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see.” Neck on fire, Lee felt all eyes turned on him.
    One of the men started to speak, but Pearl cut him off, “If he wants barley water, it’ll be barley water. You jugheads could digest nails.”
    The men around him laughed and Lee felt intense relief. Soon he was having a congenial exchange with them as he sipped his barley water and enjoyed his thick sandwich of sliced sausage on fresh bread.
    An older man farther down the bar pointed his pipe in Lee’s direction. “You sound like you come from out East. What do you think of our Chicago?”
    â€œIt is truly a modern city—policemen, fire hydrants, gaslights on the street corners.” Lee bowed with mock formality. “But why do some sidewalks here go up and down like hills?”
    The old man took a draw on his pipe. “Chicago was built on a swamp. They couldn’t do nothing about the land being so low and muddy so they shaved off a hill nearby and used it to fill up the main part of town—to make it level.”
    Lee paused with his glass to his lips. “They filled it in? With the buildings already there?”
    â€œPullman did that,” Pearl broke in while she refilled a glass. “I seen it when I was a girl. He had a thousand men put large wooden screw lifts under the foundations.”
    The old man caught Lee’s eye. “Like the Hotel Tremont. That Pullman fella, he blew a whistle and they’d all give one turn. Another whistle, another turn.”
    â€œYou’re kidding me,” Lee said with a grin.
    â€œNo, he did it. With people staying in the hotel the whole time,” Pearl cut in, “just like nothing was happening.”
    Lee shook his head. Though a row of small tables lined the wall, most of the men mingled around the bar. The conversation around him turned back to baseball and some wagering over the White Stockings’ chances. Lee tried to come up with a way to get close to Jessie. In the homey-feeling tavern, a few posters announcing today’s ball game were pinned on the back wall.
    Lee stared at the posters and suddenly he pictured Jessie talking about her boy’s interest in baseball. She’d actually smiled. The son is the key to the mother. And baseball is the key to the boy. Lee stood up straighter. “Where’s the baseball field from here, Pearl?”
    â€œDown by the lake, near the river,” she answered. “You can’t miss it.”
    The hour passed and the lunch crowd trickled out on their way to nearby factories. Finally, Lee handed Pearl a dime. “Keep the change.”
    â€œThanks, mister. Come in for another barley water any time.”
    Lee tipped his hat and walked out, whistling. At last, he knew what to do.
    Â 
    That afternoon at Drexel Park, the breeze off Lake Michigan was brisk. From a block away, Lee sized up the park’s wide open view of spring’s early green lawn and the lake’s white-capped blue waves, dazzling in the sun. Optimism had returned. He looked for the boy.
    The first pitch of the baseball game had already taken place when he reached the field. No Linc. But school hours were still on; he saw only a few scruffy-looking truants among the men. While he waited for Linc to arrive, he leaned back against a sturdy elm and surveyed the Chicago White Stockings in their striking white cotton stockings and spanking white knickers, at their first exhibition game.
    The crack of the bat uncorked a rush of undiluted nostalgia. How many impromptu baseball games had he played in the army? Days of waiting between battles and campaigns…
    A wagon on the nearby street creaked loudly over a bump. A picture flashed from Lee’s memory. A rough horse-drawn ambulancebumping over a rutted road and a steady trickle of scarlet blood spilling from inside the wagon bed onto the dust.
    He shuttered his mind against the images. I am alive and in Chicago. I have eight dollars in my pocket. It won’t last very