No. 54

Win’s Angel to Stew King (The Hook)

Dear Stewart,

Advent 1939

If you would but listen to your old nanny and maid, Miss Minnie, she will provide you with another path and the shortest way to make a hard turn. She does not know that I write to you, but I know what you are doing both on or off the golf course and everything else in-between and see these unopened letters piling up.

You will be instructed now, if the Holy Spirit so wills it, to put them in a hat box, or yet another unused but better golf bag, but pray you will not even be tempted to put them in the trash receptacles. Yeah, I thought so. I’ve got you now. Don’t make me visit.

Remember Miss Minnie this way.

Standing on platform at the train station in Clinton, Iowa, Minnie DeBoer turned away from the passengers coming off so that she could watch the men throwing bags. She wanted to see straight.

Walking beyond the platform, her boots still on the planks tossed the snow. She saw the freshly scraped tracks, which made her think of the astringents she had used so many times as a domestic servant for the Kings. Someone with nothing better to do might say she was going to jump.

Even at age 74, Miss Minnie was sturdy in her walk, for this, she wanted to be well put together, for this, she was awake from an unusual midday nap and tea, for this, she was already passing through the baggage crew as they unloaded and yelled at her, for this.

Nearly knocking her out with a swinging satchel, a man shouted, “Ma’am, look, you can’t be over here. You’ve got to wait in the station like everyone else.”

He waived his hands and pointed repeatedly, like his co-workers also tried, but he himself was distracted by the arrival of a ladder and a string of temporary Ho-Ho-Ho lights, to be hung in time for Santa Claus, and the cheering of family members, reuniting with their veterans, hobbling crudely.

Ducking with ease under another flying suitcase, she simultaneously stepped over a small mound of canvas bags and walked to the mail car. Railway postal clerks were switching off duty. She walked out even further, now stepping into the yard with the row of catchers. Looked up at the mounted crane, at this, for this hook the men use to catch the sack of mail.

Another clerk on the mail car slammed the door closed.

“Lady,” he yelled as he turned the padlock, “You are not supposed to be here. Authorized personnel only.”

But he had to check his watch, had to flip his gloves away at her, had to button up his coat, had to turn.

It began to snow harder. The hooks had no pouch.

Minnie turned to watch the men working. Pulling. Tossing. Bending. Picking up cases from the cart and dollies. She prayed to move like they did, to make a hard turn like they did. To drop plans. To drop words. To give way to Jesus and drop her finest attachments. To toss, to switch off, and to but move like her light-footed pal, that Railway postal clerk Charles Brother.  

—Guardian

2025 Copyright Christine Friesel