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" An exclusive excerpt from the soon-to-be-published novel A Star for Mrs. Blake by April Smith. Deer Isle, Maine, 1931. Cora Blake was not planning on going to Paris that spring. Or in her lifetime. She was the librarian in a small town on the tip of an island off the coast of Maine, which didn&amp;#039;t mean she&amp;#039;d never traveled. She had been born off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, but now she roamed only in books. Summer people from North Carolina and Boston would stop by the quaint old library building to chat and would wonder how she could stand to live in such a tiny place with those terrible winters. &amp;quot;I have everything I want right on the island,&amp;quot; she&amp;#039;d say. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re so off the beaten path, you&amp;#039;ve got to be satisfied with the way it is.&amp;quot; Since the crash of &amp;#039;29 the county had stopped paying her salary, but Cora kept on librarying two days a week for free. She did it for the sociability and out of duty to her readers, but she was as hard up for cash as anybody. That was why when the whistle blew at Healy&amp;#039;s cannery, it sounded like Gabriel himself swinging out on the horn. It was 5 A.M. in the pit of February. The cannery had been silent two weeks, but now the whistle was piercing the bleat of the foghorn. Wake up! it shrilled. There&amp;#039;s work! Fish has to be put up right away or it will spoil. Nobody moaned about it, with so many out of jobs, but they had just 30 minutes to dress and put out food for the family before the second whistle started up, scolding them out the door. By then the cannery bus would be leaving, and if you missed it, good night and good luck. Entering the icy kitchen made her grateful for the millionth time to her pragmatic mother, who had sailed through the Panama Canal as Captain Frederick Harding&amp;#039;s wife on the windjammer Lara Leigh, delivering molasses and timber and sometimes chartered for the pleasure of wealthy businessmen. When they returned to the island, Luella raised Cora and her sister with the self-reliance she&amp;#039;d learned at sea. She taught them, for example, that you always got the stove ready before you went to bed. It was an island tradition for the man of the house to lay the fire, but Captain Harding would be gone for months, and so it became a mother-daughter ritual to whittle the sticks of pine into clean-smelling curls. Every night Cora did the same, using the old jackknife to turn out perfect spirals. It gave her that feeling of safekeeping. And in the morning the stove always lit with just one match. She got the kettle steaming and lit a lantern on the oilcloth-covered table. The light fell on the lush jacket illustration of Treasure Island, sitting on top of the pile she&amp;#039;d brought home to read to her nieces. One thing about librarying was you could take home whatever you pleased off the shelves. Treasure Island was one of her favorites. Her father had read it out loud to her, she&amp;#039;d read it to her son, Sammy, and later on he&amp;#039;d read it back to Grandpa Harding\u2014 The second whistle startled her back to life, and she hastily swallowed her cornbread, took her mackinaw from its peg, and closed the kitchen door firmly against the wind. Cora&amp;#039;s job was to cut the heads and tails off sardines with scissors. It was just her luck to be on the assembly line across from Essie Jordan, president of the Martha Washington Temperance Society, a hodgepodge of angry wives who were fed up with living with drunken men. Some, like Essie, seemed mad as hell at just about everything. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m telling you for your own good,&amp;quot; Essie said. She had to shout above the clatter of trays of cooked sardines coming out of the ovens. &amp;quot;Your brother-in-law is askin&amp;#039; for it, just right-out flaunting the law.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Just what are you referring to?&amp;quot; With Big Ole Uncle Percy there were always possibilities: stealing lobster traps, spitting, shooting at the racket boys up in Biddleboro\u2014 &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m referring,&amp;quot; Essie said archly, &amp;quot;to importing illegal alcohol. As if you didn&amp;#039;t know.&amp;quot; Percy was only getting his small draft of the spoils of Prohibition, a brisk business on the craggy coast of Maine. Cora would not give Essie Jordan the satisfaction of drawing blood; she kept her eyes on her work. &amp;quot;Essie, it&amp;#039;s no shame that your own husband was arrested for disturbing the peace. He&amp;#039;s not the only man who likes to take a drink.&amp;quot; The blue eyes fired. &amp;quot;Men are weak. That&amp;#039;s why decent women fight against the devil alcohol. You think it don&amp;#039;t affect you because you ain&amp;#039;t married.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;You know full well my husband died. It was a long time ago,&amp;quot; Cora added with a twist of bitterness. &amp;quot;I know you was married,&amp;quot; Essie sneered. &amp;quot;The point is, now you ain&amp;#039;t.&amp;quot; The trays of fish kept coming. Essie&amp;#039;s jab had been aimed at Cora&amp;#039;s friendship with Linwood Moody, a soil scientist she&amp;#039;d known since high school, who&amp;#039;d recently lost his wife. They&amp;#039;d been seen around town together, so what? You called bean supper in the church basement a tryst? Still, Cora&amp;#039;s stomach clenched at the attack. It was like Essie ate mustard for breakfast. There was only one way to put the woman out of her misery. &amp;quot;Essie?&amp;quot; Cora shouted. &amp;quot;How&amp;#039;s your rugging coming?&amp;quot; Essie was an expert at making rag rugs. Her coils were so tight, it was like she turned old bedsheets into steel cables. &amp;quot;Comin&amp;#039; fine, I guess.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Memories in every braid, isn&amp;#039;t that the truth?&amp;quot; With no response from Essie, Cora plunged ahead: &amp;quot;Say, did you know I&amp;#039;m going to be chairman of the July 4th church fair?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Ain&amp;#039;t you always?&amp;quot; Cora bit her lip and let it pass. &amp;quot;How would you like to take over the Crafts Committee?&amp;quot; Essie blinked. Her eyes scanned the room with suspicion. &amp;quot;You&amp;#039;re asking me to run it?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Nobody knows more about textiles than you. I&amp;#039;ll bet you could draw in some good people. What say?&amp;quot; Essie took her time in answering, keeping it close to her chest, as if to prolong the warmth before it bolted off like one of her black cats. Just then, the steamy room filled with daylight. Everyone looked up in surprise at the town postmaster, Eli Grimble, standing in the open doorway. Mr. Healy shook his hand, expecting a bundle of mail, but Eli Grimble kept peering into the dimness until he sighted Cora Blake. She had been staring right at him as if with some kind of second sense. Mr. Healy motioned for her to step forward, and the eyes of all the other packers followed. Now she was outside in the cold, fresh air, and the drifts of snow were tinged with sunset. &amp;quot;Went by your house,&amp;quot; Eli began. &amp;quot;You have a letter. From the U.S. Government.&amp;quot; He held out an official envelope with her name neatly typed. &amp;quot;The government? Whatever for?&amp;quot; Mr. Healy leaned over her shoulder. &amp;quot;Paid your taxes, Mrs. Blake?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Of course I paid my taxes!&amp;quot; Cora said. When she realized that the letter was from the War Department, she had an unnerving sensation, as if the ground were tilting under her feet. It was the same as when the envelope had contained a handwritten note from the Adjunct General&amp;#039;s Office saying that Samuel Blake, her only child, had been killed in action in Montfaucon, France. There&amp;#039;d been no snow yet, as it was October 1918, near the end of the war. Eli had come all the way out to Tide&amp;#039;s End Farm to deliver the news, along with the minister and Doc Newcomb. &amp;quot;What&amp;#039;s going on?&amp;quot; Mr. Healy asked. The postmaster shrugged. &amp;quot;Seems important.&amp;quot; Cora made them wait while she took her time reading the letter. Finally she looked up and smiled broadly, maybe the first time she&amp;#039;d ever looked happy in that place. &amp;quot;I won&amp;#039;t be needing work this spring, Mr. Healy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Pleased to know that. Meanwhile, you got plenty of work today,&amp;quot; he said, and he walked toward the factory. &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t you care to know the reason why?&amp;quot; said Cora. Eli Grimble leaned close. &amp;quot;You can tell me,&amp;quot; he offered, the biggest gossip in town. &amp;quot;Mr. Healy!&amp;quot; she called with an exuberance she&amp;#039;d never dared before. The boss dug his boots in the slush and turned with exaggerated patience. &amp;quot;I guess you&amp;#039;ll tell me whether I like it or not. All right. Why?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going on a trip.&amp;quot; A group of curious packers had gathered in the doorway. Cora said it loud enough so all of them could hear. Especially Essie Jordan. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m going to Paris,&amp;quot; she announced. &amp;quot;On an ocean liner. First class.&amp;quot;  There was never any question in Cora&amp;#039;s mind that she&amp;#039;d be on that boat. The War Department had pledged to send any mothers or widows of loved ones killed during the war and buried overseas to visit their graves in the American cemeteries in Europe. How could she not stand up and be counted? She had a duty to Sammy, as well as to the country. She knew it, clear as day. The decision had come easier than the choice she&amp;#039;d been forced to make when her grief was fresh \u2014 whether to have Sammy&amp;#039;s body shipped home or permanently interred in France. Everyone in town had an opinion. Some said yes, to show America&amp;#039;s commitment to her allies. Some thought hell, no, bring the boys back where they belonged and never should have left in the first place. In the end, the War Department left the choice to the families. Cora yearned to ask her father&amp;#039;s advice, but he&amp;#039;d died the spring just before Sammy had enlisted, and so she heeded the words of Theodore Roosevelt. He and his wife had decided that their son Quentin should be buried over there and strongly urged other parents to do the same. &amp;quot;Mrs. Roosevelt and I have always believed that where the tree falls, there let it lay,&amp;quot; he wrote. It was a poetic image that appealed to Cora&amp;#039;s good sense \u2014 things die and go back to nature. But was it too much to ask for yet another sacrifice \u2014 after losing Sammy in the first place, not to have his marker in the town cemetery next to her parents and sister in the Blake family plot? Not to be able to stop by for a visit any time she pleased? A decision was called for, and she&amp;#039;d have to make it on her own. It was a fair day in March 1919, four months after Armistice. There was chop in the harbor out to the bay. Cora had been walking north on Eaton Road over to Elizabeth Pascoe&amp;#039;s to buy her scrumptious maple sausage. She&amp;#039;d received two cards from the Graves Registration Service. The first gave the location of Sammy&amp;#039;s temporary burial \u2014 a place called Chaudron Farm, map reference 78.6-02.4, although of course she didn&amp;#039;t have a map. He was in grave number 72, identified by his dog tags apparently nailed to a stake. The second card asked that she state her relationship to the deceased and answer the question Do you desire the remains be brought to the United States? In the spent garden of the last house before a stretch of woods, she came upon the turpentiney odor of geraniums, which, even when they&amp;#039;re bright with flowers, can bring on a melancholy mood. Instead of going straight to Elizabeth&amp;#039;s, she took a right at the Cross Road, which led to the town cemetery. Mrs. Pascoe, Elizabeth&amp;#039;s mother, had been walking in the road as well, but the poor thing didn&amp;#039;t know where she was. Cora stopped and buttoned her cardigan for her, speaking calmly about ordinary things. Battered blue veins showed through the thin skin at the old woman&amp;#039;s temples as if the endurance it took to stay alive had become visible. Mrs. Pascoe said she was going to the hospital. She meant she was going to die, as she was walking toward the cemetery also. Cora waved at Elizabeth, who was running after her mother. A hundred-foot sycamore marked the entrance in the rock wall around the graveyard. Nothing moved in this timeless place but shadows. Cora strolled between the stones, familiar as the houses on her street, calmed by a porous quiet that let in just birdsong. Lost at sea, November 3, 1845. Drowned in Havana, June 15, 1893. Many of the inscriptions were too worn to be read. As if a veil were being lifted, Cora began to accept the possibility that Sammy might not be buried here. It was not his place. He&amp;#039;d been a young man just making his way. Behind that veil was a parade of patriotic ideals, a drumbeat of Americanism that solidified the image in her mind: He deserves to be in the field of honor in France. He made the world safe for democracy, and he should be part of that future \u2014 the future of a peaceful world. He was an American hero, loyal to his friends, never hesitating to fight for what was right. Good Lord, he&amp;#039;d always been like that, even when he was 9 years old. It must have been around eight o&amp;#039;clock on a bitter cold night. Cora had been at her sewing table and had looked up to see two pairs of headlights. There were only two cars on the island; one belonged to the doctor and the other to the sheriff. Both were on their way to her door. Sammy had been warned about salt water ice. The danger was drilled into every local child. If you fell through the ice on the Lily Pond, you had a reasonable chance of staying put, but when the harbor froze, even if it was two feet thick, there would still be strong ocean currents raging underneath. You&amp;#039;d get dragged under and swept all the way to China. An Irish family with five rough boys had moved next door to the yellow stonecutter&amp;#039;s cottage. They were from Boston and therefore smarter than Sammy and his friends, and had more tricks, too. That day it had been 15 below. The harbor had congealed into a solid glacier all the way out to Isle au Haut. The temptation to walk across from end to end was like a free bowl of jelly beans. The boys from Boston challenged the locals to a race. No sleds, no skates. Boots only. Nine went out, seven returned \u2014 slipping and falling, snot running down their bright red faces, screaming for help. One of the outsiders, a 10-year-old named Patrick, had stumbled into a hole halfway across and was stuck with his butt in freezing water and his feet up on the ice, arms flailing, unable to move. The other was lying on his belly, on liquefying frost a couple of feet away, trying to reach him with a flung-out scarf. That was Sammy. Sheriff Lundt and Doc Newcomb trooped him inside like a prisoner, wrapped in a blanket, tiny ice particles in his hair and shaking with cold. Cora slid across the floor to get him safely inside her arms, and Sammy held on. His poor ear was like a block of ice against her cheek, and his lips were thin and blue. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m sorry, Mama.&amp;quot; She soothed him, &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t worry, as long as you&amp;#039;re safe\u2014&amp;quot; and ran for another blanket and propped him up at the kitchen table while she got the kettle on and hot water bottles going. She poured the men big shots of whiskey. Both were riled in the way that came from a near-disaster. They said Sammy deserved a whipping, like the other kids, for even stepping foot on salt water ice. A double whipping, because when they&amp;#039;d shouted at him to get the hell out of there, he&amp;#039;d refused to budge, stubbornly attempting to reach the boy with the hopelessly wet scarf. They&amp;#039;d had to make a human chain and rescue two boys, as by that time Sammy could barely stand up on his own. Why he&amp;#039;d risk his life for &amp;quot;people from away&amp;quot; coming into their waters and stealing traps, they couldn&amp;#039;t comprehend. &amp;quot;They don&amp;#039;t belong here,&amp;quot; Sheriff Lundt said. Sammy couldn&amp;#039;t stop shivering, but his eyes were defiant and his fists clenched. &amp;quot;Patrick&amp;#039;s my buddy,&amp;quot; he told the men to their skeptical faces. &amp;quot;You always go back for your buddy.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;He&amp;#039;s your buddy?&amp;quot; mocked the sheriff. &amp;quot;What about your mama? What about the heartache you caused her?&amp;quot; Cora straightened her back. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m proud of what he did,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;I think he showed fast thinking for a boy his age.&amp;quot; Sammy didn&amp;#039;t look at her, but her hand was on his shoulder, and she could tell he was glad she&amp;#039;d said it. The doctor advised warm liquids and bed rest. They got up to leave, and at the door he said, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s not your fault, Cora. A boy needs a man around to discipline him.&amp;quot; It left her with a sick feeling, as if it really was her fault, going back to the choice she&amp;#039;d made, against everyone&amp;#039;s expectations, to raise the boy with her parents \u2014 without the husband, who obviously wasn&amp;#039;t here to give her son the whipping he deserved. Sammy didn&amp;#039;t understand all that, but he did feel the rebuke aimed at his mama. &amp;quot;I hate them,&amp;quot; he murmured, his eyes drooping with fatigue. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m leaving and never coming back.&amp;quot; Cora told him that was fine, after he had a hot bath.  The shadows moved. Cora&amp;#039;s knuckles ached from the dampness of the creek bed, and she realized it was late afternoon. Leaving the cemetery, she resolved to have her son buried overseas, but not without a sharp stab of doubt that she had betrayed something else deep within. She&amp;#039;d have nothing in her hands of him. This was truly the &amp;quot;final sacrifice,&amp;quot; as the papers called it. She&amp;#039;d given up the baby that had come from her body \u2014 and yet she felt she had surrendered something in favor of what was more important. Important to whom? To the country, she told herself emphatically. Not the sort of person who liked to waste time, she went directly to the post office and sent a telegram to the War Department giving her permission to permanently inter Sammy in the American military cemetery. When it was over, she stepped outside the post office and took long, calming breaths of salt air. She took in the untouched rhythm of the village, safe from harm because of young men like Sammy. She felt almost giddy with relief, righteous and blessed. Blessed by Teddy Roosevelt. A few weeks later, Cora received a letter titled &amp;quot;Disposition of Body&amp;quot; that gave the location of Sammy&amp;#039;s permanent grave: #136, Section 20, Plot 3, Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, Meuse. She felt an odd liberation in knowing exactly where he was. In a cabinet of folders in the Adjunct General&amp;#039;s Office was a carbon copy of Cora&amp;#039;s application to join the American Gold Star Mothers, a national organization chartered by Congress at the end of the war. It was open to mothers of sons or daughters who had served in the Allied Forces and died as the result of that service. Cora had typed her answers to their questions on the library Remington: Natural father of veteran (&amp;quot;Curtis Blake, deceased&amp;quot;); Cause of death of veteran (&amp;quot;Killed in action&amp;quot;); Remarks (&amp;quot;Cited for gallantry&amp;quot;). When Herbert Hoover had signed the Pilgrimage Bill in 1930, assigning $5 million for the government-sponsored pilgrimages, Cora had been found eligible to go. The letter she&amp;#039;d been thrilled to receive in the dead of winter at Healy&amp;#039;s cannery contained the confirmation date of her trip \u2014 June 22, 1931. At that point, it was no longer grief that pushed her; it was pride, and she was surprised by the force of it. She had supposed she had reconciled those feelings long ago, but they must have been slowly uncurling in her mind like coils of dry kindling in the stove, because with one hot breath, they burst into a ball of fire. The moment she read that letter \u2014 she was really going! \u2014 she felt deep kinship with thousands of women she&amp;#039;d never met. The women were from all walks of life, but what they had in common was this: They&amp;#039;d each gone to the front window and taken down that blue-star banner symbolizing hope and pride, one star for every family member in service. Most likely they&amp;#039;d made it themselves, of cotton or felt or crochet. Then one day they accepted the lonely task of replacing the blue star with one of gold. Gold meant sacrifice to the cause of liberty and freedom. They hadn&amp;#039;t asked for this, but they&amp;#039;d shouldered this responsibility without protest, as stoically as their children had rested a rifle against their chests. They had each been alone, but no longer. Cora had straight away written to the president of the New England chapter of the American Gold Star Mothers offering to help. The answer she received was a surprise. The reply came from Mrs. Genevieve Olsen of Cambridge, Massachusetts. In response to Cora&amp;#039;s imploring letters, Mrs. Olsen offered her the position of &amp;quot;member coordinator&amp;quot; for Party A \u2014 a job Mrs. Olsen had made up specially to accommodate this &amp;quot;determined gal from Maine.&amp;quot; Late evening, early spring 1931. The tide was out, the harbor calm under a cold mist. The shops were closed. The only light still burning on Main Street was in the library. It was past closing time, but Cora wasn&amp;#039;t there on library business. She was hoping Linwood Moody would drop by. He was a lot of fun to be with, and he had promised to bring materials for his talk that weekend on precious stones of Maine \u2014 she&amp;#039;d set out the easel and arranged the chairs \u2014 but mostly she wanted her mind to be clear in order to figure out what to do about the letter from Mrs. Minnie Seibert. Mrs. Seibert was one of the Gold Star Mothers in her delegation. Minnie desperately wanted to make the trip to France \u2014 but her husband wasn&amp;#039;t letting her go. Abraham is on the difficult side, Mrs. Seibert wrote. Isaac always stood up to him. My husband forbade him to join the Army, but Isaac said, &amp;quot;I am an American,&amp;quot; and he joined. It&amp;#039;s been very hard for me. Cora picked up a pen. She wanted to tell Mrs. Seibert she understood \u2014 it had been the same with Sammy. It broke your heart, but what could you do? They were already men. Sadness overcame her, and without knowing it she&amp;#039;d put the pen down. It was the way Sammy had left without a word. Maybe he&amp;#039;d known that if he&amp;#039;d come to say goodbye she&amp;#039;d have broken down. Then he might have, too. What if he&amp;#039;d backed out on the promise he&amp;#039;d made to his buddies? The other boys must have been just as scared, because they&amp;#039;d all gotten stinko and gone up to Portland, and by morning they were in. Cora had almost lost her mind with worry. It wasn&amp;#039;t until three days later that she received a postcard: Dear Ma, I joined the Army to fight the Germans. Don&amp;#039;t worry, I&amp;#039;ll be back soon. Your son, Sammy. He was 16 and lied about his age in order to enlist. It was late in the war. Everyone thought it would be over by Christmas. Sammy was an excellent shot. As a boy he could bring down a deer that would last them the winter. He became a marksman assigned to clear a French village, but his scouting party was ambushed by German machine guns hidden in the trees. It was October 22, 1918, a scant month before Armistice. He was the only island son who died in the war. The whole town mourned. There were two separate services that filled the Opera House on Main Street \u2014 one official, one religious. They named the American Legion post after him. His spirit, what he stood for, carried on. In the tawny light of the library lamp, Cora gripped the pen and bent closer to the papers on her desk, looking for words to convince a perfect stranger to defy her husband and come with people she&amp;#039;d never met to a far-off place that nobody could pronounce. These boys couldn&amp;#039;t have been heroes if their mothers lacked courage, she began. Between 1930 and 1933, the U.S. War Department provided the opportunity for mothers and widows of sons and daughters who died in service during World War I and were buried overseas to visit the American military cemeteries in Europe. In all, 116,516 soldiers were killed, more than 30,000 were buried in U.S. cemeteries abroad, and 6,693 women made the pilgrimage to see their graves. Adapted from A Star for Mrs. Blake. Copyright (c) 2014 by April Smith. Published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House LLC. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a18990/a-star-for-mrs-blake-april-smith/>