Darleen was learning more every day. It was not often that a girl had the chance to improve herself along so many different lines!
Mrs. Rasmussen announced dinner and the guests took their places. Old Timer came in and Mrs. Feeley made a mental note to run him down to the Red Cross Monday morning—Darleen too. Might be a very good idea in her case—now that she was taking care of the children, there was no telling when some nosy Parker would come along wanting to see her health paper.
Jasper and Oscar ate silently and rapidly as though they were afraid someone was going to snatch their plates out from in front of them. Never had they tasted broiled liver and bacon like that—literally smothered in golden onions cooked in butter. The hashed-brown potatoes had a crunchy, reddish crust and not a drop of grease about them.
‘What is this stuff in the sandwiches?’ Oscar asked.
‘Parsley butter with lemon juice,’ Mrs. Rasmussen replied. She had nothing but scorn for the poor scientists who were just finding out that parsley was a source of iron. Any dope would know it had iron in it from the way it made your teeth feel.
Finally the guests could hold no more. Oscar said he wished they could run a blood test on him now.
When the dishes were washed and put away, the company assembled at the front of the Ark. Oscar cleared his throat in a way that showed he was about to tackle a tricky subject.
‘Not to be boasting, but I’m drawing down ninety dollars a week and Jasper here makes seventy-five, and I want you ladies to know this is the first good meal we have ate in six months! You can’t buy a meal like that at no price in the joints!’
‘Yeah. Sure tough when you got it an’ can’t spend it!’ Mrs. Rasmussen agreed, much pleased by the tribute.
Mrs. Feeley said nothing—they ate like that all the time. Mrs. Rasmussen could make more with two eggs and an old pair of straw sandals than the average woman could make with sirloin tip.
‘You was saying that you was trying to help the war-workers,’ Oscar continued. ‘Now, if you could see your way clear to feed me and Jasper here our dinner every night, we’d be glad to pay any price you might ask. Wouldn’t we, Jasper?’
Jasper nodded vigorously.
‘We ain’t never took no boarders,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, looking at the other ladies.
‘We know that,’ Jasper said hastily. ‘But you’d be helping twice over, because we’d soon be in shape to give blood every eight weeks if we was getting a good hot meal every night! Breakfast, now; that’s about the same anywhere. And lunch we can get at the Yard, but that real meal when we feel worn out at the end of the day is the problem! You’d be doing a job nobody else could—an’ the price wouldn’t matter to us!’
Mrs. Feeley and Miss Tinkham went into a huddle with the chef. Now that the twins were gone, and Darleen had the other children, what was to stop them?
‘Well, for one thing, all the work would be on you, Mrs. Rasmussen,’ Mrs. Feeley said, and Miss Tinkham agreed.
‘If you was to help me with the marketin’ an’ Miss Tinkham took care o’ the table, an’ the two o’ you washed the dishes, I could do the plannin’, preparin’, an’ cookin’! Get us a good square meal out of it, besides!’ Mrs. Rasmussen had her Achilles’ heel like the rest of us. Seemed like there was no greater thrill to her than to watch a hungry man eat.
‘It’s up to you,’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘Whatever you wanna do, we’re with you! Ain’t that right, Miss Tinkham?’
‘Indeed it is! And I agree with Oscar about it being a service that no one else could duplicate!’ Miss Tinkham was always glad to help her fellow man.
Mrs. Rasmussen went back to the two men.
‘They’s on’y one thing: there ain’t no profit in just two guys; might’s well put the big pot on with the little one. So you’ll have to get me four more guys! An’ before we start, I’ll make it plain that I ain’t caterin’ to no finicky eaters! They gotta bring their ration books, an’ everyone of ’em has gotta be givin’ blood to the Red Cross like us!’
Jasper and Oscar got up and shook hands all around, they were so happy over the arrangement. They said they knew just the right fellows to bring.
‘An’ if they want beer, they’ll have to bring their own,’ Mrs. Feeley announced. ‘It’s too hard to come by.’
The men agreed and said they had better shove off so the ladies could make their plans. They promised to be on time Monday evening at six sharp, with the other four men.
After they had gone, Mrs. Feeley fortified herself with a nice cold beer and asked: ‘Now where we gonna ‘commodate six guys?’
‘Right here at the table,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said. ‘We can dish it up handy to the stove. We can wait on ’em an’ eat after we got ’em fed an’ sent off!’
‘How much you gonna charge ’em?’ Mrs. Feeley grinned.
‘Well, on account o’ them bein’ run-down like, an’ havin’ to be fed so many expensive body-builders, with everything so high in spite o’ the price ceilin’, I’m aimin’ to ast ’em ten dollars a week apiece!’ she finished in a spurt.
‘You ain’t lackin’ for nerve,’ Mrs. Feeley chuckled.
‘That is less than a dollar and a half a dinner,’ Miss Tinkham said grandly. ‘And when you consider that Mrs. Rasmussen’s dinners are practically a health treatment free, gratis, and for nothing, I do not consider the price excessive.’
‘An’ I gotta pay my help some salary,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said.
‘We gonna get a salary?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.
‘Sure! An’ found! Our eats money can go for anythin’ we want, ’cause I aim to make their chow feed us all,’ she explained, with one of her rare winks.
‘You’re the deep one!’ Mrs. Feeley marveled.
Darleen said she was going to pay something for her board, even if they would not take rent from her.
‘Your eats comes outa the kids’ chow money,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said. ‘You gotta be savin’ your money to make you a hope-chest! Bet you ain’t got sheet or blanket to your name!’
‘Do you think I’ll be needing it?’ Darleen smiled.
‘Listen, girl: friends meet before hills do!’ Mrs. Feeley said, with conviction.
‘I don’t know why you-all take such an interest in me,’ Darleen mused. ‘Nobody never has cared what I done before!’
‘We like you, girl,’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘An’ we wanna see you get ahead in the world!’
‘Even though we do not know Johnny,’ Miss Tinkham explained, ‘he is serving his country and it is our duty and pleasure to keep you from feeling lonely—for his sake as well as for the pleasure of your company! He will indeed be proud when he hears how you have undertaken the care of the children of a dead hero!’
‘Did you taste them cookies she made last week?’ Mrs. Rasmussen inquired. ‘An’ she never left a single grain o’ sand in the spinach!’ Mrs. Rasmussen was proud of her pupil, especially since Darleen had begun doing Mrs. Rasmussen’s hair for her in a page-boy bob. The long, turned-under hair-do hung limply along the sides of Mrs. Rasmussen’s narrow face like the droopy ears of an old beagle.
‘Well, I gotta start an’ get them vegetables cleaned to go with the roast Monday. We can’t overdo nothin’ tomorra, ’cause we gotta give up our blood Monday and feed them guys at night!’
Monday looked like a big day for the ladies.
‘Tomorrow I’m taking Pierpont and Myrna to see their Mom at the Sanitarium,’ Darleen announced. That would be a help, as the ladies could have a quiet day to rest up for the rigors of blood-letting.
Suddenly Mrs. Feeley spoke up: ‘You know what? We gotta have a doorbell!’
‘At this hour o’ the night?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked.
‘Yeup! I gotta fix one right now!’
‘Aw, there’ll be another day tomorra! An’ if there ain’t, you won’t have to do it!’ Mrs. Rasmussen was tired from marketing and cooking.
‘With all these here strange people trompin’ in an’ out the house, we gotta have a doorbell! We ai
n’t gonna be havin’ time off no more to just sit an’ watch for somebody to come up the walk!’
Mrs. Feeley went out to the shed and came back in a few minutes with Old Timer, a roll of baling-wire and a cowbell.
‘Now we’ll just hang this wire out the front door,’ she said. ‘Miss Tinkham, could you fix a little tag to tie on the end that says “Bell”?’
Miss Tinkham not only could but did.
‘Now,’ Mrs. Feeley directed Old Timer, ‘you run this wire right along them rafters to the back door, an’ we’ll hang the bell on that end of it, right by the sink where we’ll be sure to hear it.’
When the wire was up and the bell hung, the truth of Mrs. Feeley’s statement was borne out: only the dead could fail to hear it.
‘’Long’s you got a workin’ fit on,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, ‘we might’s well move this junk outa the way an’ make more room for the table.’ She pointed to Myrna’s crib and the little day-bed. Since the children were so happy in the trailer, there was no further need for the beds. They folded the crib and were about to fold the day-bed.
‘No!’ Mrs. Rasmussen exclaimed, ‘that comes handy pushed over against the wall for a little settee-like. ‘Case we wanna lie down a minute, we don’t have to spoil the bedspreads!’
The idea was a fine one, they agreed, as the bed was narrow and took up very little space. Old Timer said good night and carried Myrna’s crib out to the shed.
‘Well, let’s have just one more beer—for our bloodstream,’ Mrs. Feeley grinned. ‘We gotta spend a good, quiet day restin’ tomorra, ’cause Monday is sure one hell of a big day for us! We’ll pull them blackout curtains to an’ sleep most o’ the day! Darleen’ll have them kids outa here most o’ the time an’ there’s no reason why we can’t take it easy.’
Miss Tinkham thought it would be wonderful, too.
Mrs. Rasmussen welcomed a rest. She planned to stamp some embroidery designs on a pair of pillowcases for Darleen’s hope-chest.
The ladies sat and rocked; there was only a small light burning, a red-glass affair shaped like a rose that sat on the radio. Miss Tinkham had put some perfume in the depression on the top of it and let the heat from the bulb vaporize it. They could find their beer-glasses in the dark and there was no need for talk. Life was good, and what was more to the point, at last it had some meaning. Just being alive and well was good any time. But to be alive and have a good reason for staying that way! To be able to save other lives by the very fact of your own aliveness: that was really something!
Miss Tinkham rose in the dimness and went to the piano:
‘My dears,’ she said, ‘I am going to sing “The Holy City”!’
Chapter 10
SUNDAY MORNING lived up to the expectations of the ladies. A cathedral hush pervaded the Ark. Darleen left before noon, riding herd on the painfully clean Garfunkles. Pierpont’s cowlick lay in subjection, thanks to some goo Darleen had provided. Myrna’s drawers did not droop. Mrs. Rasmussen turned her around several times in amazement. Darleen had scoured the dime-stores till she found a size suited to Myrna’s Lilliput contours.
Mrs. Feeley had washed her snowy hair and the springy ringlets were frothing out beautifully. Miss Tinkham had her hair done up in Hollywood curlers and wore a snood to hide the instruments of torture. She was manicuring Mrs. Rasmussen’s nails while that worthy matron reclined on the day-bed. Mrs. Feeley refused the offer of a manicure, saying that the red polish made people’s nails look just like a cat’s claws after it had just killed a mouse.
‘I wasn’t aimin’ to cook,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, holding her fingers out like spokes in order not to smear her polish, ‘but I feel so plumb rested I’m gonna snitch a coupla slices off that roast an’ broil us a smitch o’ rib steak! ’Twon’t be missed!’
The rib steak was pink and succulent—just charred enough on the outside edges. The chef threw in some O’Brien au gratin potatoes that were pretty fancy—she added chopped chives, green peppers, pimentos, and a big handful of grated cheese for good measure. She also set out a bowl of mixed greens garnished with hard-boiled egg and lemon slices. Her friends placed the cold beer on the table when lunch was ready.
‘’Long as I’ve knew you,’ Mrs. Feeley said to the cook, ‘I ain’t never seen you come to the end o’ your rope! We ain’t never had these here kind o’ potatoes before!’
Mrs. Rasmussen beamed. She had several trumps that had not been played yet. The magazines Miss Tinkham bought often had pictures of good things to eat in them. Mrs. Rasmussen’s system of following these recipes was infallible and fool-proof: she began by leaving out everything called for in the magazine article and from there on she was on her own. After that, anything could happen, and usually did. The mincing, puny ingredients called for were replaced by whatever came handy, and the results were something the lady cooking-editor, sitting there in her fancy office with her hat on trying to figure out how to boil water without scorching it, would never have recognized. Mrs. Rasmussen had actually tried one of those magazine recipes years ago: the results had tasted just like sticking your tongue out the window.
The food disappeared from the plates in record time. Miss Tinkham said she was bludgeoned, and Mrs. Feeley said she could chew but couldn’t swallow. Since it was Sunday they decided to leave the dishes and staggered to their beds, where they sank into the blissful coma of repletion.
Old Timer lay down for a snooze on the little day-bed near the table.
The lovely drowsiness induced by a full stomach soon crept over the ladies; before long they were breathing audibly. It might even have been said that they snored, but gentle riffling snores like a tabby-cat by the fire. They had been asleep about half an hour, just long enough to be fathoms under, when an unholy din filled the Ark. The doorbell clattered and clanged like a thing possessed. The brassy tone of the crashing, shuddering thing was intensified by the zeal of the puller.
‘Gawdlemighty, I’m comin’, if you’ll only keep your shirt on!’ Mrs. Feeley yelled, struggling up from the waves of sleep.
Mrs. Rasmussen stuck her head out the door of her room and Miss Tinkham jumped up from her couch hastily—so hastily that her head began to swim dizzily.
‘Dear me! Whom do you suppose it could be at such an unseasonable hour?’ she asked.
Mrs. Feeley held the front door open. She looked in front of her, then to the left and to the right. Nobody was there.
‘They sure was in a swivet, whoever they was,’ she said. ‘I got there fast as I could, them startlin’ us an’ all—but they sure couldn’t wait, ’cause they ain’t a soul there!’
‘Sure funny,’ Mrs. Rasmussen mused, and picked up a comer of the blackout curtain to see if anyone was lingering under the window.
‘Most peculiar,’ Miss Tinkham agreed.
‘Couldn’t o’ been very important or they’d ’a’ waited,’ Mrs. Feeley said. ‘I’m goin’ back to sleep.’
Her friends followed her example and lay down again. It took them some time to regain the calm that had been so rudely shattered, but they had eaten more than adequately and, after an interval, sleep returned. The ladies were snuggled deliciously into their pillows. Mrs. Feeley slept athwartships, spread-eagled diagonally across her bed. Miss Tinkham slumbered demurely with one hand beneath her cheek. Mrs. Rasmussen slept face down, spang on her stomach, with both arms extended straight above her head. In due season the ladies once more achieved Nirvana. They slept, not like Ruskin’s chamois on the ledge, but more like the ox over his fodder.
Once more the silence of the Sabbath was profaned by the importunate doorbell.
‘I’m goin’ this time,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, in a tone that spelled doom for somebody.
‘I have never before seen the old Mohammedan curse put into action,’ Miss Tinkham mumbled. ‘May your rest be as uneasy as a Christian’s hat! And that is just what ours has been today!’
Mrs. Feeley said it wasn’t no Christian ringing that bell that long and loud, and Miss Tin
kham tried to explain to her that a Christian’s hat seemed uneasy to Mohammedans because the Christian was forever taking it off and putting it back on: every time he went into the house, every time he left the house, every time he passed a church, every time he passed a woman—but Mrs. Feeley was not listening.
‘’Tain’t Halloween, is it?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.
‘That’s months away,’ Miss Tinkham said.
‘Must be them neighborhood brats,’ Mrs. Rasmussen fumed. ‘They ain’t no sign of nobody there! Damned nuisance!’
The ladies were wide awake by now, and thoroughly enraged. Mrs. Feeley shut the door carefully.
‘Pssst!’ She beckoned to her friends. ‘I got a idea! That sure as hell is some wise guy—an’ this time we’re gonna be ready for him!’
Her friends agreed that steps should be taken and set about preparing for the attack. Mrs. Rasmussen emerged from the bathroom carrying the type of plunger commonly known as a plumber’s friend. She parked it by the door and went to the back of the room and unearthed the poker that belonged to the old wood stove. It took some moments to find it, as it was hanging on the hook provided for just that purpose.
‘No wonder I couldn’t find it! It was right where it belonged!’ she said, and handed Miss Tinkham the plumber’s friend—she thought she could get more results with the poker herself. Meantime, Mrs. Feeley had dragged the stepladder, which Old Timer had forgotten to remove after the bell had been installed, right up to the front door. She made another trip and came back with a big bucket full of water.
‘Now we’ll just sit an’ wait a spell till Paul Revere pulls that bell again!’ she said, as she climbed up on top of the ladder and sat down. Mrs. Rasmussen handed her up the bucket of water and together they placed it on the small shelf of the stepladder, within easy reach.
‘Now you know what to do!’ she coached.
Mrs. Rasmussen opened the door a tiny, unnoticeable crack, so they would be sure to see the approaching marauder, then they took their places, one at each side of the door and Mrs. Feeley at her post atop the stepladder. Miss Tinkham was afraid she was going to giggle from nervousness, but she remembered the beautiful dream she had been having about riding on a float at the Rose Festival, clad, simply swathed, in a gold sequin evening gown and the coveted skunk chubby. That put an end to her levity!
High Time Page 11
