Mary Emma & Company

by Ralph Moody

  “By hub, that would hit the spot!” Uncle Levi shouted back. “And how ’bout sendin’ down a pitcher o’ cider? I’m dryer’n a toad in hayin’ time.”

  I’d expected Mother or Grace to bring the lunch down, but it was Muriel who brought it. She had Mother’s best apron on, with the top tied just below her armpits and the hem nearly touching the floor, and she was as businesslike as if she’d been a regular waitress in a restaurant. “Calc’lated you little shavers would all be out slidin’,” Uncle Levi said when she came in.

  “They are,” Muriel told him. “Philip has slid John and Hal and Elizabeth all over town to show off his new sled, but, you know, I’m the housekeeper; I have to stay here to take care of things while Mother and Grace are cooking. And I’m minding Louise while Aunt Hilda’s over at her house roasting the turkey. Oh my! I forgot to bring a tablecloth, and we mustn’t get any spots on that pretty table before Mother sees it.”

  She’d brought a whole apple pie on a big tray, and plates and forks and glasses, but no knife to cut the pie with. While she was gone for the tablecloth Uncle Levi kept looking at the pie and smacking his lips. “By hub,” he said, “I wisht the little tyke would forget ’bout that tablecloth, and fetch a knife and a pitcher o’ cider. Don’t know where a man could find better victuals than fresh apple pie, lest it’s hot doughnuts with a dollop o’ sweet-apple cider to wash ’em down.”

  We ate the whole pie, and about two-dozen red-hot doughnuts—just as fast as Grace could fish them out of the kettle—and drank the whole pitcher of cider. “By hub, it’s a God’s wonder I ain’t busted a seam,” Uncle Levi said as he got up from the table. “Whilst I’m whackin’ together a couple o’ drawers you boys might get to goin’ on them shelves Mary Emma wants for layin’ out her fancy work. We ought to have just about time to finish up ’fore the turkey’s roasted and the main victuals is ready.”

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to do much about the shelves,” I told him. “I didn’t plan on an underneath shelf, or drawers, or board stringers for the table when I made out the order for the lumber, so we’re six boards short and two two-by-fours over.”

  “So much to the good!” Uncle Levi told me. “You wouldn’ta been able to do no good with them rock-hard, warped boards no way, and you can rip the two-by-fours in half for uprights; that’ll give Mary Emma stouter shelves; ones that won’t sag whenst she puts a load on ’em.”

  He turned to Uncle Frank and told him, “Frame it up, same’s you would for a cupboard, and make it two boards deep, so’s she’ll have plenty of room; you could rip crossbars out’n some of this waste. Notch them two left-over boards for the bottom shelf, but don’t nail ’em down. That way Ralph can use ’em for a pattern when he goes to cut the balance. And, Ralph, you tell that lumberman to send you number-one-clear white pine boards that’s milled smooth, or I’ll be up there to settle with him.”

  “And if he soaks you over four cents a board foot,” Uncle Frank told me, “you can tell him I’ll be up there to find out the reason for it.”

  Uncle Frank and I had finished the frame for the laundry shelves, and Uncle Levi was just slipping the second drawer into the table when Mother called from the top of the kitchen stairs, “Twenty minutes, and everything will be on the table! You carpenters had better knock off and get washed up.”

  When we had finished the pie and doughnuts I was so full that I thought I’d never want to eat again, but the smells that came down the stairway when Mother called us brought my appetite back in a hurry, and I felt as if I were starving to death.

  I’d barely scrubbed my face and hands and changed back into my Sunday clothes when Philip pulled his sled up to our back steps and shouted, “Ralph, come help me with this turkey; it weighs a ton!”

  Aunt Hilda had put the turkey—roasting pan, gravy and all—into her copper wash boiler, and wrapped it up in a heavy quilt to keep everything hot. Hal and John were sitting on the sled, facing each other and holding the boiler between their legs, and Aunt Hilda was carrying Elizabeth. She seemed to be a little bit nervous when Philip and I were carrying the boiler up the slippery steps, but she didn’t say anything, and we were so careful that we didn’t even slop a drop of gravy out of the pan.

  We’ve had some pretty good dinners at our house, but never one that was any better than the dinner we had that day. And nobody could have guessed it was a housewarming instead of Thanksgiving. I’d expected that Mother would put Uncle Levi at the head of the table, but she didn’t. When everything was ready, she put Elizabeth in the highchair beside her place, looked down the long table, and said, “Now let’s see where we will put everybody. John, would you like to sit at the first place on this side, and then Hilda, and Frank, and Philip. And girls, I’m going to let you share Uncle Levi between you, so, Hal, you sit here by me.” That left only Father’s place for me, with the turkey right in front of it.

  I don’t think I did a very good job of asking the blessing, because I was too much worried for fear I’d mess up the turkey in trying to carve it. But I guess Mother knew I was worried. As soon as we’d raised our heads, she said, “Frank, I wonder if you’d carve the turkey for us? That would let Ralph serve it while it’s piping hot, and I’ll put the vegetables and gravy on the plates.”

  Uncle Frank was an expert carver, and he seemed to know right where all the joints were. It didn’t take him more than a minute to clip off the drumsticks and thighs, then he peeled off thin slices of white meat that were as big as his hand. I knew enough to serve Aunt Hilda first, and that ladies usually liked the white meat best, so I put a spoonful of stuffing at one side of her plate, and laid two of the biggest slices over it. “That’s for Aunt Hilda,” I said, as I put on the cranberry sauce and passed the plate along for Mother to put on the mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes, and boiled onions, and carrots, and turnips and gravy.

  I’d just laid a thigh on the next plate, and was reaching for a spoonful of stuffing when Uncle Frank cut off the turkey’s tail and whispered to me, “If that’s for Levi, set Old John Barleycorn’s nose right atop the stuffing, and smear a little cranberry juice on it.”

  Everybody had been quiet, and sort of on their manners, until I passed the plate down the table and said, “That’s for Uncle Levi.” Then the fun began, and it lasted until we were all so stuffed we didn’t have room for any fruit or pumpkin pie. I can’t remember ever having seen Mother laugh and enjoy herself so much.

  “There, by hub!” Uncle Levi said as he pushed his chair back. “That’s what I call a housewarmin’! As I was tellin’ Gracie, I calc’late a family ought to move about onct a year, so’s to get in plenty o’ housewarmin’s whilst the children is all together.”

  Mother’s face grew sober as if she were sad, and she said, “It was a lovely housewarming, but I hope we don’t have to move again for a good many years. I only pray that we may be successful enough with our little business that we can stay right here.”

  “Ain’t no doubt of it!” Uncle Levi said quickly. “Ain’t no doubt of it! Father was an old man whenst I was born, and he wa’n’t overly religious, but I recollect his tellin’ me, ‘Pray to God to help you, then work just as hard as if you hadn’ta prayed.’ The way you folks has been workin’, I don’t calc’late the Almighty’s about to let you down.”

  As Uncle Levi spoke, he’d been fumbling at his vest pocket for his watch. After he’d finished, he pulled it out, glanced at it, and shouted, “Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat! It’s nigh onto seven o’clock! Who’d a’thought we’d been sittin’ here to table for three hours! By hub, sit here much longer’n I’ll be ready to start all over again! Phil, take a look and see if that cabby’s waitin’ for me out front. Told him to pick me up at seven sharp; that cussed tool case o’ mine’s too heavy to lug on the streetcars.”

  17

  Another Mark Against Me

  MOTHER was as anxious to have me finish building the shelves in the laundry room as I was to do it. While we were eating breakfast Monday morning,
she asked, “Ralph, do you think Philip’s sled would be sturdy enough to carry as many boards as you’ll need to finish out those shelves for us?”

  “Sure it would,” I told her. “We only need ten boards, and if they’re white pine they won’t weigh over a hundred pounds, and that sled is stout enough to carry nearly half a ton.”

  “I’ll betcha it would carry a whole ton!” Philip sang out. “I could get the boards for you, Mother. If I start right after breakfast I could be back in plenty of time for school.”

  Mother smiled and said, “I’m afraid that’s a little too big a job for a ten-year-old. But if you boys were to hurry right home from school this noon I could have lunch all on the table, and a note ready for the lumberman. Ralph, do you think that would give you time enough that you positively wouldn’t be late for school?”

  “I guess so,” I told her, “but if you had sandwiches ready, so we could eat them on the way, I’d be positive.”

  “Very well,” Mother said. “I’m anxious to have those shelves all ready by the time we start our ironing, and with all this snow on the ground I doubt that the lumberman would send out a special wagon with so small a delivery. Then, too, that would leave Philip with his sled free for picking up the ladies’ baskets after school.”

  If we had still been in Colorado I could have been out of school within half a minute after the twelve o’clock bell rang, but it didn’t work that way in Medford. We had monitors that brought our coats and caps and rubbers from the coatroom when the bell rang. And after we had them on we had to form lines outside our classrooms, marking time like soldiers, while a teacher played the piano in the downstairs hall and Mr. Jackman went all around the building to inspect us. I don’t think he liked me very well since I hit him by mistake when we first moved to Medford, and he always seemed to inspect me the hardest.

  That day I was thinking about wanting to get out in a hurry, and about what I was going to say to the lumberman, and I sort of forgot about marking time until I heard Mr. Jackman call out, “Feet high, children! One, two, three, four; one, two, three, four,” as he came down our line toward me. He was almost to me before I noticed that I wasn’t lifting my feet, and I didn’t want to give him any excuse for scolding me, so I started lifting them in a hurry, but I started a little bit too hard. My knee bumped the girl in front of me when Mr. Jackman was right beside her.

  She squealed and jumped about a foot high, and Mr. Jackman pounced on me like a coyote on a prairie dog. He jerked me out of line and shook me till my teeth rattled like stones in a tin can. Then he told me that he wouldn’t tolerate any smart aleck boy getting fresh with the girls in Franklin School, and that if he ever caught me at it again he’d expel me altogether. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him that I didn’t do it on purpose, and made me stand marking time until the very last line had marched out of the schoolhouse. Before he let me go he called me into his office and told me, “I shall report this matter to the authorities. If your mother can’t control your waywardness, it’s high time the police were keeping an eye on you.”

  It was a lucky thing that I suggested the sandwiches to Mother. If I’d come home ten minutes late after she’d told me to hurry, she’d have made me tell her the reason for it, and even though I hadn’t really done anything bad, I didn’t want her to know I’d had any trouble at school. As it was, it worked out all right. Philip was waiting for me at the corner of Spring and Washington Streets, with his sled, Mother’s note, and the bag of sandwiches. By one of us riding and eating while the other ran and pulled the sled, we made up the lost time in going the mile to Medford Square. Of course Philip wanted to know why I was so late, but I just told him that some boy messed things up when we were forming our lines to march out of school. There wasn’t any sense in telling him that I was the one.

  When we went into the lumberyard office a woman who was writing in some books came over to the counter and asked us what we wanted. Instead of giving her Mother’s note, I said, “I want to see your boss. Last week he sent us down some bad lumber and charged us number-one price for it, and now we want . . .”

  Before I could tell her we wanted some straight pine boards without any knots in them a big, gray-haired man came out of the little office and said roughly, “What’s this you’re talking about?”

  “Last week you sent us some number nine, ten and eleven lumber, and charged us number-one price for it,” I told him.

  “Who told you that?” he demanded.

  “My Uncle Levi, and he knows,” I told him. “Every piece of it was brittle hard pine or hemlock, and it was so crooked that Uncle Levi said it was a wonder your man could get it through a doorway.”

  “Is that so?” the man said, but his voice wasn’t rough when he said it. “Where was it sent to?”

  “To Mrs. Moody’s, at 46 Spring Street,” I said.

  “That the old Perkins house?” he asked.

  “I suppose so,” I told him. “Mr. Perkins is our landlord.”

  “Well, now,” he said, “I recall the order, but I didn’t see the stuff that went out on it, or the billing. Miss Northrup, let me see the billing on that Moody order, will you?”

  When the woman brought him a copy of the bill that came with our lumber, Mother’s first note was pinned to it. After he’d looked at both of them he said, “The order don’t specify grade; just calls for three two-by-fours and a dozen one-by-twelves, but the price on the bill is for number one all right. You wait a minute till I find out about it.”

  He went out to the yard and was gone five or six minutes. When he came back he said, “Sorry, son. They sent number two on that order, and with all the bad weather we’ve had this winter it might not have been too straight. We’ll pick it up and send you some number-one stuff.”

  “It’s too late for that,” I told him. “It’s already made into a table and a frame for shelves, but we need ten more ten-foot, one-by-twelve, number-one clear white pine boards, and Uncle Frank said . . .”

  “Well, now, that’s getting right down to specifications,” he said. “Did you have all your uncles in on the kill?”

  “No, sir,” I told him, “only Uncle Levi and Uncle Frank, but . . .”

  While I was telling him he began writing figures down on the bill, and he didn’t let me finish. “Let’s see,” he said, sort of to himself, “a hundred foot of clear . . .” Then he looked across the counter at me and asked, “If I called it a dollar fifty for the one-by-twelves could we come out friends?”

  “Yes, sir,” I told him, “good friends.”

  He put his big hand across the counter, shook hands with me, and said, “I see you got a sled with you; think you boys can haul the stuff, or want me to send a team down with it?”

  “We can haul it all right,” I told him, “but we’ll have to hurry or we’ll be late for school.”

  Usually my only worry about being late for school was what Mother might say, but that noon I didn’t want to risk any more trouble with Mr. Jackman, so we ran as much of the way home as we could. Even with the boards on it, the sled pulled easy where the sidewalks had good hard snow on them, but some people had shoveled their walks too close, and getting the sled across those places was like trying to pull a cow out of a bog.

  I slid into my seat at school just as the late bell rang, and I was real careful about marking time when we lined up to go out at half-past-three. Mr. Jackman didn’t even scowl at me, and I thought he might have forgotten about reporting me to the authorities, but he hadn’t. Cop Watson was waiting in the store when I came in for work, and the first thing he said to me was, “What’s this report I’m after gettin’ about you molestin’ the girls at school?”

  “I didn’t molest any girls,” I told him. “I was just marking time when we were waiting to march out, and I happened to lift my knee too high, and it bumped Marion Newell. I guess I was a little closer to her than I thought, and she’s sort of fat, and . . .”

  Mr. Haushalter slapped both hands down on his thighs
and hooted, but Cop Watson looked at him hard, and said, “Molestin’ females is no laughing matter at all, at all, Gus, and it’s no interference I’ll be havin’. Now go on, lad. What was you sayin’?”

  “Well,” I said, “I guess it kind of scared Marion and she squealed, and . . .”

  “Ah, then,” he said, “so she tattled on you, did she?”

  “No, sir,” I told him, “she didn’t tattle. In the first place I don’t think she would have, and in the second place she didn’t need to. Mr. Jackman was right beside her and couldn’t help hearing her.”

  Cop Watson nodded his head and said, “So. So. Then she didn’t squeal at all, at all; she hollered.”

  “Well, it was more of a squeal than a holler,” I told him, “but anyway, Mr. Jackman shook the daylights out of me and told me he’d expel me if I ever did it again, and that he was going to report it to the authorities.”

  “Then he’s a man of his word,” Cop Watson told me. “The call come into the station house at twelve-naught-seven. Your name’s wrote down on the book again, and I’ve orders to be keepin’ a close eye on you. How’s Marion feeling about the whole goin’s-on?”

  “All right, I guess,” I told him. “On the way home from school this afternoon she and the other girls were laughing about the way she squealed.”

  “Then I’m thinkin’ there’s no call to set up the gallows yet awhile,” Cop Watson told me, “but mind your step, lad. Since you poked that principal in the nose, intentional or not, it’s no love he has for you, and it goes hard with a lad when he gets his name wrote down three times or more in the bad-boy book. Yours is down twice a’ready. And once it’s wrote down, guilty or not, there’s no livin’ way to get it unwrote.”

  That night Mother let Philip stay up until ten o’clock to help me with the new shelves, and I was surprised at what a good carpenter he turned out to be. Of course, our job was an easy one, as compared to the one Uncle Levi and Uncle Frank did on Sunday. The new boards were soft and straight, and the edges were milled so smooth and true that they fitted together without any planing. All we had to do was to lay the boards out on the floor in pairs, mark them by the pattern, saw the ends straight, notch out squares to fit around the uprights, and nail them into place. While I chiseled out the notches, Philip sawed the ends square; for some reason a saw would follow a mark better for him than it would for me. Then we nailed them in place with finish nails that Uncle Levi had left for us, set the nail heads deep, and filled the little holes in with putty. It was just ten o’clock when we finished the job, and Mother said it looked as well as if Uncle Levi had done it himself.