And you could use a friend her father said I’m too busy I have responsibilities She used her most adult voice I know you do Too many in fact You need to have some fun But you’d better be off or you’ll be late for school Oh don’t worry I’m sure the school wouldn’t dare to start before I got there You sound awfully important her father said with a smile You have no idea how important I am in that place And how popular Why I’m the most popular person in school It just can’t run without me With that Sadie turned around and headed to the front hall to pick up her satchel Sadie and her father lived in a small house on Radford Avenue just a few blocks from High Park In 1925 Toronto was a city of horse drawn wagons and rickety streetcars and noisy Model T Fords Electrical wires crossed overhead from pole to pole like spiderwebs It was a city of red brick and gray stone and small houses lined in rows but big houses too There were hotels and movie palaces and department stores and factories with tall chimneys spewing smoke Boys wore knee-length breeches and girls wore dresses Even Sadie Menken who liked to spend her time catching frogs and climbing trees wore a dress and stockings and well-shined shoes To Sadie High Park was the best thing about the city It was so big it was almost a country of its own It was part valley part forest and part plains Here and there were clearings for a playground a garden a picnic area a tennis court Small streams trickled south down the
slope towards Grenadier Pond at the bottom Sadie would have spent all her time in the park after school if she didn’t have to deliver pies There are many stories about children without a mother or a father or both A reader might think that every child in the world was an orphan And yet here is another for Sadie Menken had lost her own mother That was how her father put it Lost But she wasn’t dead Instead she had left them for the dream of becoming a Broadway actress in New York She hadn’t yet become a big star but she hadn’t come back either Sadie could barely remember her Sadie loved her father and only wished that he wasn’t so busy As a pie maker he had to get up at five in the morning to begin rolling out the dough and warming up the ovens By the time Sadie got up he had already finished his first batch He made pies in many varieties depending on the fruit in season rhubarb strawberry cherry peach plum blueberry apple His pies were delicious and he had a standing order from the King Edward Hotel as well as several restaurants and private homes He would bake all day pausing only to make dinner after which he would spend an hour preparing for the next day before falling into bed exhausted Sadie knew how hard her father worked When she was little she would keep him company sitting on a stool and chatting as she played with a ball of dough But as she got older she began to help Now she could roll out the dough cut up the fruit make the cross hatches in the top of the pie to let out the steam as it baked But her main job happened after school Every day she delivered six or eight pies to houses in the neighborhood She had an old Red Bird delivery bicycle with a square iron basket between the handlebars where the pie boxes could be stacked Although she was small Sadie had grown used to pedaling the heavy bicycle and
keeping it steady so as not to damage the pies Her route took her through the nearby streets where the grandest houses stood lived in by rich bankers and businessmen The last pie always went to the house of Mr Theodore Kendrick whose handsome stone residence stood on a rise just one block from the park It was in this house that a boy always stood in an upper window watching Sadie as she climbed off her bicycle The same boy she had complained to her father about He would scurry from one window to another to see her better as she carried the pie box through the open gate past the front door and around to the servants entrance There she would knock on the door and wait for the maid The boy would look through the nearest window and wave his fingers at her He had a round face and bangs and to Sadie looked like a smiling pie plate On this afternoon Sadie passed through the Kendricks gate as usual went around to the side door and banged the knocker Sure enough the boy appeared only this time he looked at her through a brass spyglass She waited and knocked again At last the door opened to reveal not the maid but the boy himself He was wearing a blue and white sailor suit complete with little hat and ribbon Good afternoon he said I’m Theodore Kendrick Junior But everyone calls me Theo Junior And I’m one of Santa’s elves You’re the pie maker’s daughter You’re the bee’s knees in that outfit You think so Of course not You look ridiculous Perhaps another boy might have shown that his feelings were hurt but Theo Junior just looked at Sadie thoughtfully I wasn’t sure My
mother sent it by steamship from Paris Here’s your pie Sadie said Be careful If you drop it you still have to pay I’m sure it’s scrumptious Theodore Junior said They always are All this pie Sadie said is making you fat I’m naturally round It runs in the family My father says that we’re robust But I do have an exercise trainer And I have a cello instructor and an astronomy teacher and But Sadie had already turned around She marched to her bicycle and rode back the way she had come Perhaps the boy’s feelings were hurt Whose wouldn’t be
