A Flickering Light Page 15

  He tried to read the afternoon paper as he awaited the birthday cake and candles so they could sing to Winnie. He wondered if the Gaebeles sang for Jessie. A twinge of discomfort fell on him. Probably it was the cost of the gift, given their financial concerns, that took away a bit of the joy of the giving. Or maybe it was the way in which Jessie had reacted to the photograph. He wasn’t sure she liked it. The others seemed stunned by it. He thought it a fine likeness, but it hadn’t warranted near amazement. Or perhaps he’d misread their looks. That young Jerome appeared to admire the picture of Miss Gaebele. The responses of the others, including Jessie, didn’t make any sense to him.

  Maybe it was just the age difference between himself and the young people. The Kopp boy didn’t look too worldly, and Jessie was a young girl and perhaps didn’t appreciate the quality of that un-posed portrait. Or that it had been taken by a true professional. Maybe he was a little annoyed that she hadn’t seen the skill in it nor her own natural beauty as a model. He sighed. He would have to let the girls go before too long unless something changed. They were hard workers, and he thoroughly enjoyed the conversations with Jessie about how she would compose a photograph or sell more postcard pictures. Commercial success was about finding new clients or cutting expenses—it was as simple as that—and Jessie was always considering new ways.

  Maybe he could sell more of his salve. He hadn’t quite perfected the formula, but it was still a product worth what he charged and much less than what Watkins charged for his. That man had practically made his liniments and laxatives household necessities, just like the almanac Watkins published each year with its calendars and weather predictions and recipes and songs printed in both German and English. It was nothing more than a fat advertisement sold as a medical book. Right on the front it announced: “The J. R. Watkins Medical Company.” FJ knew about medical things, and these…concoctions weren’t medicine. But it worked for Watkins. The man was a millionaire right here in Winona, having married into that King family’s great wealth. He’d made his products a requirement for everyday life. If only photographs were. Or his salve was.

  He watched his daughter and son laughing together. If he could find a way to convince people that having a photograph made was a part of a family’s need, part of their history, a way to treasure and remember, that might free up more people to spend money on his images. He was so grateful he had photographs of Donald. They kept the boy alive to him.

  He’d given Winnie the little picture he’d made of her. She’d spent a minute staring and said, “Oh, Papa, I pretty,” which made his heart sing. Then she’d set it on the round end table, already forgotten, and pulled open her mother’s gift, a pair of ice skates.

  “That’s a surprise,” he said. Mrs. Bauer was always so nervous about the children getting hurt, and she didn’t skate. Neither did he. She hadn’t discussed it with him. She must have paid for them from the household accounts. He’d have to speak with her about that. But on the other hand, he too had spent funds without consultation, though not on the gloves they’d given both the shop girls at Christmas. Those gifts he and Mrs. Bauer had agreed on.

  “Russell thought it would be fun for the two of them,” Mrs. Bauer said of the skates. “He can take her sometimes when I have my headaches and just need quiet. You’re not always here to help.”

  FJ took the words like stones and put them in the bag labeled Disappointing Husband and Poor Father. The bag never filled, just became heavier and heavier.

  “That’s good of you to offer, Russell. Perhaps we can take the streetcar to the lake this weekend. Would you like that?”

  “Then we can all go,” Russell said. “Can’t we, Mama?”

  “If I’m feeling up to it,” Mrs. Bauer said. “I have so many headaches in this cold, cold weather. I understand why some people make their way to Tampa. It’s too bad we can’t.” Another stone. “It might benefit your own health, Mr. Bauer.”

  “It might,” he said. “So would going to North Dakota. The air there is as pure as a saint’s tears.”

  “It’s also colder than the ice house in winter and wouldn’t do a thing for my headaches.” She massaged her temples.

  “You’re right, as always,” he said.

  “I did see an advertisement in the Watkins Almanac for their Vegetable Anodyne Liniment,” Mrs. Bauer continued. “It’s meant for back pain but it might be of use on my neck and reduce my headaches. I wonder if you might pick some up for me, Mr. Bauer?”

  “Anything that might help, dear,” he said. He straightened the paper but couldn’t concentrate on what he was reading. Something about child labor laws. It was important, he knew. He folded the paper. She never wanted to try his ointment. Many of those who used it deemed it worthy, but Mrs. Bauer wasn’t one of them. She knew he didn’t wish to further Watkins’s successes.

  Maybe he could bring in more income by asking Jessie to put her innovative mind into salve promotion. The idea lightened his mood. He would make cuts in expenditures—perhaps go without his cigars or maybe the German edition paper. He could always read it at the German library. If he could increase sales of either the photographic work or the salve, he could keep the girls on. At least one. The girls needed money too. It was an act of charity to make sure they continued to have employment. Look at those poor children in the article, working at nine years of age in the coal mines or the garment districts of New York. Yes, he was doing his part to assist with child labor, offering a safe place to work and fair wages. A man had to do what he could, and FJ would.

  It was spring when the Kodak photographs were finally developed with the help of Voe’s gift and some of Jessie’s savings. It felt like Christmas all over again, opening up the envelope to see each round print and being reminded of the day she’d taken that shot. She was especially proud of the photograph of the oak trees made while lying on the ground and looking up through the leaves. She’d forgotten she even took it.

  “Why t-t-trees?” Roy asked. They sat in the living room where the gaslights flooded the small table. A cream crocheted doily acted as matting for each of the small photographs.

  “I don’t know. I guess because they’re so sturdy and strong and beautiful. I like the way the branches are etched against the sky. See how perfect the leaves look? You can’t see their flaws, the little worm holes in the leaf, or how the edges curl up sometimes. Even with this little camera you can capture the perfection of a natural thing like a tree. Now if I had a big camera, with dry plates, one where I could develop the prints myself, then I could take really beautiful pictures.”

  “Th-these are b-b-beautiful,” Roy said.

  “I’m glad you like them. I bet the trees are different in every country, aren’t they, Roy?” She knew he loved to read the traveling books she brought him from the library. He nodded. “Someday we’ll travel to other places and see those trees. Does that sound like fun?”

  “Don’t build his hopes up,” her mother said. She sat crocheting.

  “I—I—I f-f-fixed this f-f-for you.” Roy handed Jessie the photographic case. Sometime during the past few months of opening and closing it, Jessie had lost the little screw that worked the hinge. She’d later found it stuck between the floorboards of her bedroom but couldn’t put it back in. Roy had asked to borrow the case that morning “to h-h-hold it.”

  “How did you do that?” Jessie asked him.

  “W-w-with your h-h-hatpin,” he said, beaming.

  “I never thought of that. Of course, I couldn’t have seen it anyway, not even with these eyeglasses, because it’s so tiny. I’m glad you could. That took lots of patience too, didn’t it, Mama?”

  Her mother didn’t look up. “I suppose.”

  Jessie felt it her duty to get her mother to notice Roy’s strengths and not just the things he had difficulty doing. “I’ll put one of these photos in the case,” she told Roy. “You choose.”

  “I l-l-like th-that one.” He pointed to the one FJ had taken. Her mother raised an eyebrow. />
  “Choose another one,” Jessie said.

  “T-t-take one of m-m-me,” Roy said.

  “You mustn’t be self-interested,” their mother cautioned. “It’s bad enough that Jessie is so captivated by her own image. I don’t mind the tree photos, but the one of you, well, that concerns me.”

  “It’s nothing, Mama,” Jessie said. “It was a practice shot, taken at the spur of the moment, and he would otherwise have thrown it away.” Her mother’s lips pursed. Jessie snapped the photo case shut. “We’ll take one of you reading your book,” Jessie told Roy. But her mother’s words had poked her present joy.

  By early summer, Jessie had a little more money now, what with working two jobs, so she could get the prints developed more quickly and was able to save for a better camera. She’d told Mr. Steffes she would leave once she got her camera back, but he had begged her to remain. “Some of the lads I might employ don’t have nearly the drive you do. Maybe cut the days back to just one?” he said. And so she had.

  Lilly was miffed that Jessie had pin money when Lilly didn’t. But Jessie gave all her studio wages to her mother, and the family decision was to allow Jessie to use Mr. Steffes’s payment for less needful things, like developing her Kodak shots more quickly. She hoped that one day she’d earn enough to have her own place to live, though she’d always contribute to the family’s needs. To Roy’s.

  Jessie photographed a group of girls being baptized at Latsch Beach shortly after it was opened. In addition to the girls as subjects, she was conscious of the background, the men in suits and the women dressed in their best white dresses standing on the shoreline. She’d gone into the water herself and taken the photograph, looking back with the girls in the foreground. One girl stood at an angle to the camera, one with her finger in her ear, shaking water loose. A couple of others had their arms close around themselves, chilled in the spring water. All looked bedraggled in their navy sailor dresses with white trim, yet they all had smiles on their faces, which was as it should be at a baptism, Jessie thought. Just looking at the photograph brought back the memory of the day. That was the power of art, she decided, to take a person back—and inward too, to intersect life with expectation.

  She had been baptized as an infant. But other faiths urged adult baptism. Most of the girls in the photograph were probably Selma’s age or younger, which didn’t seem very adult to Jessie, but every faith offered something different, and that seemed all right with her.

  But the baptism photograph upset her mother. Jessie showed it to her in the kitchen with Lilly and Selma standing around. “What were you doing there in the water at such a sacred time? How am I to explain to our friends that it was my daughter dressed in her bathing dress out there taking a photograph?”

  “I think you explained it well,” Jessie said. She laughed.

  “Hush now. Are you being wise with me, young lady?”

  Her scolding startled Jessie. “No. I meant you had explained it well. I just went into the water in my bathing dress and took the picture.”

  “But why?”

  “It was a special occasion. That’s when people take photographs,” she argued. “The girls have all asked for prints. I intend to take a picture of the picture, in Mr. Bauer’s studio, so that I can print copies myself. I’ll be able to make a little more that way to put into my savings.”

  “And aren’t you fortunate that you get to have savings,” Lilly said. She washed her hands with that new Ivory soap, and the scent tickled Jessie’s nose. She sneezed.

  “I want to buy one of those Directorie dresses, from Paris. Sheaths, I think they call them.” She winked at Selma.

  Her mother gasped. “I saw a drawing of one in the paper. Police had to rescue the poor woman in Chicago who wore one. No petticoats, the material cleaved to her body. She might just as well have been…”

  “Not naked,” Jessie finished for her. “The material merely emphasized the beauty of the human form. She wore a Merry Widow hat too, Mama,” Jessie said. “And some said she had on fishnet stockings, whatever those are.”

  “Save your money for the poor people who survived that Japanese steamer that sank, or for the poor immigrants whose fathers are in the north woods while they survive here without kith or kin to help them. You’ll not wear such a thing in my house.”

  “I’ll dress at Voe’s then,” Jessie said. Her mother shook her finger at her. “I’m teasing you, Mama. It’s way too much money anyway, but I do like to look at them. The design makes the models look so tall.”

  “I could hardly focus on their height with every other curve in their anatomy out there for all to see.”

  “What I’m saving for, Lilly, is my own real camera, that I can take out of the studio and make plates from. Until then, I’m only an amateur photographer, not a professional one. I want variation in my subjects. It’s not satisfying to reproduce print after print that looks like it could have been done in any studio.”

  “The picture Mr. Bauer took of you wasn’t just some cookie-cutter portrait. I’d never seen anything like that one before,” Lilly said.

  Jessie sent a look to silence Lilly, nodded toward her mother, then redirected the subject. “Amateurs see photographs as art more than as a scientific rendition. I read that in an article, and it made sense to me. I don’t always know how to talk to Mr. Bauer about how I want to make photographs, and while I work for him I feel required to make the studio shots the way he wants them. But on my own, when I carry my own little camera, well, I see living people doing things. Action.”

  She pointed to the photograph of the baptism, and Lilly followed her hand to the print. “Look at their smiles,” Jessie continued. “And how bold the one girl stands with her hands on her hips, staring right at me. Only one girl is dressed in white. She’s an outsider.”

  “Or was late for the planning meeting,” Lilly said.

  “See how she stepped back so all I got of her was her face and the white bow in her hair? You have to look closely to see her dress hidden behind all the other girls. They all look so…alive, so happy, which is what should happen in a baptism, shouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose so,” her mother agreed.

  “And the people on the shore, they’re cheering them on. They likely brought the girls, and when I have this picture made for them and purchased for five cents, they’ll always have a memory of that day.”

  “So amateurs make photographs for memories,” Lilly said. “And professionals make photographs for income. Amateurs expect people to spend a lot of money on something you can keep in your mind.”

  “But my mind gets filled up. Doesn’t yours? And if I can make a picture, as a painter does, then all that matters of that time will be preserved. You know I can’t draw very well. I can’t sing like Selma. You have to help me sew, Lilly. This is what I do.” She pointed to the photograph.

  “You sound like a preacher trying to convince people,” Lilly said. “Or yourself. Or maybe Mr. Bauer. Will he let you make prints of these?”

  “I’ll have to pay, of course, for the plates and paper, but I’ll get that back when I sell the prints. I’ll go to the girls’ homes, Mama. Several already told me their mothers want the pictures.”

  Jessie’s mother shook her head. “In such times, with banks unsettled, a new president being elected and all, I can’t imagine families spending money on such frivolity just so you can buy a camera.”

  “I’ve been reading about women photographers, Mama. There are a lot of them. One even lives way out in Washington. She raises her children, she teaches, she paints, and she makes art photographs that are beautiful. They move people. That’s what I want to do too, but I’m practical. I’ll hold down however many jobs I must in order to do what I want.”

  “You’ll have to hold several,” Lilly said. “But how you’ll ever get enough money saved to make your living doing what you love, well, that’s just a dream. Women’s dreams rarely come true.”

  “Mine will. I want to do this on
my own, and I’ll not let anyone stand in my way.”

  “Is someone standing in your way? I wonder who that might be. You or someone else?”

  Jessie picked up her print. It was becoming annoying, but she couldn’t always answer Lilly’s probing questions.

  The truth was, FJ had not liked her baptism picture. He found fault with the setting—girls standing in water up to their ankles—and with the way she’d cut one girl off at the side while having plenty of room at the other end. “You didn’t frame it well,” he added. “You should see what you want to take right through the lens and have it centered.”

  “I like it off center,” she said. They were in the kitchen area of the studio, and Jessie had fixed tea for him and Voe. They sat at the table before the morning duties began. At least when they met like this he treated the girls as though they were…adults, able to articulate what they wanted and to negotiate.

  “See,” Jessie continued, “I have the trees to the left and the bathhouse to the right to set the composition.”

  Mr. Bauer continued to shake his head. “I think it best if you don’t show me these…works. They’re disturbing, not properly posed.”

  Jessie sat up straight. “I was about to ask if I might make prints from them, in your darkroom, by taking photos of the photos.”

  Mr. Bauer stared at her. “I think not.”

  “I’d find a way to pay for the plates and the chemicals. I’m not asking to do this for free.” Purchasing the solutions would take money from her camera fund, but if she couldn’t make copies of the image, she’d fail on her first order of real business: the requests for the baptism prints.