Man of the Family (20 page)

It's funny how fast time goes if you're busy enough to forget about it. When the last thread was knotted in, we didn't seem to have been working more than an hour, but it was half past eleven. Mother didn't seem to mind, though. And she didn't tell Grace and me we'd have to hurry right to bed and get a good night's sleep. She just looked at the clock, and said, “My, my! ‘Tempers fudgit,' as Mrs. Hurd used to say. Oh well, tomorrow is Sunday, and we'll stay in bed just as long as we want to.”

She stood back, with her hands on her hips and her head cocked over a little to one side, and looked the curtain all over. “Now—let—me—see,” she said. “I think it would be best if we took the whole thing down and soaked it thoroughly before we tried to stretch it to full size. What do you think?”

We both thought so, too, and inside of two minutes we had it all picked off the hooks. When it was wet, it went back onto the frame easily, but it didn't stretch the way we had hoped it would. The new threads were stronger than the old ones, and when we pushed the stretcher bars out to the full four by eight feet, it pulled a good many of the lace meshes a little out of shape.

Grace wanted to snip out the threads that were too tight, and put in others that wouldn't pull so much. But Mother said, “I think we had better let well enough alone. We can't expect to make these into new curtains, but we have learned a great deal about what we can do from this one, and I'm sure we can do better on the others. Now, let's all go to bed and give thanks for the help we have received.”

I had to go to school all the next week, so the only chance I had to help with the curtains was from suppertime till Mother made us go to bed at nine o'clock. But Mother and Grace were spending every minute they could on them. Some went fairly easy, and some were rotten enough that they tore when the new threads were pulled tight. By the end of the week, Mother's hands trembled so much she couldn't tie the little knots, and Grace finished mending the last of the curtains while Mother did the cooking for my Saturday delivery.

All day Sunday, Mother had to catch up the housework that had been let go during the week. And Monday morning her back ached so much that she couldn't go to Denver with me to deliver the finished curtains. Grace went instead.

Right after breakfast, Mother sent me to Mr. Shellabarger's for some big sheets of butcher's paper, so we could wrap the curtains in long folds instead of creasing them. Then we spread a blanket on the bottom of the wagon, and covered the bundle with a sheet, to keep the dust out.

Just before we started, Mother came out to the wagon, and said, “Be sure you deliver these to no one but the manager of the Brown Palace Hotel. For the moment I can't think of his name, but he is a fine man. I don't want you to think he has done us any injustice. He hasn't. He was simply giving us a chance to show whether or not we were capable of being trusted with their good curtains. I hope he will examine these when you take them in. And tell him I am sorry I was unable to bring them back myself.”

I think it would have been about as easy for us to have visited the president of the United States as it was to see the manager of the Brown Palace Hotel. From the minute I started tying Lady to the lamp post in front of the main entrance, people in uniforms began telling us we were in the wrong place, or that we couldn't talk to the manager. The bundle of curtains was awkward to hold, and it kept slipping in our hands as they made us go from one door to another or from one person to another. Everybody told us we'd have to see somebody else, and everybody told us we couldn't see the manager.

After nearly an hour, Grace got mad and left me standing in a basement hallway with the bundle. She never would tell me what she did, but in less than ten minutes two porters came to take the curtains and me to the manager's office. He was sitting behind a big desk, and Grace was sitting beside it—looking as smug as a cat that's just cornered a mouse.

The manager didn't say anything to me when we came into his office, but he told the porters to put the bundle on a table across the room from his desk. Then he went over, snipped the strings with little scissors that folded into his pocket knife, and threw the paper back.

On top was the first curtain we had done up. He looked down at it for a couple of seconds, and said, “Well, I'll be . . .” Then he fingered the new corner that Grace had woven in and looked at it carefully. I was standing right beside him. He swung his head around toward me, and said, “Who did this work?”

“Mother and Grace did it together,” I told him; “Grace did that corner.”

“Who's Grace?” he asked.

“She's my sister,” I said. “This is Grace right here.”

He looked around at Grace, and his voice was as gentle as could be when he said, “Who taught you to do such work as this?”

“Mother taught me to sew when I was little,” Grace told him.

He smiled, and asked, “How old are you now, Grace?”

“Thirteen, but I'll be fourteen in March.”

He motioned for the two porters to go out, then went over and half sat on the front edge of his desk. “Well, you're quite a little woman,” he told Grace. “How long have you and your mother been doing up lace curtains?”

“These are the first ones we ever tried,” she said. “We didn't have very good luck at first, but Ralph invented an adjustable stretcher that made it easy.”

“Who's Ralph?” he asked her.

I always spoke too quick. “Me,” I said, before Grace had a chance to answer.

“So you're an inventor?” he asked me. “How old are you, Ralph?”

“I'll be twelve in two weeks,” I told him, “and I want to be an inventor. Father taught me to make lots of things before he died. He could always make anything we needed out of anything he had.”

The manager laughed, and said, “From the looks of those curtains, I'd say it ran right through the family.”

He swung his hand out toward his own swivel chair, and said, “Sit down; I'll be back in a couple of minutes.” Then he went out and closed the door.

I sat down in his big chair, but I hopped right up again as soon as he closed the door. Grace and I both jumped up at the same time. I can't remember that we'd ever hugged each other before, but we just couldn't seem to help it that time. Then we sat right down again, and folded our hands in our laps till the manager came back.

When he did, he had a lady with him. She was as smart looking as she could be, and had a streak of pure white that ran through the center of her black hair. They stopped just inside the door, and the manager said, “Mrs. Dutton, these are Grace and Ralph Moody; I believe you met Mrs. Moody last week.”

After he'd looked up at us and said, “Mrs. Dutton is our housekeeper,” they went over to the table and looked at all the curtains.

Their backs were toward us, and they talked quietly, so we didn't hear what they said. In a few minutes, the manager turned to Grace, and asked, “If there were no mending necessary, how many pairs of curtains do you think your mother could handle in a week?”

Grace didn't have to think a second, so she must have had it all figured out beforehand. “Twenty pairs now,” she said, “because we've only got one stretcher, and we have a cookery route on Wednesdays and Saturdays. But after this week we can do all we can get.”

Both the manager and Mrs. Dutton laughed, and the manager said, “Your courage is boundless, isn't it?” Then he asked me how we'd brought the finished ones.

“With our own horse and wagon,” I told him. “The man with the blue uniform wouldn't let us hitch Lady by your front door, so she's nearly a block down Seventeenth Street.”

He laughed again, and told us that if we'd go with Mrs. Dutton, she'd see that we had twenty pairs of better curtains to try our hands on.

Mrs. Dutton was as nice to us as the manager had been. She showed us the door we'd use when we came again, and the linen room where we'd make our deliveries. Then she took us into her little office and made out a slip for Grace to sign. It was an order for the cashier to pay us six dollars and sixty cents for the curtains we'd thought we were doing up for nothing.

When we left, Mrs. Dutton had a porter carry the new bundle of curtains to the wagon for us, and we drove home as fast as Lady could trot.

Mother was as tickled as we were. Grace didn't very often have a chance to bring home any money, so I carried the new bundle of curtains into the house and she carried the six dollars and sixty cents. I know Mother was pleased about the money, but she seemed more anxious about the bundle. She opened it as soon as I put it up on the kitchen table, and her hands were shaking as she tried to untie the string.

In that bundle, the curtains weren't all wadded up, but were folded neatly. Mother picked the top one up in her hands and shook it open. Then she spread it out over the table and stroked the lace with her fingers. Her voice sounded almost as though she loved it. “Isn't it beautiful?” she said. “I knew the Brown Palace would have only the very best.” She didn't look up, but her hands moved back and forth over the lace, and she said, “You see, children, we were only being tested with the other lot. The manager of the Brown Palace was wise. And he knew that ‘he that is faithful in that which is least—is faithful also in much.' That is why he is now willing to trust us with these beautiful curtains. Now I am sure the Lord spoke to me.”

Grace's fingers were tracing a circle on the curtain, and she said, “I'm sure He has spoken to me several times lately.”

Mother's hand still stroked the lace, as she asked, “Yes, dear; what did He tell you?”

Grace didn't look up from the table, but said, “That you'd kill yourself if we didn't give up the cookery route.”

None of us made a sound for at least two minutes. Then Mother turned to me, and said, “Son, when you take your Wednesday delivery, you may tell our customers that we're closing our cookery route. And don't forget to thank them for the business they've given us.”

22

Muriel and the Goose

M
URIEL
was the one who got the idea about the goose. Some people who lived four miles south of Littleton had a whole flock of them. They were big bluish-gray ones, and used to hiss at us when we went by to pick up coal.

The second morning before Christmas, Muriel came out to the barn while I was milking Ducklegs. At first she just stood and watched me, and laughed when I gave King his two squirts. He'd always sit beside me when I milked, and I'd always squirt two long streams at him when he begged for them. The second he saw me turn my fist up, he'd open his mouth and catch the milk without spilling a drop. After a few minutes, Muriel said, “Do you think we're going to eat Benjamin for Christmas dinner?” Benjamin was our big Buff Orpington rooster.

“No,” I told her, “we won't have to eat Benjamin. I've got two big rabbits that I think I can trade to the Herrick boys for another turkey hen. Why?”

“Well,” she said, “in
Christmas Carol
they had goose for dinner. Did you ever eat any goose, Ralph?”

“No,” I said, “but I've eaten duck; it's pretty good.”

“I don't think I'd like to eat a duck,” she said. “They're fluffy and white, and they don't hiss at people.”

“All ducks aren't white,” I told her; “some even have green on them.”

“But they don't hiss at people, do they? Do people ever trade a goose for rabbits?”

“Well, I think it would take more than two rabbits,” I told her. “Some geese are as big as two turkey hens.”

Muriel just stood and watched me while I finished the stripping, and all she said was, “I wonder why it's geese instead of gooses.”

But when I'd hung up the milking stool and was filling the crocks for my two nursing does, she said, “I'd think a good big goose ought to be worth three rabbits if anybody had a whole hutch full of rabbits.”

I really didn't have a whole hutch full of rabbits; I only had twenty—and I wanted to keep all my good does—but I said, “Well, I'll trade the three rabbits if you'll find somebody that wants to trade the fat goose.”

Muriel jumped right up and down. “All right, all right,” she squealed, “will you go with me out to see the lady that lives by the railroad tracks and has the blue geese? And let's not tell Mother a thing about it till we have it all home so we can surprise her.”

Of course, I had to make up an excuse about taking Muriel Christmas shopping. That was so Mother would say it was all right for us to go. And we had to tell Philip and Hal it was a secret, so they wouldn't want to go with us.

It was sharp and windy driving out to see the goose lady, but Muriel was so excited she didn't mind it a bit. I'd put the three rabbits in a gunny sack and set them in the front end of the wagon. That way, the dashboard kept the wind off them, and we could keep our feet warm under them.

At first, the lady didn't want to talk about trading at all. She said rabbits were a nuisance, and if you had one on the place you'd soon have a thousand. I was almost ready to give up, and Muriel was almost ready to cry, when the lady said, “Ain't you the little fellas from town that comes out along here pickin' coal?”

I told her we were, and she asked, “Do you get good bright coal or just cinder pickin's?”

“We get better coal than they have at the lumberyard,” I told her, “because it's all clean lumps and there isn't any dust in it.”

“Ever sell any of it?” she asked me.

“No,” I told her, “but I'd trade half a ton of it for a goose.”

She shook her head a few times, and then said, “I got a young gander with a lame laig; if you want to trade for him, I'd deal, but I'd have to see the coal first.”

“And we'd have to see the gander first,” I told her.

She took us out to an old shed where she had her geese cooped up. They hissed and gabbled to beat the band when we went in. The young gander wasn't quite as big as the others, and he was pretty lame. I felt him all over, and he didn't seem to be hurt anywhere but in the one leg.

I knew he wouldn't be any good to keep for a gander, and I thought I might be able to make a little better trade, so I said, “Half a ton of coal would be too much to trade for a little gander that's lame to boot, but I'll . . .”

That's as far as I got. Muriel's lip started to tremble, and she said, “I'll help you pick up a whole ton of coal, Ralph.”

I knew then that I had to get that goose, no matter how much coal he cost. And I was afraid the goose lady might know it, too, so I hurried to say, “. . . but I'll do it anyway. We'll be back by noon with the coal.”

There was too much snow on the ground to go picking coal then, and it would have been too cold for Muriel. But, without the cookery route, we had more than enough at home to last us till spring. The trouble was going to be in hauling it away without telling Mother what it was for.

On the way home, we talked about half a dozen things we could say without either lying or telling Mother what we were going to do with the coal. By the time we got there, we'd decided there was only one way, so I went into the house and said, “Muriel and I want half a ton of coal, and we don't want to tell why we want it. We've got more than we'll need to last us till spring.”

For a minute, Mother looked at me as though I'd gone crazy. “You want what?” she asked.

“We want to haul half a ton of coal away,” I said, “but we don't want to tell anybody what we're going to do with it. Would that be all right?”

By that time, Mother must have guessed that it had something to do with Christmas. She just smiled and said, “Of course it would be all right. You children brought it all home, didn't you?”

I put the rabbits back in the hutch, and Philip and Muriel both helped me load the coal. He'd picked up so much of it along the tracks that I thought he should go with us for the trading. When I explained it to her, Muriel thought so too, but she didn't want him to know anything about the goose till we were away from the house. Philip was a lot like me in some ways, and he sometimes let things slip out when he didn't mean to.

We'd weighed enough coal, so that I knew just about how big half a ton would look on our wagon. But Muriel was afraid it wouldn't look big enough to the goose lady, so we threw on ten more shovelfuls. Then we wrapped the lap robe around us—clear up to our armpits—and drove back to her place.

I began to be worried before we got there. From the way Muriel was telling Philip about our gander, I was afraid she'd fall in love with it before we ever got it home. If she did, of course, she wouldn't want us to eat him for Christmas. And what use would there be in keeping one lame gander? There was only one way I could think of to head it off, so I said, “Do you remember seeing the geese fly south when we lived on the ranch? Father told me they could fly faster than a mile a minute.”

Father had shown us the wild geese several times, and they both remembered. “I was just thinking,” I told them, “our gander is littler than any of the other geese, and he's lame. You know, he might be a wild one that just lit down with the tame geese till his leg got better. Wouldn't it be a shame if he got away from us and flew south again?”

I let them worry about it for a little while, and then I said, “Maybe it would be best if I just chopped his head off before we started for home. That way, we'd be sure to have goose for Christmas dinner like they did in
Christmas Carol
.”

Philip was sitting next to me, and I gave him a little kick on the ankle as I said it. He knew Muriel as well as I did. I only had to give him one little second tap before he said, “I think you'd better. Losing him would be just like throwing away half a ton of coal.”

I think that was the first time Muriel ever stopped to realize that things had to be killed before we had meat to eat. She sat for two or three minutes, looking at Lady's rump as though she were staring into a mirror. Then she said, “Let's just go home and have a boiled dinner for Christmas. I wouldn't like to have anything killed just so we could eat it.”

I had to remind her that the gander was lame and might suffer all the rest of his life, or that he might start south and fall where the coyotes would get him. It was probably the coyotes that made her say it would be all right.

We just about had to make the deal all over again when we got out to the goose lady's. At first, she said she'd only give us a rooster for the coal because it wasn't bright enough. When we wouldn't do that, she said there wasn't nearly half a ton on the wagon, and we'd have to bring more before we could have the goose. After almost half an hour, I got her to say she'd trade the goose for a full half ton of coal. Then I said, “All right. If you haven't got any scales, we'll bring some that will weigh up to a hundred pounds. But if we do, we'll take home every pound of coal over a thousand.”

I think she knew as well as I did that there was a good big half ton on the load. After she'd talked a little about being generous because it was Christmas time, she said she'd call it a deal if we'd lug the coal into her woodshed.

The easiest place to have carried the coal from would have been right where our wagon was sitting, but I had to pull it around so that the chicken house was between us and the chopping block. Then, when we had all but the last two or three buckets of coal carried in, I went and got our gander.

On the way home, we planned that we'd have him all picked and ready for the oven before we let Mother know anything about him, but it didn't work that way. Nobody had ever told us anything about picking a goose while it was still warm, and ours was awfully cold before we got him home. We shut the barn doors, and picked and picked and picked—just one or two feathers at a time. And whenever we got one layer off, there was another one right under it. At last we got down to fuzz that was as fine as kitten's fur, and that just pulled to pieces in our fingers. It hung in the air like smoke and got up our noses and in our eyes. It wasn't till then that Muriel gave up and said I could ask Mother what to do.

I tried to ask her without telling her we had a goose, but it slipped out before I knew it was coming. She seemed as pleased about the feathers as she was about the goose. “Oh, isn't that lovely,” she said. “Gracie, that will give us just the kind of feathers we need for Elizabeth's pillow. Do you remember where we put the paraffin?”

While Grace was getting it down from the top shelf of the cupboard, Mother sent me for the goose. But we let Muriel carry it in, because it was really her goose. She'd picked up a good deal more than half a ton of coal along the tracks, and the whole goose idea had been hers.

Mother had the paraffin melting in a flat pan when we came in. She pushed the pan to the back of the stove, laid the goose on it, and basted him all over with hot paraffin. Then she let him cool a few minutes, and she peeled the paraffin off. It was just like peeling off your winter underwear—and it left the goose just as naked. Every bit of fuzz came right off with the wax.