The Man Who Loved Children (20 page)

Henny had said, “You can bet your bottom dollar on that, old sweetness.”

Ernie did not like this feverish phrase of Henny’s, for the idea of his bottom dollar ever coming to light at all (from under the heap of other dollars) did not appeal to him.

“We must never think about money,” said both Auntie Jo and Daddy. Ernie knew that this was one of the pious precepts handed down by people in power to smaller people in subjection, since both Auntie Jo and Samuel constantly thought about bills, salaries, and getting on, and always had money in their purses. Ernie knew that parents and guardians handed down many other wise saws for the same purpose, which was to prevent the young ones from getting into their game too soon. Get a piece of filet steak for your father—and don’t eat the pie that’s for your Aunt, and those almonds are for Mother; and don’t quarrel—though we do; go to bed—though we stay up, going to the movies is not good for children—though I go; and don’t talk whilst I talk; all commands enforced by power alone and obeyed by weakness alone—for as Louie grew up, she obeyed less and less, not letting things slip by inadvertence or sly disobedience, but refusing to do things in open revolt—“I will not because it is not right!” Now, Louie had her own right and wrong, she was already entering their world of power. Ernie studied their conflicts and made up his mind about things. Here was Auntie Jo always in conflicts, in which, by the way, she generally lost. She was deep into one of her favorite jeremiads,

“I didn’t sleep a wink all night four nights in succession on account of the noise, the noise, their picks clinking all night. There ought to be some regard for taxpayers. Why can’t they work in the daytime? I nearly fell asleep on the bus coming over.” Jo sniffed and nodded her bright-colored head, “It’s a scandal!”

“Why don’t you get a little car?” inquired Sam greedily. “Then you could come and see us often—and bring me choc,” he winked at the children, “and you could take us all out for a ride.”

Jo smiled at him, “I would, Sam, only I’m putting by, you know, for my trip; I’ve got other relatives to visit besides you, Sam,” she grinned at him. “You’re not my only brother, you know!”

Auntie Jo sat in the chair bubbling and boiling, and Samuel, listening to her, rested from his labors until they heard Bonnie’s brisk song on the stairs, “
Voi che sapete!
”

Jo drew herself up and looked matronly at Bonnie, while Sam said reproachfully, “Jo has been telling me something, Bonniferous, that I never would have believed about you. We’ll have a little talk afterwards.”

Bonnie looked at her brother silently, while her blue eyes filled with tears. Sam said gently, “It’s all right, Bonniferous, I know it’s all right.”

“Good heavens, I should think so!” cried Jo. Then she rose and strode to the sunroom and began to twirl downwards the piano stool, while Sam flung himself happily on the settee amongst the cushions and the children poured through the bars of sun and window shadows, nodding in the winds of jollity. Jo began to strum masterfully,
Marching through Georgia.
She stopped brusquely and asked over her shoulder with her hands poised,

“Another thing! Why didn’t you go to Jinny’s when you said you would? Besides you wrote to Jinny that you were looking for a job in Baltimore. I suppose on account of that man!”

“Play, Jo, play!” said Sam indolently. “ ‘Ta-ra, ta-ra, we bring the Jubilee!’ Go on! Don’t hector, Jo, go on!”

“Nonsense,” cried Jo, swinging round and shaking indignant bright pince-nez at him, “hectoring indeed! Don’t be silly! Here she stays writing letters all over the place and carrying on as she likes, and trying to get to Baltimore where she can be near that card-trick scoundrel. I know all about him. A fine thing for a sister of mine to be taken in by a—”

“Jo!” warned Sam, nodding and grinning at the fascinated children. “A sister of mine too!” He laughed, “Go on, Jojo, play: never mind the curtain lecture!”

“Curtain lecture,” cried Jo. “Nonsense! I intend to speak my mind. I’m perfectly honest, and honest people need not be afraid to hear what I have to say. I always speak the truth!”

“A good principle,” said Sam dryly, “but—”

“Let me play, Jo,” broke in Bonnie heedlessly, “the kids love the musical monologues I give them, don’t you, kids? How’s abouts ‘The Big Bad Wolf,’ or the ‘Gunny-Wolf,’ or ‘Mr. Possum and Mr. Dog’?”

The children began to clamor, while Bonnie blushed and explained to Jo, as if nothing had happened, “I make them up as I go along, the music I mean—listen! Jo! Let me have the piano a minute!”

“Who can’t do it?” inquired Jo jealously.

“The ‘Gunny-Wolf,” cried the children.

“Listen, children,” Jo said in her best kindergarten manner, “ ‘The first Noel that the angels did say.’ ”

“No nims [hymns],” said Sam.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” cried Jo, “such prejudice!”

“No nims,” said Sam firmly.

“You’re not giving the children a chance to choose for themselves: is that impartiality?” inquired Jo. “You should at least allow them to hear about God.”

“Why? When there ain’t no sich animal?” said Sam comfortably.

“Sammy!” implored Bonnie. Jo burst out, though, “You’ll regret it later on, if you don’t: you distort their minds with fairy tales, absurdities: Hans Andersen but not the Bible! When they grow up they will have nothing to believe in.”

Sam laughed very comfortably, “Now they believe in their poor little dad: and when they grow up they’ll believe in Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Einstein; and snakes alive!” he cried indignantly, getting up into a sitting posture, “if my children can’t distinguish between Grimm and Clerk Maxwell, let them go and jump in the lake, for sweet nuthatch’s sake!”

“They are forced to go to school and they should be forced to go to church,” cried Jo indignantly. “A nice set of citizens!”

Sam laughed, “It’s not even right they should be forced to go to school when they have a father like me: I can teach my children. I don’t need schoolma’ams!” And he grinned evilly at his sister.

“They need more women in the state legislature,” said Jo, “and irresponsible fathers like you would be forced to: I know Henny thinks as I do.”

“Yiss, but you ain’t in it,” said Sam, “and what’s more you never will be. En if I had my way no crazy shemales would so much as git the vote! Becaze why? Becaze they is crazy! Becaze they know nuffin! Becaze if they ain’t got childer, they need childer to keep ’em from goin’ crazy; en if they have childer the childer drive ’em crazy.”

Jo scorned him, “I’m as good as any man I ever met.” She sniffed cheerfully, “Pollits for Politics, say I.”

Sam turned to the children and said, “Did you notice the stones in this yere wall rock when Jo sniffed, kids? When Jo was a girl, Father used to say he wished he could have Jo’s nose stuffed with silver dollars, he’d pay the year’s rent.”

“Don’t be rude, Sam!” shouted Jo above her strumming. “Noses mean character: I’ve got a nobody nose!”

“Nobody knows the sniffles she got,” sang Sam. Jo laughed. “You wish you had a nose like mine; only Father had one like mine and he looked like Charles Dickens. Sam and I are the only ones with the real Pollit nose.”

“Jo’s nose pickled in brine would make two sides of bacon for a week,” said Sam. Bonnie, who had a tiptilted nose, by the way, laughed till she cried.

“Louie will beat you though,” continued Sam. Louie smiled down her nose.

“Nonsense!” cried Jo gaily. “A big nose means a generous nature. Anyhow, don’t you mind, Louie! Be like me! Let her have one.”

“A big nose means a big cold,” said Bonnie.

“A big nose means big lungs,” declared Sam, vainly heaving his chest up and down, uff-puff. “Big lungs mean a big voice, big voice means reaching the hearts of your countrymen, even without the radio and with, my friends, with, you become a Roosevelt, than which is none whicher. I’m always glad I’m not a squib, like Crazy-Daisy down at the Department. He squeaks through lack of nose.” Sam imitated the squeak of Craven Day, an old clerk down at the Bureau of Fisheries, politely called, by about one hundred intimates, Crazy-Daisy. He was a rusty, tall, round-backed permanent functionary, who became more eccentric as he approached the age of fifty. Sam went by the name of Softsoap-Sam. The children’s eyes danced with excitement; they could never get enough of Crazy-Daisy, the accountant, or of Ratty-Atty (Mr. George Atson), another accountant, or of Skinny, or Finny, or Dirty Jack, or Dribble Smith, or Hohnenlinden, or Alphabetical Davies (Skinner, Finigan, John Roebuck, Bertrand Smith, Max Hohnen, and A. B. C. Davies), all Sam’s inferiors by grades in the branches of the Department. Less interesting were the Moguls, the bosses, who, however, had respectable names, Mr. Virgen, Mr. J. Cappie Larbalestier, and Mr. Murphy, all Sam’s superiors in the Department. Mr. Virgen had three beautiful daughters, all Virgens (said Sam), who moved through rose gardens, gave parties, and possessed three blue Persian kittens—Sam adored them all: he adored Iris, Penelope, and Maisie Virgen and had written a ditty to them one Saturday afternoon at tea, as follows:

What I most admire is—Iris:

But would have envelope me—the web of Penelope:

Though the one that drives me crazy—is Maisie.

Now the children had no need of a Punch-and-Judy show as their gifted and possessed father went through his antics, gibbering and hunching his shoulder, scolding and squawking, fawning and groveling, imitating Crazy-Daisy, talking to a Negro cleaner, talking to Sam. What a circus it was down at the Department! When the children, severally, taken down by Sam to the Department, chanced to see one of these grotesque and marvelous creatures, they at once burst out laughing or else devoured the fable with their eyes. This was Crazy-Daisy! This, Dirty Jack. The best thing was that Crazy-Daisy really hunched his shoulder and Dirty Jack really had grease on his coat and soup on his tie. Of Crazy-Daisy’s goings-on, though, they could get no evidence—his stargazing, zodiac-fixed horse races at Bowie and his predictions about salary aspirations, lawsuits, and wills were all done in the secrecy of his own office, on his little office stool, or else in his faraway bungalow in Hyattsville. But here was something new.

Sam said, “The other day Crazy-Daisy was asking the Department of Agriculture for a bedbug.”

There was a whoop of joy. Jo exclaimed, “Samuel!”

“But none was forthcoming, so he sent one of the messengers out to catch one, and the messenger had to go to Skinny’s Hotel in Thirteenth Street and catch one and at first he got a black eye. Then the messenger brought it back, and Crazy-Daisy put it in a little Sen-Sen box with borated cotton. Then he took it home—”

“For a pet, oh, for a pet,” gasped Bonnie, collapsing on a chair.

“No, he let it out of the shutter in the box and put it on his old coat. Then when the woman who has the bungalow saw it, she chased him out of his room without asking him for the rent. So he saved a week’s rent!”

“Samuel!” said Jo, “you ought to be ashamed.”

“I don’t see you crying,” said Sam, “I don’t see you busting in two tears!”

Jo, grinning faintly, turned back to the piano, gave a sniff to settle her features, and struck a note.

Bonnie continued, “What did he do with the bedbug, oh, he-ha!”

“Ate it,” suggested Ernie.

“Married it,” said Sam, “got it a wife.”

“It takes two bedbugs to make a world of trouble,” said Jo from the piano, playing softly, “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home.”

“Quiet, kids,” said Sam, “perpend, give ear: Jo will play us a toon, a little moozic.” Sam lay back looking at the ceiling, while Bonnie tapped her foot and shifted uneasily, ready at any minute to point out the wrong notes. At last she burst out, when Jo struck out into the
Marche Hongroise,
“Jo, excuse me, but you’re out of practice, I think! Your timing’s wrong. You were never good at time. You ought to have had a metronome,” she ended unhappily.

“What!” roared Jo. “What cheek! I play every day of the week at school and for my own pleasure on Saturdays. Mrs. Ogden always says she loves to hear the music drifting across the yard from my flat. How absurd!” She played louder and faster than ever. Bonnie persisted gloomily, “Let me show you how that bit goes, Jo: don’t be so obstinate!”

“Obstinate! What?” cried Jo. “What nonsense. I’m never obstinate! You’re itching to get at the piano. You know nothing about it! You never play. Oh, don’t annoy me! I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I shall get a headache. Don’t irritate me.” She turned to the keyboard and played with even more mistakes to the end. “You see, you put me out,” she said indignantly to Bonnie.

“You should be above criticism,” said Bonnie nastily.

“Kiddies, dance, round in a ring now,” Jo cried, brightly ignoring her and determined to keep the piano at all costs.

Louie gravely came into the middle of the carpet, lifted her skirts slightly, and began to practice ballet steps, positions one to six.

Sam stared and burst into a roar of laughter. “Our fairy! Look at our fairy!”

Louie smiled slightly, thinking it a compliment, and began to skip about childishly. Jo chuckled; Bonnie took it all seriously and commanded, “Left foot, right foot, go on (there’s no harm in improvisation—let me play for her, Jo!).”

The children began to skip around at will, and Bonnie, pulling up a chair to the piano, tried to play a little tune in the bass.

“You can’t dance, Looloo, and don’t try,” said Sam nastily.

“Go on, darlin’,” begged Bonnie, tapping away. Evie had stopped, looking from one to the other. Louie obstinately kept twirling farther off, in a corner of the carpet.

“Stop it, you fathead, you silly fathead,” cried Sam wrathfully, “do you want to make an idiot of yourself? You don’t know what you look like, you great fat lump. I don’t want to see your legs: keep your dress down. And please tell Henny to lengthen it.” With a sort of sacred horror he looked aghast at her fat thighs half revealed. Louie flushed and, moving down the room, towards the south window, did a few steps to herself, hesitating and quiet as a meditation.

“Stop it, you—mule!” cried Sam, half laughing, “or I’ll give you a flip. I can’t bear to see Looloo making a fool of herself,” he explained to his sisters. “So cussed a child I’ve never seen.” He looked at her sideways, taunting, charming, “You’ll find your place in the world, Looloo, but whatever we eventually find in that mountain of fat, it isn’t going to be a Pavlova!” Even Bonnie held her tongue. “Your head’s big enough to hold a fair mess of brains, if they’re not addled, always, of course,” said Sam, in high good humor. He turned away from her altogether, frowning again, “I don’t know where Looloo, though, gets the foolish, flighty notions she’s been getting lately.” He explained to every one present, “Bonniferous was an awful nitwit when she was a kid, always thinking she would be a stage or cinema star and darned if silly Looloo hasn’t been bitten by the same bug.” He began to laugh and there were some more silly jokes about the adventure of Crazy-Daisy.