The boys decided that as the men of the house it was up to them to get rid of Al. Since it was futile to work on Ernestine, the best approach was to do a job on Al.
All the boys took baths that afternoon, and toward the end the hot water gave out. Frank got a screw driver and took the bolt off the boys’ bathroom door. Bill opened the bathroom window.
In spite of their coats and the blanket, Ern and Al were blue when they returned home, about half an hour before the supper guests were to arrive. Both hurried upstairs to bathe and dress.
The boys were in Fred’s and Dan’s room, and they heard Al walking around as he unpacked and undressed. Finally they heard him enter the bathroom, experiment with the door to see why it wouldn’t lock, and then slam down the window.
The water started to run in the tub.
“We’ll wait about three minutes,” Frank chuckled. “Can’t you just see him now, shivering, leaning over, and running his finger under the faucet, waiting for the water to get hot?”
A chilled, unhappy baritone started to emerge from the boys’ bathroom. Something about how undergraduates at Sagiwan were willing to give their all to the institution, and about how other seats of learning would find their lines riddled and their ends outflanked.
Mr. Lynch apparently was one who subscribed to the theory that if you couldn’t lock it, the next best thing was to make such a racket that everybody would know it was occupied.
The water in the tub finally stopped running. The baritone became more chilled and unhappy, was choked off entirely in a shuddering gasp, and then was breathlessly resumed.
“He’s under water,” Frank said. “Go ahead, Bill.”
Bill walked down the hall to the bathroom and went in. Al, sitting miserably in about an inch of water, grabbed for a washcloth when he heard the door open, and spread it over himself as best he could.
“Brrr,” shivered Bill, “what have you got the room so cold for?”
“Good Lord,” hissed Al, “I thought maybe you were one of the girls. For Pete’s sake, close that door.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Bill, closing it. “Nobody thinks anything about things like that in a large family.”
“They don’t?” Al asked dubiously.
“Nobody’ll pay any attention to you if they walk in,” Bill said. “They won’t even notice you’re in the tub.”
“You mean they may come in?”
Bill shrugged his shoulders. “What have you got it so cold for? Is that part of the training rules?”
“I haven’t got it cold on purpose, you can bet your sweet life on that,” Al yelped. “The window was open, and there wasn’t a drop of hot water.”
“I believe I’d leave the door open,” Bill suggested. “At least until the room warms up.”
“Just leave the door closed. I don’t come from a large family.”
“Suit yourself, then. I’ll ask Mother to heat some water on the stove and bring it up.”
“Never mind,” said Al, who wasn’t sure whether Bill meant that he or Mother would deliver the water. “I won’t be in here that long.”
Bill helped himself to a glass of water and departed, forgetting to close the door.
“Close that door,” Al hollered after him. “How many times do I have to tell you!”
“Okay,” said Bill, returning. “Of course, if you like it cold in there.” He slammed the door.
The older boys sent Fred and Dan together into the bathroom to wash their hands. Neither of them paid any attention to Al, who sat muttering in the tub, trying to finish his bath and get out.
Then it was Frank’s turn. Frank had put on one of Martha’s dresses, silk stockings, high heel shoes and a cloche hat.
“If he knows it’s me,” Frank said, getting cold feet, “he may get out of there and give me a licking.”
“He hasn’t been here long enough to tell any of us apart,” Bill assured him. “And if we hear you holler, we’ll all come running. We can handle him.”
“Just to be safe,” Frank insisted, “get the hockey sticks.”
Frank entered the bathroom. As he heard the door open, Al made another precautionary grab for the washcloth.
“Yipe,” he screamed, when he saw the female garb. He tried to submerge all of himself under the surface of the water, but the one-inch level in the tub offered slight protection.
“Oh, hello there, Big Boy,” said Frank, waving effeminately. “Did you have a nice ride? I’ll only be a jiffy.” He hurried to the sink and got a glass of water, drank it, and started out.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Al growled. “I know you. You think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?” He made a grab, but Frank got by the tub, and out into the hall. Al didn’t follow him.
Ernestine knew about there not being any hot water, because she had taken a bath herself. She was furious, but her guests started arriving and she had no chance to take the boys to task.
Ernestine answered the door and showed her friends into the parlor. There were about twenty of them. We knew them all, and liked them. We pulled back the rugs and started the phonograph.
Al was a little late coming downstairs. It may have been that he was hunched over a radiator, or it may have been that his wardrobe took a good while to adjust, or that he had to change his hair oil.
Ernestine’s girl friends kept telling her they were dying to meet Al, and her boy friends said they wanted to meet the out-of-town sheik who had cut them out. None of them had failed to notice the Packard, parked out in front, and they were impressed.
Al finally made his entrance. All the other boys had on suits, but Al apparently preferred sweaters and plus-eights. He had his ukulele with him, and his life-of-the-party smile. He walked over and turned off the phonograph. Everybody stopped dancing, and he had the center of the stage.
“Greetings and salutations, guys and gals,” he said, without waiting to be introduced. And this time he actually did do a clog step, ending up on one knee, like Al Jolson.
“A little number,” said Ernestine’s Al, “entitled ‘I Used to Shower My Sweetie With Presents, But It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More.’”
He threw back his head and started to strum the uke and to sing. “Dew ackker dew ackker dew, vo doe dee oh doe.”
There was no doubt he could play the ukulele, all right. And his baritone was much better than in the icy bathtub. But you just couldn’t start out a party that way, even in the Jazz Age. Maybe after midnight, after everybody had got to know him better, it might have gone over.
Ern’s guests stood there woodenly, looking first at her and then at Mother, who was sitting near the fireplace with some knitting. No matter what Mother may have felt, she showed no disapproval.
Ernestine tried to help her beau. She started to Charleston alongside of him, and shouted “Come on everybody.” She even licked first her right thumb and then her left, in a series of wind-mill gyrations known as pickin’ cherries.
But it still didn’t go over. And the worst of it was that every one except Al realized exactly what Ern was doing and why she was doing it. They were pulling for her. Some of her girl friends started to Charleston alongside of her. And some of the boys began to sing along with Al.
“A little number,” said Al, “entitled ‘When Bathing Girls Take Up Aviation, I Want to Be There at the Takeoff.’” He laughed and strummed. You had to admit he was handsome. “Dew ackker dew ackker dew.”
Ernestine was flushed and out of breath. She knew she couldn’t stand another number, no matter how little.
“First Al,” she begged, “please get up off your knees and let me introduce you.”
“I already introduced myself, baby,” Al protested. He got up nevertheless.
“This is Mr. Lynch,” Ern said, beginning to make the rounds. “He’s visiting us for a few days, and we’re having a peachy time.”
“Meased to pleet you,” grinned Al. He pressed the flesh.
Ern relieved him of his ukulele and put it
on the back of the piano, where she hoped he wouldn’t find it. Al drifted from group to group, listening to conversations about New York band leaders, Princeton and Dartmouth, new musical comedies, and happenings in Montclair. At first he tried to hold his own in the small talk, but no one seemed interested in hearing about the annual classic involving Wallace Teachers.
Even before supper was served, Al decided he had had enough of the party.
“Listen,” he said, getting Ern into a corner, “get me out of here. Let’s go for a ride or something.”
“You know I can’t leave now.”
“What’s the matter with your friends, anyway? Why don’t they wake up?”
“Nothing’s the matter with them,” Ernestine said hotly. “It’s you. You’re acting like a fish out of water.”
“I am eh? Well, even a fish wouldn’t dare go in the water around this house. In the first place, he’d freeze to death.”
“I’m sorry about the hot water. But that’s no excuse for you to act like you’ve been doing.”
“And in the second place, a lot of wise guys would run him crazy parading around his goldfish bowl.”
“What,” said Ernestine, putting her hands belligerently on her hips, “do you mean by that crack?”
“I suppose you don’t know your brothers keep parading in and out of the bathroom?”
“How would I know about that? And why didn’t you lock the door?”
“And one of your brothers,” said Al, ignoring the questions, “dressed up like a girl.”
“No,” moaned Ernestine. “Oh, no!” Then she started to giggle. “That must have been Frank or Bill. They’re wise guys, all right.”
“Just wait till I get my hands on them.”
“It must have been kind of funny at that,” Ernestine laughed, putting her hand on his arm. “Poor Al. What did you do?”
“It may seem like a joke to you,” said Al, tilting up his nose, “but I found it typical of everything around here, including your friends.”
“And how have you found everything around here?” Ernestine demanded.
“In bad taste. Extremely bad taste.”
Considering the source, Ernestine thought that was one of the nicest compliments she had ever heard. She took off the Tau Tau Tau fraternity pin and handed it to him, and Al went up to get his bags. While he was upstairs, she took his ukulele from the back of the piano, and put it with his raccoon coat. Then she went in the darkened dining room, closed the door, and watched through a curtain as he got in his car and drove off to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”
There wasn’t much satisfaction, she thought, in the knowledge that time heals all wounds. If she could just be sure that time wounded all heels …
After Al left, the party was a big success. One of Ern’s friends from Dartmouth monopolized most of her evening. Everyone seemed to understand about Al. No one asked where he’d disappeared to.
12. Ashtray Christmas
WE DIDN’T HAVE VERY much money to spend for Christmas, but it always was the most important day of the year in our house, and Mother intended to make it so again this year.
“I’d much rather have something you made especially for me, like a calendar or a desk blotter, than anything expensive from the store,” she told us. “The best present of all is something given with love and affection.”
We had been saving our allowances ever since summer, so there wasn’t any real danger that we were going to have to rely exclusively on blotters and calendars. Also Ernestine and Martha now had lunch-time jobs as cashiers in the high-school cafeteria, and Frank and Bill had been doing yard work for neighbors.
A good many tree decorations from previous years were stored in the attic. But Mother knew there was happiness in anticipation of something pleasant, so she encouraged us to make fathom after fathom of paper chains from colored advertisements and illustrations that she’d clip out of magazines.
It was customary for each member of the family to give individual presents to all other members. But as fights and arguments occurred, the gift list of each of us seemed to become considerably shortened.
Almost every argument between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas ended with the announcement that the two participants were irrevocably severing Yuletide relations, and cutting each other off without so much as a blotter.
“Just for that,” one participant would shout, “you’re off my Christmas list forever. I’m taking the present I had for you right back to the store.”
“I wasn’t going to give you anything, anyway,” the other participant would bellow. “Besides, that’s the fourth time this week you’ve taken me off your list.”
Of course all was forgotten and forgiven by Christmas. But if one had kept tabs, it would have appeared that only Mother was certain of getting presents from any of us.
In a good many families, the parents trim the tree on Christmas Eve, and surprise the children the next morning. Mother and Dad thought this was doing things in reverse—that the parents had both the fun of trimming and of watching the looks of pleased surprise. In our house, the children trimmed the tree, and the parents were surprised.
Mother was banned from the parlor on the day before Christmas. She wasn’t even allowed to witness the arrival of the tree, which was brought home on Fred’s express wagon and smuggled in through the kitchen door.
We trimmed the tree that night, while Mother worked alone in her office. We sang carols as we weaved on the tinsel and spread paper chains from the mantel to the chandelier.
Mother’s office was separated from the parlor by a large sliding door, and sometimes we’d hear her soprano joining in. We seldom thought of Mother as being lonesome any more. But perhaps she was lonesome that Christmas Eve.
In a big family, the Santa Claus secret often leaks pretty far down the line. Not that anybody deliberately gives it away, but because too many lay it on too heavily for it to remain plausible. In our family, only Bob and Jane were believers, and even they were confused by the conflicting information heaped upon them.
Nevertheless, all of us hung up our stockings. After Bob and Jane went to bed, Mother filled our stockings and we filled hers. We carried our stockings to her, and then brought them back again when they were filled, since she wasn’t allowed in the parlor.
With the bulging stockings hanging by the fireplace, we surveyed our night’s work and found it good.
“The whole room,” Jack sighed happily, “looks just like Wool’ worth’s, only even better.”
We usually had trouble going to sleep Christmas Eve. But once we dropped off we customarily slept soundly until about six o’clock, when Mother and the young children would rout the rest of us out of bed.
That Christmas Eve, Martha was restless and couldn’t go to sleep at all. About two o’clock, she heard some tiptoeing on the stairs and a light click on. Martha waited a few minutes, and then put on a bathrobe and some slippers, and suspiciously tiptoed down, too.
The parlor door was open and the light was on. Sitting on the floor by the tree, with her back to the door, was Mother.
Martha saw her reach through the presents we had piled under the tree, select one, and then feel it, pinch it, rattle it, and smell it. Something must have told Mother she was being watched, because she finally looked stealthily over her shoulder and saw Martha.
Martha stood disapprovingly with hands on hips, and tapped her right foot on the floor. She didn’t say anything.
“What are you doing up at this time of night?” Mother asked sternly, apparently deciding that a good offense was the best defense.
Martha shook her head and clicked her tongue.
“You should have been asleep hours ago,” said Mother. “You’ll be exhausted by dinner time.”
“I’m going to tell on you,” Martha informed her. “You’re worse than Bob and Jane, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to know what you mean by that,” Mother protested. “Do you think that’s any way to talk to your mother
?”
“You can’t be trusted a minute, can you? Just as soon as you think everyone’s asleep, what do you do?”
“I investigate,” said Mother, “to make sure everything is shipshape.”
“What you mean is that you peek.”
“A person with a naturally suspicious nature might put it that way,” Mother admitted.
“You know you’re not allowed in the parlor until we let you in. That’s tradition.”
“I know it,” Mother giggled. “But your father and I always came down for a preview.”
“You mean all those ohs and ahs, and the time Dad fell down in a dead faint, dawled by all the brilliance, were just an act?”
“If you tell the others,” Mother warned, “you may find ashes in your stocking.”
“I always thought there was something funny about that fainting act.”
“Up to the brim with ashes,” Mother repeated.
“So all you want for Christmas,” Martha said, “is a little love and affection. Well, you can’t shake, pinch and smell those!”
“Sit down and have a pinch,” Mother grinned. “I won’t tell on you, if you don’t tell on me.”
“I’ll be doggoned,” said Martha, squatting next to her on the floor. “Do you see any for me?”
“Here’s one to you from Anne,” Mother replied, feeling, rattling, listening, smelling and using every other sense known to man—and some known only to women. “I think it’s a pocket book.”
“You think.” Martha scoffed. “You’re as sure as if you had taken the package to the hospital and had it X-rayed.”
WE WENT DOWN and got our stockings Christmas morning, and Mother took her first official look at the parlor. She didn’t forget to “oh” and “ah,” and to tell us that the tree never looked lovelier. We took the stockings upstairs to Mother’s room, and opened them there. Then we cleaned up the wrappings, had breakfast, and walked to church. The air was bracing, and all of us felt happy and good.
Tom had a fire for us in the parlor when we returned. Mother sat down at the piano, and we went up to the second-story hall and formed a line by ages. Then Mother started to play Adeste Fidelis. We sang and marched single-file down the stairs and into the parlor. Anne led the way, as she always had done. In the past, Dad had brought up the rear, either carrying the baby or letting the baby stand on his shoes, while Dad took big steps and sometimes long jumps. This year Jane brought up the rear by herself.
Belles on Their Toes Page 11