“But they really ought to give you another point, for administrative overhead.”
“How is that?”
“For the bookkeeping they don’t have to do because you are paying it all in a lump. That brings it down to a hundred thirty-six eighty. Offer him a hundred and thirty-five, Briney. Then settle for one thirty-six.”
My husband looked at me in astonishment. “To think I married you for your cooking. Look, I’ll stay home and have the baby; you go do my job. Mo’, where did you learn that?”
“Thebes High School. Well, sort of. I worked awhile on Father’s accounts, then I found a textbook at home that my brother Edward had used, Commercial Arithmetic and Introduction to Bookkeeping. We had our schoolbooks in common; there were shelves of them in the back hallway. So I didn’t take the course but I read the book. But it’s silly to talk about me doing your job; I don’t know beans about mining. Besides, I don’t want that long streetcar ride down to the west bottoms.”
“I’m not sure I can have a baby, either.”
“I’ll do that, sir; I’m looking forward to it. But I would like to ride downtown with you each morning as far as McGee Street.”
“You are more than welcome, Madam. But why McGee Street?”
“Kansas City Business College. I want to spend the next few months, before I get too big, learning to use a typewriter and to take Pittman shorthand. Then, if you ever become ill, dearest man, I could work in an office and support us…and if you ever go into business for yourself, I could do your office work. That would save you hiring a girl and maybe get us past that tight spot the books say every new business has.”
Briney said slowly, “It was your cooking and one other talent; I remember clearly. Who would have guessed it?”
“Do you mean I may?”
“Better figure up what it will cost in tuition and carfare and lunch money—”
“I’ll pack lunches for both of us.”
“Tomorrow, Mo’. Or the next day. Let’s settle this house.”
We took the house, although that skinflint held out for a hundred and thirty-eight dollars. We stayed in it two years and another girl baby, Carol, then moved around the corner onto Mersington and into a slightly larger house (same landlord), where I had my first boy, Brian Junior, in 1905…and learned what had become of the Howard bonuses.
It was the spring of 1906, a Sunday in May. We often took a streetcar ride on Sundays, to the far end of some line we had never explored before—our two little girls in their Sunday best and Briney and me taking turns holding Junior. But this time he had arranged to leave our three with the lady next door, Mrs. Ohlschlager, a dear friend who was correcting and extending my German.
We walked up to Twenty-seventh Street and caught the streetcar heading west; Briney asked for transfers as usual, as on Sundays we might change anywhere, wind up anywhere. This day we rode only ten blocks when Briney pushed the button. “It’s a lovely day; let’s walk the boulevard awhile.”
“Suits.”
Brian handed me down; we crossed to the south side, headed south on the west side of Benton Boulevard. “Sweetheart, would you like to live in this neighborhood?”
“I would like it very much and I’m sure we will, in twenty years or so. It’s lovely.” It truly was—every house on a double lot, each house ten or twelve rooms at least, each with its carriage drive and carriage house (barn, to us country jakes). Flower beds, stained-glass fan lights over the doors, all the houses new or perfectly kept up—from the styles I guessed 1900; I seemed to recall building going on here the year we came to K.C.
“Twenty years in a pig’s eye, my love; don’t be a pessimist. Let’s pick out one and buy it. How about that one with the Saxon parked at the curb?”
“Must I take the Saxon, too? I don’t like that door that opens to the rear; a child could fall out. I prefer that phaeton with the matched blacks.”
“We’re not buying horses, just houses.”
“But, Brian, we can’t buy a house on Sunday; the contract would not be legal.”
“We can, my way. We can shake hands on it; then sign papers on Monday.”
“Very well, sir.” Briney loved games. Whatever they were, I went along with them. He was a happy man and he made me happy (in or out of bed).
At the end of the block we crossed over to the east side and continued south. In front of the third house from the corner he stopped us. “Mo’, I like the looks of this one. It feels like a happy house. Does it to you?”
It looked much like the houses around it, big and comfortable and handsome—and expensive. Not as inviting as the others, as it seemed to be unoccupied—no porch furniture, blinds drawn. But I agreed with my husband whenever possible…and it was no fault of the house that it was unoccupied. If it was. “I’m sure it could be a happy house with the right people in it.”
“Us, for instance?”
“Us, for instance,” I agreed.
Brian started up the walk toward the house. “I don’t think there is anyone at home. Let’s see if they left a door unlocked. Or a window.”
“Brian!”
“Peace, woman.”
Willy-nilly, I followed him up the walkway, with a feeling that Mrs. Grundy was staring at me from behind curtains all up and down the block (and learned later that she was).
Brian tried the door. “Locked. Well, let’s fix that.” He reached into his pocket, took out a key, unlocked the door, held it open for me.
Breathless and frightened, I went in, then was slightly relieved when bare floors and echoes showed that it was empty. “Brian, what is this? Don’t tease me, please.”
“I’m not teasing, Mo’. If this house pleases you…it’s my long-delayed wedding present from the groom to the bride. If it does not please you, I’ll sell it.”
I broke one of my rules; I let him see me cry.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Seacoast Bohemia
Brian held me and patted my back, then said, “Stop that infernal blubbering. Can’t stand a woman’s tears. Makes me horny.”
I stopped crying and snuggled up close to him. Then my eyes widened. “Goodness! A real Sunday special.” Brian maintained that the only effect church had on him was to arouse his passion, because he never listened to the service; he just thought about Mother Eve, who (he says) has red hair.
(I did not need to tell him that church had a similar effect on me. Every Sunday after church a “special” was likely to happen, once we got the children down for their naps.)
“Now, now, my lady. Don’t you want to look around your house first?”
“I wasn’t suggesting anything, Briney. I wouldn’t dare do it here. Somebody might walk in.”
“Nobody will. Didn’t you notice that I bolted the front door? Maureen… I do believe that you didn’t believe me when I said that I was giving this house to you.”
I took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. “My husband, if you tell me that the sun rises in the west, I will believe you. But I may not understand. And this time I do not understand.”
“Let me explain. I can’t really give this house to you, because it’s already yours; you’ve paid for it. But, as a legality, title still rests in me. Sometime this coming week we’ll change that, vest title in you. It is legal for a married woman to own real property in her own name in this state as long as the deed describes you as a married woman and I waive claim…and even that last is no more than a precaution. Now as to how you bought it—”
I bought it flat on my back, I did, “ringing the cash register.” The down payment was money Brian had saved while in the Army, plus money from a third mortgage his parents had accepted from him. This let him make a sizable down payment, with a first mortgage at the usual 6 percent, and a second mortgage at 8.5 percent. The house was rented when he bought it; Brian kept the tenants, invested the rent to help pay off the mortgages.
The Howard bonus for Nancy cleared that too-expensive second mortgage; Carol’
s birth paid off Brian’s parents. The Foundation’s payment for Brian Junior let Brian Senior refinance the first mortgage down to the point where the rental income let him at last clear the property in May 1906, only six and a half years after he had assumed this huge pyramid of debt.
Briney is a gambler; I told him so. “Not really,” he answered, “as I was betting on you, darling. And you delivered. Like clockwork. Oh, Brian Junior was a little later than I expected but the plan had some flexibility in it. While I had insisted on the privilege of paying off the first mortgage ahead of time, I didn’t actually have to pay it earlier than June first, 1910. But you came through like the champion you are.”
A year ago he had discussed his projected program with his tenants; a date was agreed on: they had moved out quite amicably just the Friday past. “So it’s yours, darling. I did not renew our lease this time; Hennessy O’Scrooge knows we are leaving. We can move out tomorrow and move in here, if this house pleases you. Or shall we sell it?”
“Don’t talk about selling our house! Briney, if this truly is your wedding present to me, then at last I can make my bride’s present to you. Your kitten.”
He grinned. “Our kitten, you mean. Yes, I had figured that out.” We had postponed getting a kitten because there were dogs on both sides of the little house on Twenty-sixth—and one of them was a cat killer. By moving around the corner we had not gotten away from that menace.
Brian showed me around the place. It was a wonderful house: upstairs a big bathroom and a smaller one, a little bathroom downstairs adjacent to a maid’s room, four bedrooms and a sleeping porch, a living room, a parlor, a proper dining room with a built-in china closet and a plate rail, a gas log in the parlor in what could be a fireplace for logs if the gas log was removed, a wonderful big kitchen, a formal front staircase and a convenient back staircase leading from the kitchen, privately—oh, just everything and anything that a family with children could want, including a fenced back yard just right for children and pets…and for croquet and picnic dinners and a vegetable garden and a sand pile. I started to cry again.
“Stop it,” ordered Briney. “This one is the master bedroom. Unless you prefer another room.”
It was a fine, big, airy room, with that sleeping porch off it. The house was empty and reasonably clean (I looked forward to scrubbing every inch), but some items not worth hauling away had been left here and there. “Briney, that old porch swing out there has a pad on it. Would you please bring that pad in?”
“If you wish. Why?”
“Let’s ring the cash register!”
“Right away, Madam! Honey, I wondered how long it would take you to decide to baptize your new home.”
That pad didn’t look too clean and wasn’t very big, but I didn’t care about trifles; it would keep my spine from being ground into the bare boards. As Briney was fetching it in and placing it on the floor, I was getting out of the last of my clothes. He called out, “Hey! Leave your stockings on.”
“Yes, sir. Right away, Mister. Aintchu gonna buy a drink first, dearie?” Drunk with excitement, I took a deep breath and got down on my back. “What’s your name, Mister?” I said huskily. “Mine’s Myrtle; I’m fertile.”
“I’ll bet you are.” Briney finished getting out of his clothes, hung his coat on a hook behind the bathroom door, started to mount me. I reached for him. He stopped me, paused to kiss me. “Madam, I love you.”
“I love you, sir.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Brace yourself.”
Then he said, “Unh! Ease off a notch.”
I relaxed a little. “Better?”
“Just dandy. You’re wonderful, lady mine.”
“So are you, Briney. Now? Please!”
I started to peak almost at once, then the skyrockets took off and I was screaming and just barely conscious when I felt him let go, and I fainted.
I’m not a fainter. But I did that time.
Two Sundays later I missed my period. The following February (1907) I had George Edward.
Our next ten years were idyllic.
Our life may have looked dull and humdrum to other people since all we did was live quietly in a house in a quiet neighborhood and raise children…and cats and guinea pigs and rabbits and snakes and goldfish and (once) silkworms on top of my piano—a project of Brian Junior when he was in fourth grade. That required mulberry leaves, silkworms being fussy eaters. Brian Junior made a deal with a neighbor who had a mulberry tree. Quite early he displayed his father’s talent for always finding a way to work out a deal to accomplish his ends, no matter how unlikely they seemed at first.
A deal for mulberry leaves was big excitement the way we lived those years.
We had kindergarten Crayola pictures with stars on them posted in my kitchen, and tricycles on the back porch, and roller skates beside them, and fingers that had to be kissed well and bandaged, and special projects to do at home and take to school, and lots of shoes to be shined to get our tribe ready for Sunday School on time, and noisy arguments over who got the buttonhook next—until I got shoe buttonhooks for each child and put names on them.
All the while Maureen’s belly waxed and waned like the round belly of the Moon: George in 1907, Marie in 1909, Woodrow in 1912, Richard in 1914, and Ethel in 1916…which by no means ended it but brings us up to the War that changed the World.
But endless things happened before then, some of which I should mention. We moved from the church we had attended while we were tenants of “Scrooge” soon after we moved to our new neighborhood. In part we were upgrading in churches just as we were upgrading in houses and neighborhoods. In the United States at that time Protestant denominations were closely linked to economic and social status, although it was never polite to say so. At the top of the pyramid was high-church Episcopalian; at the bottom were several pentecostal fundamentalist sects whose members piled up treasures in Heaven because they were finding it impossible to pile up treasures on Earth.
We had been attending a middle-level church selected largely because it was close by. We would have moved eventually to a more prosperous boulevard church now that we had moved to a more prosperous neighborhood…but we moved when we did because Maureen got herself quasi-raped.
My own silly fault. In any century rape is the favorite sport of large numbers of men when they can get away with it, and any female under ninety and over six is at risk anywhere and at all times…unless she knows how to avoid it and takes no chances—which is close to impossible.
On second thought forget that bracket of six and ninety; there are crazies out there who will rape any female of any age. Rape is not intercourse; it is murderous aggression.
On third thought what happened to me was not even quasi-rape, as I knew better than to place myself unchaperoned in private with a preacher yet I had gone ahead and done so, knowing quite well what would happen. Reverend Timberly (the slob!) had managed to let me know when I was fourteen that he felt that he could teach me a great deal about life and love…while patting my fanny in a fatherly (!) way. I had complained to my father about it without quite naming him, and Father’s advice had enabled me to put a stop to it.
But this Biblethumper—It was six weeks after we moved into our new house; I knew I was pregnant, and I was horny; Brian was away. I’m not complaining; Brian had to go where business took him and this is true of endless trades and professions; the breadwinner must go where the bread is. This time he was in Denver; then, when I had expected him home, he sent me a telegram (night letter) telling me that he must go to Montana—just three or four days, a week at the most. Love, Brian.
Spit. Dirty drawers. Garbage. But I kept my smile because Nancy was watching me and at six she was hard to fool. I read her a revised version, then put the typed sheet where she could not get at it; she had taught herself to read.
At three that afternoon, bathed, dressed, and wearing no drawers, I tapped at the door of the study of the Reverend Doctor Ezekiel “Biblethumper.” My usual
baby watcher was with my three, with written instructions including where I was going and the Home system telephone number of the pastor’s study.
The reverend doctor and I had been doing a silent and inconspicuous barnyard dance ever since he had been called to that pulpit three years earlier. I didn’t like him all that much, but I was acutely aware of him and his deep, organlike voice and clean masculine odor. It is too bad that he didn’t have bad breath or smelly feet or something like that to put me off. But physically I could not fault him—good teeth, sweet breath, bathed and shampooed regularly.
My excuse for going to his study was that I needed to confer with him because I was chairman of the ladies auxiliary committee for the forthcoming whoop-te-do—I don’t remember what. But twentieth-century Protestant churches were always preparing for the next whoop-te-do. Yes, I do remember; a citywide revival. Billy Sunday? I think he was the one—a ball player and reformed drunkard who had found Jesus in a big way.
Dr. Zeke let me in; we looked at each other and we both knew; we didn’t need to say anything. He put his arms around me; I turned my face up. He put his mouth to mine—and my mouth came open as my eyes closed. In scant seconds after he answered his door he had me down on the couch back of his desk, my skirts up, and he was trying to couple with me.
I reached down and took hold of him and got him aimed properly; he had been about to make his own hole.
Big! With a lost feeling of “Briney is not going to like this,” I took him. He had no finesse; he just romped on home. But I was so excited that I was teetering on the edge and ready to explode when I felt him spend—
—just as someone knocked at his study door and he pulled out of me.
The bleeping affair had lasted under a minute…and my orgasm had shut down like a frozen pipe.
But all was not lost. Or should not have been. Once that jack rabbit jumped off me, I simply stood up and was immediately presentable. In 1906 skirts came down to the ankles and I had picked a dress that would stand up under crushing. I had left my drawers off not alone for his convenience (and mine) but because, if you are not wearing drawers and encounter an emergency, you don’t have to scramble to put them on.