“My belongings!” I answered.
“Your mother’ll never stand for that junk to clutter up her house. You’re a landsman now, Joan, and things is going to be different.” I couldn’t understand why Father didn’t give me the devil instead of talking so low and quiet-like. I thought he was glad to get rid of me because I was always such a worry to him.
The ride on the ferry boat across San Francisco Bay to get a train to Berkeley was an experience I’ll never forget. A crowd gathered around me on the ferry to look at my seagull and the octopus in the can. The kittens squirmed around in their sack but I didn’t open it because I was afraid they’d get away from me. I didn’t realize then that I was a freak sight. I thought all the people who grouped around me wanted to be friends, so I took them into my confidence freely. They smiled and looked at one another as I talked. I was telling them about the South Seas; how I got the little octopus; what the name of our ship was. No one did any talking except me—the crowd just stared at me and listened.
At the Oakland Pier we got a train. The conductor came along and tried to take the seagull and bag of cats away from me. He wanted to put them in the baggage car, but I protested, and he let me keep them. When we arrived in Berkeley Father took a taxi from the station up to my mother’s house. I was all eyes at the surrounding view, the rolling hills, the houses with neat lawns, trolley cars, groups of laughing boys and girls strolling along the streets. I forgot the ship for an instant. In my transport of joy I could think of nothing but my new life.
We got out of the cab in front of a two-story wooden house. We walked up a path and through a gate that had two tall posts on either side of it. On one of them was a weather vane—a whale on a stick that spun around in the wind. It had been there for years and Mother used it to watch for shore winds to blow my father home. A tangled mass of bright-colored flowers lined the walk. A huge climbing vine with flowers the color of South Sea coral hanging from them half covered the porch. They were roses, the first I had ever seen. The appearance of the house made me think of a contented turtle asleep in seaweeds. I couldn’t get enough of the beauty of the garden. I felt Father’s hand tugging at my arm.
“There’s your mother, Joan.”
I looked up, and there I saw my mother standing in the doorway. She was wiping her hands on her apron and crying and laughing all at once. My first impression of her was of a round, chubby little woman—round and delicious, like a duff pudding that looked so good I could eat it. Her skin was very white, her eyes as blue as the water in a lagoon, and the wisps of grey hair that fell on her forehead reminded me of white sea spray. I couldn’t take my eyes off her—my mother! I had seen her five years before when she came to a lumber camp in Oregon to see Father, but the memory of her was blurred. Father’s romantic picture of her was more vivid in my mind than my actual recollection. She was so different from any woman I knew. Dressed in a faded blue house dress with a white collar fastened with a shell pink coral brooch—wiping her hands on her apron—always will that picture remain with me. I didn’t know what to say to her. She was expecting her seafarers home, for Father had telephoned her from San Francisco. Was I as much of a surprise to her as she was to me? I expected my mother to be gruff like Father but her voice was gentle—she was all softness.
What did daughters do when they met their mothers?
Father threw his arms around Mother and lifted her from the floor. He hadn’t seen her for five years! I felt a twinge of jealousy at being left out. I had always been most important to Father and Mother was usurping my place. She left Father’s arms and gathered me to her. Her hands were so soft and smooth they felt funny as they petted me. She seemed so weak compared with sailors. Her arms didn’t have as much strength as one of my toes. Physical strength was my ideal and she did not have it. I knew she was somebody wonderful but she was going to have to prove it.
“Speak to your mother,” Father said.