“I almost had an accident on the road,” Ethel Sloane said.
“On the old Sanderson road?” The clerk’s hands were very still on the counter. “An accident?”
Ethel Sloane opened her mouth and then shut it again. “Yes,” she said at last. “The car skidded.”
“We don’t use that road much,” the clerk said. Ethel started to speak, but stopped herself.
“It’s got a bad name locally, that road,” he said. “What were you needing this morning?”
Ethel thought, and finally said, “Clothespins, I guess I must need clothespins. About the Sanderson road—”
“Yes?” said the clerk, his back to her.
“Nothing,” Ethel said.
“Clothespins,” the clerk said, putting a box on the counter. “By the way, will you and the mister be coming to the P.T.A. social tomorrow night?”
“We certainly will,” said Ethel Sloane.
I.O.U.
Gentleman’s Quarterly, December 1965
MISS HONORIA ATHENS WAS outraged, discouraged, offended, and stiff in every muscle. Furious, she hobbled back and forth across the tiny living room of the little house that had belonged to her for only three weeks; if she tried to sit down, shooting pains went up her back; if she tried to stand still, her legs ached. Walking up and down gave her at least some means of stamping out her anger, but the desire for revenge was deep within her. “I could have bought a house on the side of a volcano,” she told herself, storming. “I could have found a cottage in the middle of a forest filled with bears; I could have settled down smack in the middle of a superhighway, but no” She tried to stamp her foot, and groaned. “I had to pick a really unpleasant place to buy my little house,” she thought. “I had to get the one place in town on the shortcut to school!” She raised her hands to her head and groaned as a pain shot across her shoulders.
After forty-one years of teaching school, Miss Honoria Athens had retired, to live happily alone and grow a little garden. Her little house stood on a block of similar little houses, in a town of little houses, and almost everyone had gardens, and almost everyone had children. Miss Athens, who was still actually fond of children after forty-one years of teaching, had been pleased to think of living in a community full of youngsters, with their liveliness and fun. That was before she discovered that the only, the practical, shortcut from her neighborhood to the school led over her back fence, across her backyard, over the front lawn next door, and to the street. As a matter of fact, it led straight through Miss Athens’ garden.
She hobbled out to the kitchen to look once more upon the patch of ground it had taken her all day Saturday and all day Sunday to dig, and smooth, and clear; every twinge in her aching muscles had come from that garden, and she had consoled herself with dreams of vegetables brought to her table in a miracle of split-second timing, so fresh she could still taste the sunshine on them, tomatoes picked in the cool of the evening and eaten right from the vine, carrots and radishes and squash brought into her little kitchen in a rich, plentiful harvest. Now, looking out her kitchen window, Miss Athens wanted to cry. The shortcut to school crossed what would have been the vegetable garden, and the earth Miss Athens had so laboriously prepared yesterday was, today, trampled and muddied beyond belief, by what must have been an army wearing sneakers.
After teaching school for forty-one years, Miss Athens had no reason to put faith in signs reading PRIVATE or NO TRESPASSING or even PLEASE KEEP OUT OF MY GARDEN. She had, too, a pretty good idea of what might happen to her garden in the future if she started carrying tales to parents in order to get the shortcut routed along the sidewalks; she also knew perfectly well that no boy who ever lived would walk sedately along a sidewalk to get anywhere if there was a possibility of getting to the same place by climbing a fence and shuffling through a backyard full of mud. Bitterly, Miss Athens thought of a shotgun loaded with buckshot, or a lion trap.
At three o’clock that afternoon, Miss Athens was in her backyard, ingloriously hiding behind a bush. She watched as a group of half a dozen boys, whistling and shouting, turned across the lawn next door and made for her yard. Because her aching back was still giving her a good deal of trouble, Miss Athens caught only the last boy, just as he was giving himself a boost over the fence; she caught him by the back of his jacket, but, forty-one years of experience behind her, she immediately shifted her grip to his belt and held on.
“Hey?” the boy said, struggling. “Hey?”
“Come down from there,” Miss Athens said.
“Why?” said the boy, but his grip on the top of the fence loosened and he slid slowly to the ground beside Miss Athens. “Let go of me,” the boy said.
“What’s your name?” Miss Athens said.
The boy’s gaze shifted; all of Miss Athens’ actions so far had been aggressive and her voice sounded downright unfriendly. “George Washington,” the boy said.
“All right, George,” Miss Athens said, “why were you trampling my garden?”
“I didn’t know this was anybody’s garden. We always come this way. To school,” he explained. “This is the way to school. And I got to go home now. My mother—”
“You may come inside and telephone your mother—her name, I suppose, is Mrs. Washington—and tell her that you will be busy this afternoon. You are going to dig my garden over again.”
“I can’t,” the boy said, wriggling. “Let go of me.”
“I’m sorry,” Miss Athens said. “I know you weren’t the only one, but you’re the only one I caught. And heaven knows I can’t dig that garden again. So you boys who ruined it will have to fix it.”
“Golly,” the boy said. “I can’t. But I’ll tell the other guys. I’m sure some of them would help.”
“I’m sure, too,” Miss Athens said. “That’s why I’m holding on to you.”
The boy relaxed a little. “Look,” he said, “all right, you say I helped wreck your old garden, so sure, it’s fair I help fix it up again. Only I just can’t today. I promise you I’ll come on Saturday, for sure, and work in your garden. Okay?”
Miss Athens thought. “How good is your promise?” she asked at last.
“My promise is good. Why, if I promise, I always do it. Word of honor, even if I forget.”
“Wait,” Miss Athens said. “I have an idea. Come inside with me.” Half pulling the boy, she took him in through the back door of her little house, holding on to his belt tightly while she searched one-handed through the kitchen drawers for a pencil and a memo pad. “Now,” she said, putting the pad down on the kitchen table, “you write what I say.”
“O.K.,” said the boy, looking at her out of the corners of his eyes.
“You write… let me see. Write: I. O. U.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Just what it says. It says ‘I owe you,’ and it’s a promise to pay what you owe me.”
“I.O.U. O.K.”
“I.O.U. two hours’ garden work. And sign it. With your real name, please, George Washington.”
The boy giggled. “Allen Stuart is my real name,” he said.
Miss Athens looked over his shoulder at the paper. “Cross your t’s,” she said; she had been a schoolteacher for forty-one years. “Very nice handwriting, Allen. Now, this slip of paper means that you owe me two hours’ work in the garden. When you pay me the work, I give you back the paper and you can tear it up. It’s just a written promise.”
Allen looked at the paper respectfully. “You going to get the other guys to sign papers, too?” he asked.
“When I catch them,” Miss Athens said. “Help yourself from the cookie jar before you go, Allen. Oh, and one more thing: this paper is negotiable.”
“What?”
“That means that I can turn it over to someone. For instance, suppose I met someone—your mother, say—who wanted you to work in her garden for two hours, and suppose that person offered me some kind of trade for this paper. I could give that person this paper you have signed and you
would then owe the two hours’ work to whoever held the paper. You see?”
“Yeah,” Allen said uneasily. “Can I go home now?”
“Dad?” Allen Stuart, after his customary manner, hung heavily over the back of his father’s chair in order to carry on a casual conversation. “Dad, you know that old lady just moved in down the street? Old lady Athens?”
“Miss Athens?” His father stirred irritably. “Stop breathing down my neck,” he said.
Allen moved himself a fraction of an inch farther along the back of the chair. “You know what she did?” he demanded. “You know what?”
His father sighed and put down the evening paper. “Well?”
“I met her in the grocery the other day,” Mrs. Stuart said. She held up a pair of torn blue jeans and sighed. “No animal would treat its skin the way a twelve-year-old boy treats clothes,” she told her husband.
“Dad, you know what?”
“Allen,” Mr. Stuart said, “go across the room and sit down in a chair. I cannot talk to you unless I can see you and even then I find it difficult. I—”
“She’s got a swell idea. Really swell. She was mad at me, see, but when I told her I’d pay for it, she—”
“Pay for what?” said his father.
“Mad at you? Why?” said his mother.
“Oh, never mind that.” Allen spoke with some haste. “Just she was mad at me, is all. And I only said ‘pay for it’ because, I mean, how could anyone pay for a thing like that, anyway? I just meant I’d do the work over—”
“What did you break?” said his mother.
“What did you ruin?” said his father.
“Oh, nothing, honest. Just her old garden, and I said I was sorry. But she said I could do the work over again and what I’d got to do was sign a paper—”
“Do what?” said his father, half rising.
“Just a paper. All it said was that I promised to work for her two hours. I’m going over on Saturday and work in her garden. I owe her, see? Two hours.” Allen spoke patiently.
His father sat back, frowning. “Are you sure that was all the paper said?” he asked. “No other promises of any kind? No commitments for your parents or anything? No responsibilities assumed? Of course you’re a minor, but I don’t want to be liable for any contracts.”
“An I.O.U,” Allen said.
“Wait,” said his mother, leaning forward. “Allen, do you mean that in return for something you broke at Miss Athens’ house, you wrote a promise to work for her for two hours?”
“Sure,” Allen said, pleased at this unusual perception from one whom he regarded as ordinarily almost subnormal in understanding.
“I wonder.” Allen’s mother was thinking hard. “Would you do the same thing for me? For instance, if you want to go to the movies and your allowance is gone, and you want me to advance you the money to go to the movies, will you then sign one of these I.O.U. things for me? For two hours’ work, or perhaps some special job? That broken back step, for instance?”
“I still got money for the movies this week,” Allen said, going to the heart of the problem. “But yeah, I guess. I could make a paper promising you something.”
“But suppose I advanced you the movie money and then you broke your promise on the I.O.U.?”
“Mom!” Allen was deeply shocked. “That would be cheating.”
Late on Tuesday afternoon Miss Athens, walking almost normally now, came down the street toward her little house. She had spent a hard day shopping, and she wanted a cup of tea. When she came to her own front walk, she was first startled and then annoyed when she saw a boy come hastily from her backyard, but then she recognized Allen Stuart and she said, “Why, hello, George Washington.”
“Hi, Miss Athens. I’ll carry your packages.” Allen was clearly very pleased with himself. He followed Miss Athens up the walk and brought her packages in and set them down on the kitchen table. Then, turning in suppressed delight, he said, “I came to get that paper back, please.”
“Oh, dear.” Miss Athens sat down abruptly on a kitchen chair.
“Look,” Allen said happily, waving at the kitchen window. Miss Athens got up and looked out. “My goodness,” she said weakly.
“I been working all afternoon, ever since school,” Allen said, “and I bet it looks even better than it did before.”
“It’s certainly very nice.” Miss Athens came back and sat down again. “Allen,” she said, “this is very embarrassing.”
Allen opened his eyes wide. “Something else wrong?” he asked.
“Allen,” Miss Athens said, “help yourself from the cookie jar. I’m afraid I did something very foolish.”
“Why?”
“Well,” Miss Athens explained, “I stopped by the grocery on my way home, and—well, I thought I had enough money. I distinctly recall thinking this morning that unless I bought too much in the department store I would have plenty for the grocery. I was even going to cash a check. But Mr. Smith said—”
“Did you lose my paper?”
“No,” Miss Athens said sadly. “I sold it. I was going to go back and redeem it tomorrow morning,” she went on earnestly. “It was only because I ran short of money and I needed the tea, and all I had in my pocketbook was your I.O.U. So Mr. Smith said he would take that instead. He saw your name and said he knew you.”
“I bet he knows me,” Allen said darkly. “Last Halloween—”
“What?”
“Nothing,” Allen said.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Miss Athens said. “I want to be fair about this. Since you did the work you promised, and since I lost possession of your paper, the only thing for me to do is pay you back.”
“You mean,” Allen said very slowly, “you’ll make me a paper saying that you will work for me?”
Miss Athens smiled. “After all,” she said, “I did teach school for forty-one years. I imagine I could cope with most of your work. I can write a very neat, well-thought-out theme, for instance. I can do arithmetic, or spelling, or geography. You ought to be able to find two hours of work for me.” She laughed. “It’s only fair, after all.”
A light of the purest, most disinterested wickedness, a light possible only in the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy presented with an opportunity beyond his wildest anticipations, touched the earnest face and wide, truthful forehead of Allen Stuart. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what my mother would say, but if you think it’s fair, Miss Athens. But only if you’re sure you really think it’s fair.”
“I would be a very poor sort of person, Allen, if I asked something of you and then refused to take my turn.” Miss Athens took up the pad of paper. “What shall I say? Just ‘I.O.U. two hours’ selected work’?”
“Oh, yes,” Allen said. “Oh, yes, that will be perfectly fine.”
“There.” Miss Athens signed her name with a flourish and handed the paper to Allen. “All fair and legal,” she said.
“Thank you” Allen said, picking up the paper with some haste. “Miss Athens, thank you very, very much.”
And that was how Miss Honoria Athens found herself committed, on her word of honor, to two hours’ playing shortstop for the Rockville Rockets baseball team.
Mr. Smith, the grocer, possessed of Allen Stuart’s promise to work for two hours upon demand, brought the I.O.U. home to his wife, who took it very seriously. “You see,” she explained to her husband, “this is as real as any promise. The little boy has given his word to do the work.”
Mr. Smith grinned. “You remember last Halloween?” he asked.
“Was that the same little boy? But you put back the doors of the garage long ago.”
“He must be an agile young fellow,” Mr. Smith said. “I took this paper only as a kind of a joke—thought it might keep him in line for a while if he knew I had it.”
“But I can use him.” Mrs. Smith was eager. “If he will push a wheelbarrow with rocks in it, I can use this two hours of work from him and make my rock garden, s
ince”—and her voice became reproachful—“I have been three weeks asking you—”
“All right,” Mr. Smith said, “but just remember, I had to buy this paper.”
“Indeed?” said Mrs. Smith. “Will you next charge me for groceries out of the store?”
“What will you give me for it?”
Mrs. Smith thought, regarding her husband dubiously. Then, amused, she said, “I will make you a little paper. Just like this. Only instead of pushing the wheelbarrow I will promise you a stuffed cabbage with sour cream. I will sign my name on the bottom.”
“The big baking dish?” said Mr. Smith.
“The big baking dish.”
“Butterball,” Mr. Smith said, “you have made yourself a deal.”
It might, perhaps, have stopped there if Mrs. Watkins from Willow Street had not come into the grocery store the next morning, collecting for the P.T.A. food sale. Mr. Smith, who ordinarily contributed half a dozen cases of soft drinks to the food sale, took it into his head, this time, to contribute Mrs. Smith’s I.O.U. for one big baking dish of stuffed cabbage and sour cream. Mrs. Smith was understandably upset when she heard, and pointed out to Mr. Smith that not everybody was so foolish about what they ate as to prefer Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage to good ordinary food, and Mr. Smith would be hopelessly humiliated when everything at the food sale was sold except for Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage, left sitting there alone on the table because no one would buy it. Mr. Smith promised to go himself to the food sale and personally buy every scrap of Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage, and Mrs. Smith said that if he did, she would never forgive him, because that would prove that nobody liked her stuffed cabbage.
Allen Stuart, as it turned out, shortsightedly spent his movie money on a water pistol, which was confiscated almost at once by the seventh-grade teacher, and in order to get to the movies with the rest of his friends on Wednesday night (two cartoons and a serial, in addition to a double feature), he had to sign two further I.O.U.’s for his mother, one promising to help his sixteen-year-old sister with the dishes every night for a week, and the other for an hour’s free baby-sitting, which his mother did not need for herself, but which she used as a bribe in a trade with her sister, to get a sweater pattern and an I.O.U.—her sister having been captivated by the I.O.U. notion—for help with the hard part of the sleeves.
Just an Ordinary Day: Stories Page 48