Man of the Family (18 page)

20

Mother's Inspiration

T
HANKSGIVING
was usually one of our best days. As far as dinners went, that one in 1910 was a good one too. I'd traded a couple of my rabbits for a turkey hen, and we had all the vegetables and other things to go with it, but it just didn't seem like Thanksgiving.

Grace was getting strong enough that she could do quite a little work, but as she grew stronger, Mother seemed to be growing weaker. It wasn't only that she still got dizzy over the cookstove, but her back ached all the time, and she couldn't sit down after supper without dropping off to sleep.

Though I'd kept the cookery orders so small, ever since we had the measles, that my collections wouldn't pay all the grocery bill, Mother could hardly get them out. And we'd had to sell part of the fruit she'd canned in the summer so we could buy the underwear and shoes we needed for winter. Grace and I knew that more than half of what ailed Mother was that she was worried about winter coming on before we were ready for it. But we didn't know how to stop her from worrying. She wouldn't let Grace do very much about the cooking, and the only job I could find was sorting onions.

Earlier in the fall, after the days had begun to get shorter, we'd started hooking a big rug in the dining room. Usually, Mother ripped whatever old wool clothes we had to use. Then, as we children hooked on the rug after supper, she'd sew the pieces into long strips, and read to us.

That Thanksgiving night, after I'd finished my chores and the girls had done the dishes, Muriel asked if we could do Julius Caesar. On the ranch we'd often read plays in the evenings, and we knew our own lines in Julius Caesar. Of course, each of us had to be two or three different people, but Mother was Cassius, Philip was Caesar, and I was Mark Antony. It went all right at first—only that I forgot to keep on hooking when I was saying the speech about “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” and Muriel thought she, instead of Hal, ought to be Metellus Cimber. Then, two or three times when it was Cassius' turn, Mother forgot her lines and had to be reminded.

I watched her as I hooked a strip of red rag through the burlap, and could see that she was having trouble to keep the lids from slipping down over her eyes. When they were open, they weren't looking at the strips of cloth she was trying to sew, but straight ahead at the calendar on the far wall.

Suddenly, they came wide open, and she said, “Haven't I seen that building somewhere?”

I looked at the calendar, and said, “I suppose you have; I guess most everybody has. That's the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver.”

Mother's face brightened as I hadn't seen it do for months. “Children,” she said, “I think I have an idea. This may be one of the best Thanksgivings we've ever had. Drop what you're doing and let's get right to bed. We must be up bright and early in the morning. Ralph, you might give Lady a quart of the chickens' cracked corn. You and I are going to Denver tomorrow.”

Mother always thought I drove horses too fast, and used to tell me, “Slow and steady goes far in a day,” but that next morning she was the one who wanted to hurry. We got away from home right after breakfast, and by half past eight we were nearly to the Capitol Building in Denver. Of course, I didn't come right out and ask Mother what she was going to do in Denver, but I came as close to it as I could, and all the answer she'd give me was, “I think the Lord spoke to me last night—not in real words, but in inspiration. . . . If what I have in mind works out, I shall know that He did.”

When we were in front of the Capitol, she said, “Now, Son, let's see if we can find a vacant space at the curb in front of the Brown Palace Hotel. I have some business to talk over with the manager there.”

It hadn't seemed so chilly driving in to Denver, but I thought I'd freeze sitting out in front of the hotel waiting for Mother. I don't suppose she was in there more than half an hour, but between being cold and wondering what kind of business she could have with the manager, it seemed like a week. When she did come out, there was a colored porter with her, and he was carrying a bundle half as big as she was. I climbed over into the back of the wagon to help lift it in, but it didn't weigh more than twenty pounds. And when I jumped down to help Mother up, she seemed as happy as though she'd just found an old friend.

Mother usually sat up pretty straight. But, driving to church or when she was real proud about something, she always seemed to sit about two inches taller. That's the way she was sitting when we turned south on Broadway. “Son,” she said, “there is no question but what we received divine guidance last night. I have a nice bundle of lace curtains to do up for the Brown Palace. I know just how to do them, I'm sure. I watched when I was a girl visiting friends in Portland. The washing is very easy; the trick is in the careful, even stretching and mending. I'll tell you all about it as we drive along.

“Of course, this is a trial batch. We won't be paid anything for it, but if we can do a good job on them—and I'm sure we can—we'll be paid thirty cents a pair, and we can have all we can do.”

After I helped Mother down at our front gate, I unhitched Lady, watered her, and gave her another quart of the chickens' cracked corn. Then I carried the bundle of curtains into the house. Mother was still upstairs changing her clothes, and Grace was with her. I put the bundle on the table in the dining room, and went over to look at the picture on our calendar. Every window on the front of the Brown Palace was draped with lace curtains.

As they came down the stairs, I heard Mother telling Grace, “Except for the ruffles, there's no ironing at all to doing up lace curtains. While they are still wet from the starch water, they are simply stretched onto a frame as a painter stretches his canvas.”

Then she saw me, and said, “While Gracie and I are getting lunch ready, Son, do you think you could whack us together a frame for the curtains? I don't think it should be very difficult. It's just a matter of sawing off the pieces of narrow board, bolting the corners together firmly, and pounding in a row of brads all the way around the edge.”

While Mother was talking, she went over to her writing desk, took out the key to Father's big tool chest, and gave it to me. “Suppose you get the joint rule out of the tool chest,” she said. “The first thing we should do is to measure one of the curtains so as to find out just how large to make the frame.”

I was only gone a couple of minutes to get the rule. When I came back, Grace and Mother had the bundle unwrapped. Inside, there was a cloth bag—like a great big pillowcase—stuffed full of wadded-up curtains. Mother reached her hand into the end of the bag and pulled one out. She gave it a sharp flip, the way she always shook a sheet before she hung it on the clothesline; then held it high in her outstretched hands. “Oh, my!” she said. “This is sort of a raggedy old one, isn't it? Well, so much the better. It's lucky I got hold of this one first. It will do very nicely to experiment with.”

School was closed that Friday, and all the younger children were standing around watching Mother. “Now, let us see . . . let us see. Hmmm, we'll have to find a space large enough to lay this out flat on the floor for measuring. Philip, could you and Muriel push the chairs way back off the parlor carpet. Here, Gracie, you and Ralph catch hold of the corners so we can spread it out nice and smooth.”

I couldn't do it, though. There was only one corner on my end of the curtain. The other one looked as though a puppy had chewed it off. I got hold the best I could, and we carried it into the parlor, but we couldn't spread it out nice and smooth. The whole thing was stiff and crinkled up like a piece of crumpled chicken wire. And some of the holes in it were nearly big enough for me to crawl through.

Mother pinched her upper lip with her thumb and finger. “Hmmm,” she said again. “If I washed and ironed it first, it would be . . . No, no, I can't do that. It might shrink, and we have to know the exact size to make our frame. Now, let me see. . . . Suppose, Gracie, that you and Muriel each take a corner on this end while Philip and Hal take the other two. Then you can stretch it right out four ways, while Ralph and I do the measuring.”

That didn't work at all. Each of the edges curved in, and the corners pulled out to points till it looked like the label on a bar of Fels naphtha soap. The middle still humped up like a range of mountains, and the holes began to tear wider. “No—no—no,” Mother called, “we mustn't injure it. Lace curtains have to be handled very carefully.”

I didn't see how we could injure it any more than it already was, but Mother had her head cocked over to one side and was pinching her upper lip again, so I kept quiet. “Now . . . let . . . me . . . see,” she said. “There must be some way to do this. Hmmm, hmmmm.”

“Well, if it was chicken wire,” I said, “I'd lay a board along one side of it, then put something heavy on the board to hold it down while I straightened out the edge of the wire.”

“Well, now!” Mother said. “If it would work with chicken wire, I can't see why it shouldn't work with a stiff curtain. But be sure you get a nice clean board.”

The only clean board I could find was one of the shelves from the fruit cellar, but it worked all right. Philip was the heaviest, so we stood him on the end of the board to hold it down. Then Hal and Muriel stepped on as we pulled the curtain edge out straight and tight.

Father used to say that if you measured twice you only had to saw once, but Mother wouldn't let it go at that. And the more times we measured the more different answers we got. Mother thought the size should come out in even feet, but it didn't. “Common sense says that it should come out to an even number of feet,” she kept saying, “and I'd hate to get our frame made up to the wrong size. Now, let's start all over again, and see if it won't stretch out to an even eight feet without tearing.”

It wouldn't. It tore in the middle when we tried to make it go past seven feet and nine inches. When it popped, Mother straightened up on her knees, and said, “Oh, isn't that a shame! Well, as my father used to say, ‘Oft we mar what's good by trying to do better.' Let's just call it seven feet and nine inches . . . though I do think it might stretch a little farther when it's wet.”

I guess everybody else had forgotten about our not having had any lunch, so I said, “Well, if I'm going to get the frame made before chore time, we'd better start measuring the end.”

Even then, Mother didn't think about lunch. She pinched her lip some more, and said, “It might be a waste of time, but let's measure the other side so to make assurance doubly sure. I
don't
want to make any mistakes on this first batch, and so much depends on the frame being just right.”

With one corner chewed off, the second side was twice as hard to measure as the first. Grace was the one who finally figured out where the corner would have been if there'd been one. Then we always came out with a length on that side of eight feet and four inches. After all the practice we'd had on the sides, the ends went fairly easy. The top was three feet and seven inches, and the bottom was four feet and four inches.

Mother put both hands on her hips, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Now . . . let . . . me . . . see. Were the Jordans' curtains wider at the bottom than they were at the top? No . . . no . . . I'm sure they weren't. I can see that stretcher in my mind's eye now.”

She squinnied up one eye a little. “No,” she said, “no, it was perfectly oblong.” Then she stopped to pinch her lip a few times. “Now let's see . . . what is the average of . . . what were those measurements?”

I'd forgotten most of them, we'd had so many, but Grace hadn't. “Oh, yes,” Mother said. “Now: seven feet times twelve inches, plus nine inches; and that plus eight feet times twelve inches, plus . . . No, that isn't the easy way to do it. Let's take seven feet plus eight feet, plus nine inches plus . . .”

We didn't very often interrupt when we knew Mother was thinking, but Grace blurted out, “Eight feet and half an inch long; by three feet, eleven and a half inches wide.”

Mother let her hands drop from her hips, and said, “Whewww. Well, that's a load off my mind. You see it averages out to being within half an inch each way of being in even feet; four by eight. And that's very logical: just twice as long as they are wide. My! I was worried for fear they might be odd shapes and sizes, but I feel a lot better now.”

Mother let me take her hand and help her a little as she got up onto her feet. Her knees seemed to be a little stiff, but she walked right out to the calendar on the dining room wall. “See!” she called to us. “It's just as I thought. With the exception of those arched windows on the seventh floor, this little row around the top, and these big ones on the rounded corner, all the windows in the Brown Palace are exactly the same size. My! For a few minutes I thought we might have to make several different sizes of stretchers, and that would have been quite expensive.”

We'd used up so much time in measuring the curtain that I had to get right after my chores, and Mother wanted to have an early supper. Curtains were the only thing talked about while we ate. Right after I'd finished saying the blessing, Mother said to Grace, “I'm just a little bit worried about the mending. Of course, this curtain we're using to experiment with is more holey than righteous, but I'm sure we'll find nothing worse than a broken thread here and there in the others. As beautiful a hotel as the Brown Palace would never put anything but the very finest curtains in its windows. Still, a careless guest might leave a window open, so that a curtain could blow out, catch on something, and tear.”

I was serving Hal's plate, but I wasn't thinking much about it. I was remembering the kind of people I'd seen going into the Brown Palace that morning, and without really meaning to, I said, “Or one of those rich men might burn a hole in it with his cigar.”