1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/PUPPIES BY THE DOZEN

Jan and I developed a strategy to deal with the wild, scratching puppies.  We walked simultaneously to the pen, watching them rolling, jumping on one another's back with their paws, nipping each other goodnaturedly, swinging their heads like swords to aggravate one another., all the while yipping in their high, squealy voices.  One of us would walk toward the back of the pen, outside the fence, while the other slipped toward the large heavy gate that opened from the front into their play area.  The "distractor" would squat down, stick her fingers through the tiny mesh squares, and call kindly to them. 

"Puppy, puppy, come here," she called.

They fell for it day after day.  They stopped mid jump, mid yelp, mid roll, mid head swing--looked around for a second to see where the sound came from, then like hound puppies always reacted, bounded all together and all at once toward her like she was their long lost best friend.  They would entertain themselves trying to lick, nip, rub, or touch that one finger, or if she could manage, a few fingers.  A few jumped on the fence with both paws, trying to get closer to her, barking, seemingly trying to talk to her, get her attention, share their heartfelt love.

All the while, I was easing through the big gate, hoping its hinges didn't squeak too loudly, calling them back.  I balanced  the large metal pan of dogfood mixed with warm water.  As soon as the pan cleared the gate, I put it down quickly on the hard packed dirt and bolted back through the opening before the gate shut behind me.  If I was lucky, I got out without hanging a piece of clothing on the sharp metal fencing or nicking a leg or arm on a wire sticking out, escaping  milliseconds before the whole herd of puppies saw me and bounded for the food pan, leaving Jan standing alone like a wallflower abandoned at a school dance.

We'd saved their lives in a way.  Not once, but twice.  Their neurotic mother had them under our long house.  Naturallly, she gave birth under the living room when the closest entrance to the crawlspace was under our bedroom window, ten yards away.  Daddy was short and rotund, active, but not able to squeeze into tight places.  He was also claustrophobic. Thus, he drafted us.  We reneged, refused, retreated.  He begged, beseeched, and finally bribed.

We could hear the little squeals, high pitched and frantic.

"All right, girls," he said, a slight smile forming on his full face.  "I'll give you fifty cents for every puppy you bring out."

Jan and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes.  Risking snakes, skunks, worms, moist dirt that smelled like musty clothes, and the occasional wasp seemed like it was worth more than the three dollars apiece  those puppies might generate.  Daddy was guessing by the noise under there that there might be about twelve of them.

We knew we had to get them out though.  Jik was a bad mother.  Twice previously, she had litters, then they mysteriously disappeared.  Daddy said she killed them though her mild manner made us doubt him.  He knew animals though.  And we believed him, though we didn't want to think about it or hold a grudge against Jik.

"Okay, I need somebody to crawl under there," he said, his face getting a little red, his voice more insistent.

"Let's both go," Jan suggested.  It wouldn't be quite as creepy if someone else was experiencing the terror simultaneously.  "A dollar a puppy," she said, acting like a businesswoman in important negotiations.

"Dollar per puppy," Daddy said.

"Okay," I said suddenly, like I'd been stuck with a cattle prod, (we called them hotshots).  "Let's go."

And with that, we both lay down flat on the green bermuda grass, her first, me second and shimmied through the dark opening.  The dirt smelled like it'd been there since time began and made me gag a little.  My eyes strained to adjust to the dark space.

"What was that?" Jan asked in a startled voice.

"Nothing.  Just me gagging at the smell."

"Oh...it's hard crawling under these pipes," she said, grunting as she pulled herself along, leaving an indention in the dark sandy soil like a huge snail. 

"How far do you think we have to go?" I asked her, aiming the flashlight Daddy had rolled under the house to us.

"Hey, shine that a little higher so I can see," she said, glancing back at me.  A little dirt clump clung to her blonde pony tail.  I wanted to make a joke about it being a rat pill, but I was petrified of rats so even thinking  it made me shudder.

"I see 'em now," she said.  "Oh man, there are a lot of them.  They look like a big, writhing, black and white snake."

"Don't talk about snakes," I scolded her.  "It makes me want to get out of here fast!  I hate this!"

She strained forward, me crawling behind her, my nose almost touching the soles of her tennis shoes.

"Awww, here little fella," she said, a soft tone entering her voice now.  "Come 'ere.  Let me have your brother too."

She handed something warm and furry to me.  It squeaked, its eyes tightly closed.  I didn't want to be under here, but I felt compassion for the little thing.  It couldn't help it that it had  pscyho dog for a mother. 
I tucked it in the crook of my right elbow and started dragging myself forward with my left arm, pushing with the tips of my toes for added momentum.  It seemed to take forever, but then I saw the light of the outside opening.

"Here," I said, holding the tiny puppy out into the light.  Hands reached down to take them.  Someone had arrived to help my dad.  Probably Mother.  I thought I saw my cousin Phil, too. With that, I moved my body in a circle, my toes slowly making an arc like the metal compasses we used at school, and started back for another puppy.  Jan was right behind me.  We repeated this process six times.  On the last trip, we emerged to the bright sunlight, squinting and covering our eyes with filthy hands.  Our clothes looked like those in the pictures of the poor white kids in the Dust Bowl, filthy and board straight. 

"Twelve dollars, please," Jan said, holding out her hand to Daddy.

He thought a minute.  "Ok," he said, "I'm going to knock these puppies in the head.  I'll sell 'em back for a dollar apiece."  He looked toward Phil and grinned.

That ruse only lasted a minute before my mother gave him a stern look.  We had already started hopping up and down, begging for their lives. This was, to my mind, the second time we saved them.

My dad was grinning as he got out his wallet and paid each of us $6.  Mother was heading for the kitchen to fix supper, and she didn't seem to see the humor in it at all.  I guessed that tonight he wouldn't repeat that little joke--not in her hearing anyway. 

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/TRAVELING WITH A MOTHER IMPAIRED

Traveling with Mother was an adventure, a real one, but not one you'd care to anticipate, plan for, or repeat.  We didn't take regular vacations like some families, but we'd often travel wherever my father was working troubleshooting mechanical problems on a cotton gin for Murray Gin Company.  

One summer Susan, Jan, and I piled in the white 59 Chevrolet.  Mother hopped nimbly under the wheel, backed up, avoiding five  cats and at least two dogs, and spun out down the gravel driveway, the  car's  big fins jutting out behind us like wings.

 We'd loaded  the red and white thermos,  filled to the brim with ice and water for the long ride.  No air conditioner in this stripped down car bought during a period of family economic readjustment.  We also had bologna and cheese sandwiches with mayo or mustard, chips, and homemade chocolate chip cookies that Susan had baked yesterday.

Susan sat up front with Mother, and Jan and I settled down on our pillows for some sleep.  We knew once it got hot we would be so uncomfortable we probably couldn't rest.  We were quiet for the first hour or so, then started fighting over the division of the backseat.  Exactly what constituted half was the first order of business. 

Each of us put our pillow on the dividing line, but our heads were abutting.  Hitting potholes in the road caused our heads to  bump against one another, inciting the next round of verbal sparring.  Mother, who was oblivious to childish arguing 98% of the time never said a thing, just noted the Burma Shave signs, reading aloud:  "The place to pass on curves you know, is only at a beauty show. Burma Shave."

"What?" Jan and I said simultaneously, bolting upright,  still  too late to see the signs.  Mother laughed pleasantly.

"Watch for them," she suggested.  "There will be more.  Look out in the pastures.  That's where they'll be."

Susan groaned.  "Mother, they are just being awful."

"Want some cookies?" I said, feeling a chocolate binge stirring. 

"Not for me," my slim Mother said.  "I'll wait till after lunch."

"I don't want any yet either," Susan said, "but please save some for us.  Don't eat them all."

"I hardly think I'll eat 3 dozen cookies," I returned, reaching into the Collin Street Bakery fruitcake tin, filled to the brim with baked cookie goodness.  Jan wanted a couple too, and we didn't fight over that, but after I ate five, it occurred to me that I'd professed my innocence too soon, so I asked Susan to take the can and the other plastic container in which she'd placed cookies and put them up front. 

"Why can't she just eat a reasonable amount?" she asked Mother quietly.

"Tapeworm," Mother chuckled.

Susan shook her head and looked out the window.

After a few hours, Mother decided to stop at a Mobil filling station for gas.  We were on a two lane highway in central Texas, heading eventually to Muleshoe, near Lubbock, where their claim to fame seemed to be the statue of a mule that stood in the center of town.  She pulled directly under the filling station's overhang, and a young man ran out, a red rag hanging haphazardly out of his dark blue cotton workshirt.  A second red rag hung from the back pocket of his matching cotton pants. 

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Fill it up, please." Mother said pleasantly.

"Yes ma'am.  Can ya  pop that hood fer me?"

While Mother fumbled around trying to find the hood latch, he moved quickly to the pump, removed the gas cap from the car, and inserted the nozzle.  We could smell the gas immediately and Jan and I started holding our noses and talking to one another in nasal tones while Susan looked steadfastly out the front windshield  trying to ignore us. 

"Pop," the hood let loose and raised slightly, which seemingly signaled the lanky young man to move nimbly to the front of the car and raise the hood completely.  He then reached in, removed a stick that had oil on it,  put it back in, then removed it again,  observing it with some interest. 

Next, he moved to the back of the car again, removed the nozzle, replaced the gas cap, then ran inside the station, got some paper from a man inside, likely the owner,  and brought Mother a plastic clipboard with the paper on it.  She signed it. 

"Thank you very much, ma'am.  Come back to see us.  That oil's okay."

"Thank you," Mother said, handing him the clipboard, then pulling forward. 

Jan and I were arguing again, so we didn't notice that Mother turned left, going back toward Corsicana where we'd started rather than Muleshoe where we planned to end our trip.  Susan started laughing, but didn't tell Mother what she'd done. 

"What?" Mother asked, clearly perplexed.

"Where are you going, Mother?" Susan asked in her calm tone. 

Mother hesitated.  Then "Oh shoot.  I turned the wrong way, didn't I?"

By this time, Jan and I got in on the fun. 

"Oh, quick trip," I said, real  smart alecky like.

"If you keep driving long enough in the opposite direction, will you get where you were going?" Jan asked, making Mother laugh. 

She pulled over on the shoulder, looked for traffic, then made a wide U turn, the car lumbering  like a big pelican , its wings spread wide, over the dry brown grass and little yellow wildflowers.

Once we were moving along again, we decided to sing.  Susan was absorbed in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.  Jan and I,  however, were absorbed in nothing but being obnoxious, so we sang hymns, school fight songs, 4-H camp songs, and Camp Fire camp songs ad nauseum. 

Mother never said a word, nor did she indicate any irritation whatsoever.  She kept her eyes glued to the highway in front of her, the white stripes flashing by marking the time till she saw Daddy again, and every now and then would comment, "I like that, that's pretty," or incredibly, "sing another one," usually accompanied by a loud sigh from Susan.

Around noon, we dispensed the sandwiches to everyone, and watched, as gray rain clouds formed in the west, moving toward us.  We were now passing through the red sandy hills and plateaus of  west Texas.  Mesas, they were called, but I liked the word plateau.  It sounded so French. 

The rain pelted the car.  Jan and I looked at each other, lay down in the seat again, this time heads touching, and put our feet out the back windows.  The cool rain made us laugh as it hit our feet like tiny splinters.  After a few minutes we drew them back inside. 

"Look, look," we said to Susan and Mother, holding our feet up toward the front seat.  "They're red and muddy."

Susan was not amused.  She glanced back, grimaced, then reached behind her over the seat and groped for the napkins, handing us a wad of them.  We went to work, soaking napkin after napkin till our feet were clean enough to double under us on the seat.

The drive seemed interminable.  About 6 o'clock, Mother decided we'd stop to eat supper.  She abruptly pulled across the other lane of the highway into a large gravel parking lot filled with big eighteen wheelers.

"They always say truckers know where the best food is," she said cheerily, as Susan looked at me over the seat, rolling her eyes.

Mother led the way into the white stucco like building.  It had big plate glass windows on each side, looking suspiciously like the Mobil filling station we had left a few hours earlier.  A conversion maybe.   The truckers had bought gas here in the past,  and now they frequented the restaurant.

Opening the large glass paneled door, we were hit immediately by the smell of old cooking grease and diesel, which seemed to float like a heavy fog over the inside of the cafe.  We entered to stares.  Ten or fifteen truckers sat at small formica tables, eating meatloaf, corn, blackeyed peas, fried okra,  something brown, and something gray.  No women were in the place at all except the two waitresses. 

Big beefy men held their forks, hands clamped tightly around the handles in a way my mother would not allow.  They ate huge bites, their mouths barely holding all the food.  And they were talking to one another, the food showing clearly, some of it spilling back onto the plate as they laughed their deep, hearty laughs.  Their big hands grasped large glasses of iced tea, and they turned their heads back to receive the thirst satisfying contents,slamming the thick plastic glasses down like they were mad at them. 

Mother prissed over to a circular booth next to the big plate glass window on the west side of the building where we had an unobstructed view of the trucks parked outside.  We followed, heads now down, trying not to stare back at some of the men who now smirked at us.   I noted with dismay several flies congregated on the white ledge abutting the window.

"What did you say the name of this place is?" I asked Mother.

"Truck Harbor," I believe, she said, looking around like it was the most normal place in the world for a 43 year-old woman and her three young girls to be.

"Looks like Fly Harbor to me," I whispered under my breath to Susan and Jan, causing them to snort loudly, catching the attention of several of the truckers who exchanged amused looks.

"What'll it be today?" the skinny waitress asked, putting grimy looking menus in front of each of us.  Her tightly curled hair was jet black.  She wore a white uniform that looked like it'd been around awhile, and a tiny hat, white, trimmed in black, that looked like a series of waves from one side of her head to the other. 

"We'll all have sweet tea," Mother said, not giving us a chance to order a cola, "but give us a few minutes to study the menu.  We'll be ready soon."

"Okay," she said, popping her gum.  "Be back atcha in a few minutes.  I'll get your drinks."  As she walked briskly toward the kitchen, she thumped one of the truckers on the back of his John Deere cap, causing him to laugh.  "See you next week, Big Eddie," she said amiably.

"Yeah, see ya then, Lorene.  Gotta long trip this time.  All the way to California."

"Well, you be careful.  Don't take no wooden nickels," she chortled.

"What's on this menu?" Susan said, almost to herself.

"Well, there's a blue plate special," Mother said.  "That looks pretty good."

"Yeah," I groused, "if you don't mind what made the plate blue.  Is mold blue?" I looked toward Susan.  Mother gave me a look. 

The flies were having a great time in the window, buzzing into it, falling down on the ledge, taking off like airplanes and hitting one another like they were landing in an airport without  air traffic controllers.  Finally, when I couldn't stand it any longer, I just picked up a wad of napkins from the metal dispenser and ended each of their lives quickly.  "They didn't suffer," I reassured Jan, who was staring at what I was doing.

"Now," I said, turning toward my slightly irritated mother and siblings. "We can eat in peace."

Mother ordered.  Of course just to make her point, she ordered the Blue Plate Special, then talked and talked about how good it was.  Jan, Susan and I decided on the safer hamburgers and fries, which actually were not all that bad if you used a napkin first to soak up the excess grease. 

"Honey, do ya'll need anything else?" Lorene asked Mother.  "Need any more tea or anything?  Where ya'll headed anyway if you don't mind me askin'?"

"We don't need anything else, thank you," Mother said like she'd known her all her life.  "And of course I don't mind your asking.  We're on our way to Muleshoe.  How far is it from here?"

"I don't rightly know how far it is, but it'll take you about two hours to get there, I think.  Hey, Jake!  How long will it take this lady to get to Muleshoe?"

"About two hours" came the reply, in one of the lowest bass voices I'd ever heard.

Mother handed Lorene a wad of bills and Lorene headed off to the cashregister where she rang up our meals and drinks and made change,  returning it to Mother.  Then Mother left some bills on the table, thanked her again, and we left, feeling stares at our backs.

 We slung all four car doors open at once since none of them were locked, and each of us resumed our seats, glad that the marathon ride was nearly over.  We couldn't wait to tell Daddy where Mother chose to eat.  She always picked the worst place in town.  We knew Daddy would make up for it when we got there, taking us to nice restaurants and letting us order anything we liked.  He didn't cut any corners on food.

"Turn left," Susan said with authority, glancing at Mother who was looking to the right, her brow furrowed, indecisive.

"Oh yeah, that's right.  We came across the highway, didn't we?"

"Umhumh," Susan said, squinting down at her book in the gathering dusk.

Jan and I started talking about the blue plate special, the orange plate special, the green plate special, and others until we ran out of ideas for how the plates grossly became the designated color.  Mother ignored us, driving blindly into the night toward a mule that stood sentry over a dust covered town we'd  not find much to our liking.



 





 

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/TRUMPET EXPOSED

I mean, we all knew the Trumpet saga couldn't last forever, but we enjoyed getting one over on the boys. 
Trumpet, you see, was an elephant, and he lived on our land, 500 acres more or less of grazing and trees for hiding.  The story evolved during a slumber party in 6th grade, when we wanted to have something really fantastic to tell the boys, something they couldn't "one up". 

Boys aren't all that smart in 6th grade.  For instance, one of the boys, bragging that he wasn't sensitive to poion ivy,  had   rolled in it. on a dare from a friend.  Too late for him, he found out that he was allergic to it after all.  He missed two weeks of school and swelled up like a toad according to the boy who made the dare.

 So they didn't seem to quite believe us, but they had no way to prove it wasn't the truth.

They couldn't drive the 10 miles to my house, and the girls agreed to present a united front.  They couldn't crack it. 

Until they decided to take it to a higher power.

"Felisa," Mr. Mullins, our principal, approached me pleasantly one day after lunch. 

"Yes sir?" I answered like he'd asked me a question, which he hadn't--yet.

"Some of the boys tell me you have an elephant at your place."  I gulped, mentally arranging my thoughts and a possible answer.  "Is that true?"

If he'd asked any other way, asked another question, maybe I could have avoided telling the truth, but it was always known in my family that I'd squeal like a spy with bamboo shoots under her fingernails.  I squirmed, looked toward the cafeteria tables filled with boys and girls my age, all in my imagination, looking directly at me, the girls shocked, the boys spurious.

"No sir, we don't really have an elephant.  It was just a madeup story to fool the boys.  Did they tell you?"

He smiled.  "Oh, I see."  That's all.  He saw.

 Of course I now felt like a spy who'd spilled her guts.

And Mr. Mullins would probably think "liar" every time he saw me now.  It was not an auspicious feeling.  I slumped a little, drug the heels of my loafers as I walked slowly out the double doors to the playground. 

"What did Mr. Mullins want?" Nilene asked me as soon as I exited the cafeteria. 

Blinded by the sunlight and the bright flash of her silver braces reflected from her teeth, I hesitated a second.

"What did he say, what did he say?" she wheedled.

"Give me a minute," I said, stalling.  "Well, he asked about Trumpet."
. 
"And?.........  Did you tell him the truth?"

"Yes, I had to," I said, defending myself quickly against another onslaught of questions and accusations.
"I couldn't lie to the principal.  And anyway, if I had, he'd have just called my parents, and then what trouble would I be in?"

She considered this for a second, and in her usual good humor, scoffed, "Well, it was good while it lasted.  We got those stupid boys.  I can't believe they even fell for it.  It was so unbelievable."

"Do you think anyone else will be mad at me for spilling the story?" I asked, slightly unsure of myself.

"Heck, no.  They were just glad you went along with it.  Nobody else would have done it.  It was fun-now on to other things," she said, lauging, running wildly away, swerving this way and that, her blonde curls making tight rings on her head,  sweat soaking them.

Other girls came out on the playground, and one by one, they were informed that our ruse was up.  While disappointed, they didn't blame me.  In fact, they all said they would have done the same thing.  But later that afternoon, when the boys tried to take pride in the fact of exposing our little story, the girls joined ranks like I had never seen, and to a girl, they put the boys down in a way that practically  made them squeak.  Trumpet was never mentioned again after that day, certainly not by the boys, and only by the girls at slumber parties when we considered whether we could ever pull off a lie as seamlessly as we pulled off that one against the boys.

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/CREEK RISIN'

Mr. Riley, the bus driver,  probably secretly hated my mother.  At least on days it rained.  He was one of the quietest men I had ever met.  My daddy and brothers talked fast and loud.  Not Mr. Riley. 

 He drove the bus every day and taught math at the junior high I attended.  He was softspoken, and he spoke to us when we entered the bus and when we exited.  That was all.  But he was pleasant and careful.  He never drove too fast.  But rainy days probably taxed that quiet resolve, and I imagine if he knew any curse words, they may have bounced around in his head on those wet days even if they never passed his lips.

The problem was that Mother had a lot to do.  She had the three of us girls, and Daddy was working away all the time now.  She cooked breakfast every morning,, and it was not something fast.  She cooked bacon or sausage, oatmeal, eggs, biscuits or toast.  We all ate together, and then everyone got ready for school.  By 7:30 a.m., we had headed out the door, walked the 30 yards to the front gate at the road to wait, and the big yellow bus usually got there just a few minutes later filled with kids staring morosely out the windows, joyless, looking like they were bound for the worst fate in the world. 

Most days we got on the bus without incident.  He turned around at our stop, backing the big bus around at the entrance to our driveway, moving it onto the dirt road that turned at a ninety degree angle from the gravel road on which he'd come, backing up several times, then forward, then finally taking off with a small kick of gravel to retrace his route.  The mile trip down to our house from the farm to market road was just for us. No other kids lived on the road.  We were effectively one mile from anything.

Mother  got up very early every day, cooked, cleaned, picked up the house, maybe did laundry.  It wasn't that she didn't get up early enough.  She just tried to do too much in the time she had.  Most days it was up to us to walk the 30 or so yards to the front gate, nimbly walk the metal poles of the cattleguard, and wait beside the road.  She didn't have to be involved in actually getting us to the bus.  So that is why rain days slipped up on her. 

At work, they were used to her skidding into her parking spot, running quickly up the stairs, and showing up about 15 minutes late most days.  I could never figure out why she didn't get  in trouble for that,  but I think it was because once she actually got there, she had tremendous powers of focus, and she worked like a person possessed.  A bookkeeper, same company, E. W. Hable Construction, 22 years.

On rainy days, the road, which was gravel, got very slick.  But even more dangerous, the water in the creek often rose and sometimes  lapped just under the edge of the bridge.  At times, it covered the bridge.  My dad had forbid her to drive over it with us in the car if it lapped the bridge, so she didn't do that, though I imagine she would have tried it if he had not been so forceful in his warning. 

At any rate, when it was rainy, we tried to meet the bus one mile away, at the farm to market road.  If we left early enough, it was lovely.   If we didn't, and we often didn't, it was terrible, and awkward, and embarrassing.

"Let's hurry, Mother.  It's raining." I said one morning.  "We're all ready.  We need to go.  The bus will start down the road.  Mr. Riley won't say anything, but he'll be irritated at us.  Let's go, please."

"Just a minute," she said.  "Let me run get my purse. I think we have plenty of time."

"No, we don't have plenty of time.  Let's go."

I was right.  She was wrong, as was often the case about time issues.  She always thought she had plenty of time. 

We all rushed to the car, she backed fast out of the garage, then slammed the car into low and took off toward the cattle guard and gate.

 "I sure  hope all the dogs and cats are out of the way," she said half teasing, while we grimaced. 

 Then she tore out of the driveway, drove faster than she should have down the gravel road, and slowed only slightly at the creek bridge.  Just past the bridge, which was one-half mile down the road and around a curve, we started screaming.  "There's the bus, there's the bus."

There was no place to turn around, for her or the bus.  Through the large windshield, we saw Mr. Riley's patient face turn sullen .  He made no motion toward Mother,  simply stopped the huge yellow vehicle, looked to his right, reversed the bus, and began backing.   Mother followed slowly, car and bus nose to nose, as he backed one-half mile up the rainslicked gravel, including a big hill in the last quarter mile. That half mile seemed interminable as I imagined everything he was thinking and wanted to say but couldn't. 

 Mother stayed right with him as she said so we "wouldn't delay the bus", so when he reached the farm to market road, he backed around, pulled the metal handle opening the bus door, and we piled quickly out of the car, saying goodbye to mother and hello to Mr. Riley as we ran up the bus steps, looking apologetically at him.   He was tightlipped, but nodded at us.  The other kids were very quiet.  But as soon as the bus got going at regular speed, and the noise of the motor made you have to shout to be heard, some of the boys started teasing us and laughing about the situation.  One look in the overhead mirror from Mr. Riley and they stopped.

I wanted to apologize for her, but somehow it seemed disloyal.  We just made sure we were extra nice to him the rest of the week. 

"Have a good day, Mr. Riley," Susan said as she got off at the junior high.

"See you this afternoon," I said shyly, while Jan smiled and waved at him as we exited at Bowie Elementary. 

He said goodbye to Susan and mumbled ok to me, and gave a slight wave to Jan and a half smile.  In my heart I felt his day might not go very well, but I hoped he wouldn't hold it against Mother.  She really didn't mean to always be late.  I thought if he saw how much she had to do, how she ran us everywhere, checked on my grandmother, mowed five acres, cooked two large meals everyday and did mounds of laundry, all while working a fulltime job, he might not think poorly of her. 

That night I asked, "Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?"

"Oh, I don't know.  Why?" she said cheerily, oblivious to my angst. 

"No reason," I said, "but if it does, let's just have cereal.  That way we can leave the house earlier, okay?"

"Okay," she said, shoveling clothes into the washing machine.  "I guess it is pretty hard backing that bus up that hill."  And then, troubling to me, I heard her giggling.  

1950S SMALL TOWN LIFE/CHANG SINGS AT CHURCH

God must have had a special concern for Chang, letting him end up at our house.  If he had shown up a few months earlier, before Julie died, we would have loaded him up in the pickup and taken him to the animal shelter right away.  As it was, he showed up, acted really tacky to all of us, growling, stealing the hounds' food, barking at us in our own driveway, and generally making himself unwelcome, and we still let him stay. 

He was a chow, who had thick golden fur that stood out around his neck like a fluted collar.  His walk was more of a strut, but he ran if someone approached him, and you could tell then, by the way he put his head down, that someone had been mean to him.  He had a secret he couldn't tell us in words, but his behavior spoke for him.

I had tried for several weeks to approach him.  Eventually, he let me come closer, with  dogfood.  One day, as he ate, I moved near him and gently reached out, touching his fur.  He kept eating.  I stood quietly.  When he finished, he didn't run away, just walked away regally with his fur neckring sticking out like a hedge of protection. 

That was the beginning of an uneasy relationship that lasted several years.  It also marked the first time that I became strongly aware of my tendencies toward obsessive - compulsive actions, especially as they related to germs. 

Chang had only been hanging around the house two months or so when his lovely fur started dropping off in hunks.  I first noticed it one day when I fed him, and within three days, he had lost most of the fur on the left side of his body.

"Mange," Daddy pronounced when he came home from Lubbock on the weekend.

"What do we do?" I asked, feeling like I wanted to cry.

"That dog is mean.  I don't know how anyone is going to get to him to treat the mange.  We probably need to get rid of him."

"No," I begged.  "Let me keep him.  I'll put the medicine on him.  He'll let me."  I acted more sure than I felt that the dog would let me touch him.  He had let me pet him at times, but I had to approach him very carefully, and he stayed in control, not me. 

Daddy got the medicine on the weekend, and I started the treatment on Monday after he'd left for Lubbock.  Thank goodness he didn't see what it entailed. 

First, I had to feed Chang, but not really let him have the feed in the usual spot out by the garage.  I had to get the feed and lure him into the fenced yard, at the front of the house, through the gate, topped by two small gray metal lions, a small fancy decorative item on an otherwise plain chainlink fence.  Once I got him in the yard, which was no small feat, I had to actually let him eat his food.  Otherwise he'd never trust me again.

When he was nearly through, I slipped onto the high concrete porch and retrieved the "treatment" which was liquid thankfully and prepared in a used liquid dishwashing bottle.  I edged near him and poured a little of the mixture on the raw skin.  As soon as it hit his skin, he was off, running toward the gate, which I had smartly closed. 

When he realized I had tricked him, he ran east until there was no more yard, only fence.  When he turned north, I was there ready and shot a stream of medicine at his pitiful coatless body.  He ran west then and I patiently waited until he had to come past me once more when I squirted the rest of the treatment toward him.  Then I opened the gate and let him out.  He ran, shaking as hard as he could, drops of medicine glistening in the sun like tiny diamonds. 

I could hardly believe it, but each day we repeated the ritual.  I felt he was wise to me, but he never let on, entering the gate skittishly each day just as he had the day before.  Running from me every day like the day before.  Eventually, his mange cleared up and his lovely thick coat was restored like new.

Only as his mange got better, my obsessive compulsiveness got worse.  In treating him, I had become terrified that I would get mange.  I envisioned clumps of hair falling out, my raw skin, rough and scaly, revealed at school to disgusted schoolmates who pointed and jeered.

To counteract the terror, I  developed a very intense cleansing ritual for my hands and arms.  After each time I put medicine on Chang, I washed my hands with soap, dried them carefully, washed them again, dried them, then applied pure alcohol to each hand numerous times.  Sometimes, if I still "felt" the germs on there, I had to go through the whole process again.  It could be burdensome.

Chang wasn't really any problem except when he got into a crisis where he needed help.  Then no one could do anything with him at all, and it became an embarrassment.  Thankfully, the one time we needed to take him to the vet after he got bitten on the nose by a copperhead or watermocassin, causing his nose to swell up, he was too sick to care as we loaded him up in the floorboard of the car and took him to Dr. Harper for a shot.  Normally, though, no one could get him to do anything except what he wanted.

A few weeks after Chang had mange,  my dad decided to ride Sugar, our horse, to church.  I'm not sure what the impetus for that was, maybe the beautiful spring day, with its clear sun and cool breeze.  He never did it before, and after what happened, he certainly never did it again, but he saddled up. And since Mother and we girls had gone earlier to Sunday School, we watched in consternation as he trotted up, riding high and proud in the saddle, his white cowboy hat bouncing up and down with every step.

We attended literally a one -room church.  No bathrooms, except some old ones outside that no one would use unless it was a dire emergency.  No air conditioning.  The front doors (which were at the back of the pews) were the only doors, and the wooden doors stood open, leaving the screened doors to let in the breeze. 

Our friends giggled, and so did we, as Daddy tethered Sugar to the metal handrails by the steps.  I looked toward Mother and saw her glance out the front door and have no reaction, like it was the most natural thing in the world.  At the break between Sunday School and church, all the adults slapped Daddy on the back and acted like it was the greatest thing ever that he rode his horse to worship.

Brother Johnny led the singing on Sunday,  and we sang a variety of songs, but almost every week, we sang "At Calvary."  He stepped up behind the pulpit and after a brief piano intro, launched into the song.  "Years I spent in vanity and pride," he sang, swinging his arm in time with the music. 

"Aaaauuhrrrrr," a terrible high pitched sound came from the doorway.  "Aaaauuhrrr, aaaauuhrr."

It seemed like slow motion as just about every head in that small congregation turned back toward the doors.  There, with his nose pointed straight up, like a coyote howling at the moon, sat Chang, making weird and unusual noises,  accompanying the hymn. 

Daddy, realizing Chang had followed them like a private detective, keeping his distance so as not to be seen, got up and went back and tried to shush him, but of course he wasn't having any of it and seemed to get louder and more insistent.  The sound was sad and mournful, but everyone was laughing.  Finally, Brother Johnny finished two verses and said, with a dour look ,  that was all we'd sing for now.  All we kids had hung our heads and were giggling, punching each other, and shaking with suppressed laughter. 

Daddy slipped out and untied Sugar, and the entire congregation watched him through the south windows as he rode toward home.  It was only a mile.  I'm not sure, but it didn't seem like he was sitting as high in the saddle on the way back.

 He never liked Chang, and that episode sure didn't endear him.  A few weeks later, we arrived home early from church and found a friend of dad's with a rope around Chang trying to get him in a truck.  We were never sure what that was about, but had a pretty good idea.  Of course Jan and I staged a duet, a screaming, crying fit,  and once more Chang avoided capital punishment.

 He lived several more fairly happy years with us, teaching us lessons about dealing with difficult personalities.   I was never sorry he experienced some years of kindness, which he did, with the exception of the rope incident.  Even that day,  he saw how we would stick up for him even if he was hard to deal with, though  he never did anything to demonstrate he was grateful.   We all cried the day he died, hit by a car he was trying to bluff into stopping,  and though I didn't want to admit it,  there was, with my shock and sorrow,  also a sense of relief. 

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/DUCKS, DUCKS, AND MORE DUCKS

DeWitt's story about the duck being wrapped up by a snake, though odd, was just one of many stories about what happened to them once they were in our care.  I felt bad that our home didn't  end up being a safe place for them, but when we decided to get them, we had no idea how often they reproduced, nor did we understand their pushy and inquisitive nature.  Those two traits combined after a while to make them almost unbearable pets.  We just envisioned cute little quackers, floating sublimely and peacefully on the tank, providing photo ops, not the thunderous herd that ran quacking from the tank to the back door angrily demanding food every time we stepped outside.

I'm sure either Jan or I started the appeal for ducks.  Our father liked animals, and certain animals were more than welcome at the ranch, but others he instantly vetoed.  He would have vetoed ducks, but he was gone more of the time than he was home now, traveling for Murray Gin Company, so we didn't ask him. 

Mother became even more independent, and we three girls became more brazen in our requests, knowing that unless it involved bleeding, hurting someone, or setting something on fire, she would usually let us do it. 

"The Georges have the cutest little ducks," Jan said.  "They quack and waddle." Jan was priming the pump.  "So we were thinking...you know.....that maybe we could  just get two or three and put them on the tank to watch them swim and stuff."

"What's the 'and stuff'"? Mother asked.

"Just watch them swim really.  That's all." Susan said, interjecting herself into the conversation.

It was magic.  We were always slow to realize it though.  We often forgot to use Susan, our secret weapon.    Mother would give in to her without even a frown, almost every time.  Maybe it was because she rarely asked for anything, and if she did it was actually logical and sane unlike the requests of a few of her siblings. 

So that was how it was that we traveled the winding  backroad to the George's home four miles away late one fall afternoon.  Mother stayed home doing the million things she now had to do since Daddy had started traveling.

We took a shoebox to put them in .  Susan drove.  She was fifteen and had been driving for about a year.  Franny George was in 7th  grade with me at school, and she chased the ducks until she caught them one by one.  She handed the first one to Jan, who cradled it against her plaid dress.  The second one was mine, and Susan deferred, so the third one was mine too.  I realized then that Susan had no interest in the ducks, but had merely intervened with Mother to help us get what we wanted. 

We transferred them to the shoebox in the back floorboard, and Jan and I crawled in the backseat, leaning down trying to keep them from hopping out of the box.

"I can't wait to put them out on the tank," Jan enthused.

 "You'll have to wait till tomorrow," Susan said quietly.  "Something would get them tonight right away."

"I never thought of that.  We can put them in the coop we used for Julie.  It's made for chickens and ducks, not puppies," I said, remembering Julie's near-death experience, hanging herself in the coop door.

We had turned from the farm to market road onto the dirt road that led back to our house.  About a mile and a half down the road, just around the curve that led to Ventura's house, our car started limping. 

"Oh no, we've got a flat tire." I  heard something in Susan's voice.  I wasn't sure what it was.  The sky was  like gray marble, and night came quickly when it looked like that.

We knew the lady who lived in the little house we were approaching, the only one for at least two miles either direction.  Ventura was a lady who had come from Mexico after  marrying a man from Corsicana.  She raised goats, and often stayed in her little home alone since her husband drove a truck.  At night it could be deathly quiet.  She did ironing for us since Mother didn't have time, and I had often wondered if she was ever scared by herself on that deserted stretch of road. 

"Maybe Ventura is home," Susan said hopefully as she pulled the car as near the ditch as she could get it and turned off the motor.

"I don't see any lights," Jan said.  "I don't think the goats are gonna let us up on the porch to knock on the door."

Susan got out of the car and peered toward the house.  "She's not home," she said authoritatively.
"We've got to walk home."  Jan and I stared at each other.  It was almost dark.  Our house was at least two miles down a dark, treelined road with no houses between Ventura's and ours.

I'm not sure if I really wanted to protect the ducks, or if I just felt safer staying put in the car, but I made a quick, panicky, decision.

"I'll stay with the ducks," I said forcefully.

Susan considered it.  "We've got to get going," she said to Jan.  "It's getting dark fast."

Jan hopped out of the backseat, casting a glance back at the ducks.

She and Susan started walking south on the road at a fast pace.  They didn't  look back.  I squeezed over the seat and locked both the front doors, then crawled over the seat again and locked the back doors.  I rolled up the windows, leaving only a tiny crack at the top of the window on the ditch side of the car.

The darkness seeped around the car like thick smoke, and the darker it got, the more rigid I became.  The ducks scrabbled around in the shoe box and eventually escaped, but I could hardly watch them.  I now had to watch the road south where Susan and Jan had been swallowed up by the darkness, and east, where it curved around where we had come from.  I kept praying that Ventura would show up. 

"Surely she'll be home soon," I thought to myself.  She wouldn't leave the goats very long by themselves.  They'd eat the siding off her house. 

The fear that rose most in my mind was that someone would come along and try to help, and I wouldn't know whether to let them or not.  Most people in the country were good people.  And they especially liked to help people with car troubles, but I wanted to wait till Mother came and said what we should do.

 I was more afraid just of the dark itself and what imagined thing might come out of that forbidding darkness.  I could envision monsters of varying shapes and sizes.  The trees swayed and I could make a different scary shape out of each wave of the branches.  They looked like giant fingers ready to reach down and snatch me.  No, it wasn't people I was scared of;  it was something else, something my own mind invented.

An eternity passed.  How long could it take them to walk two miles?  The ducks were running all over the back floorboards.  I sat rigidly looking south, then east, and occasionally turning toward Ventura's house, hoping against the odds that I'd see a light and discover she was home after all.  Finally, a light was coming slowly down the road toward the car.  It wasn't our pickup, though.  It was someone else. 

What should I do, I wondered, feeling more and more anxious.   What if it was someone I didn't know?  The pickup pulled directly in front of the car, grill to grill.  A man got out.  I couldn't see him in the darkness.  He approached the car, cupped his hands around his eyes and peered into the front seat of the car. 

The anxiety that had risen into my throat rushed out in my cry, "Robert Earl!"  He saw me in the backseat then.

"I'm going to fix the flat.  Your mother called me.  Then I'll drop you by the house--you and the ducks," he said.  He seemed like he wanted to laugh, but he didn't.  He was a very serious person, nice, businesslike, but he didn't laugh much.  I guess running the store kept him with a lot on his mind, especially when people like my mother called him out at night.

When I got home, Susan and Jan told me about the walk home.  They started out, feeling brave, then became increasingly afraid as they saw the shadows of the trees, heard the low moans and groans of the country, the screeches and howls of animals, and thought of snakes and other animals that crossed the roads at night.  So one of them suggested they sing, and they skipped arm in arm down the dusty road singing at the top of their lungs a favorite song from the musical "The King and I". 

"Whenever I feel afraid, I hold myself erect, and whistle a happy tune, so no one will suspect I'm afraid.  While quivering in my shoes, -----I strike a careless pose, and whistle a happy tune, so no one ever knows I'm afraid. The result of this deception is very plain to tell, for when I fool, the people I fear, I fool myself as well."

They sang this, lungs stretched tight, trying to make all the noise they could.  I wondered who they thought they'd fool.  Probably only themselves.

"Mother seemed surprised to see us!"  Susan laughed, thinking of it.  "Like she'd forgotten she had any kids or that they were gone anywhere.  She was washing dishes in the kitchen, singing, with all the lights on in the house and all the windows wide open.  Then she got kind of worried, thinking what she needed to do, but she called Robert Earl, and he said he'd come right on, especially when she told him one of the kids was in the car over there guarding some ducks."

The little ducks were put to bed in the coop for the night, while we slept under the lovely vibrating noise of the huge attic fan.   Early in the evening, it drew warm air through a  large vent in the hall, sucking it through all the bedroom windows, but later, as the temperature eased down during the night, we'd often draw a light blanket up over us, snuggling down, retreating from the cool air. 

1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE/ JOE AND THE INDIAN PRINCESS

It was getting harder and harder to stay up with Susan's reading choices. Well, honestly, I couldn't keep up. That was the frustration of it. She read constantly, before school, after school, at night, on the weekends. I definitely did not read on the weekends. Weekends were for spending the night with friends or going to the movies, riding bicycles, or just doing things I enjoyed. Also, the vocabulary was beginning to be over my head.

The latest book was Franny and Zooey, and I didn't even understand what it was talking about most of the time. I'd read little parts of it in a hurry, but lots of the words meant nothing to me, so I couldn't figure out the meaning of certain key sentences, rendering entire pages meaningless. I wasn't sure how long I could keep this up. Or if I wanted to. She showed no signs of slowing down, and I felt like I was reading a foreign language. When did English get so hard?

Lately, I had noticed she and Mother would discuss the books, but they got quiet when I came around. When I tried to join the conversation, mostly by asking a lot of pesky questions about the books, they exchanged looks, then changed the subject.

I knew the latest book dealt with something secretive that I wasn't supposed to know about, but I quietly slipped back near the bedroom door and heard them discussing why one of the characters in the book "committed silverside". That word related to nothing I had experienced or heard.

We had silverfish that made their homes at times in the chest of drawers. They were irritating, but as far as I knew harmless, as they darted swiftly out of sight when you opened a drawer where they were hiding. There were minnow-like fish that Daddy called silversides, I thought. But how did you commit a silverside?

My head hurt. It was just too much for my tiny brain. Susan's brain must be oversized, I decided because she seemed to absorb more and more information while I struggled to unravel the secret words contained between the bookcovers.

I heard the phone ringing and ran to answer it in the hallway that led to our bedrooms.  Jan had beat me to it and answered it in the kitchen.  I listened for a few seconds.

"Mother, it's Uncle Joe.  He's calling from Houston.  He's married an Indian princess and wants you to talk to her," I yelled.   I could hear Jan talking to someone with a slight accent that I couldn't readily identify. 

Mother emerged from the master bedroom, looked at the phone I was extending to her, and rolled her eyes.

"Hello," she said, friendly enough, but not smiling.  "Yes, I'm Joe's sister.  It's nice to talk to you, too.  How do you know Joe?"  A slight hesitation.  "Oh, I see."  She motioned toward the kitchen and whispered to me to get Jan off the phone.  "Yes, yes, he's a great guy," she said, not sounding very convinced.  "Where is Joe?" she asked.  "Yes, I'd like to talk to him.  Can you put him on the line for me, please?"  She would never be rude to someone she hadn't properly met.

"Joe, how are you, honey?"  He was her brother,  eight years younger than she, and since Granny Newlin had gotten tired of raising kids by the time he was born, Mother and her older sister Pat felt a lot of responsibility for the four younger boys.  They still had a really swell dad, but there was a deficit in the mother department. 

There was also Bud,  a fifth brother, who was between the two girls in age, but as far as Mother was concerned, he was on his own.  They were close enough in age to fight with one another as kids though as adults they enjoyed one another's company.

"Joe, where are you today?" Mother asked in a reprimanding tone.  "Yes, that's what I thought.  Well, did you marry this Indian princess?  She sounds like a bar drunk to me."  I could hear Joe's prostestations. 

"Libby, she's the best thing that's happened to me in a long time.  She's a real nice girl."

Joe had problems that seemed to start at least as early as first grade, when he came home crying from the first day of school, declaring that he just couldn't go to school with those other children because "they were too ugly."   He had taxed Granddad's resolve.  He started college at SMU, but never got far, wrecking cars and motorcycles till he was finally cut off financially.  His struggle with alcohol began early and never left him, but he still had a lovely personality, intelligence,  thick curly dark hair, little gold rimmed glasses and an appealing face.  I could see why women fell for him.  And he could tell the best stories and make everyone laugh. 

Once he told us about falling off a destroyer during World War II.  He said he was going to throw himself into the propeller, but my grandmother's face appeared in the gray mist and caused him to hesitate.  At the same time, someone yelled "Man overboard" and he was soon rescued.  We weren't sure if the story was true, but if he hadn't come home from the war, that would have meant Mother would have lost two brothers, since Johnny, the brother next to her in age,  was a navigator on a plane that never returned from a run in the Pacific.

I think Joe had been married a couple of times,  and he was always madly in love by the time he introduced his ladies to Mother, but this time she wasn't accepting it. 

She motioned to me to go away and then partially covered her mouth with her hand and whispered into the phone.  "Go home and sober up, Joe.   Can't you find something else to do on holidays?  It's Thanksgiving weekend for goodness sake.  We want you to come here at Christmas.  Would you do that?  Okay---okay.  Think about it.  I'll send you a bus ticket if you'll come."

 I saw her place the phone slowly on the hook, turn like she'd aged a thousand years in the last minute, and walk with leaden feet toward the kitchen.  By the time she reached the door to the kitchen, though, she perked up, looked at Jan and laughed, shaking her head with a rapid back and forth motion like dogs do when they shake off water. 

"Indian princess, my foot," she said with disgust.

Then she simply walked to the cabinet, got out some corn meal and started making supper.

Joe's relationships never lasted long, so we never got to meet the Indian princess even though he decided to come and visit us that Christmas.  She didn't come with him,  he didn't mention her, and we didn't ask.   His life was a series of people, jobs, and places- -nothing stable save the love of his longsuffering family.  And at the end, someone would notice that he hadn't been seen for a few days, and his kindhearted siblings would make arrangements for him to be interred in a cemetery in Dawson, under a huge oak tree, near some of our family, as he had requested. 





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1950s SMALL TOWN LIFE: RECITAL ANTICS

Piano recitals were traumatic events, beginning with their timing. Sunday afternoons. We attended church, ate lunch, then raced into town for the event, arriving with only minutes to spare.

Riding in the car, I played my recital piece in my head, or sometimes I played the piece on my thighs. And inevitably, I came to a part I couldn't recall, sending myself into a panic. Jan, riding in the backseat with me, usually chose that moment to embark on a conversation she'd been saving since the previous week.

My fingers working busily on playing my thighs,  I shot her a mean look to make sure she quit talking. She usually was looking out the window when she casually started the conversation, but looked toward me, and seeing my fingers moving, became mute,  realizing I was "practicing".

Arriving at Kinsloe House, an imposing white former residence converted into a women's clubhouse, I hopped up the brick steps, entered the large front reception area and made my way into the small auditorium, actually just a room with a stage, pianos, and cold metal chairs.   At the center of the stage sat a large white basket filled with dahlias, gladiolas, and mums in brilliant spring colors.

The student participants were already seated on the front rows, facing forward like frozen soldiers, no movement visible. I sat down quickly next to Judy, a good friend from school. She was barely moving one white patent shoe, fitted snugly over her pantyhose, in small circles on the floor.

She grinned at me. "Won't you be glad when you don't have to wait on your mother and can drive yourself?"

My silent answer was eyes rolled up toward the ceiling. It was time to start. Mrs. Hutchinson was standing in front of the stage, smiling toward the parents like she was genuinely happy, welcoming everyone, introducing the program.   She nodded toward Howard Cannady, who had a bad attitude generally, and a bad one particularly toward piano. He was to play first.

He scowled at her, stood up slowly, and stomped his way up the steps and across the wooden floor to the piano, jerking the heavy wooden bench roughly from under the piano, and plopping down on it.

He slowly placed his fingers over the keys, seemed to think for an eternity before beginning, and played only three or four measures before he quit, dropping his hands disgustedly to his lap and turning toward the audience.

"Can I start over?" he asked, looking toward Mrs. Hutchinson, an edge in his tone.

"Yes, of course you can, Howard," she said in an uncharacteristic voice, sweet as corn syrup.

After a few seconds that seemed like minutes, fumbling with his hands in his lap, he began the piece again. This time he hit the keys with more force, like he was taking his anger out on the piano. He played about half a page of the piece this time, then hit several notes that were reflected in cringes on people's faces, after which he stopped again, waited an interminable amount of time, and turned for the second time toward Mrs. Hutchinson.

"I need to start over." he said, no trace of courtesy or respect in either his voice or demeanor.

Still, Mrs. Hutchinson  responded with an overly kind voice I had never heard. "Yes, Howard. Go right ahead and start over."

The kids sitting in front of us started squirming uncomfortably in their seats, making tiny little movements of their feet and hands only.

Howard grimaced, shook his head quickly back and forth, like he was shaking something off, and reluctantly moved his hands toward the keys. This time when he started, he pounded the keys like he was trying to destroy the piano, and he pressed his foot down hard on the pedal, making the sound linger long and loud.

The audience held its collective breath. He almost completed the first page, but some wrong notes tripped him up. This time, he did not ask permission.

He stood up fast, almost overturning the piano bench, turned sharply, and exited the stage, stomping down the two steps, then stomping even harder from the front to the back of the auditorium, Mrs. Hutchinson rising to follow after him, calling "Howard, Howard, now that's all right."

It was so foreign to see her act this way, solicitous and kind, that all the kids, heads ducked, were cutting their eyes up toward one another, not understanding what it meant.

Howard's mother, who was married to a prominent man, but rumored to be an alcoholic, followed her son to the door, looking embarrassed and apologetic.

Mrs. Hutchinson returned to the front, made an uneasy apology, and continued the program. The parents sat like stones. Not one had even turned a head to watch Howard and his mother leave. Their expressions were odd, pleasant facades pasted over shock.

Rita, who was sitting on the other side of me, was next on the program. She was unnerved by what had happened.

"What song was that?" I asked her when she sat down after performing.

"No song," she whispered. "I just made up chords and played them. I couldn't think of anything but Howard stomping out." We giggled almost uncontrollably, hands over our mouths, shoulders shaking.

I had caught Mrs. Hutchinson looking at Rita with an odd expression while she was playing, but thought the piano teacher was still just shellshocked.

After that a few of the more accomplished students played, and Mrs. Hutchinson relaxed visibly, as did the parents.

I suffered through all the pieces until it was my turn to play, walked self-consciously up the steps and to the piano, but made it through the piece with little trouble.

Exiting the stage, I was surprised to see Mrs. Hutchinson clapping enthusiastically, grinning broadly, and bouncing a little in her seat. After Howard's performance, I guess a kid like me didn't seem so bad.

"Was something bothering Howard?" my mother asked innocently as our family exited Kinsloe House.

"Yeah," I answered, noticing my father, who was a friend of Howard's dad, suddenly looking interested.

"What?" she said.

"Life," I countered, trying not to sound impertinent.

What I didn't tell her was what Rita had leaned over and whispered to me when Howard quit playing for the third time and stomped off.

"The other kids said," she whispered, "that Howard was mad because he was made to take his fingernail polish off before the recital."

I gratefully let the conversation die. My mother would not understand. Nor, if I were honest, did I.
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