Life Among the Savages
I think that may be why my summer coat never got to the cleaners. You can start from any given point on a list and go off in all directions at once, the world being as full as it is, and even though a list is a greatly satisfying thing to have, it is extraordinarily difficult to keep it focussed on the subject at hand. Right at this point, for instance, I was thinking about demitasse cups. I personally prefer a double-sized coffee cup, but with those tiny cups coffee is served so graciously (I see a list here, going on into tiny spoons, and after-dinner liqueurs, and me in a long gown at the table, and everyone speaking wittily, and the children sweetly asleep in the nursery with an efficient Nanny on guard)—so easily (this list includes a maid and a butler to wash the cups and polish the tiny spoons) and so elegantly (years ago my mother promised me a silver coffee service, and then there’s always the coffee table we inherited from Great-Aunt Martha, and if my husband would just get to work and sand it down and varnish it . . .) that, infected as I am by the constant desire to change everything, I may give in to the demitasse, after all. What persuaded me to think about demitasse cups at all was a statement made recently by one of my close friends, who said that she personally did not like our big cups for dinner coffee, but preferred a demitasse because she liked her coffee scalding hot. That, of course, sent me off onto several tangents on her housekeeping; she is a very good friend, and I would not for the world mention to her that the last time we visited there, there was no soap in the bathroom. I am terribly fond of her, but it is true that her guest room windows do not open. She is a grand girl, and if she likes her coffee in small cups at my house, she shall have it that way, in spite of the fact that the last time we dined there I found a spider in the salad.
Perhaps—following still another list—if we did have demitasse cups, our after-dinner hour, which is complicated by the presence of children coming out of bathtubs, and children with pressing problems in elementary reading, and dishes on the table waiting to be washed, and dogs and cats clamoring for their supper—perhaps our after-dinner hour would somehow become imperceptibly more gracious; perhaps the children, seeing us endlessly refilling our demitasse cups, would tiptoe thoughtfully away from the dining room door. Perhaps if we had demitasse cups a local couple, who have no children and have exhibited a vast distaste for our hospitality, would come to call. Perhaps, as a matter of fact, if we had demitasse cups, we could overlook the fact that the vast distaste of the local couple was provoked by our short-tempered reception of their resentment of our children. We should live more graciously, after all.
Then, naturally, there is the question of the cups themselves. I am immediately tempted to buy them just as cheaply as possible (there’s a list for you, the prices of things) and have thought of the five and ten (“. . . and I got the sweetest little cups right there, can you imagine, and even though the cups and saucers came separately I didn’t really pay much more . . .”) but dismissed the idea through pride (“. . . and everyone could tell because of course those same patterns . . .”). I shall have to go off and purchase them in some big store where I have a charge account (“. . . a charge account? Let me just tell you what happened to me when . . .”) and I suspect that I will end up after a day of shopping with four cheap flowered demitasse cups and a set of dishes (I have so been needing dishes) and a set of glassware which will be wonderful for the children to use when they have company for breakfast, and while I am in that department I think I ought to look at electric mixers because it is only four months to my birthday.
I tabulated recently a conversation, or double-listing, between two women, one of them me. The conversation began, civilly enough, with a compliment from me about my friend’s new slipcover, which she had made herself. We then went rapidly through slipcovers (custom-made, prices of) the value of a sewing machine, the clothes children wore to school, and children’s shoes (prices of). She then remarked that she hated to repeat cute things her children had said, but she just had to tell me what her daughter said the other day. I retaliated with a really clever story about Jannie. She said that prices were awful, weren’t they; the conversation could have ended right there, with both of us crying, but fortunately one of our husbands stepped in with a remark about how we had really planned to play bridge, hadn’t we? because if we had, here were the cards dealt and the chairs ready. We sat down, and she told me about how angry her husband had been the last time we played bridge, because she had reneged twice, and I told her a little sad story about how my husband had opened once with two hearts and I had said two spades and he said three diamonds and there I sat with the king, jack, seven of diamonds and . . . well, she told me about these people they used to know, and I told her about these people we used to know, and then she said, well, the way some people bring up their children, and I told her about the bad manners of the children of these friends of ours, and she said well, of course, progressive education, and my husband said were we going to play bridge or weren’t we? So then she said that she loved my new blouse and I said I wished I could make things for myself, and she said the stores were awful, weren’t they. I told her about how a salesclerk was so rude I walked out without buying anything, and she said that the butcher in our mutual grocery was really terribly mean today about the hamburger. I said that even hamburger was almost out of our range these days and she told me about how prices are up at least two cents a pound since practically yesterday. I told her that I understood that the main reason they had given up school lunches was the cost, and she said that it really cost less to make lunch at home and send it, the way things were these days. I said the only trouble was, Laurie preferred sandwiches made with cold meat, and she said had I tried this new spread made with olives. When I said no, she said that she had also tried a new cake mix and it was marvelous, but of course you really needed an electric mixer, and I said my birthday was only four months off. My husband bid three hearts in a loud voice. I bid three spades, and said that I envied her the cookies she made, that my children preferred to stop off for cookies at her house because our cookies were all store-bought. She said shyly that she had made a new kind of lemon meringue tart to serve after our bridge game and my husband said oh, were we playing bridge? Her husband then bid four hearts, she bid four no trump, and I said that I was planning to get a set of demitasse cups.
We played the hand in six spades, and made it easily, but it turns out that if I am going to get an electric mixer I shall have to shop around and get a really good one; she has a friend who used hers once and it fell apart. Of course she got a new one right away from the manufacturers, but my husband believed that if his partner had led anything except the ace of hearts . . . I took the recipe for the lemon meringue tarts, and when I got home I made a new list, which began “lemons, demitasse cups, summer coat to cleaners . . .”
That summer coat was a good one; I had worn it my last two years in college and every summer since. With three small children I perceived clearly what I had suspected when I had only one child, and half-believed when I had only two children—that parents must automatically resign themselves to wearing every article of their own clothing at least two years beyond its normal life expectancy. During the long summers—which are hotter, by the way, than they used to be when I was a child, just as the winters are colder—I can get along nicely on my summer coat and my few surviving cotton dresses, but the winter is another thing; unless I find someone who can fix the pockets of my old fur coat I shall not even be able to carry a handkerchief any more, unless I pin it to the front of me the way I do with Jannie. However, mending a fur coat is so ridiculous in the middle of summer that I have a little list, in my top dresser drawer, which has been there for—I think—two years. “Mend fr coat,” it says.
• • •
By the time I woke up on a summer morning—the alarm having misfired again, for the third time in a week—it was already too hot to move. I lay in bed for a few minutes, wanting to get up but unable to exert the necessary energy. From the girls
’ room, small voices rose in song, and I listened happily, thinking how pleasant it was to hear a brother and two sisters playing affectionately together; then, suddenly, the words of the song penetrated into my hot mind, and I was out of bed in one leap and racing down the hall. “Baby ate a spider, Baby ate a spider,” was what they were singing.
Three innocent little faces were turned to me as I opened the door. Laurie, in his cowboy-print pajamas, was sitting on top of the dresser beating time with a coat hanger. Jannie, in pink pajama pants and her best organdy party dress, was sitting on her bed. Sally peered at me curiously through the bars of her crib and grinned, showing her four teeth.
“What did you eat?” I demanded. “What do you have in your mouth?”
Laurie shouted triumphantly. “A spider,” he said. “She ate a spider.”
I forced the baby’s mouth open; it was empty. “Did she swallow it?”
“Why?” Jannie asked, wide-eyed. “Will it make her sick?”
“Jannie gave it to her,” Laurie said.
“Laurie found it,” Jannie said.
“But she ate it herself,” Laurie said hastily.
I went wearily back into my own room, resisted the strong temptation to get back into bed, and began to dress. The conversation from the children indicated that they, too, were what might be called dressing.
“Put it on Baby,” Laurie remarked.
“It’s too little,” Jannie objected.
“That’s all right,” Laurie said. “Put it on her anyway.”
“She can wear my bluuuuuuuue shirt,” Jannie said.
“That shirt’s no good,” Laurie said.
“It is so,” Jannie said.
“It is not,” Laurie said.
“It is so,” Jannie said.
“It is not,” Laurie said.
“Children,” I called, my voice a little louder than it usually is at only nine in the morning. “Please stop squabbling and get dressed.”
“Laurie started it,” Jannie called back.
“Jannie started it,” Laurie called.
Hastily I pushed the comb through my hair and hurried down the hall; hurrying made me hotter. I lifted Sally out of her crib and set her on Jannie’s bed to dress her, and Laurie and Jannie immediately abandoned their dressing and came to sit on the bed and watch. I changed Sally with the casual speed that comes to mothers of three, decided against putting anything more than a diaper on her, and started downstairs with her under my arm. Behind me Jannie lifted her voice tearfully.
“I can’t find my shooooooes,” she howled.
Laurie began to chuckle maliciously. I saw that he was putting Jannie’s red sandals on his own feet, reflected briefly and bitterly on the theory that seven-year-olds have good days and bad days, and said briskly, “Just for that, you can put Jannie’s shoes on her feet, and buckle them for her, too.”
I knew immediately what he was going to do, and, with speed, I made a strong tactical retreat downstairs before I could see him do it. In the kitchen it was hotter than ever, and I set Sally in her highchair and began opening windows and doors to get some air. The bright sunlight reassured me; by ten o’clock breakfast would be done with, I would have had my coffee; I might even feel like taking the children swimming, or on a picnic. Acting with all the alertness and vivid grace which I usually bring to the breakfast hour, I filled the coffeepot and set it on the stove, filled Sally’s bottle and put it on to heat, and then looked around for Phoebe. Phoebe was our household help, and, being a local girl, she possessed all the native Vermonter’s independence of thought and action; she was supposed by me to arrive every morning by eight o’clock and frequently arrived, having clearly established her emancipated state, by nine. This morning there was no sign of her, not even in her favorite spot for mornings when I get up late, which is out on the side porch playing solitaire. I began to set the table irritably.
Laurie came bounding heavily down the stairs, with Jannie’s infuriated wail following him.
“Where’s Phoebe?” he demanded.
“Not here yet,” I said briefly, because I could not trust myself to speak fully. “Dime if you set the table.”
Laurie began to sing loudly, and rattled the silverware vigorously. As his singing grew louder, a suspicion grew in me. “Did you brush your teeth?” I asked him.
He sang more sweetly still. “Did you brush your teeth?” I said.
The phone rang. Because I was on the wrong side of the table, and hampered by the chairs, Laurie beat me to it by a full five feet.
“Hello?” he said politely, as he has been taught. “This is Laurence.” His eyes circled meaningfully around to me and he looked sorrowful. “No,” he said sadly, “she’s not up yet. She’s still asleep.”
“Young man,” I said ominously, and he backed away so I could not reach the phone. “I’ll tell her when she wakes up,” he said, and hung up hastily. “I knew you wouldn’t want to talk to her,” he said. “She always talks so long, and you’re so busy with breakfast and everything.”
“Who?” I asked.
“I’ll write it down for you,” Laurie said. He took the telephone pad and pencil and began, with his laborious printing. The coffee boiled over, and I fled back into the kitchen. I turned off the coffee, gave Sally her bottle—she is learning to drink her milk from a cup, but insists also upon having her bottle, full, for no better apparent reason than as a weapon with which to brain anyone foolish enough to bring a head near her—and began to break eggs into a bowl. Jannie came downstairs with a clatter, her shoes, as I had known inevitably they would be, on the wrong feet.
“Where’s Phoebe?” she said.
“She didn’t come today,” Laurie said. “Mommy’s terrible mad. Mommy’s probably going to kill her.”
“Laurie,” I said, but they had already started, “Mommy’s going to kill Phoebe, Mommy’s going to kill Phoebe.”
My husband came downstairs without that spring in his step which is usually associated with daddies coming down to a good nourishing breakfast with their kiddies; he came into the kitchen and glanced around. “Where’s Phoebe?” he said.
“Not here,” I said.
“Mommy’s going to kill Phoebe,” the children chanted.
“You’ll really have to fire that girl,” my husband observed. “Good morning, children.”
“Good morning, Daddy,” Jannie said sweetly.
“Good morning, Dad,” Laurie said manfully.
I turned around. Jannie was balancing the fruit juice glasses one on top of another. Laurie was making a train of knives and forks. Sally finished with her bottle abruptly and threw it on the floor.
“It’s hot,” my husband remarked. He sat down at the table, rescued a knife and fork from Laurie and a glass of fruit juice from Jannie. “Why do you let the children play with things on the table?” he asked. “Don’t they have enough toys of their own?”
I did not feel equal to answering. I put the eggs, the toast, and the coffee on the table and sat down; I could tell by looking that my coffee was going to be too hot and it was perfectly clear that the toast was burned.
“What’s this junk?” Laurie said, regarding his plate.
“Once,” Jannie observed, through a mouthful of egg, “once there was a little boy and he had no mother or father and he ran out into the middle of the street.”
“What happened to him?” Laurie asked with interest.
“He was eaten by a truck,” Jannie said demurely.
“That’s no good,” Laurie said.
“It is too,” Jannie said.
“It is not,” Laurie said.
The phone rang. I was cornered behind Sally’s high-chair and Laurie beat me again. “This is Laurence,” we could hear him saying precisely. “Who is calling, please?”
He came into the kitchen and addressed his
father. “It’s Mr. Feeley,” he said. “He wants to know can you play poker tonight.”
My husband avoided looking at me. “Tell him I’ll call him back,” he said.
“Once there was a little boy,” Jannie said, “and he had no mother or father.”
“What happened to him?” I asked dutifully, Laurie being still on the phone.
“He was eaten by a bear,” Jannie said. “Can I have some candy when I finish my breakfast?”
Each of the children had a toy filled with candy which sat on the table; they were little glass airplanes, and the candy inside was the sort usually used for cake decoration, tiny little colored balls of sugar. This candy enchanted Jannie, although Laurie was cynically aware that the whole amount contained in the airplane was hardly worth one chocolate-covered pepperment.