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“Yes, sir.” She dreamed around the room with her wings out.
“Did you hear me?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes,” her eyes shut. “Oh, yes, yes.” Her skirts whished around. “Uncle,” she said, her head back, lolling.
“You’ll help your aunt with her doilies?” he cried.
“—with her doilies,” she murmured.
“There!” He sat down in the kitchen, plucking up the paper. “I guess I told her!”
BUT, NEXT morning, he was on the edge of his bed when he heard the hot-rod’s thunderous muffler and heard Maria
Father put his head in his hands. “Doilies,” he said.
“What?” said mother.
“Dooley’s,” said father. “I’m going down to Dooley’s for a morning visit.”
“But Dooley’s isn’t open until ten.”
“I’ll wait,” decided father, eyes shut.
That night and seven other wild nights the porch swing sang a little creaking song, back and forth, back and forth. Father, hiding in the living room, could be seen in fierce relief whenever he drafted his ten-cent cigar and the cherry light illumined his immensely tragic face. The porch swing creaked. He waited for another creak. He heard little butterfly-soft sounds from outside, little palpitations of laughter and sweet nothings in small ears. “My porch,” said father. “My swing,” he whispered to his cigar looking at it. “My house.” He listened for another creak. My lord,” he said.
He went to the tool shed and appeared on the dark porch with a shiny oil-can. “No, don’t get up. Don’t bother. There and there.” He oiled the swing joints. It was dark. He couldn’t see Maria
“He must be very nice,” said mother, in the kitchen door, wiping a di
“That’s what I’m hoping,” whispered father. “That’s why I let them have the porch every night!”
“So many days in a row,” said mother. “A girl doesn’t go with a nice young man that many times unless it’s serious.”
“Maybe he’ll propose tonight!” was father’s happy thought.
“Hardly so soon. And she is so young.”
“Still,” he ruminated. “It might happen. It’s got to happen, by the Lord Harry.”
Grandma chuckled from her corner easy chair. It sounded like someone turning the pages of an ancient book.
“What’s so fu
“Wait and see,” said grandma. “Tomorrow.”
Father stared at the dark, but grandma would say no more.
“WELL, WELL,” said father at breakfast. He surveyed his eggs with a kindly, paternal eye. “Well, well, by gosh, last night, on the porch, there was more whispering. What’s his name? Isak? Well, now if I’m any judge at all, I think he proposed to Maria
“It would be nice,” said mother. “A spring marriage. But it’s so soon.”
“Look,” said father, with full-mouthed logic. “Maria
“For once, I think you’re right,” said mother. “A marriage would be fine. Spring flowers, and Maria
They all peered anxiously at the stairs, waiting for Maria
“Pardon me,” rasped grandma, sighting up from her morning toast. “But I wouldn’t talk of getting rid of Maria
“And why not?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“I hate to spoil your plans,” rustled grandma, chuckling. She gestured with her little vinegary head. “But while you people were worrying about getting Maria
“What?” asked father.
“Yep,” said grandma. “Because one day he was a young blond fellow and next day he was a tall dark fellow, and Wednesday he was a chap with a brown mustache, and Thursday he had wavy red hair, and Friday he was shorter, with a Chevrolet stripped down instead of a Ford.”
Mother and father sat for a minute as if hit with hammers right behind the left ear.
At last father, his face exploding with color, shouted, “Do you mean to say! You sat there, woman, you say; all those men, and you—”
“You were always hiding.” snapped grandma. “So you wouldn’t spoil things. If you’d come out in the open you’d have seen the same as I. I never said a word. She’ll simmer down. It’s just her time of life. Every woman goes through it. It’s hard, but they can survive. A new man every day does wonders for a girl’s ego!”
“You, you, you, you, you!" Father choked on it, eyes wild, throat gorged too big for his collar. He fell back in his chair exhausted. Mother sat, stu
"Good morning, everyone!” Maria
“You, you, you, you, you,” he accused grandma.
I shall run down the street shouting, thought father wildly, and break the fire alarm window and pull the lever and bring the fire engines and the hoses. Or perhaps there will be a late snowstorm and I shall set Maria
He did neither. The heat in the room being excessive, according to the wall calendar, everyone moved out onto the cool porch while Maria
ALL ON A SUMMER’S NIGHT
“YOU’RE GETTING TOO big for this!” Grandpa gave Doug a toss toward the blazing chandelier. The boarders sat laughing, with knives and forks at hand. Then Doug, ten years old, was caught and popped in his chair and Grandma tapped his bowl with a steaming spoonful of soup. The crackers crunched like snow when he bit them. The cracker salt glittered like tiny diamonds. And there, at the far end of the table, with her gray eyes always down to watch her hand stir her coffee with a spoon or break her gingerbread and lay on the butter, was Miss Leonora Welkes, with whom men never sat on backyard swings or walked through the town ravine on summer nights. There was Miss Leonora whose eyes watched out the window as summer couples drifted by on the darkening sidewalks night after night, and Douglas felt his heart squeeze tight.
“Evening, Miss Leonora,” he called.
“Evening, Douglas.” She looked up past the steaming mounds of food, and the boarders turned their heads a moment before bowing again to their rituals.
Oh, Miss Welkes, he thought, Miss Welkes! And he wanted to stab every man at the table with a silver fork for not blinking their eyes at Miss Welkes when she asked for the butter. They always handed her things to their right, while still conversing with people on their left. The chandelier drew more attention than Miss Welkes. Isn’t it pretty? they said. Look at it sparkle! they cried.
But they did not know Miss Welkes as he knew her. There were as many facets to her as any chandelier, and if you went about it right she could be set laughing, and it was like stirring the Chinese hanging crystals in the wind on the summer night porch, all tinkling and melody. No, Miss Welkes was cobweb and dust to them, and Douglas almost died in his chair fastening his eyes upon her all through the soup and salad.
Now the three young ladies came laughing down the stairs, late, like a troupe of orioles. They always came last to the table, as if they were actresses making entrance through the frayed blue-velvet portieres. They would hold each other by the shoulders, looking into each other’s faces, telling themselves if their cheeks were pink enough or their hair ringed up tight, or their eyelashes dyed with spit-and-color enough; then they would pause, straighten their hems, and enter to something like applause from the male boarders.