“Well, actually, I was having fun just looking for a long while. I have two little cousins that I don’t really have to get much for, but I love looking at all the toys. I spent quite a while there. Then I did the rest of my shopping in a rush, and everything is so crowded, and I got mixed up on my money or the sales tax and only had a dime left, and I missed my mother or she forgot.”
She stretches out her toes to touch Cat, who is sitting in front of her. “I couldn’t think what to do. It’s so hard to think when your feet hurt.”
“It certainly is,” agrees Mom. She goes out to the kitchen to finish fixing dinner, and Pop suggests Mary better phone her home. She gets her father, and her mother has left a message that she was delayed and figured Mary would go home alone. Mary gives her father our address and tells him she’ll be home by nine.
We must have hit a lucky day because we have a real good dinner: slices of good whole meat, not mushed up stuff, and potatoes cooked with cheese in them, and salad, and a lemon meringue pie from the bakery, even.
After dinner we sit around a little while, and Pop says I better take Mary home, and he gives me money for a cab at the end of the subway. When Mary gives the driver her home address, I say it over to myself a few times so I’ll remember.
Suddenly I wonder about something. “Say, how’d you know my phone number?”
“I looked it up,” she says simply. “There’s about twenty-eleven Mitchells in the Manhattan phone book, but only one in the East Twenties, so I figured that must be you.”
“Gee, that’s true. You must have had an awful time, though, standing in the phone booth with your feet hurting, going through all those Mitchells.”
Says Mary, “Oh, no. I did it one rainy afternoon at home, weeks ago.”
Well, what do you know.
CHAPTER 18
“HERE’S TO CAT!”
The two stray kittens gradually make themselves at home. Somehow or other Cat has taught them that he’s in charge here, and he just chases them for fun now and again, when he’s not busy sleeping.
As for keeping cats in my room, that’s pretty well forgotten. For one thing, Mom really likes them. She sneaks the kittens saucers of cream and bits of real hamburger when no one’s looking, and she likes talking to them in the kitchen. She doesn’t pick them up, but just having them in the room sure doesn’t give her asthma.
The only time we have any trouble from the cats is one evening when Pop comes home and the two kittens skid down the hall between his legs, with Cat after them. He scales his hat at the lot of them and roars down the hall to me, “Hey, Davey! When are you getting rid of these cats? I’m not fixing to start an annex to Kate’s cat home!”
“I’m sure Davey will find homes for them,” Mom says soothingly, but getting a little short of breath, the way she does any time she’s afraid one of us is losing his temper.
In fact, one thing this cat business seems to have established is that me and Pop fighting is the main cause of Mom’s asthma. So we both try to do a little better, and a lot of things we used to argue and fight about, like my jazz records, we just kid each other about now. But now and then we still work up to a real hassle.
I’ve been taking a history course the first semester at school. It’s a real lemon—just a lot of preaching about government and citizenship. The second semester I switch to a music course. This is O.K. with the school—but not with Pop. Right away when I bring home my new program, he says, “How come you’re taking one less course this half?”
I explain that I’m taking music, and also biology, algebra, English, and French.
“Music!” he snorts. “That’s recreation, not a course. Do it on your own time!”
“Pop, it’s a course. You think the school signs me up for an hour of home record playing?”
“They might,” he grunts. “You’re not going to loaf your way through school if I have anything to say about it.”
“Loaf!” I yelp. “Four major academic subjects is more than lots of the guys take.”
Mom comes and suggests that Pop better go over to school with me and talk it over at the school office. He does, and for once I win a round—I keep music for this semester. But he makes sure that next year I’m signed up all year for five majors: English, French, math, chemistry, and European history. I’ll be lucky if I have time to breathe.
I go down to the flower shop to grouse to Tom. It’s after Valentine’s Day, and business is slack and the boss is out.
“Why does Pop have to come butting into my business at school? Doesn’t he even think the school knows what it’s doing?”
“Aw, heck,” says Tom, “your father’s the one has to see you get into college or get a job. Sometimes schools do let kids take a lot of soft courses, and then they’re out on a limb later.”
“Huh. He just likes to boss everything I do.”
“So—he cares.”
“Huh.” I’m not very ready to buy this, but then I remember Tom’s father, who doesn’t care. It makes me think.
“Besides,” says Tom, “half the reason you and your father are always bickering is that you’re so much alike.”
“Me? Like him?”
“Sure. You’re both impatient and curious, got to poke into everything. As long as there’s a bone on the floor, the two of you worry it.”
Mr. Palumbo comes back to the shop then, and Tom gets busy with the plants. I go home, wondering if I really am at all like Pop. I never thought of it before.
It’s funny about fights. Pop and I can go along real smooth and easy for a while, and I think: Well, he really isn’t a bad guy, and I’m growing up, we can see eye to eye—all that stuff. Then, whoosh! I hardly know what starts it, but a fight boils up, and we’re both breathing fire like dragons on the loose.
We get a holiday Washington’s Birthday, which is good because there’s a TV program on Tuesday, the night before the holiday, that I hardly ever get to watch. It’s called Out Beyond, and the people in it are very real, not just good guys and bad guys. There’s always one character moving around, keeping you on the edge of your chair, and by the time it all winds up in a surprise ending, you find this character is not a real person, he’s supernatural. The program goes on till eleven o’clock, and Mom won’t let me watch it on school nights.
I get the pillows comfortably arranged on the floor, with a big bottle of soda and a bag of popcorn within easy reach. The story starts off with some nature shots of a farm and mountains in the background and this little kid playing with his grandfather. There’s a lot of people in it, but gradually you get more and more suspicious of dear old grandpa. He’s taking the kid for a walk when a thunderstorm blows up.
Right then, of course, we have to have the alternate sponsor. He signs off, finally, and up comes Pop.
“Here, Davey old boy, we can do better than that tonight. The Governor and the Mayor are on a TV debate about New York City school reorganization.”
At first I figure he’s kidding, so I just growl, “Who cares?”
He switches the channel.
I jump up, tipping over the bottle of soda on the way. “Pop, that’s not fair! I’m right in the middle of a program, and I been waiting weeks to watch it because Mom won’t let me on school nights!”
Pop goes right on tuning his channel. “Do you good to listen to a real program for a change. There’ll be another western on tomorrow night.”
That’s the last straw. I shout, “See? You don’t even know what you’re talking about! It’s not a western.”
Pop looks at me prissily. “You’re getting altogether too upset about these programs. Stop it and behave yourself. Go get a sponge to mop up the soda.”
“It’s your fault! Mop it up yourself!” I’m too mad now to care what I say. I charge down the hall to my room and slam the door.
I hear the TV going for a few minutes, then Pop turns it off and goes in the kitchen to talk to Mom. In a little while he comes down and knocks on my door. Knocks—that’s s
omething. Usually he just barges in.
“Look here now, Dave, we’ve got to straighten a few things out quietly. Your mother says she told you you could watch that program, whatever it was. So O.K., go ahead, you can finish it.”
“Yeah, it’s about over by now.” I’m still sore, and besides Pop’s still standing in my door, so I figure there’s a hitch in this somewhere.
“But anyway, you shouldn’t get so sore about an old television program that you shout ‘Mop it up yourself’ at me.”
“Hmm.”
“Hmm, nothing.”
“Well, I don’t think you should turn a guy’s TV program off in the middle without even finding out about it.”
Pop says “Hmm” this time, and we both stand and simmer down.
I look at my watch. It’s a quarter to eleven. I say, “Well, O.K. I might as well see the end. Sorry I got sore.”
Pop moves out of the doorway. He says, “Hereafter I will only turn off your TV programs before they start, not in the middle.”
Just as I get the TV on and settle down, the doorbell rings.
“Goodness, who could that be so late?” says Mom.
Pop goes to the door. It’s Tom, and Hilda is with him. I turn off the television set—I’ve lost track of what’s happening, and it doesn’t seem to be the grandfather who’s the spook after all. It’s the first time Hilda has been to our house, and Tom introduces her around. Then there’s one of those moments of complete silence, with everyone looking embarrassed, before we all start to speak at once.
“Hilda came to the beach with us,” I say.
“I told Tom we shouldn’t come so late,” says Hilda.
Pop says, “Not late at all. Come in and sit down.”
Hilda sits on the sofa, where Cat is curled up. He looks at her, puts his head back and goes on sleeping.
Mom brings coffee and cookies in from the kitchen, and I pour the rest of the popcorn into a bowl and pass it around. Tom stirs his coffee vigorously and takes one sip and puts the cup down.
“Reason we came so late,” he says, “Hilda and I have been talking all evening. We want to get married.”
Pop doesn’t look as surprised as I do. “Congratulations!” he says.
Tom says, “Thanks” and looks at Hilda, and she blushes. Really. Tom drinks a little more coffee and then he goes on: “The trouble is, I can’t get married on this flower-shop job.”
“Doesn’t pay enough?” Pop asks.
“Well, it’s not just the pay. The job isn’t getting me anywhere I want to go. So that’s what we’ve been talking about all evening. Finally we went up to Times Square and talked to the guys in the Army and Navy and Air Force recruiting office. You know, I’d get drafted in a year or two, anyway. I’ve decided to enlist in the Army.”
“Goodness, you may get sent way out West for years and years!” says Mom.
“No, not if I enlist in the Army. That’s for three years. But I can choose what specialist school I want to go into, and there’s this Air Defense Command—it’s something to do with missiles. In that I can also choose what metropolitan area I want to be stationed in. I can choose New York, and we could get married, and I might even be able to go on taking college course at night school, with the Army paying for most of it.”
Pop says, “You sound like the recruiting officer himself. You sure of all this?”
“I’ll have to check some more,” says Tom. “The recruiting officer, as a matter of fact, tried to persuade me to shoot for officers’ training and go into the Army as a career. But then I would be sent all over, and anyway, I don’t think Army life would be any good for Hilda.”
“I can see you have put in a busy evening,” says Pop. “Well, shove back the coffee cups, and I’ll break out that bottle of champagne that’s been sitting in the icebox since Christmas.”
I go and retrieve my spilled bottle of soda. There’s still enough left for one big glass. Pop brings out the champagne, and the cork blows and hits the ceiling. Cat jumps off the sofa and stands, half crouched and tail twitching, ready to take cover.
Pop fills little glasses for them and raises his to Tom and Hilda. “Here’s to you—a long, happy life!”
We drink, and then I raise my glass of soda. “Here’s to Cat! Tom wouldn’t even be standing here if it wasn’t for Cat.”
That’s true, and we all drink to Cat. He sits down and licks his right front paw.
RUNNER OF THE MOUNTAIN TOPS: THE LIFE OF LOUIS AGASSIZ, by Mabel Louise Robinson
A Newbery Honor Book, 1940.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author makes grateful acknowledgment
To The Macmillan Company, New York, for permission to quote from Life, Letters, and Work of Louis Agassiz, by Jules Marcou. 1896.
To Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, for permission to quote from Louis Agassiz. His Life and Correspondence, by Elizabeth Cary Agassiz. 1886.
To Elizabeth J. Worcester for her generous sharing of her memories of Louis Agassiz.
To George R. Agassiz for his book and his cordial cooperation.
To the staff of Random House for their unstinted effort to supply this book with every advantage which an author could desire.
FOREWORD
For long I have been waiting for a biography of Louis Agassiz, one which would re-create this man of genius and his headlong splendid race through life. Except for a few old biographies now out of print, and occasional references to his gifts and charm in literary criticisms, his part in the growing-up of our country seemed slipping out of the consciousness of the young people of today. Yet because Louis Agassiz was wise enough and reckless enough with youth to discard dull bookish learning for original observation, he gave even the youngest learner a chance to share the high excitement and triumph of firsthand discovery which men of science had always kept for their own prerogative. “Come with me,” he said. “I will show you how to find things out for yourself.” And like an immortal Pied Piper, youth has followed him ever since. Little he would care because now and then they lost sight of him so long as they followed the trail. But Louis Agassiz was a man to remember.
A man to remember because genius is rare and we need to know the expression of it to respect its presence and to give it priority; its contradictions to have patience with it; its ruthlessness to step aside for it; its contributions to place at the service of new-found genius. Louis Agassiz had a magnetic quality which gave him an effortless priority, but he was ruthless enough to destroy obstacles when they appeared. He was full of contradictions; a born leader without judgment to lead; a vitality which constantly urged new projects, and a pattern of diffuseness which left them unfinished; a man who loved laughter, and praise, and new people and places and projects, who could shut himself into a sealed hermitage of work and emerge to charm every variety of human being with his magic; a man whose contributions have given us more plentiful living.
Other men to whom these qualities might apply would, perhaps, make a biographer, who faces all the great men of the ages, hesitate where to choose. There was no choice in my case. Louis Agassiz was the only person whose biography I ever intended to write.
I seem always to have known him. The house in Waltham which became my home was his whenever he would come out there to visit its original owner, Dr. Thomas Hill, who as president of Harvard knew Agassiz well. I have heard tales about him until I could see him here and there about the place, collecting specimens, telling stories to the Hill children, diving into the closet of my room at his wife’s scream that a snake was in her shoe, and his disappointed cry, “What only one, my dear!” Or the dinner where he interrupted his story of a capture to say thoughtfully, “I believe I must have sat on him,” and drew a limp little snake from his pocket while a Hill child, who feared snakes greatly, watched with a horror she never forgot.
I heard about him at Radcliffe where he and his wife, Elizabeth, and his son, and his grandsons, poured the riches of their wealth, and much more important, of their hea
rts and minds. I climbed the stairs of Agassiz Museum to the small laboratories reserved for girls, and found there as wide horizons as any museum could offer. I used the specimens which he had housed there, and grew strong and happy under the kind of teaching which was as much a part of his bequest as the museum. Louis Agassiz, himself, could not have done a deed more characteristic of his methods with a struggling student than the one which Dr. Parker did for me and probably forgot the next day.
With a college program filled to capacity, I had agreed to assist in a zoology course at Wellesley. Demonstrate, said the head of the department for my first assignment, the hyoid bone and its anterior something or other to the class. Here is your frog. Dissect it and come back at nine tomorrow. I had no idea what a hyoid bone was, I could not get back to Cambridge that night, and I spent frenzied hours with a pair of scissors in the bathroom trying to locate the bone. With the frog pretty badly hacked up, I took an early train to Cambridge and raced over to the Agassiz Museum. I was poring over a manual with the frog in my hand when Dr. Parker strolled into the laboratory and took in the situation instantly. In a few minutes he had found me a fresh frog, given me brief directions, watched me dissect the hyoid successfully, and sent me flying for a train which would reach Wellesley at nine. The head of the department there sharply observed my demonstration to the first group of students, and then left me with the class. But what, I have often thought, would have happened to my career if a wise and kind professor had not given it a hand! Agassiz would have approved of the men who followed him.
Later when my students got into the doldrums over circulatory systems and what-not, a lecture about Agassiz always set them up. Even out in Constantinople College where nobody had ever heard of him, the magic of the man got instant response. Here was a man whose interests were as wide as the world which returned his interest. Here he was, more ours in his choice of America than if he had been born here, our distinguished foreign citizen, a man whose gifts were so generous and whose charm so engaging that even the story of them won response, a man whom we have no right to forget. He had lived so long for me that I always wanted to make him alive for a generation which thrives on his efforts without knowing it.
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