Jacob Have I Loved
“So? What does that have to do with Hiram Wallace?”
“Nothing. That’s just it, dummy. Who would want to know about warships?”
“The navy.”
“Call. Don’t you get it?”
“There’s nothing to get.”
“Warships, Call. What better place to spy on warships than from a lonely house right by the water?”
“You read too much.”
“I suppose if someone was to catch a spy they’d take him to the White House and pin medals on him.”
“I never heard of kids catching spies.”
“That’s just it. If two kids were to catch a spy—”
“Wheeze. It’s Hiram Wallace. My grandma knows.”
“She thinks he’s Hiram Wallace. That’s what he wants everyone to think. So they won’t suspect him.”
“Suspect him of what?”
I sighed. It was obvious that he had a long way to go before he was much of a counterspy, while I was putting myself to sleep at night performing incredible feats of daring on behalf of my embattled
country. The amount of medals Franklin D. Roosevelt had either hung around my neck or pinned to my front would have supplied the army with enough metal for a tank. There was a final touch with which I closed the award ceremony.
“Here, Mr. President,” I would say, handing back the medal, “use this for our boys at the front.”
“But, Sara Louise Bradshaw—” Franklin D. Roosevelt for all his faults never failed to call me by my full name. “But, Sara Louise Bradshaw, this medal is yours. You have earned it with your great cunning and bravery. Keep it and hand it down to your children’s children.”
I would smile, a slightly ironic little smile. “Do you think, Mr. President, with the life I lead, that I will live long enough to have children?” That question never failed to reduce Franklin D. Roosevelt to silence touched with awe.
In my dreams I always went in alone, but in real life it seemed selfish. Besides, I was used to doing things with Call.
“Okay, Call. First we got to work out a plan.”
“A plan for what?”
“To catch this kraut in the very act of spying.”
“You’re not going to catch him spying.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s not a spy.”
What can you do with a man who has no faith? “All right. Who is he then? Just answer me that.”
“Hiram Wallace.”
“Good heavens.”
“You’re cussing again. My grandma—”
“I am not cussing. Cussing is like ‘God’ and ‘hell’ and ‘damn.’”