Mary Emma & Company

by Ralph Moody

  Uncle Levi was the only one besides Mother who ever called Grace “Gracie.” She’d have skinned anybody else who tried it, but I think she liked to hear Uncle Levi say it. She didn’t act a bit prim when he hugged her up tight and kissed her, but giggled like a five-year-old, and at first she didn’t give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. As soon as Uncle Levi let her go she told him we were fine, and that Mother was fine, and that it wasn’t an anvil I was carrying but gas irons and a push-down pole. Then she began telling him about our going to Chinatown and dickering for the irons, and I think she’d have run on all evening if he hadn’t cut in and asked, “Et your victuals yet?”

  “No, sir,” I said before Grace had any chance to head me off.

  But I guess she didn’t think that was polite enough, and that she could fix it up so we wouldn’t sound too anxious. “Oh, we mustn’t stop . . . long,” she said, “Mother might worry about us. But, being right in the neighborhood, we thought we’d just stop in for a minute and say hello.”

  “Thought you said you was down to Chinatown,” Uncle Levi said.

  “We were,” Grace told him. “We just stopped by on our way . . . on our way to the subway.”

  “Why, child alive,” he said, “there’s half a dozen subway stations twixt here and Chinatown. Didn’t you see. . . .”

  When we’d come in I’d set the box of irons down right by the door, and as Uncle Levi was talking he bent over to move it. He’d just lifted it off the floor when he stopped in the middle of what he was saying and asked me, “You didn’t lug this cussed anvil all the way from Chinatown, did you?”

  Grace started right in to tell him again that it wasn’t an anvil, but that time I interrupted her and said, “Yes, sir. It got kind of heavy along toward the last end.”

  “It’s a God’s wonder you ain’t pulled your arms out,” he told me. “By hub, it must weigh nigh onto forty pounds. You children hold on till I go wash my hands, and we’ll hunt up some victuals. Want to come along with me, Ralph? Gracie, you’ll find the place where ladies wash their hands down t’other end of the hall.”

  I’d bet almost anything that Grace found a big mirror in that ladies’ washroom. We had to wait nearly fifteen minutes for her, and when she came back she was all primped up, with little spitcurls peeping out from under her hat. Maybe it was just as well she took so long. It gave me a chance to tell Uncle Levi about our renting the big house on Spring Street, and our fixing it up, and Mother’s getting two customers, and about the shelves and table I was going to build for her.

  When Grace finally did come back Uncle Levi sang out, “By hub, if you ain’t a spittin’ image of Mary Emma whenst she was commencin’ to grow up, my recollection’s playin’ tricks on me. Now, m’fine lady, where’d you like to eat your victuals?”

  Grace patted her hair a couple of little dabs, and said, “Oh, we really mustn’t . . .”

  I didn’t let her get any further, but said, “I saw a place in Scollay Square where a man in a white uniform was frying biscuits in the window.”

  “Griddle cakes,” Uncle Levi said, “and tolerable good eatin’, too, along with a couple o’ pork chops and applesauce, and mashed potatoes and pan gravy, and butter beans and squash pie. Them Childs folks whacks up a larrupin’ good squash pie. How’d you like that, Gracie?”

  If Grace ever had an idea that Mother would be worried about us she forgot it as soon as we sat down at the table in Childs. She didn’t usually talk very much, but that night she was wound up tighter than a dollar watch. She told Uncle Levi about Mother’s buying a whole houseful of real nice furniture for only fifty dollars, and about Mr. Perkins having the new soapstone tubs put in the laundry room, and everything else she could think of.

  I ate so much that it’s a wonder I didn’t pop, but that was only because I didn’t have anything else to do. Grace didn’t let me get more than two or three words in until she’d told Uncle Levi about Mother’s insisting that all the laundry work be done in the basement, and about our cleaning up the laundry room, and what color she and Mother had painted it that morning, and that there was nothing left to be done except for me to build the shelves and table.

  I think she’d have kept right on going if Uncle Levi hadn’t looked over at me and asked, “What kind o’ nails you goin’ to use?”

  “Eight pennies, and sixteen-penny spikes,” I told him.

  “Commons?” he asked.

  I didn’t know just what he meant, so I said, “Well, just ordinary nails and spikes; I suppose they’re common.”

  “Got ’em bought yet?” Uncle Levi asked me.

  Before I could answer him Grace said, “Yes, sir. And the lumber and the ton of coal we’ve been waiting for, too. The men were just delivering them when I left the house.”

  “You don’t say,” Uncle Levi said, sort of as if he were thinking about something else. Then he asked, “Frank’s folks been over since you got the place fixed up?”

  “Uncle Frank has been over several times,” Grace told him, “but Aunt Hilda and the children haven’t. Mother says that when we get everything all finished we’re going to have a housewarming. Then they’ll all come over for a Sunday dinner with us, and we hope you’ll be able to come, too.”

  “By hub, I will. I will,” Uncle Levi said quickly. “Always did like a housewarmin’. Like to see all the little shavers roundabout a big table, pokin’ away the victuals till they’re fit to bust. Always did calc’late that folks ought to move about onct a year, so’s to have plenty of housewarmin’s.”

  As Uncle Levi spoke he took his big watch out of his vest pocket, glanced down at it, and said, “By hub, here it is nigh onto eight o’clock. If Mary Emma’s goin’ to worry about you children she’s likely hard at it a’ready. Leave me lug that anvil, Ralph; I’ll see you over to the subway and get you headed in the right direction. For folks that ain’t used to it, Boston can be devilish hard to find your way about after nightfall.”

  Uncle Levi took us as far as the entrance to the subway station, and after we’d thanked him for our supper he told us, “Don’t never thank me for victuals! If there is anything in this world I like to see better’n a parcel of little shavers sittin’ up to table and stuffin’ their bellies, I don’t know what it is. You tell Mary Emma I ain’t goin’ to wait much longer for that housewarmin’ of hers.”

  I was so full of supper that I couldn’t help going to sleep on the subway train, so I don’t remember much about that trip home, except that our feet nearly froze on the way from the carline to our house, and that the box of irons grew heavier with every step.

  Mr. Haushalter told me that Philip did a real good job at the store, and at nine o’clock that Saturday night Mr. Durant called me over to his desk and gave me a two-dollar bill. “I didn’t pay your brother,” he told me. “You can settle that between you. The extra fifty cents is for those rough evenings we had during the storm.” Before I left for home I changed the bill, so I’d have a fifty-cent-piece for Philip.

  Hal and Elizabeth had gone to bed before I got home, but the rest of the family was in the parlor, and Mother was reading aloud. I came in through the kitchen door, put my dollar and a half in Mother’s purse, and took the fifty-cent-piece in to Philip. He grinned from ear to ear when I gave it to him, and then took it over to Mother. “Isn’t that nice?” she said as she looked up from the book. “Why don’t you put it in that little bank that came with our furniture and save it?”

  “Doesn’t Ralph put his money in your purse?” he asked her.

  “Why yes,” Mother told him, “but, you know, Ralph is the man of our family, and . . .”

  Mother must have noticed as quickly as I did that Philip’s lip was beginning to tremble, because she hesitated for only a moment before she went on, “. . . and you are my man, too, so you run right out and put your half-dollar in with Ralph’s.”

  I think Philip was as proud of earning that fifty cents as if it had been fifty dollars, and he was all smiles again when he came
back to the parlor. Mother read to us that night until after eleven o’clock.

  16

  Housewarming

  OF COURSE I knew that Mother would let us work on Sunday only when it was absolutely necessary, but I was anxious to find out what kind of a job I could do on the shelves and table for the laundry room. So when we were finishing breakfast Sunday morning I said, “I guess I’d better get started on those shelves and the table right away, or else they won’t be ready for our next batch of laundry tomorrow.”

  “Oh no, Son,” Mother said, “not on Sunday! Sunday is a day of rest. You’ll have plenty of time to nail those boards together tomorrow evening. You children must hurry right along with your baths, so you won’t be late for Sunday School. I’m afraid that ‘hen’ we got at such a bargain has turned out to be a rooster, but it should make us a good stew if it simmers slowly while we’re at church. Hal, suppose you take Elizabeth into the parlor and tell her a nice long story while we’re clearing up the breakfast dishes.”

  I’d just finished my bath when Hal came running back from the parlor shouting, “Mother, a two-wheeled buggy has stopped in front of our house, with a man on a little seat way up high in back.”

  We all went running to peek out the front windows, and, sure enough, there was a hansom cab standing in front of our house. The driver was climbing down from his seat, and Uncle Levi was coming out of the cab, seat first. He was just about wide enough to fill the whole doorway. Mother didn’t even stop to take off her apron, but ran onto the piazza, calling, “Uncle Levi! Uncle Levi! Oh, I’m so glad to see you! Why didn’t you let us know you were coming, so the boys could have met you at the carline?”

  “Wa’n’t no sense of that; I didn’t come on the streetcar,” Uncle Levi called back as Mother ran toward him, “and I told Gracie and Ralph to tell you . . .”

  By that time Mother had reached him, and he hugged her up over his stomach until only her toes were touching the snow. “What did you tell the children, you old rascal?” she asked him as soon as he stood her down.

  “Told ’em to tell you I wa’n’t goin’ to wait much longer for you to have a housewarmin’, and, by hub, I wa’n’t. I fetched it with me. Ralph, come help me lug some of this rubbish into the house. Why, Mary Emma, it’s a right nice-lookin’ place you got here. How be you, Gracie? And there’s Muriel, and Phil and Hal and the baby. Named her Elizabeth after your mother, didn’t you, Mary Emma? You get back inside ’fore you catch your death-o-cold; I and the boys’ll fetch the stuff in.”

  Uncle Levi turned back to the hansom cab and began handing out bundles, boxes, jugs and bags as if he were unloading a farm wagon. They came so fast that I could only pile them up on the sidewalk, and it looked as though he’d bought out half the stores in Boston. There were two great big bags of fruit, every sort of vegetable you could think of, a turkey that weighed nearly as much as Elizabeth, a two-gallon jug, and a dozen or so packages that were tied up so that I couldn’t see what was in them. After all the packages and bags were out he passed me what I thought was a wooden suitcase, but the minute I got hold of it I knew from the weight that it was a tool box. Then, without turning around, he asked, “Where’s Phil?”

  “Right here!” Phil called from beside me.

  “Ain’t you the delivery man?” Uncle Levi asked.

  “Yes, sir. Or, anyway, I’m going to be,” Philip told him.

  “So I heard tell. Calc’lated you might need a sled, so I fetched one along. Snow’s no use to a boy lest he’s got a sled.”

  As Uncle Levi talked he backed out of the cab, holding a sled that was nearly as long as he was tall, and had Flexible Flyer painted on it in bright red letters. “Kind of long for belly-bump slidin’,” he said as he passed it to Philip, “but mebbe it’ll do for haulin’ wash baskets. How ’bout you skedaddlin’ over to Frank’s house and tellin’ ’em we’re havin’ a housewarmin’? Tell Frank to fetch his tools along, and his overhauls; we got a job o’ work to do.”

  If that wasn’t the first steering sled in Medford, except for double-runners, it came pretty close to being, and it was certainly the best one. Philip would hardly take his hands off it long enough to go into the house for his overcoat and mittens.

  As soon as Uncle Levi had paid the cabby I told him to go right into the house, that I’d bring the packages. But I didn’t hurry. With every armful I expected Mother to say, “Now hurry right along, Son; you children mustn’t be late for Sunday School.” She didn’t say it, though, and none of us reminded her.

  When I carried the last load into the kitchen Mother was sitting on Uncle Levi’s lap and laughing as he bounced her up and down and sang, “Round and round the cobbler’s bench.” I’d saved the turkey back for the last, and as I brought it in Mother cried, “My stars, Uncle Levi! Why you’ve brought enough to feed an army! What in the world will we ever do with it all?”

  “Eat it! Eat it! It’s all good victuals!” Uncle Levi sang out. “By hub, ain’t we goin’ to have fun!” Then he stopped bouncing Mother, and asked, “Did you fetch in my tool case, Ralph?”

  “Yes, sir,” I told him. “I put it in the laundry room down in the basement.”

  “Ain’t it about time we was gettin’ at that table?” he asked me. “The women folks won’t want us clutterin’ up their kitchen whilst they’re cookin’ the victuals.”

  “Oh, Uncle Levi, you know I’d love to have you right here where we could visit,” Mother said quickly. But she didn’t say anything about Sunday being a day of rest, and she didn’t make any fuss when I went up to my room and put on my overalls.

  I never thought there’d be a man I’d like to work with as well as I used to like working with Father, but Uncle Levi came awfully close to it. When I took him down to the laundry room he took off his coat and collar, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and pulled on the overalls he’d brought in his tool case. Then he stood looking down at the little pile of lumber for a minute or two, and said, “By hub, it looks like they run it through a coffee mill, ’stead of a planer. Must’a picked over forty-’leven stacks to find it. How was you calc’latin’ on buildin’ the table?”

  “Well,” I told him, “I was planning to saw one of these two-by-fours into pieces for the legs, then spike other pieces on one end of them to make a frame, and nail the boards on top. Mother wants the table ten feet long and . . .”

  I was still telling him when Uncle Frank called, “Hi there, Levi!” from the top of the stairway.

  “Get your overhauls on and fetch your tools down,” Uncle Levi called back to him. “We got a job o’ work on our hands, and a mess o’ lumber that ain’t fit for makin’ hog-troughs.”

  “Be with you soon’s I get Hilda started off,” Uncle Frank called back. “She’s going to roast the turkey over home. One stove won’t handle all the stuff.” Then I heard him say, “Oh, let ’em both go, Mary Emma; that sled will hold a dozen youngsters.”

  Uncle Levi was still looking over the lumber and sorting it out when Uncle Frank came down to the laundry room. “What did they send her, a bunch of number-two stuff?” he asked as he came in.

  “Number two!” Uncle Levi grumbled. “Number nine, ten, ’leven! It’s a God’s wonder they could get it through a doorway! Hard pine boards warped till they look like ribbon candy, and brittle as glass. Split like kindlin’ if you was to drive a nail into ’em. Hemlock two-by-fours, and there ain’t one of ’em but what’s twisted like an auger bit. By hub, I’d like to lay hands on the man that’d send this kind o’ rubbish to a widda-woman, but it’s too late to send it back now. Let’s heist some o’ these straightest boards atop the tubs here, so’s to make a bench.”

  Father had always been careful with his tools, and about the way he put them into his tool box, but nothing compared to Uncle Levi. Every tool was fastened into its own place, every plane blade and chisel was as sharp as a razor, and down each side of his case he had little drawers for finish nails and brads and screws and flake glue. When all the tools were laid out
the way he wanted them, he set a little pot of glue to simmer on the furnace, and told us, “Don’t calc’late we can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but like as not we can work the worst kinks out’a this stuff. Frank, you could do the rippin’ if you’ve a mind to. And, Ralph, you can look after the planin’ whilst I do the markin’ out and cut the mortises and tenons. Don’t try to take too big a bites; a deep cut would rough up them cussed knots. Slow and easy goes fer in a day.”

  When we’d finished our jobs we had four of the prettiest table legs you could find. Each one was as straight as a gun barrel, tapered evenly from its two-by-four shoulder to the inch-square end that would sit on the floor, and mortised perfectly on two sides. Uncle Levi picked our straightest boards for side and end stringers. When they had been ripped, planed, and tenoned, I painted the inside of the mortises with hot glue, and the pieces fitted together as perfectly as if they’d been the parts of a fine watch.

  It seemed to me that it was a shame to make so fine a table frame when we had only warped boards for the top and under shelf, but the boards weren’t warped when Uncle Levi had finished with them. He planed the edges until they fitted with barely a hair line between them, bored holes in the sides, and glued dowel pins tightly into them as Uncle Frank and I sprung out the warp. Then he had us squeeze the boards snugly together while he screwed them into place from underneath, so that no holes showed from above. When the top and under shelf were planed and sandpapered, they were as smooth and even as if they’d been made of glass.

  “There!” Uncle Levi said as he stood back and looked at the table. “Calc’late that’ll come nigh to fetchin’ it, soon’s I whack up a couple o’ drawers and fit ’em in; a table ain’t no good without drawers.”

  I was still rubbing my hand over the table top when Mother called down from the head of the kitchen stairway, “How would you men like some hot apple pie and doughnuts? That turkey’s so big it will take at least six hours to roast, so we won’t have dinner till nearly four, but I’ve just taken a pie out of the oven, and Gracie will have doughnuts out of the kettle in a few minutes.”