Mary Emma & Company

by Ralph Moody

  “What you going to do with ’em after you get ’em piled up?” the lieutenant asked me.

  “Saw them up for firewood if I can get hold of a two-handled saw,” I told him.

  “Ought to make good kindling,” he said. “A man couldn’t find better, but this pitchy stuff would burn awful fast for firewood. A cord wouldn’t go as far as half a ton of coal.” Then he asked Uncle Frank, “How do you figure on moving and stacking ’em?”

  “Don’t know,” Uncle Frank told him. “Soft as this ground is, a man couldn’t move them on rollers. And what’s more, he couldn’t pry them up to get rollers underneath without tearing the lawn to pieces.”

  “Have to lay planks down and skid ’em,” the lieutenant said. “Might be Bill and I’ll have a chance to give it a try tomorrow. That is, if we don’t get called out. Little late now for overheated stoves, and too early for brush fires; we might get a chance at it. Got an extra horse here we’re training right now; wouldn’t hurt him to get a little exercise.”

  Both Uncle Frank and I thanked the lieutenant and he started away toward his chair. He’d gone only halfway when he turned back to Uncle Frank and said, “Hear you’re quite a cribbage player. Drop in some evening when you’ve nothing better to do.”

  After Uncle Frank had told the lieutenant that he’d come to the firehouse some night to play cribbage, and after he’d talked to Mother for a little while, I walked back to his house with him. “I wish we’d brought along the big cross-cut saw we had for sawing railroad ties in Colorado,” I told him as soon as we were started. “With a saw like that Philip and I could whack those timbers into stove lengths pretty fast, but I don’t think a buck-saw would work on stuff that big, and two-handled cross-cuts cost a lot of money.”

  “No need of buying one,” Uncle Frank told me. “Father’s got a good five-footer down to the farm, and he won’t be using it this time of year. I’ll be going to see him on my next trip into Brunswick, and I’ll bring it back for you. You’ll probably raise hobb with it on those old spikes, but if you don’t yank it, so’s to break a tooth, I can keep it tuned up for you. I’ll have it up here by Wednesday.”

  After I came home from Uncle Frank’s I told Philip about our going into partnerships on the kindling wood business, and about our going to save the profits to buy school clothes for everybody that fall. He couldn’t have been more tickled if I’d told him he was going to be President of the United States. The first thing he did was to run over to Uncle Frank’s to borrow his hatchet, and Mother had to scold him for going out to split kindling on Sunday.

  Philip had never really been lazy, but he’d never been much of a hand to hurry either, and he didn’t like to get up quite as early in the mornings as I did. But going in partnership worked like sulphur and molasses on him. Monday morning he woke me up and wanted us to go splitting kindling when it was still dark in the corners of our room. Then he was the first one to be excused from the breakfast table, and he was splitting as fast as he could go when I left for my job at the store. At noon Mother had to tell him he couldn’t split any more until after he’d picked up the laundry baskets, or until every block was off the lawn and stacked at the end of the garden.

  When I came home from work that evening it would have been hard to see that our back lawn had ever been messed up—except for a few little dents and scraped places. The big timbers were stacked up in the corner by the firehouse driveway; two-wide and five-high, with the odd one lying on top like a ridgepole. Philip was splitting kindling, and Muriel and Hal were stacking up the last few paving blocks.

  “You oughta been here! You oughta been here, Ralph!” Hal called as he ran to meet me. “The firemens and their horse piled up all the big sticks, and Muriel and I piled up all the little ones. You oughta see that horse pull! I’ll betcha he can pull more than an elephant! Look at the holes his feet made in the driveway when he slided ’em up the boards to the top of the pile! Philip says he’s going to have this kindling all chopped up by tomorrow night, and he’s going to sell it for at least a hundred dollars. I’ll bet we’ll be rich when he gets it all sold.”

  The first thing I did was to go over to the firehouse, to thank the lieutenant for piling up our timbers, and to tell him we’d be glad to bring over as much kindling as they needed. And I just happened to mention that Uncle Frank had taught me how to play cribbage when we were staying at his house. He told me that I didn’t need to thank them, that it was good exercise for both them and the horse, and that the City of Medford furnished them with all the kindling they could use. Then, just before I left, he told me to come over some evening and we’d have a rousing good game of cribbage.

  My partnership with Philip was about as lopsided as my partnership with the other boys. I might have had the idea, but he did most of the work—he and Muriel and Hal. Of course, I helped with the splitting, because Mother made Philip quit and go to bed at eight o’clock, and she let me work from supper time till curfew. But Muriel went from house to house, taking orders, and Philip and Hal made all the deliveries. With light kindling Hal could be as much help about loading the cart and carrying armfuls into the houses as if he’d been four or five years older.

  Right at the beginning we’d decided to heap every cart load in good shape, so we’d be giving people a real bargain, and I think our first customers must have told others about it. Muriel didn’t have to go more than two blocks from home before she’d sold all the kindling the blocks would make, and some of the ladies took as many as four loads.

  Even Grace had a part in our partnership. Every time Philip came home with a quarter he gave it to her, and every night at supper time she told us how much our profits had been. The profits were almost as much as the sales, because our only expense was for a hatchet of our own.

  Uncle Frank brought us Grandfather’s long saw on Wednesday evening, but we didn’t have any time to use it during the next week. Muriel was so far ahead of us on kindling orders that it kept us jumping to split blocks, and they lasted till almost curfew time on Tuesday. When Grace made her report on Wednesday, every last stick of kindling had been delivered, and she said we had $21.68 in our treasury. Of course, it wasn’t a real treasury; just Mother’s Wedgwood sugar bowl. At first Mother wouldn’t believe the amount was right, but after dinner Grace brought the sugar bowl and counted the money out in three-dollar piles on the table. It came out just the way Grace said it would; anything to do with figures or money usually did.

  “My! My!” Mother said as she counted the piles, “I can hardly believe that you little children have made so much money in so short a time. Why, that will give us money for new shoes all around, and new suits for you boys, and . . .”

  “And that isn’t all,” I told her. “With kindling wood selling the way it is we wouldn’t be very smart to burn up the big timbers for firewood. A cord of that pitchy stuff wouldn’t go any further than half a ton of coal, and half a ton of coal only costs three dollars and a cord of wood would make . . . let’s see . . . there’s about a square foot and a half of wood to a load of kindling, and . . .”

  “And a cord is four feet, by four feet, by eight feet,” Grace broke in, “and that’s a hundred and twenty-eight cubic feet, divided by one and a half is eighty-three loads of kindling, times a quarter is twenty dollars and seventy-five cents a cord. And if each of those timbers is a foot by a foot and a half, and thirty feet long; that’s forty-five times eleven, divided by one twenty-eight is about four cords, so that would amount to eighty-three dollars, and two tons of coal would cost twelve dollars, leaving a profit of seventy-one dollars.”

  Grace had me mixed up before she got through the four times four times eight, and I think she’d lost Mother sooner than that, but we both knew Grace well enough to know she’d be right. “My My!” Mother almost shouted. “Why, that’s nearly a hundred dollars altogether! Well! I guess we won’t have to worry much about you children being well-dressed for school next autumn.” She sat for a minute, pinching her lips together
with her thumb and finger, then looked up at me and said, “Ralph, I’m going to let you and Philip stay out of school tomorrow afternoon and go to Boston for new shoes. You both need them badly, and I think you need a little holiday before you tackle the rest of that job.”

  24

  A May Basket for Mary Emma

  IT SEEMS as if good luck always comes in showers, and we were right where half a dozen of those showers fell during the month of April. The last Sunday morning of that month we had the biggest turnout at our church that we’d had any Sunday except Easter. By the time Sunday School was over the church was already more than half filled, and people were coming in by sixes and sevens, but Mother and Elizabeth weren’t among them.

  We waited out in front of the church while more and more people went in, then we walked up Otis Street to meet Mother and hurry her along. When we got back there were a dozen or so people standing in the vestibule, and the ushers were splitting them up in ones and twos to find seats for them. As Mother whispered to the younger children, telling them to sit real still and not disturb the people they’d be seated with, an usher put his hand under her elbow and said, “Right this way, Mrs. Moody.”

  She had just turned back to us and whispered, “You will be very careful, won’t you, children?” when the usher motioned with his fingers for all of us to come along. He led us out through the crowd in the vestibule, and clear up to the third row from the front; the one where we’d sat ever since we’d moved to Medford. I don’t think there were six other seats left in the whole church, but our six were empty. While we were going into the pew at least a dozen people turned to nod their heads and smile at Mother. Sometimes the things that made her the happiest were the ones that made her come the nearest to crying. Before she could find the right number for the opening hymn she had to lift her veil up and wipe the tears out of her eyes.

  The sermon was a good one, but long, and with such a crowd in the church it took us nearly fifteen minutes to get out. I don’t know how so many people knew us, with our having gone to that church only four months, but a lot of them did. We could move only a step or two at a time, because so many people were coming out of the pews, and it seemed as if half of them turned to tell Mother what well-behaved children she had. I could only walk along with my head down, because I was sure that, sooner or later, they’d find out about my name being on the bad-boy book.

  It was a beautiful spring day, and the people didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get away from the church. When we came down the steps they were standing around in little groups on the lawn, and up and down the sidewalk, visiting and talking. It looked to me as if Mother’s customers were having a little convention under the big maple tree on the lawn. Every one of them were there, with their husbands and a dozen or so other men and women I didn’t know. We were nearly out to the sidewalk when Mrs. Humphrey came toward us and said, “Oh, Mrs. Moody, I’m so glad to see you this morning. Won’t you bring your lovely children over for a minute? I’d like my husband and my friends to meet them.”

  Of course, Mrs. Humphrey knew Philip and Muriel and me, because we’d delivered her laundry. After she’d introduced Mother and us, she said, “And now, Mrs. Moody, I’m going to let you introduce the others, for I’m ashamed to say I don’t know their names.”

  Hal and Elizabeth didn’t get introduced at all, because Mother started with Grace. “This is Gracie, my right hand,” she said. “It is she who does all the gentlemen’s shirts and collars, and helps me with the fancier garments.”

  Mr. Humphrey tipped his hat to Grace and said, “You’re an artist. I’ve never before had my shirts so beautifully done.”

  “They’re both artists,” Mrs. Humphrey told the other people. She ran her fingers up through the folds of the jabot she was wearing, and said, “Everything they touch comes back like a work of art, and I have yet to receive one piece crushed in delivery. Her children are just as painstaking as she is.”

  There were quite a few other nice things said, then several of the ladies I didn’t know asked Mother if she’d be able to do their laundry. “Oh my!” she told them, “I don’t know if we could handle so many; our lines are pretty full now on our busiest days.”

  “It’s largely my fault,” Mrs. Humphrey told them. “I’ve been selfish in sending Mrs. Moody all my flat work.” Then she turned to Mother and asked, “If I were to make different arrangements for it would you be able to handle the others?”

  Grace was standing with one foot right close to mine, and it bumped me a little tap before Mother had a chance to say, “Oh, I’d hate to inconvenience you that much, Mrs. Humphrey, but we would be able to handle more of the fancier garments.” Before we left both Mrs. Humphrey and Mrs. Nickerson said they’d make other arrangements for their flat work, and Mother had said she’d try to handle all the new customers if she could have until Saturdays to get their work finished.

  I carried Elizabeth and we all walked quietly until we’d reached the end of Otis Street. But when we’d turned the corner onto Washington, out of sight of the people coming from church, Mother threw an arm around Grace’s waist, and they took two or three skipping steps. When they stopped, Grace slapped her hands together and said, “Well, I guess we’re over the hill.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Mother told her. “Let’s hurry right home and fix a special treat for dinner.”

  During the last couple of days of April, most of the talking around Franklin School was about May baskets. If a boy liked some particular girl and wanted her to be his girl he didn’t very often tell her so. He waited for May Day and then hung a May basket on her door just after dark, then he ran. You didn’t ever put your name on the basket, but wrote the girl’s name on a little card you tucked inside. Then she was supposed to guess who it was from by the handwriting.

  I hadn’t thought much about liking one girl any better than the others, or about hanging a May basket, until the boys at school began talking about it so much. And then I began thinking about Evelyn Gorham a good deal. Evelyn sat right back of me at school, and she was the prettiest girl in our class: small and dark, with brown eyes and coal-black hair.

  Of course, I didn’t know how to make a pretty May basket, and I wanted to have a real nice one for Evelyn, so at daylight on May Day morning I rapped on the girls’ bedroom door. When Grace opened it a crack and asked me what I wanted I told her I had to talk to her for a minute out in the hall. Sometimes Grace could be a bit grumpy when she was waked up too early, but that morning she was as nice as pie. After I’d told her about Evelyn, and wanting to hang a May basket for her, and not knowing how to make one, she said, “That’s easy. I could make you a real pretty one if I had some colored crepe paper, but that would cost about a dime, and if you want a really nice one you’d have to spend a quarter for candy and nuts to fill it. Why don’t you take thirty-five cents out of the kindling treasury?”

  “That’s partnership money,” I told her, “and it wouldn’t be fair to Philip.”

  “Oh, piffle!” she said. “Philip wouldn’t care.” Then she sort of giggled, and asked me, “How do you know he hasn’t got a girl, too? Maybe he’d like to hang a May basket, and I could make two as easy as one. Let’s go wake him up and ask him.”

  Philip’s eyes sparkled when Grace told him about the basket she was going to make for me and asked him if he wanted to hang one. “Sure I do,” he told her, “but I’m not going to waste it on any girl; I’m going to hang it for Mother.”

  Grace tried to tell him that you only hung a May basket to a girl you wanted for your sweetheart, but that didn’t make any difference to Philip; he wouldn’t change his mind. At noon he met me at Uebel’s drug store, and we picked out the crepe paper and nuts and candy. In the afternoon Grace made us two beautiful baskets, but she did it up in her room where Mother couldn’t see them.

  As soon as we’d eaten supper that night I changed into my Sunday clothes, and twilight was just turning into darkness when I hung my basket on Evelyn’s doorknob and
rang the bell. Then I ran back toward Washington Street, but I didn’t run awfully fast, and I was careful to slow up as I went under the street lamp. I wasn’t too sure that Evelyn would know my handwriting.

  I hadn’t been home more than five minutes, and we were all in the kitchen when our own doorbell rang. Grace and I looked around quickly to be sure Philip was there, because we hadn’t planned for him to hang his basket until Mother had gone into the parlor for the evening. Philip looked as puzzled as we were. It was about a minute before Grace said, “Mother, that was our doorbell.”

  “Yes, Daughter,” Mother said, “you run along and answer it; it must be a May basket.”

  “Hmmmmff!” Grace sniffed. “Nobody’d be hanging me a May basket, and Muriel and Elizabeth are too little. It’s probably one of our new customers to see you.”

  “Well, you run right along,” Mother told her. “I’ll bet a cookie it’s a May basket.”

  Grace made another little sniffing sound, but she went to the door. And when she came back she was carrying a May basket nearly as big as a shoe box. At first she tried to act as if she weren’t a bit excited, but her eyes were as bright as bluebells when she passed her basket around for all of us to have a piece of candy.

  Philip could hardly wait for a chance to hang his May basket for Mother. Ever since supper he’d had it hidden under the back steps, but there wasn’t any chance for him to sneak out and hang it for another half-hour. Twice more before that half-hour was up our doorbell had rung again, and both times it was a May basket for Grace. We were all sitting in the parlor when it rang the second time, and Grace ran to the door as fast as she could go, but when she came back she wouldn’t tell us if she’d seen the boy. I think she had all right, and that it was one of the older boys who had been sliding at the clay pit with us, way back in the winter, but Grace wouldn’t admit it.