The Family Nobody Wanted

by Helen Doss

  When I opened the door into the kitchen, black smoke billowed from the living room. A searing stench hit my nostrils and burned my eyes.

  “Where’s the fire?” I yelled, my heart pounding as I stumbled into the living room and started sweeping little children into my arms.

  Susie was sitting near the register, weeping bitter tears. “Ba-woon all gone, mine,” she sobbed, pointing toward the furnace. “All ba-woons all gone.”

  The smoke was all originating from the register, so I set my armload of children down. Then I noticed that the big balloon box had been snitched from its hiding place, and was lying on the floor, completely empty. I rushed to the register and knelt down, almost burning the skin from my knees. As I peered with smarting eyes through the smoke, I could make out darkish puddles of bubbling rubber stuck to the glowing red top of the furnace. There was no way to reach the mess, or clean it up.

  Donny started toward the kitchen. “I’ll get a pan of cold water to pour on.”

  The acrid smoke continued to sting my eyes and tears were streaming down my cheeks. “Don’t bother! It might crack the furnace open.” I blew my nose with a loud honk.

  Donny reappeared in the doorway. “You shouldn’t cry about it,” he said. “Those balloons aren’t any good now, I don’t think.”

  “You don’t think, period,” I muttered, and dashed for the front door and the windows, throwing them open. A sixty-mile gale, fresh from the Arctic, blew in, sweeping snow all over the place.

  “First you let the house get too cold,” Donny observed, “then you get it too hot, and then you get it too cold again. Daddy doesn’t.”

  None of the smoke had gone out, but snow had come in. I closed the door and windows. The smoke poured out of the register faster than ever, and the room was an oven again.

  “This stuff doesn’t smell good,” Donny said. “Why don’t you turn off the fire in the furnace for a while?”

  “Why doesn’t somebody turn off the mischief inside of you, for a while?” I groaned. I plunked Donny into a big chair, lined the four younger ones in a row on the couch, and gave each a picture book. “Now everybody read, until Mama comes back.”

  “Me can’t read,” Rita piped up.

  “None of you can,” I said. “Just look at the pictures.”

  Back in the basement, I shook down the coals, piled the fire with ashes. I did everything I’d watched Carl do when he wanted to control the temperature, but it was no use. The furnace rocked with heat like a thing possessed. Finally I gave up and dragged back upstairs. There I found Donny had borrowed a box of rolled-oats cereal from the kitchen, and had sprinkled it over the puddles of melted snow on the floor. Coughing and choking, the children were stirring the oats with their fingers and shaping crumbly little patties.

  “We finished our books,” Donny explained.

  “We make tookies,” Susie lisped.

  “Oh, no!” I sputtered, wiping my streaming eyes. It was worse than living in a tire factory. “Did you kids have to waste all that perfectly good oatmeal?”

  “No waste,” Donny said. “We can bake them on the register. Look, it’s so nice and hot—”

  “No, no, NO!” I croaked hoarsely. “Merciful heavens, no! I don’t want to see any of you children put one more thing on, in, under, through, or on top of that furnace register. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mother,” Donny said.

  “Yes, Muzzer,” Teddy, Laura, Susie, and Rita echoed solemnly.

  They were true to their word. They didn’t let me see them. But the next day I missed my fountain pen, a loose handle from the kitchen drawer, and a button I had laid out to sew back on my good coat.

  In most of the winter activities, however, Donny felt singularly left out.

  “We got to find a boy the right size of me,” he complained. “These little kids just aren’t old enough to play any real games. They just stand around and talk about the same old things, over and over. They sound like a bunch of church ladies.”

  The subjects of junior-level conversation, while limited, showed no signs of wearing out. One never-failing topic was the rehashing of the time Rita fell out of the window. She tumbled less than two feet and landed in a cushioning bush, but was so startled she screamed as if she had dropped into the Grand Canyon. Six months later, in the dead of winter, the topic was still as fresh as if it had happened an hour before.

  “Laura,” Teddy would begin, “Rita fall out the window, did you know that?”

  “Oh. Rita fall out the window?”

  “Yeah, Rita she fall out the window.”

  Laura would turn eagerly to Susie to pass along this perennial tidbit. “Susie, Teddy say Rita fall out the window.”

  Susie’s blue eyes would open wide, as if she had never heard this news before. “Rita fall out the window?”

  “Yeah,” Laura would marvel, pointing a chubby finger. “That Rita over there, she fall out the window.”

  So Susie would turn to Rita. “Rita, you fall out the window?”

  “Yeah, me, I fall out the window. Hey Teddy, did you know I fall out the window, did you, hmmmm?”

  At other times, Susie might be the one who would begin a favorite subject. “Do you like me, Teddy, hmmmm?” she would ask. “Do you like me?”

  Teddy would mull this over, his brown face as serious as an Irish setter’s, and finally reply, “Yes, I like you.”

  Susie would turn to Laura. “Lala, Teddy like me.”

  Laura, between Susie and Teddy all the time, her head turning back and forth to follow the conversational ball like a spectator at a tennis match, would ask in amazement, “He say that? Teddy say he like you?”

  “Yeah, Teddy say he like me.”

  Then Rita would turn to Susie. “Thu-thie, you like me?”

  Following a decent interval of thought, Susie would give a considered nod. “Yeah, I like you, Rita.”

  So Rita would say, “Hey, Teddy, Thu-thie tell me—”

  This would go on, by the hour, by the day, through the long winter months, until I wondered where my sanity was when I used to say: All I want out of life is a little family!

  More frustrating for me, and less so for Donny, were the winter excursions outside. After days of howling blizzard and subarctic weather, along came mornings when the sun glittered with deceptive warmth on the snow. I remember a morning typical of many, when the children crowded along the window seat, noses pressed against the cold pane. Bursting with energy, they asked if they could go out to play.

  “A splendid idea!” I said. The floors needed mopping and waxing, and I might even have time to put some cup custards in the oven, unimpeded.

  Donny, old enough to manage his clothes with a minimum of help, could whoop it out to the snow in a few minutes. It took me a good half hour more to get Laura, Susan, Teddy, and Rita encased in corduroy overalls, sweaters, mufflers, ski pants, overshoes, jackets, mittens, and caps. Then the inevitable happened, as I opened the back door and stood shivering in the chill blast.

  “Have to go to the baff-room,” Susie sang out cheerfully.

  “Me, too!” Teddy announced.

  “Yeah,” echoed Laura and Rita.

  “Just a half hour ago—” I began, but in matters like this the child always holds the trump card. Off came mittens, hats, jackets, overshoes, ski pants, mufflers, sweaters, and corduroy overalls. We all trooped solemnly upstairs; then downstairs, and back on with all the wrappings. Two minutes after they went out, Donny was beating on the back door.

  “I want to come in. I’m cold.”

  I peeked through a crack. “Don’t you want to play a little more, so Mother can wax the floor?”

  “I’m too cold,” he said, so I let him in. Copycats all, the little children banged on the door like Donny.

  “We cold, too,” they insisted.

  Everyone tracked across the partly waxed floor, dripping snow. By the time the little children had all their snow clothes peeled off, Donny discovered he was warm again, and
dashed outside.

  Teddy said, “Me wanna go outside again.” His three sisters nodded in agreement.

  I sighed and gathered together the heap of clothes. “Now hadn’t we all better make another trip upstairs, first?” There was a loud and vigorous denial, so I began the stuffing and wrapping process once more.

  They were just starting out the back door when Teddy piped up, “Now I hafta go to the baff-room, Mama.”

  “Me, too,” proclaimed the Delphic chorus behind him.

  The furnace was always running neck and neck with the children, in the race to see which could be more frustrating; but one time we had no heat for nearly two days, and for once it wasn’t the furnace’s fault.

  A series of late-spring blizzards had piled the snow to record depths outside. The sunken, empty lot next door had filled in like a huge lake, and was frozen over. A sudden thaw followed, with leaden skies pouring down a torrent of rain. I remember the night I built up a roaring fire in the furnace, well banked to last until the next day, and how puzzled I was in the morning when I awoke to find the house like the Antarctic.

  I put on my robe and slippers and hurried downstairs. As I opened the cellar door, I was frightened by the strange noises. There was a distinct sound of bottles clinking, and something gurgling.

  “Is—is someone down there looking for me?” I quavered.

  I had to force myself down the dimly lit wooden steps. There was no answer, only another ghostly clink, clink of the bottles. I swallowed hard, gooseflesh all over me and my knees knocking louder than the bottles. As I turned on the landing and started down the steps, I could see why the house was cold and why the bottles clinked. The basement was full of water. The water was over the bottom storage shelves where I kept my home-canned fruit and tomatoes. Empty bottles had washed off and were floating around on the surface of the water, clinking as they met. Over in the dim distance, the furnace sulked, cold and half drowned.

  Now what would I do? Things always happened when Carl was away at school. The water kept rising and I had to move up another step. At that point I heard the thunder of little feet across the kitchen above me. The cellar door was flung open, and Donny, Teddy, Laura, Susie and Rita came tumbling down the stairs in their pajamas.

  “Us couldn’t find you,” Susie said.

  “Stop!” I shouted. “Don’t fall in!”

  “Fall in what?” asked Donny.

  “The water,” I said gloomily.

  They came down with caution, sitting on the steps above me.

  “Gosh,” Donny said in awe, “our own swimming pool.”

  “Nobody’s swimming in that,” I said. “It’s mucky, and it’s ice cold.”

  “So am I,” said Donny. “Why don’t you light the furnace?”

  “I don’t think it burn,” brown-faced Teddy said, dark eyes serious. “It’s under the water.”

  “Let’s bail it out,” Donny said. “Shall I go upstairs and get some cups and a bucket?” The water was rising fast, and we all had to move up another step.

  “It’s coming in faster than we can bail,” I said. The water had passed the middle storage shelves, and I was worrying about the top ones. Up there we had our camping stove and equipment, and the parts of a radio-phonograph Carl was assembling. “Mama has to think of some way to save those things,” I told the children.

  “What we need,” Donny said, “is a boat. Could we use a dishpan for a boat?”

  “Mama want Teddy go in a boat?” Teddy volunteered.

  “Me no go,” Susie said, shaking her blonde head.

  “Me, no,” Rita echoed, black hair swinging.

  Laura eyed me warily, and retreated up to the landing. “Me no boat,” she said, ready to evacuate to the kitchen, if necessary.

  “No boat,” I said. “Donny, please bring down Mama’s rubber boots from the top step.” I put them on, and they came barely to my calves. Gingerly I plunged one foot into the water and started down. I slipped on the slimy step, and the muddy, icy water poured into my boot, squishing around my bedroom slipper and bare foot. I was still a long way from the basement floor, so I returned to my perch. “No use,” I reported. “Too deep to wade.”

  “Why don’t you swim?” Donny asked brightly.

  I shook my freezing foot. “This is enough for me. Let’s go upstairs and get dressed.”

  I warmed the kitchen with the kerosene cookstove. We spent half the day returning to the basement, to watch the water rise. After I tucked the children to bed that night, I climbed into my own bed with a gnawing worry. The water was getting higher and higher. I half expected to awaken to find the house floating down the nearest river.

  Carl returned the next day, called the proper places, and had the basement pumped out. A foot of muck remained on the floor and shelves. When Carl finally finished getting the place shoveled out and washed clean, he staggered upstairs to the bathroom and a hot tub, which I had filled with buckets of water heated on the stove.

  “Nothing like a good flood,” he philosophized, “to get a man to clean out his basement.”

  The snow swept down from the north in a howling blizzard, and everything froze solid outside for two weeks. Then another sudden thaw came. The house chilled, and there was the same ominous clink of bottles in the basement. I rushed, horrified, to the basement steps. The water was just over the bottom shelves again. This time I clenched my teeth, took off my shoes, wrapped my dress around my hips, and waded in. After same amateur sleuthing, I found the source of trouble.

  “Horrible news, we’re flooded again,” I told Carl, when with chattering teeth I let him into the cold house the next day. “And did you notice that both times our basement filled up—the lake next door disappeared? I found a place in the wall, near that broken-down sink in the basement, where the water was pouring in like a burbling spring.”

  After the water had been pumped out again, Carl discovered the link between our basement and the disappearing lake next door. An underground channel had found its way from the thawed lake into an abandoned cistern next to our house which had been piped into the basement, so that the whole lake had deposited itself in our basement each time.

  Carl filled the cistern with dirt, plugged the opening into our basement, and shoveled out the mud. This time he had no cheery Pollyanna comments about the value of having one’s cellar flooded in order to get it cleaned.

  These were all relatively minor irritations, however; it was a real crisis, one winter, that really gave me something to worry about.

  I remember the Sunday night when Carl was packing up to go back to school and looking grave because a little boy in our Sunday school had just died of chicken pox.

  “I thought chicken pox wasn’t serious!” I exclaimed. “When Don had it, back in Cucamonga, he was scarcely sick.”

  “It usually is a mild disease, but this boy died of some very rare complications,” Carl said. “Wasn’t he in the same nursery class with Teddy and the girls?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Maybe if chicken pox is going around, I’d better keep them home next Sunday.”

  It was too late. The next morning, after Carl had left early for school, I started dressing the children. As I took off Susie’s pajamas, I saw that her tummy was peppered with red dots. It didn’t bother Susie, who only looked at her rash with curious interest; but it bothered Laura, always sympathetic and supersensitive.

  “Poor Susie,” Laura whispered over and over, as she squatted down to inspect the rash at close hand. “Poor, poor Susie.”

  The next moment, her own pajamas off, she looked down to see her own red polka-dotted tummy. Huge tears rolled down her cheeks as she shrieked, “Poor me, poor poor ME!”

  I tried to call the doctor, but a blizzard was blowing up outside, and the phone was dead. It was one of the old-fashioned, crank-type telephones and usually went dead in bad weather, which was the only time I really needed it. Long afterward, just before we moved, we found that squirrels had chewed through the cable and insulatio
n. Every time it rained or snowed, moisture got in and short-circuited the wires, so the phone would be temporarily out.

  I wasn’t too worried at first. Teddy and Rita had the first faint pricklings of a rash, but all four tots seemed to be feeling well. Why should I be uneasy? The doctor hadn’t even treated Donny. “Let me know if he scratches too much,” was all the doctor had said, when Donny had had it. Why should Laura, Susie, Teddy and Rita have anything but mild cases, too? Still, I couldn’t forget the neighbor boy, and the first uneasiness kept growing.

  That night the little children refused their supper and were restless. I sponged them with baking soda and water, and they went right to sleep. In the morning I woke early, hearing them crying. All were feverish, itching so badly that they kept scratching their pox. The house was cold, like ice.

  I hurried to the basement. Only a few shovelfuls of coal left in the bin! This was during the war, when coal was often hard to get, when shipments didn’t come in on time and you sometimes went without. I had known we were low; Carl had reminded the coal company Saturday, but was only promised that some would be sent when the next carload arrived. I had been so concerned with the children, I hadn’t realized until now how desperate our coal situation had grown.

  After throwing in the last of our kindling, I piled on the precious bits of remaining coal and started the fire, knowing it couldn’t last long. Upstairs, I jiggled the receiver again, but the telephone was still dead. The blizzard still howled around the house, wrapping us in a white, cold tomb. We were as isolated from the outer world, temporarily, as if we lived in the middle of Alaska.

  The day was a nightmare. The fire in the furnace burned long enough to bring the temperature up a few meager degrees, then went out. By afternoon, with unprecedented use, the kerosene cookstove had gone out too, and it was half a mile to the nearest gas station where I could get kerosene. The house chilled down fast, and ice formed over the top of a pan of water on the sink.

  Toward evening I began to get frantic. I was afraid to send little Donny out into the howling snowstorm for help, for fear he would get lost in the freezing, impenetrable whiteness and never come back. The other four wouldn’t let me out of sight, crying hysterically when I left their rooms.