“Hello? Oh, hello, Bill.… Why, uh, I don’t know.… Yes, of course.… Well, wait a minute. The house is full, but— wait a minute.” He called upstairs to me. “Mickey, it’s Bill. Look here, Sue is just going to have her baby evidently, I mean she hasn’t begun yet, but Bill’s got to go back to his ship and he doesn’t want to leave her at home; it’s too far from Weymouth. He wants to know if she can stay here.”
“Why, of course,” I said instinctively. “Ask them both for dinner.”
“Where’ll we put her?”
“Oh, we’ll figure something out.”
“I can sleep on a mattress in the dressing room,” shouted Lorraine. “She can have my bed.”
“Okay,” said the Major, and went back to tell Bill.
We started moving bedding off Lorraine’s bed and putting fresh sheets on. Peggy appeared from behind the screen, looking apprehensive. “You’re not putting an expectant mother in with me, are you?” she demanded.
“We most certainly are,” said the Major from the doorway.
“She’s a lovely girl, Peggy,” I said, slinging a pillow across and accidentally hitting Lorraine in the stomach.
“Oh, lovely,” Lorraine said with enthusiasm.
Peggy went back behind the screen, looking angry.
“She doesn’t seem to like the idea,” I said to the Major woefully.
“No, she doesn’t, but, after all …”
A few drinks before dinner, after Bill and Sue arrived, put us in an excellent humor for ham. It was raining hard out of doors, and Bill was flushed with excitement, for it had been a big day, with Sue deciding she was having the baby and then, at the nursing home, discovering she wasn’t. “I ought to know by this time,” she said. “It’s not as if it were my first. But I always get panicky. Now? My dear, I never felt better in my life.”
“Happy New Year,” said the Major.
17. AUSTRALIAN IN THE HENHOUSE
Until Lorraine got here, I hadn’t realized how much emphasis she placed on being Australian. Perhaps she didn’t feel that way so much before the war, when I had last seen her; perhaps all her months in the A.W.A.S., the Australian Women’s Army Service, which she tells me is the same thing as the W.A.C. in America, put the colonial iron into her soul. Watching the uniformed forces from America, Holland, and England disport themselves in Brisbane was evidently enough to embitter the sweetest-tempered girl, and though Lorraine still has a sweet temper, there is no doubt she is touchy on certain points. I never know when I am likely to stumble over her feelings. She says the Aussies were wildly fond of the Americans, who arrived just when people were terribly jittery because aid was not coming from England, but when I begin to swell with pride and say something like “Yes, it must have been wonderful,” she reminds me tartly how much more of the brunt England bore in Europe than the United States did. She goes into a rage if she is called English; she also goes into a rage if anybody says Princess Elizabeth’s living allowance ought to be cut. She says Australia is terribly provincial, and then she complains that the farms in England are too small; life here is cramped, she says, and goes on to explain that in Australia their nearest neighbor is thirty miles off and they have room to breathe. Captious is the word for Lorraine, but I never realized how tortuous her mind really was until she decided to take over our chickens.
As the great men oft remind us, life in England is still dislocated, and sometimes I think we are the most dislocated household in the kingdom. Right-minded people who live in the country in England do something about living off their land. The Major and I know we ought to do it, too, but find it awfully difficult to get started. Anything on the place that was a going proposition before the war, such as the kitchen garden and the orchard, is still producing; in this respect we have nothing to reproach ourselves with. But, as the neighbors keep telling us, it’s ridiculous not to keep a cow, or even two cows, considering that we have a child and that the milk ration is inadequate. Cows cost so much, I protest. Yes, say the neighbors, wavering; yes, that’s true. And feed for cows is a problem, isn’t it, I ask them; don’t you have to fill in a lot of forms and apply for permits? Yes, they say, sighing, you do indeed. And tuberculin tests for the cows are another very involved matter. On the whole, say the neighbors, if one hasn’t already become inured to the difficulties of keeping cows, now is perhaps not the time to start.
So much for cows. On the subject of pigs the Major and I cannot agree. You can evidently raise a pig without bothering about food permits; you merely have to get a license to keep the pig, and when it is ready for slaughter, the Government arranges for that. You must not, of course, kill it on your own, but if you are good and fill in the proper forms, you’re allowed to keep half the meat when the pig has been legally executed.
“Who is going to carry the food down to the pig every day?” the Major asked when I brought up the pig question while we were all at breakfast one morning. “You needn’t think I will, because I won’t. And don’t say you will, because you know how you are. You’ll do it once or twice and then forget all about it.”
“Yes,” I said sadly, “one can never depend on me, can one? Clifton could do it, and, really, he ought to, but it’s hard to suggest new ideas to him. Now, if Lorraine—”
“I’d love to have a pig,” said Lorraine eagerly. “I’d really rather have a lamb, but I suppose it would get lonely. I’m more used to sheep. Still, a pig—”
“No, we’re going to need all our table scraps for the chickens,” said the Major. Lorraine and I looked at him in surprise, echoing, “Chickens?”
“Chickens,” he said firmly. He had spoken of chickens several times before, but the familiar defeatist philosophy had been applied to the idea and he had always argued himself out of it again, just as he had out of keeping geese and ducks and turkeys.
“I thought you said chickens never used to work,” I said. “I thought the foxes always carried off the fowls when you were a little boy.”
“Clifton used to say it was foxes,” he replied. “It used to make the family angry. Time after time we’d get chickens, and, one by one, they’d disappear, and Clifton said it was a fox or a stoat. His own chickens always did very well, though. In the end, we gave in and bought our eggs from him.”
“Well, wouldn’t that happen again?” I asked.
The Major didn’t think so and implied that times are now different, and that the foxes, or perhaps the Cliftons, recognize this fact and are sobered by it, and will behave accordingly.
“I’ll see about getting some chickens, then,” I said.
“And I’ll take care of them,” said Lorraine. “I used to take care of the fowls at home. Do let me. I’d really love it.”
We promised her with alacrity that she should have complete charge of the fowls, and I went out and bought ten young pullets; there were no hens to be had. I had been told that it was the worst time of year for buying pullets; at their age—the equivalent, I believe, of twelve years old in a human female—they couldn’t be expected to produce. Yet they cost about five dollars apiece. “Crossbreds too,” I said bitterly. Still, I was proud of having picked up that term from the farmer who sold them to me, and I was glad of the chance to air my new knowledge.
After the pullets were delivered, Carola came down to the hen- yard with us to watch them as they picked their way about, exploring. “They’re not very cute,” she said in disparaging tones. “They’re too big and skinny. Which is the boy chicken?”
“We haven’t got one,” I said.
“No? We’ll have to see about that,” said Lorraine. “When do you suppose would be the right time?”
“As soon as possible,” said the Major.
I was really shocked by their ignorance. “You don’t need a cock, Charles,” I said. “Didn’t you know that?”
“Of course you do,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. How else do you expect to get eggs?”
“Why, of course,” said Lorraine. “You’ve got to have a coc
k.”
“Well, really, for a couple of country-bred—” I broke off, and called Clifton to come and support me.
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid the lady’s right, sir,” he said to Charles. “You wouldn’t want a cock for less than fifteen birds, in any case. For table eggs, it’s better not to have the male bird at all. The eggs keep better. Good night, sir.”
There was a long silence after he left, which Lorraine was the first to break. “You can say what you like, it wouldn’t do in Australia. But I’d believe anything of English chickens,” she said bitterly.
The business of getting chicken feed in Britain is rather complicated. As bread is rationed, you are not inclined to feed it to chickens in any quantity, and, indeed, you are forbidden to do so. Oatmeal, too, is forbidden food for fowls; sometimes it is rationed and sometimes not, but in any case livestock must not have it. Every ration book carries with it a weekly egg allowance. If you prefer to raise your own chickens, you are allowed to buy a certain amount of chicken feed instead of the eggs. You cannot buy both. Chicken raisers therefore depend heavily on their garbage pails, or, as they are called here, their pig buckets.
Until I watched Lorraine mixing up the chickens’ lunch, I had no idea what an absorbing and delicate operation it was. You gave them dry meal in the morning, she explained, and they got their exercise picking it up, and at noon you fed them potato peelings and a hot mash. Lorraine put everything she could lay her hands on into these mashes, and stirred them with passion while they cooked. She was particularly delighted to get hold of fish remnants and fishbones. The cook, who keeps chickens herself, sometimes shook her head over these mashes and made suggestions that Lorraine rejected scornfully.
“Mrs. Alford actually says I ought to cook the potato peelings,” she told me. “The very idea! Why, at home our chickens adore raw potato. They fight over it. It provides their vitamins.”
“Very likely, but our pullets don’t seem to eat them,” I said. “Mrs. Alford may have something there. You go down and look at the yard.”
“I do go down,” said Lorraine. “I admit there are rather a lot of peelings lying about, but I think it’s because I’ve been overfeeding.”
In a few days, though, when it was obvious that the pullets continued to scorn peelings, Lorraine was very angry. “I don’t know what’s the matter with them,” she stormed. “These English chickens! Rotten spoiled, that’s what they are. I’ll have to cook everything, I suppose.”
Even cooked, though, the potato peelings were left untouched. Lorraine said that English poultry was decadent, imperialistic, and snobbish.
“Never mind,” I told her, “they look fine anyway. Clifton says he never saw such fine-looking birds. I think that’s very big of him, considering his own fowls don’t do half so well.”
The Major took to stopping by whenever he passed the hen- yard, to lean on the gate and watch the pullets proudly. “They look well, don’t they?” he said one December morning when I met him there. “I must say Lorraine does a good job. January is when they’re scheduled to lay, isn’t it?”
“Yes, about the middle of January,” I said. “They look almost ready now, though.”
As I went into the house, the thought occurred to me that Lorraine was taking her work almost too seriously, for she came out of the scullery triumphantly brandishing an old, old breakfast herring. “I was just in time,” she said, talking quickly. Her cheeks were red with excitement. “I got this out of the pig bucket just in time. Clifton was coming in to empty the bucket. I saw his eye on this herring and I grabbed it. Of course he didn’t like to say anything. It’s our pig bucket.”
I eyed her with misgiving. “Listen, Lorraine,” I said. “I’m sure there’s enough in that pig bucket for our chickens and Clifton’s too. Don’t you think we ought to give him a chance sometimes? After all, before we bought those birds he had the pick of the bucket. It’s a bit hard on him.”
“But why should he have it all his own way? He’s got the scraps from his own house, hasn’t he?”
“Well, not nearly so many. Live and let live, Lorraine. Live and let live.”
She did not reply. From the way she walked off, I knew she was offended. She still clutched the herring, though.
It was a long, eggless spell for us, but we kept telling each other it was worth it, though Carola sometimes protested she was sick of fish for breakfast. At last one dull, rainy day late in December, just as we had assembled in the dining room for lunch, Lorraine rushed in speechless with pride. She waved her hand in the air. In it was a beautiful small brown egg. A cheer went up.
“The very first!” cried Lorraine.
“Let’s see it,” said the Major. He fondled it lovingly. “Nice color too,” he said. “I love brown eggs.”
“It’s a beautiful shape,” I said.
“Let me see it,” said Carola.
“A lovely hard shell too,” said Lorraine. “We have so much trouble with shells at home. No lime in the soil.”
“It’s a wonderful egg,” I said. “Wonderful Lorraine, doing an egg like that!”
“Lorraine the expert,” said the Major. “You’re quite a girl, Lorraine. I must say anybody would be proud of an egg like that.”
“Mummy,” asked Carola, “did Lorraine really lay that egg?”
We took to having long, murmuring conversations in the corner of the kitchen when it was time to cook the mash, for we didn’t want to hurt Mrs. Alford’s feelings.
“Mrs. Alford and her theories!” said Lorraine with gentle scorn on one of these occasions. “Do you know she only gets one or two eggs a day? Only one or two, in spite of all those hens she’s got. Why, we’re averaging four. I don’t want to rub it in, though.”
“No, that wouldn’t be kind,” I said.
Lorraine frowned thoughtfully. “I’m not satisfied,” she said. “By this time we ought to be getting more than four. In Australia we’d be doing better, I assure you.”
I cleared my throat. “Do you think you might perhaps be going down to the henhouse a bit too much?” I suggested timidly. “I mean I’m sure I read somewhere that hens hate being interrupted when they’re doing their work.”
“Well, perhaps I ought to cut it down,” said Lorraine. “Only it’s such fun finding more eggs in the boxes. It’s true, though, sometimes one of the birds is just settling in on the straw, and when I open the door, she gets up and goes out.”
“Of course it isn’t only you,” I said. “Charles goes down and looks now and then, and I can’t resist peeking in when I’m coming by, and sometimes I wonder about Carola. Maybe we ought to have a set time for visiting them.”
We thought it over. “They’re just a bundle of nerves here in England, those birds,” Lorraine said. “Nothing used to put them off in Australia. I give you my word, I’ve seen them queueing up there, waiting for their turn at the nest.”
“Now, really, Lorraine,” I said.
“It’s quite true,” she insisted. “Hardy pioneer stock, I suppose it is, which makes all the difference.” She became thoughtful again. “That girl at the post office says she feeds her pullets twice a day with hot mash,” she said. “Do you know I’ve noticed that ours don’t go for that dry meal in the morning very much? I wonder …”
“Well, in London the other day I met a woman from Lisbon whose sister keeps chickens,” I said, “and she says the whole thing is that they’ve got to have warm water to drink. They hate cold water. She says her sister’s hens eat potato peelings, but she mashes them up first, and she gives them hot food twice a day.”
“It may be a different thing in Portugal.”
“That’s true,” I said. “I wouldn’t give it a second thought if I were you, Lorraine.”
We thought in silence for a little. Then Lorraine spoke decisively. “I’m going to try a hot meal on them early in the morning,” she said. “If I were a hen, I’d like a hot meal in the morning. I’ve asked myself the question and I’ve thought it over carefully. I?
??ve sure if I had a hot breakfast, I’d feel more like laying my egg then and there and getting it over with. May I borrow your alarm clock?”
She is certainly an intense girl, I reflected. Touchy, but what powers of concentration!
That morning meal worked wonders. The pullets suddenly began producing with a beautiful regularity and precision. Six, eight, and, at last, nine eggs a day were checked up on the chart. It was like a lovely dream. The Major began going into the larder to count over the eggs. Once he said, “The very first thing we’ve produced for ourselves, the very first.”
“We had apples and carrots and cabbage,” I reminded him.
“Well, the first animal product, then. We certainly owe a lot to Lorraine.”
But that same day Lorraine came in to lunch looking like a thundercloud. “You’ll have to speak to Mrs. Alford, I’m afraid,” she said to me.
“Oh, dear. What’s she been doing?”
“Using eggs!” said Lorraine. “I saw her with my own eyes. She used three in the pudding today.”
The Major looked up in surprise, and I said, “But it makes the pudding taste much better, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not the point. She could perfectly well use egg powder, and she knows it.”
“Well …” I felt myself rather at a loss. “The thing is, egg powder is awful stuff to cook with. We all hate it. That’s one of the reasons we got the chickens. Don’t you see?”
Lorraine sat down at the table and began to eat, scowling. She said no more about eggs, but it was an uncomfortable meal.
Next morning she complained to me again. “Somebody’s been using those eggs for cooking. We had two dozen last night—I counted. Now there are two missing.”
“I’m afraid Carola ate one for breakfast,” I said apologetically. “Charles may have had the other. They were up early today.” Then I seemed to hear what I was saying, and I grew a little angry. “Now, listen, Lorraine,” I said. “Please don’t think I don’t understand the way you feel, but—well, I mean to say, after all. I’m perfectly willing to be reasonable. We’ll put some of them down in water glass, of course. But—”