Onions in the Stew

by Betty Macdonald

  Speaking of Alaska, about six years ago, somebody gave Anne a baby female Malemute flown down from Alaska. Mala was the most engaging puppy I have ever seen. Cuddly and loving and with many enchanting attitudes, one of which was sleeping with Anne with her head on the pillow. It was unfortunate that Mala was a moron. A complete moron. She never even learned her name. And when she was a great big two-year-old wolf, she was still coyly chewing up shoes and cashmere sweaters and pounds of butter. We have a swinging half door between the dining room and living room which Tudor has always been able to go through with facility. He merely lunges against it and on the third swing slips through. We tried for two years to teach Mala to push the door but she preferred to chew her way through. She was more successful chewing her way through the French doors, two sheep and a flock of Mallard ducks so we had to give her away.

  Mrs. Miniver, our first cat, was a shy, affectionate, very fertile tortoise-shell, who was part Persian and part Angora. She used to walk the trail with me every morning and wait by the “big tree” for me at night. She had about forty-two kittens, off and on, four to a batch and was remarkably obliging about always having one yellow one for Mother who has a great weakness for yellow kittens.

  Mrs. Miniver was a skillful ratter and caught at least one every day of her life, always displaying her catch at mealtimes. She died of ratfish poisoning, as had many of her kittens.

  Then a neighbor gave us Murra (“chimney sweep” in Swedish we were told), who lived on the mantel. She, also part Persian, part Angora, was a lovely dark brown with green-grape eyes. She had six or seven batches of gray kittens in Mother’s closet, then one day we found her on the path, dead, from ratfish poisoning I suppose. The ratfish, I was told by old Mr. Blue, a caretaker for the beach, are caught and cast aside by the mud shark liver fishermen. When they are washed up on the beach by the tide, the cats eat them and die. Whether this is fact or fable I cannot say as I have never seen a ratfish but I have buried several beloved cats after a brief violent sickness.

  I love cats. In spite of notions to the contrary, they are affectionate and loyal. The last time I came back from a trip, Marigold, our present cat, put her arms around my neck and rubbed her cheek against mine. Also, in spite of prevalent fallacies, cats do not have an easy time bearing kittens. All of our cats have demanded that one of us stay with them during labor and Mrs. Miniver had such a hard time and cried so piteously that I always gave her some warm milk with brandy in it when she had the first pain.

  Marigold, a beautiful orange kitty, was pregnant and had been badly treated by some children before we got her. She was in labor for three terrible days and finally had to be rushed to the veterinary, who told us that all of her kittens were dead, one was crosswise, and if she was to survive she must have an immediate operation. Her Caesarean section and hysterectomy were successful and now, though seven years old, she is very playful and a superb mouser.

  Tudor has always chased our cats, but it was by mutual agreement and merely a gesture because dogs are supposed to chase cats. He would rush out the dining room door, yipping, and the cat would run up the cedar tree. Marigold would never tolerate this nonsense. From the first day we got her, thin, frightened and abused, she stood her ground with Tudor and slapped him hard on the nose when he ran at her.

  Marigold enjoys walking on the beach, darting like a golden arrow from bleached log to bleached log, and loves picnic suppers and singing around the campfire. Her favorite spot is on the top of a huge old stump by the picnic table. Eyes blazing with mischief, tail switching anticipatorily, she crouches flat at the edge of the stump and grabs at the hair of any passer-by. When we sing she sits up straight and gazes mournfully across the water. When we throw scraps to the ducks she suddenly leaps off the sea wall into the middle of them and sends them squawking. Tudor often joins her at this game but invariably carries it too far and gobbles up all the duck food, once eating a paper cup.

  Graybar, a mangy old Maltese cat left on the beach to go wild, came to us when he was desperately sick with some sort of dysentery. I doctored him with whisky, raw eggs, rice and boiled milk, but he grew steadily worse. I felt so sorry for him I couldn’t bear it and one day in desperation mashed up five Nembutal capsules, mixed them with a raw egg and fed them to him. He looked at me trustingly and lapped it up. When he had finished he dragged himself over to the edge of the rockery by the rose bed and stretched out in the sunshine. I went into the kitchen and cried. Graybar lay by the rose bed all day. Once I went out and tearfully felt for a heartbeat. There seemed to be one. About sundown he disappeared. Anne and Joan and I cried and Don said sadly it was for the best. We all went to bed with heavy hearts-mine the heaviest because I was the murderer. The next morning Graybar showed up for breakfast, looking fine. The girls stroked him and cooed over him and he moved away from them disdainfully, flicking a little dandruff off his shoulders. I gave him hot oatmeal and cream and he drank about a pint. He has never had a sick day since.

  Several years ago a raccoon decided to be our friend. We saw her first on the patio by the kitchen eating Tudor’s food. The next night, naturally, Tudor didn’t leave any food so Raccy came to the window and explained the situation. I mixed up a pan of Frisky meal, a bowl of left-over gravy, four old muffins and a rock hard piece of fruit cake. While I was fixing her supper Mrs. Raccy waited for me discreetly but appropriately behind the Unknown Warrior rhododendron. I set the pan in the rose bed in a spot clearly visible from both the kitchen and service room windows. As soon as I had gone indoors Mrs. Raccy waddled over to the rose bed and began eating. She chose the fruitcake first and finding it delightful held it in both her little hands and nibbled around it the way a child nibbles around the edge of a cookie. Watching her, Mother said that I should have also put out a pan of water as raccoons prefer to dip their food in water. I didn’t put water out that night because I didn’t want to frighten our new friend, but the next night when she announced her presence by sitting under a camellia and peering in the dining room window, I took out both supper (corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, chicken gravy and bones and a green salad) and a pan of water. She did appreciate the water, dipping each bite, but she showed us she didn’t care for the green salad, by tossing it into the primroses.

  The next spring when Mrs. Raccy returned she brought along either a close friend or a husband and two half-grown children. We were of course very glad to see them and I mixed up a big batch of dog meal (which we now buy in hundred-pound sacks), bacon grease, mashed potatoes, stale bread and stale cookies, dumped it into two large baking pans and set them up by the rhododendrons. Then I put a pan of water and a basket of left-over candy Easter eggs out on the patio by the dining room window. As soon as they had finished the entrée the Raccy family came around to the patio for dessert. Mr. and Mrs. Raccy, though dainty at the table and splendid about sharing, were very shy and ducked behind a camellia or rhododendron when we opened the door. The babies were quarrelsome and piggish about the candy but would eat out of our hands and showed strong leanings toward coming in the house and living with us. Sometimes the Raccys brought along neighbors but they were awfully nasty to them and wouldn’t let them have a single Easter egg (we now buy these direct from the factory forty-pounds at a time) until they and their children were so full they were gagging. Mrs. Raccy is really more friendly than her husband and yesterday came down from the woods in the daytime and watched Mother prune the grapevine. I don’t know whether she has a grapevine of her own at home and wanted pointers or whether she feels that women should occasionally seek the company of other women. No matter how friendly the raccoons become, no matter how often he sees them, Tudor, perhaps because of their black masks, insists they are robbers and goes shrieking after them every single night. So far they have treated him with amused, undeserved tolerance, unhurriedly climbing to the first branch of the cedar tree just out of his reach, but I really hope that some time, one of them, perhaps one of the quarrelsome babies, will give him a good scare. They ar
e fierce fighters. We are now feeding six and all but two eat out of our hands.

  Bucky, the deer, was our friend for over six years. Often in the very early morning, we could hear his footsteps like tack hammers on the front porch. Once I looked out of our bedroom window in that indistinct smudgy time when there is only a thread of silver across the darkness in the east, the lights of Seattle across the way are like tiny holes in a black kettle, but we can tell it is morning by the thin scratchy sound of birds’ feet on the roof and swoopy shrill early-morning noises of the sea gulls. The air was soft and smelled like seaweed and marigolds. I was breathing deeply and wondering if there would be a good clam tide when I saw something moving by the wisteria tree. Something rather large. I watched and waited and pretty soon Bucky came up the steps from the lower terrace onto the patio. He walked around, nibbling daintily at the flowers. Finally surfeited with snapdragons and zinnias, he slowly, majestically climbed the steps through the upper rockery to the guesthouse.

  One early morning he brought his doe and fawn down for a swim. Once we saw him running along the beach with vines in his antlers. We have seen him many times in the orchard, standing under a cherry tree as still as the mist around his knees. He disappeared the year they opened season for deer on the island. The sport who shot Bucky deserves the same badge of courage as the duck hunter who last fall rowed up in front of our sea wall and, when our flock of pet ducks hurried out to greet him, shot and killed all but four.

  Joan and Anne brought Sheldon and Camille from the circus. Sheldon was a small green turtle and Camille a chameleon. Sheldon was no fun at all and spent his entire short life under the refrigerator. Camille lives in the blue garden where she darts around not changing color but apparently enjoying herself.

  I do not like rats, but once one made me cry. It was when we first bought the house, before we built the new kitchen. There was a cupboard next to the stove which had at one time held a hot water tank. It had shelves in it and I kept cereals and crackers there because the warmth from the stove kept them crisp.

  One morning, Anne and Joan, who were still in that charming not-enough-publicized stage of childhood where all food, no matter how beautifully served, is given a thorough microscopic examination for foreign matter, announced in shrill horrified accusing voices that “the top of the PEP box you put on the table has been gnawed by rats!”

  “Nonsense,” I said from my corner by the stove where I was gulping hot coffee, staring at the wall, and wondering why I had chosen writing, of all things, as a means of satisfying my creative urge. What was wrong with those easy pursuits like dry-point etching or rhododendron hybridizing?

  Anne said, “Look, Betty, tooth marks! Ugh, I don’t want any breakfast!”

  Joan said happily, “I think I see a little piece of fur sticking to the box.”

  With the eagerness and grace of a loaded burro I made my way to the breakfast table and looked at the box. The red Kellogg’s on the left-hand corner showed a few but unmistakable signs of nibbling. I could see no large tooth marks or hunks of hair. I said, “Probably a little mouse. I’ll set a trap. Now finish your breakfast. Nothing has been gnawing the toast or bacon.”

  Anne said, “Yes, but I think I see an ant in the jam.”

  “Where?” Joan said eagerly. “Show it to me.”

  I went back to my corner, poured out another cup of coffee, and changed my thinking to tidelands, striking oil, servants and breakfast in bed.

  The next morning when I opened the door to the cupboard to get out the Cornflakes a large gray rat dived through a hole in the ceiling but left his tail hanging down like a bell cord. “I’ll set a trap,” I said to myself, but like most things I say to myself in the early morning it too passed away. I moved the cereals to the cupboard over the sink but I saw the tail every day because I put the soap powder in the rat cupboard. Then Don saw the tail and set a trap. A great big strong rat trap, cleverly handled with gloves and diabolically baited with young leathery cheese smeared with very smelly Camembert. The next morning while I was waiting for the coffee I eased open the door and peeked at the trap. It was empty and I was glad. Later that same morning I was huddled by the stove, writing, when I heard in the cupboard beside me a noise like a blast from a Luger followed by an anguished scream. I knew instantly what had happened and I felt like somebody who has beaten a tiny crippled old lady with her own crutches. Tears running down my cheeks I opened the cupboard door. . . .

  Another time I saw tails but didn’t feel any sorrow. That was also before we remodeled, and the dark hallway leading to the service room had exposed beams. It was one of my excess energy, uncreative days and I had already dusted the fireplace chimney, blacked the andirons and waxed the hearth and was wondering what vital task to attack next when I saw this nest snuggled in the joining place of two beams. I marched into the living room, grabbed the poker, a good long one, and from the safe retreat of the doorway gave the nest a big poke. Immediately right above my head like a moving fringe appeared twelve tails. I screamed and slammed the door. Don set the traps. That was during the time Murra lived on the mantel and, though she was deft and alert, not too many rats or mice ventured into her rather confined hunting preserve.

  One summer some “plaidjackets” (family name for yellow jackets) set up housekeeping just beside the path going to the beach. Plaidjackets are not friendly little fellows and after we had all been stung on bare places we decided something had to be done. Don went purposefully up to Vashon and came proudly home with an expensive plaidjacket demolishing machine. “No matter how vicious or well entrenched, George said that this will get ‘em,” he told me confidently as he mixed up his poison. When the machine was loaded he strapped it on and strode down the path to the beach.

  I heaved a huge sigh of relief because making the dash past the plaidjackets had already resulted in several skinned knees and twisted ankles, as well as the stings. Anne and Joan and my sister Alison’s little boys, Darsie and Bard, were crowded by the railing of the front porch watching. Suddenly they began to shout, “Look out, Don, run!” and I could hear a noise like the whine of a distant saw. Then Don came pounding up the path, still strapped in his big machine, roaring, “Help, they’re all over me!”

  We all smacked and swatted and dejacketed him but he had more than a dozen stings.

  It was my turn next. I waited for a day or so until Don’s attack was just a memory in the plaidjacket home, then filled my fly sprayer with double strength DDT, sneaked down the path, put the nozzle of the sprayer clear into the hole and worked the plunger until the sprayer was empty. As I removed the nozzle several plaidjackets staggered out of the hole, shook themselves, then took off like jet planes, fortunately in the direction of the beach. A few more appeared at the entrance, then more, and then from back inside came the ominous whine, the sound of the distant saw. I ran all the way up to the house, angry plaidjackets breathing down the back of my neck, but I was only stung once because the ones that followed me attacked younger more succulent Joan and Bard.

  Anne said she had noticed that all plaidjackets went into their house at night and didn’t fly around. So that evening after dark, she and I crept down the path and again filled the plaidjacket home with DDT. We pumped two sprayersful into it. The next day the plaidjackets were still on their feet but definitely groggy.

  Every night for a week we pumped their house full of DDT and finally one day we saw a for sale sign. “Whee! They’re gone!” we shouted happily running to the beach.

  “DDT will kill anything,” I said smugly to Don, “and it is certainly a lot cheaper than that big useless machine you bought.” I still don’t know if the plaidjacket nest he showed me on the old stump by the picnic table is the same family or a new one. I do know they are just as unneighborly and twenty times as DDT-resistant.

  CHAPTER X

  MASTER OF NONE

  IF YOU live on the salt water, I am informed by the old-timers, you can expect everything you own, even a great big stone firepl
ace, to break down eventually. This, they say, has something to do with the corrosive effect of salt air. My private opinion, solidified by experience, is that it has more to do with the corrosive effect of the eight million house-guests attracted by the salt air. Anyway, in addition to the icebox, beds, stove, etc., that were in the house when we bought it, we added, as fast as we could gather up the down payments, dishwashers, automatic washers, dryers, freezers, gas heaters, electric heaters on thermostats, chafing dishes, plant sprayers, septic tanks and more toilets with bowls eager for charm bracelets and little celluloid ducks, and with handles that must be juggled ad infinitum unless we want the toilets to run ditto. At inconvenient intervals each of these machines has stopped doing the thing it was hired to do and by means of smoke signals, grinding noises and pungent smells of burning rubber has indicated that it desired the evil eye of the local handyman.

  The local handyman, always referred to as “Nipper” or “Gimpy” or “Mrs. Walters’ Harry,” will fix anything but, like a room that is tidy except for the underwear hanging out of the bureau drawers, the repair job is invariably left with tag ends. “The dishwasher’s okay, now, Betty,” Mrs. Walters’ Harry told me the time the dishwasher insisted on using only dirty cold water which it was apparently sucking up from the septic tank, instead of the nice clean hot water so handily piped into its abdomen. “But remember no soap and keep that big screwdriver of Don’s handy to pry the lid up.”