Mama glanced up from her sewing.
Her father took a seat at the table. “Did you make the team?”
“Doesn’t matter because I’m not going to do it. There’s too much to do here.”
“It’s true, you have responsibilities, but you’ve always loved to run. Is this something you want to do?” Mama asked.
“No, ma’am.”
Mama placed her mending on the table and shook out her hands, exchanging a look with Papa. “It strikes me that your sisters and brother are getting old enough to handle themselves a bit . . .” Her voice trailed off. The ticking of the kitchen clock filled the room. “Listen, Louise, what happened with Grace was an accident. It’s too big a burden for a girl your age to carry.”
“It’s too big a burden for anyone to carry,” Papa said in a low tone.
Mama bowed her head a moment. When she raised it, her eyes were shiny and she reached for Louise’s hand.
“Dr. Conway said your running was a sight to behold. What you’ve got is a God-given gift, it is,” Papa said. An unmistakable glow of pride showed on his face.
Mama’s hands, dry and calloused, gripped Louise’s tightly. “As long as you keep up on your schoolwork, you have our blessing to try this, see what happens. You’ll be going to the high school this fall. Seems like a good time to let your brother and sisters take on more responsibility.”
“But they—”
“I’ll handle them. It’ll be fine.”
Louise considered how she had felt leading the pack as she raced past Coach Quain. For those few minutes, the pit of sorrow and guilt she carried had dulled. The self-consciousness she felt about her dark skin had eased. Her mind quieted and she existed only as a body in motion, powerful and free. She wanted to feel that way again.
She nodded. “I’ll try it.”
THE CHICAGO EVENING STANDARD
July 30, 1928
“Dispatch from the IX Olympiad: What’s the Matter with the Americans?”
Amsterdam—American athletes have always run roughshod over the rest of the world in track and field events, but in the most stunning reversal in Olympic history, the men from the United States are experiencing one setback after another. Before shoving off from New York, Major Gen. MacArthur insisted his American team had nine gold medals “all sewn up,” but that prediction appears to be unraveling as three of those nine events have already been won by other countries. At this rate, the American flag won’t be waved from the winner’s podium once. Team managers and coaches are quick to point out that Amsterdam does not have its facilities ready, and the team is stuck living aboard the S.S. President Roosevelt and contending with everything from a leaky pool to tennis courts of differing sizes to a swampy track. Dutch engineers are busy at work fixing the venues.
When Olympic officials advised the women’s swim and dive teams to train in the harbor, they headed to Paris on a shopping excursion. “If they think I’m dipping a toe into that icky water,” said perky fourteen-year-old swimming champion Miss Eleanor Holm of California, “they have another think coming!”
The dreary weather is also being blamed as less than ideal for peak performances, but all nations are training under the same sky, and rain clouds do not appear to be targeting only the American athletes.
Team managers have been grumbling about the lack of recovery time for the athletes. “With the Olympic trials a mere couple of days before departing for Europe, our fellows had to work too hard to qualify and now they’re out of steam,” explains one coach. And it is not just the men. Uncle Sam’s fleetest sprinter, Miss Elta Cartwright of California, is sick, leaving the door open for one of Canada’s speedy lady runners to win gold.
But aside from unfinished facilities, bad weather, and illness, reports are surfacing that the main problem for American athletes might be that they are spending too much time in the buffet line aboard the S.S. President Roosevelt. It seems our athletes have been under the false impression that pie eating has been added as an Olympic event! In fact, the ship’s supply of ice cream ran out midway across the Atlantic. At last check with the team’s coaching staff, eating dessert does not count as training.
When asked if he wanted to revise his initial prediction about the team’s success, Major Gen. MacArthur responded, “We have not come three thousand miles to lose gracefully, but rather to win, and win decisively. Just wait and see.”
Well, we’re waiting.
5.
July 1928
Fulton, Missouri
DR. McCUBBIN HADN’T BEEN JOKING WHEN HE TOLD Helen that her summer would be quiet. She felt like she had been stuck in bed forever. Through the languid days of July, Helen read The Boxcar Children. She read it so many times, she started creating her own stories about Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny in her head, but one morning Ma left The Missouri Daily Observer next to Helen’s bed, and she picked it up. The paper was a couple weeks old, but it was something different.
Helen thumbed through the sections until she noticed an article titled “Chicago’s Betty Robinson to Sail for the Olympics,” and read about a sixteen-year-old girl from Chicago who could run so fast that she was being sent to Amsterdam, a small city in the Netherlands, to compete against athletes from every far-flung country on earth. Argentina, Estonia, Egypt, India, Japan, New Zealand, Rhodesia, South Africa—yes, everywhere, it seemed.
Helen reached to her dresser and pulled her beloved globe onto her lap. Mama often quizzed her on the locations of various countries and cities and Helen had won a school geography bee the previous year. She spun the globe so the United States faced her and then she leaned in. She found Chicago and traced the letters of its name crawling across the blue of Lake Michigan. Slowly, she rotated the globe, sliding her index finger across the wide expanse of the Atlantic until she reached the coast of Europe and the huge green expanse of France. Just north lay a tiny blob of yellow marked Belgium and, above that, there was a splotch of pink labeled Netherlands. Quite a distance separated Chicago from the Netherlands. What would it be like to get on a ship and travel so far from home?
Helen placed the globe on the bedspread next to her and clutched the newspaper closer, scanning the article to find where it described how athletes from countries all over the world would convene to participate in a series of competitions. All thoughts of The Boxcar Children paled next to the cast of characters described in the newspaper article. Boxers. Cyclists. Gymnasts. Equestrians. Soccer and field hockey players. Most of the athletes would be men, but a small group of women would also be competing, including Betty. This would be the first time women could compete in track and field events.
A grainy photograph of the girl from Chicago caught Helen’s eye. A man stood next to her. Even in the black-and-white image, anyone could plainly see how tightly his arm wrapped around the girl’s shoulders, how wide his smile stretched. According to the article, the man was the girl’s father and it quoted him saying, “Without any sons, I never imagined I’d have a girl competing in athletics. I couldn’t be prouder of her.”
Helen read his quote over and over. She couldn’t imagine her stern-eyed father ever saying something similar. Frank Stephens didn’t believe in spending time on doling out compliments. His life was one of singular focus: farming. He believed in operating his 140-acre farm the old-fashioned way: with guts and muscle. No newfangled John Deere machines for him, thank you very much. Even at ten years old, Helen understood that part of Pa’s disdain for tractors and threshers stemmed from his inability to pay for the equipment. He farmed his land with a horse and plow and dismissed what he called “the easy way to a dollar.”