hetty:
Our Pip’s mad for
horses, so if we gets on a farm what’s got them, he’ll be over
the moon. I knows about chickens, and pigs, and cows, even though
I’ve not had much to do with ’em. Dunno that I’ve ever seen a
mule. What’s a mule? You said jackass, too, like they was the same.
Is they?
Eddie:
Well,
a jackass is a like a male donkey, but lots bigger, and they breed
with mares, that’s female horses. When the foal is born, it ain’t
a horse nor a jackass, but a crossbreed what’s called a
mule. We’re pretty busy what with all the animals to tend.
Hetty:
How’s about
school? I didn’t take to it right off, but I can see where it has
its advantages. We learns about reading and writing, and doing sums,
and all the countries in the Empire. Them the kind of things you
learns about too?
Eddie:
School's
okay. We gotta ride the horses to school every day. We learn all the
stuff you do, I 'spect. Readin', writing', and 'rithmatic. I would
like to know about that Empire thing. We live in what's called a
deemocracy.
Hetty:
Your school must be
quite a ways off if you has to ride horses. We walks to ours. An
empire’s all the countries what belongs to England, and has the
queen on their dosh. Canada belongs to the Empire, but I don’t
think America does. Our queen’s Victoria. Who’s yours?
Eddie:
We
don't have no queens and kings. We got a President. Right now, that’s
Mr. Franklin Roosevelt. He's kind of like royalty. His cousin, Teddy,
was President, too, but we elect presidents every four years. Things
are hard right now. Pa says the ee-com-onee got busted. Then the
Dustbowl happened. Made a lot of people have to leave their farms to
find work elsewhere. Some came down our way from Oklahoma. Pa hired
some of 'em on, even though things are tough all over.
Hetty:
Guess your
president’s kind of like our prime minister. They changes at
elections, too. Can’t say as I knows too much about ’em. Don’t
think they comes down the East End. The queen don’t, neither, but
she do go out and about a bit now more’n she used to. Lots of
people saw her during her Jubilee procession. You ever seen your
president?
Eddie:
I
ain't had the privilege of meeting President Roosevelt, but I would
surely like to and shake his hand. Pa says he's doing good things to
get the country back on its feet.
Hetty:
England’s supposed
to be doing real well at the moment, since we’ve got the Empire and
all, though I don’t knows too many people what’s flush. It’s
pretty hard graft for most of us. Up ’til we had the Barnardo folk
looking after us, me and Pip had to go out larking.
Eddie:
What’s
larking?
Hetty:
Mudlarking. Picking
stuff out of the mud down by the river and selling it on.
Eddie:
I
don't quite understand that. We got mudflats around here, but there
ain't usually much in those dried up arroyos worth havin'. Sometimes
I can find a dried up frog, but that's about all. What kind of stuff
do you find?
Hetty:
Coal, nails, rope,
old dishes, buttons, and the like, anything what a rag and bottle
shop might buy. Wouldn’t have no use for frogs, though Nolly once
told me that French people eats ’em, but no one round here
do.
Eddie:
My
Pa told me about the French folks eatin' frogs and even snails! He
was in France durin' the Great War.
Hetty:
What war was that?
Eddie:
Supposed
to be the war to end all wars. I know Americans, French folk, and
Germans were fightin’, but I’m not sure who else.
Hetty:
England’s been in
a lot of wars. Last one I remembers hearing about was some place
called the Transvaal. Don’t make sense, do it, people going all
over the place just to kill each other. Not that they don’t do that
right here, too. You heard about that nutter, Jack the Ripper, doing
in poor working girls?
Eddie:
Yeah,
I heard about that Jack the Ripper feller. Right gives me shivers
thinkin' about it. Did they ever figure out who he was?
Hetty:
Not yet. Me and Pip
think we might have seen him. Can’t get anyone to believe us,
though. ’Cept our mates, of course. And him. Think he believes us
all right. One of the reasons we’s going to Canada is to get away
from him. Long ways from home though, so we doesn’t quite know what
to expect. Your Texas sounds a bit similar, so talking to you’s
been a help in that regard. Anything else go on round your way that
we might find of interest?
Eddie:
Well,
ain't nothin’ too exciting, lessen you think a tame bear, a pig
which can fly, a chicken what won't stay out of the kitchen, or
finding mammoth bones on the prairie are interestin'. Me, my best
time was when I got to go on a real cattle drive.
Hetty:
Our Pip’d probably
like that too, if he got to ride a horse. The rest sounds pretty good
and all. Better’n what we was doing here, anyway.
Eddie:
Yer
brother’d be right at home here. We always ride our horses
everywhere. I could let him ride Sam if’n he wanted.
Considerin'
the hard life you lived, seems like you wouldn't have much fun, but
there musta been sumthing excitin'. What's the most fun things you
got to do in London?
Hetty:
Oh, we has our good
times, like the queen’s jubilee, and the Lord Mayor’s procession,
though that were better last year than this. An even on ordinary
days, there’s organ grinders with monkeys what does tricks, and
Punch & Judy shows and such. Day or two ago we even went to the
zoo and saw all manner of funny-looking beasties. Actually, I think
we’s just about to go off somewheres again, ’cos I hears Mrs.
Granger calling, S’pose I’d best get off this thing. Nice talking
to you.
Eddie:
Nice
talkin’ with you too, Hetty. When ya’ll get to Canada, maybe you
and Pip can come on down ta visit sometime.
*
* *
They hung up at that
point, thus breaking their most unusual connection, but if you’d
like to read about Hetty and Pip’s adventures in Victorian London,
The Mud Rose is available at:
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/the-mud-rose
Eddie’s
Depression-era adventures are recounted in, Tales Of A Texas Boy,
available at:
If
you’d like the chance to win FREE copies of Mud
Rose and Tales
of a Texas Boy just
mosey (as Eddie would say) over to Renee Duke’s blog Time
Travelling With Kids
at http://www.reneeduke.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/a-curious-chat and
leave a comment containing an indication that you’ve come over from
my Cellophane Queen blog. A randomly selected commenter from each
blog will each receive copies of both books.
Winners
will be announced February 18th. Good luck!
First I should tell you a little about the first book, Country and The Rock. Earth boys meet a young alien (Clicker) that wants to know what it’s like to be a kid on Earth. They’re plagued by some bad aliens (Venaticians) that are stealing from Earth. Clicker is a good alien. He and his group are trying to stop the Venaticians. 
