Testing the Current

by William McPherson

  “Thank you, Mrs. Steer,” Tommy said. He did feel invited; he did feel welcome. He wanted to come back, too, but he was afraid that by the time they got home from the Sedgwicks’ his mother would think it was his bedtime and too late to go to the Steers’ even if Mrs. Steer had promised to light the tree, just for him. Maybe his mother would make an exception. Maybe they would leave early, though Tommy didn’t have much hope of that; his parents never left early. Tommy loved to watch Mrs. Steer light the tree, candle by candle, holding the silver porringer full of kitchen matches in one hand and striking them against the underside of a table, sometimes the sole of her shoe. Mrs. Steer was tall enough to reach the highest candle without a stepladder, but their tree wasn’t as tall as Tommy’s. As she lit the candles and they began to burn, the haloes of light seemed slowly to intensify, illumining piece by piece the ornaments on the tree, the silver, the porcelain and the old furniture from Denmark, the pale green walls, the silk curtains, and the whole room would begin to glow, even the walnut furniture giving off its own golden light. It was a very beautiful sight. “I have to go to the Sedgwicks’ for dinner,” Tommy said. “I wish I didn’t have to go.” He blurted it out quite by surprise. “But maybe I can come back afterwards?” He said it more as a question; it was his hope.

  “Well, if you can’t,” Mrs. Steer said, “we’ll do it tomorrow. You come by tomorrow and you and Amy can play Monopoly. I’ll make you some hot chocolate and then we’ll light the tree. It’ll be just as pretty then.”

  “Yes,” Tommy said. “I’ll come by tomorrow—maybe tonight, too,” and he put on his jacket and picked up his Monopoly set and his snow pants—he didn’t bother to put them on—and ran over to the Randolphs’, eager to show Jimmy his elegant new Monopoly set, and to see what Jimmy had gotten for Christmas. He always got a lot.

  “Why, hello, there, and Merry Christmas,” said Mrs. Randolph when she opened the door. “How’s my little friend? And what’s that?” She pointed to his Monopoly set. Tommy put it down and showed her before he even got his jacket off.

  “That’s beautiful, Tommy, just beautiful. What Santa Claus dropped that down your chimney?”

  “Margie Slade,” Tommy told her. “Mrs. Slade’s her aunt.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Randolph, “Margie. Well it’s very nice.” Mrs. Randolph didn’t seem too friendly with the Slades, even though she had gone to New Orleans with Mrs. Slade and Dr. Randolph. She’d just packed up and gone on a moment’s notice because she wasn’t going to be left out of the fun. That happened more than a year ago, but everybody still mentioned it now and then, and Tommy’s father said, “Mrs. Randolph’s got spunk.”

  “Jimmy’s in the cellar,” Mrs. Randolph said. “He’s got something to show you, too. I’ll get you a Coke and you go on down.”

  And sure enough, Jimmy did. Jimmy was playing with his favorite Christmas present—even more favorite than the new bicycle that Tommy saw as he passed by their tree, but of course Jimmy couldn’t use the bicycle now, with all the snow. Jimmy was on his way up when Tommy got to the cellar stairs, and they went back to the tree to look at the bicycle. It was the fanciest bicycle Tommy had ever seen, maroon with a baked enamel finish—“just like a car,” Jimmy said. It even had shock absorbers on the front, right below the handlebars, and a rearview mirror, too. Tommy couldn’t have a bicycle yet. Maybe when he was nine, like Jimmy, he could. Bicycles were too dangerous, his mother said, like the candles on the Steers’ Christmas tree, although when his mother was a girl they’d had candles on their tree. You couldn’t buy Christmas lights then. Everything was very old-fashioned when his mother was young. Tommy used to wonder if she’d worn hoopskirts, but she hadn’t. “My goodness, Tommy, I’m not that old,” she said. “That was long before my time. We wore hobble skirts, although I don’t know how we did it. We suffered for fashion.” They called them hobble skirts because they were so tight around the ankles you couldn’t walk in them; you had to hobble.

  “But wait till you see this,” Jimmy said, pushing him toward the cellar. “You’ve never seen anything like this,” and he was right. Tommy had never seen anything like the set for making lead soldiers that Jimmy was playing with. The cellar was hot because there was a fire in the jack—the Randolphs still had a jack for hot water but they didn’t use it for that anymore—and on it Jimmy was melting lead in a long-handled pot. It was called a crucible. He showed Tommy how it worked. Jimmy poured the molten lead—he had to be very careful because if it touched you it would give you a terrible burn—from the crucible into a mold. There were four places for soldiers in each mold, and four different molds. The lead hardened, you opened the mold, and you had four lead soldiers. They were still too hot to touch but the lead cooled quickly. Then you had to separate them because some of the lead overflowed the molds and there were little strings of metal between them that you broke off. Jimmy let Tommy try it. They melted an ingot on the fire, watching it slowly soften and lose its form, like chocolate on the stove. They shook the lead in the pot, watching the patterns swirl and dissolve, slippery as silk. The lead had become very shiny now, like silver, and almost as thin as water. If you spilled a drop on the stove it formed a little ball that sputtered and jumped on the hot surface. The cellar was filled with the acrid smell of metal. Jimmy let Tommy pour the shiny molten lead into one of the molds, and when it had cooled it was dull again, like lead, not like silver at all. He and Jimmy made a lot of soldiers. They used up all the lead, so they had to melt the soldiers down and start over. It was more fun to make them than to play with them, Tommy thought, as they lined the soldiers up on the cellar floor.

  They heard Dr. Randolph come in. Tommy was glad he was home for Christmas this year. Last year he’d been away by himself. Tommy wanted to go upstairs. Dr. Randolph had been out on his calls, even on Christmas. Jimmy said that probably Mrs. Slade was sick again. She was always sick, he said; that was why his father had had to go to New Orleans with her. Tommy thought that if Mrs. Slade was sick, maybe he’d better go see her, too, but first he had to show Jimmy his Monopoly set. Jimmy looked it over and said, well, it was nice, but not so nice as his bike. But then, it wasn’t a bike, it was a Monopoly set, and it was better than Jimmy’s and newer. He’d thought Jimmy Randolph would say something like that. Dr. Randolph liked it, though. He said it was pretty fancy. “Better watch your step, Jimmy, Tommy’ll beat you.” Tommy usually beat him anyway, and then Jimmy would get really mad, especially because Tommy was younger. He wanted to have things his own way, and when he didn’t get them he wouldn’t play. Usually Tommy did what Jimmy wanted, and if he really didn’t want to, well, then, he wouldn’t play either; he’d just go home. He liked to read, and he liked playing by himself well enough.

  “Say, Tommy, come here,” Dr. Randolph said. “You’re a red little pecker, aren’t you?”

  “P.T.!” Mrs. Randolph didn’t like him to talk like that. Tommy giggled.

  “Let me feel your forehead,” and Dr. Randolph put his cool hand on Tommy’s forehead, bending his head back uncomfortably. “Open your mouth.” Tommy did. Dr. Randolph grasped Tommy’s chin and peered down his throat. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes,” Tommy said, “I’m feeling all right.” He wondered if he really was.

  “Well, you feel hot to me,” Dr. Randolph said. “Not like Lucille over here. Lucille’s cold as a dead nun’s tit. Come here, Lucille, I’ll heat you up.” Dr. Randolph laughed hilariously and slapped his leg. Tommy was shocked—he had heard Dr. Randolph say “tit” before, but he’d never heard him say it to Mrs. Randolph like that—and then he was embarrassed. Mrs. Randolph was disgusted. She went into the kitchen to baste the turkey, giving Dr. Randolph a look. Tommy heard her open the oven door. He could hear the grease crackling, and the smell of the bird filled the room. The Randolphs’ dining table was already set with the new china they’d gotten at Gump’s in San Francisco. The china had fancy red service plates—it looked something like Tommy’s grandmother’s china but n
ewer—and demitasses to go with them. Dr. Randolph was very proud of it. “Look at these plates. You don’t see china like this every day,” Dr. Randolph told him. “It’s Lenox,” and he picked up a plate and turned it over to show Tommy where it said LENOX. “It’s American, and you can’t buy any better.” Tommy’s grandmother’s wasn’t; it came from Europe. “Lucille,” Dr. Randolph called into the kitchen, “who else would give you china like this?”

  “P.T.,” Mrs. Randolph called back, “I’ve earned every plate.” She was still mad.

  Jimmy had started to play with his Erector Set. He ignored most of his father’s jokes but he was proud of his father because he made so much money and no other doctor in town could take out an appendix in three minutes.

  “Tommy,” Dr. Randolph said, feeling his forehead again, “you go home and tell your parents you’re not feeling well and that they should keep an eye on you.” Tommy put on his jacket and picked up his Monopoly set and his snow pants and went across the street to his house. He decided he shouldn’t go to the Slades’.

  Margie and Nick had already left. Tommy didn’t tell his parents that he wasn’t feeling good. It was Christmas, and he thought he felt all right. He certainly felt all right to play with his presents, and he knew his mother would say that if he felt good enough to play with them, he felt good enough to go to the Sedgwicks’. So he didn’t say anything, and a little later they went out for dinner. John didn’t ride with them. He took their mother’s car because it was his turn for it and he thought he’d be staying later than his parents, so David had to walk. He was spending the rest of the day with Margie. They were eating at Bob Griswold’s. Daisy and Phil Meyer were going to be there, too, and Bob’s parents. Tommy felt sorry that they wouldn’t all be at the Sedgwicks’ together.

  Dinner at the Sedgwicks’ was not much fun. They were all grown-ups. The Hutchins were there, and Emily’s college roommate whose name was Molly—she was nice—and Nick Kingsfield, and Lucien Wolfe, too. Emily thought it would be nice if Molly and Nick hit it off. She thought Nick was a good catch. Everybody thought Nick was a good catch, and now that his mother had died they probably thought he was an even better one. Tommy didn’t believe his parents thought Margie was a good catch, though her parents were dead, too. It was curious. Everyone looked at the Sedgwicks’ Christmas presents, and they all exchanged small gifts. Emily gave John a record that she put on their Victrola, singing along with it: “I was a good little girl, till I met you; You set my heart in a whirl, when I saw you,” and everybody smiled but Mr. Wolfe laughed. “That’s a good one,” he said.

  Tommy was glad that he’d taken his book. He read it by himself in the Sedgwicks’ sun-room before dinner. When he had a chance he’d have to ask Mr. Wolfe about the Sargasso Sea, but really he wasn’t feeling very good. Dr. Randolph was right. He could hardly eat any of his turkey, and he took only one bite of his plum pudding. Ruth brought it to the table. She was working on Christmas. Rose wasn’t. Rose was going to come over the next day to stay through New Year’s, and she had to have some time off, his mother said, so she didn’t work Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, either. Tommy’s parents were going to be out so much, and his mother knew that unless Rose stayed in the house where she could keep an eye on her, she’d probably not show up at all, and his mother needed her. Mrs. Sedgwick was in the kitchen a long time before the pudding came out. She’d had a hard time getting it lit, she explained, and then finally she rushed into the dining room and sat down, Mr. Sedgwick turned off the lights, and Ruth brought the pudding to the table. It was supposed to be flaming, but you could hardly see the fire, just a little blue flicker that went out right away. Everybody admired it anyway, and exclaimed over it, and Mrs. Sedgwick looked pleased. Tommy asked to be excused before the others had finished, and he went back to the sun-room where Mr. Sedgwick kept all his weather instruments, including the barometer with the pen that charted every change. The weather was one of Mr. Sedgwick’s hobbies. Trains were another, and when Tommy heard the whistle blow in the distance he thought that Mr. Sedgwick would know which train it was and where it was going, but he didn’t feel good enough to ask. He didn’t even feel good enough to read, and he curled upon the couch and pulled the afghan over him that Mrs. Sedgwick’s mother had made. He could hear the laughter from the dining room. He wanted to go home. He was afraid he was going to be sick to his stomach, and he didn’t want to be sick to his stomach at the Sedgwicks’. If that were going to happen he wanted to be home, and feel his mother’s cool hand on his brow and have her hold his head if he threw up. He didn’t want to think about it. He was afraid if he thought about it, that would make it happen. Finally he called her. “Mommy. Mommy.” Then louder, “Mommy!” She heard him that time, and came into the sun-room.

  “What’s the matter, Tommy? Are you all right?” She looked concerned and put her hand on his forehead.

  “No,” he said, “I’m not all right. I’m sick.”

  “Oh, Tommy, no,” his mother said. “Where do you feel sick?”

  “All over,” Tommy said. “In my stomach.”

  His mother took his hand and sat down beside him on the couch. Tommy didn’t like the jiggle it made. She put her hand on his forehead again. “I think you’re feverish.” She seemed surprised.

  “Can we go home?”

  “Of course, darling. In just a minute. You lie there. I’ll be right back.” She kissed him and returned to the dining room. Tommy heard her say that he was sick. “Tommy always gets sick on holidays,” he heard her say. That wasn’t true, Tommy thought. When had he been sick on a holiday? He wasn’t sick at Thanksgiving. But he didn’t feel good enough to care. He heard Mrs. Sedgwick say, “Well, there’s no need for both of you to go and break up the party. Why doesn’t one of you take him home?” Tommy bet Mrs. Sedgwick wanted his father to stay, and in a minute the three of them came into the room to see how he was feeling. He felt worse, if anything.

  “Tommy, you wouldn’t mind if your father stayed for the rest of the party,” Mrs. Sedgwick asked.

  “No,” Tommy said, “that’s all right.” But it turned out after some more discussion that Tommy’s mother was going to stay instead—they worked it out somehow—and Tommy’s father said he was taking him home. His brother could take his mother home later. All Tommy wanted was to be in his own bed, and he and his father left. Although it wasn’t far from the Sedgwicks’ to his house, Tommy fell asleep in the car, under his father’s arm, opening his eyes as they drove up to the house, the two trees like sentinels shining on the porch roof, the evergreen doorway sparkling with lights, and snow beginning to fall. Tommy passed through the enchanted doorway into the big hall festooned with boughs. He looked with longing at his desk near the tree in the living room, but he felt too sick to approach it, to let his hand brush across it, and he went straight upstairs. His father got him into his pajamas and into bed, bringing him a glass of ginger ale and crushing the ice because he thought it would be good for his stomach, but Tommy couldn’t drink it, though he tried.

  He woke up with Dr. Randolph standing beside his bed. “What did I tell you?” he said, but he said it nicely. “You’re a sick little boy,” and he stuck a thermometer into his mouth and made him keep it under his tongue and not bite it. Tommy wanted to cry, he felt so awful, but he didn’t. “You’ve got a high fever,” Dr. Randolph said, looking at the thermometer before he shook it down. He felt Tommy’s neck and looked at his throat again and into his eyes. Then he pulled up Tommy’s pajamas and looked at his stomach and chest. “I’m going to give you a pill,” he said, “and you’ve got to swallow it.” Dr. Randolph reached into his medical bag for a bottle of pills, shook out a few of them, and gave one to Tommy, who swallowed it with the ginger ale that was still beside his bed. He put the rest into a little envelope. “Here are half a dozen more,” he said to Tommy’s father. “Give him one every three or four hours if he wakes up. He probably will. Don’t wake him, though, unless he still seems feverish. This should take
his temperature down, but check on him.” Dr. Randolph reached into his bag again. “I’m going to paint your throat, Tommy,” he said. “It’ll hurt, but you can take it.” He dipped a swab into the bitter blue-green medicine that Tommy had had before, made him say “aaah,” and pushed the stick against the back of his throat. Tommy gagged. The medicine tasted awful. He was afraid he’d throw up, but he didn’t. “I’ll stop by tomorrow,” Dr. Randolph said, and he and his father left the room and went downstairs. Tommy heard the door shut before he fell asleep.

  Later he woke up and heard his mother come home. She wasn’t with his brother but with Mr. Wolfe. She came up to check on him, but Tommy was only half awake. She made him take another pill. “Where’s John?” Tommy asked. “John and Emily went skating with Nick and Molly,” his mother said, “and Mr. Wolfe drove me home.”

  “I know,” Tommy said, and fell asleep again as the sounds of Kinderszenen floated up the stairs. He heard the first tune, but he didn’t hear the end of the second, “A Curious Story.” It had the same name in German.

  It was very dark when Tommy woke up again, and the house was silent. Nobody had thought to raise his blinds. Tommy was soaking wet, and his pillow was wet, too. He was very thirsty and had to go to the bathroom. He was shivering. The dim hall light cast blurred shadows on the walls. The heavy blue curtains at the top of the stairway, closed to prevent drafts, moved as he passed. Tommy shuddered. Someone had left a light on in the bathroom at the other end of the hall, the one his brothers shared, and he went there instead of to the bathroom at his end of the hall, between his bedroom and his parents’. He went to the toilet and drank two glasses of water. He heard a noise, which frightened him, and then he heard footsteps coming down the hall, saw a man’s huge shadow falling across the floor and up the wall. “What are you doing, Tommy?” It was his father. He was standing at the bathroom door. “Are you all right?” His father was wearing only his pajama top; the rest of him hung out naked. Tommy didn’t want to look. He felt dizzy. “Yes, I’m all right,” he said, turning out the light. He didn’t know if it was scarier with the light out, or not. “I was thirsty.” He could see his father and his father’s shadow in the dim light of the hall.