by Unknown
Grandma poured me another glass of milk, and while we finished lunch, she told me the story....
I think I might have been about six years old. I know I had started school, and felt quite important about the extent of my knowledge. I was reciting some information I had learned as I helped ma get breakfast. Actually, my "helping" consisted of standing first on one side of her and then on the other as she worked at the stove. Finally, she interrupted my story.
"Excuse me, Mabel, but I can't turn around without stepping on you. Would you please go and get the bowl of eggs from the pantry?"
I skipped off to get them, and ma called after me. "Watch where you're going. The milk pail is right there by . . ."
A loud splash assured her that I had found the milk pail. Ma sighed. "Did you just kick it this time, or put your foot in it?"
"I just kicked it," I replied in a small voice. "But I kicked it all the way over."
Ma pushed the ham to the back of the stove and came to the pantry door to survey the mess.
"Go get the mop," she directed. "And try not to poke a hole in the window with the handle."
Reuben had come into the kitchen just then, and he couldn't resist a comment.
"Mop rhymes with slop," he noted. "Mabel is a slop-tot if I ever saw one!"
"I'm not!" I retorted angrily, and swung the mop around with the intent of connecting it with Reuben's head. Unfortunately, it hit the pitcher of syrup that sat on the table, ready for breakfast.
Crash! Syrup spattered all over the kitchen floor as the metal pitcher clattered around on the wooden boards.
"It isn't even six o'clock in the morning yet, and I have to mop the kitchen and the pantry!" Ma's voice was both angry and sorrowful. "I've had days that began better than this."
"Well, they say 'if you cry before breakfast, you'll laugh before supper,' " Reuben offered.
Ma gave him a disgusted look. "I can do nicely without your words of wisdom," she snapped. "Take the pail out to the barn and get more milk, please. And Mabel, you go and sit on the porch until breakfast is on the table."
"But I haven't finished the story I was telling you," I protested. A look from ma convinced me that the story could wait. I went out and sat on the steps.
Soon Roy came from the barn with a huge grin on his face that I knew meant trouble for me.
"Hi, slop-tot!" he called cheerfully.
"I'm not!" I cried, and prepared to kick Roy as he came up the steps. He dodged my foot and ran into the kitchen, slamming the screen door behind him. Of course I took off after him, howling at the top of my lungs.
Ma stepped in between us. "I declare, I'm ready to put everyone back to bed and start the day over! What is the matter now?"
"I am not a tot-slop!" I wailed. "Make them stop calling me that!"
"Slop-tot," ma corrected me. "That means a child who's sloppy. You certainly have a tendency to be that."
"I'm trying to be better," I assured her.
"I'm glad you told me. I hadn't noticed....
And you," ma said to Roy, "find something else to do besides tease your sister. I'd just as soon not hear any more fussing this morning."
The boys did let me alone for the rest of that day. But they seldom missed a chance to use my new name when it fitted the occasion. I tried to be careful, but things dropped or tipped or got in my way without my quite knowing how it happened.
One day at the table I reached for something without looking, and dumped a cup of coffee into pa's plate. He looked at the soggy results with distaste and got up to get a clean plate.
"I'm not sure the pigs will even want this," he commented. "Why don't you look in the direction you're moving, Mabel? I hope you never do this when we have company for a meal."
"I'm sorry, pa. I didn't mean to."
"You have to mean not to," ma scolded. "When you're eating, pay attention to what you're doing and leave the daydreaming and chatter until later. Someday you're going to embarrass yourself with someone besides your family."
It was not long before that happened.
We were invited to the minister's house for dinner. As we prepared to go ma folded a dish towel and tucked it into her handbag.
"What's that for, ma?" I asked suspiciously.
"It's to tie under your chin."
"Ma! You wouldn't make me wear a dish towel at the minister's house!"
"I would," she replied. "In fact, I'm almost of a mind to take another one to put under your
plate."
"Oh, ma!" I moaned. "I'd rather be left at home!"
"I've thought of that, too." Ma eyed me sternly. "But you have to learn how to conduct yourself in public someday."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean sit up like a lady and pay attention to what you're doing. Until you do, we have to take precautions of some kind."
"Only a baby wears a bib!"
"Or little girls who can't keep their food off their front. It's a protection."
As it turned out, ma protected the wrong person. When we arrived for dinner we learned that the minister's mother was visiting him. For some reason, she took an instant liking to me.
As we were sitting down to eat, this kind lady insisted that I sit beside her. Ma was reluctant.
"Mabel sometimes needs help cutting her food, perhaps she'd better. . ." ma began.
"Oh, that's no bother. I'll be glad to help her."
Ma gave me a look that said I'd better keep my mind on my business, and I determined to do so. All seemed to be going well when the worst happened.
I was attempting to enter the conversation. In trying to explain the width of something, I flung my arms wide to measure the distance.
As usual, I did not remember that I had something in my hand. A spoon of mashed potatoes and gravy.
A glop of mashed potatoes dripping with gravy landed just under the nice lady's chin. With horror I watched it dribble down into her lap.
Poor ma was ready to slide under the table to get out of sight. The boys choked in an attempt to keep from laughing. As soon as she could speak the minister's mother assured us that no permanent harm had been done. But I was in disgrace.
The journey home was a difficult one. Pa remarked that he hoped I had learned my lesson. Ma replied that she doubted it. The boys declared that they might have expected something like that from a slop-tot like me. I slouched down between ma and pa and pretended not to be there....
"I think it was a long time before they took me anywhere to eat again." Grandma laughed. "I was certainly a trial to my family growing up."
High Society
I ALWAYS THOUGHT of grandma's folks as country people warm and cheerful. The old home the family lived in for years was large. But I never thought of grandma's family as rich.
Not until one day at school when I was describing the old farm home to my class.
"You must have had some pretty rich ancestors," my teacher commented.
As soon as I got home that day, I asked grandma. "Were your folks wealthy?"
"Come to think of it, they were in some ways," grandma answered. "But probably not the way your teacher meant."
"What other way is there? Rich means a lot of money, doesn't it?"
"Not always," grandma replied. "Sometimes it means other things we hardly ever think of. I learned about some of them when I was your age."
I settled down at the table to hear grandma's story as she sat crocheting....
Ma was busy making bread when I came home from school one day. I could smell baked beans in the oven, and I knew we were having a favorite supper this evening.
"Mmm, that smells good, ma. How long before we eat?"
"Oh, the usual time, I expect," ma replied. "Sometime between the hour you're so hungry you can't stand it and the hour you starve to death."
I laughed at that, because it seemed as though we were always between those two hours. I watched ma knead the bread. Her sleeves were rolled up above her elbows, and little wisps of hair were c
oming out around her face.
"We have a pretty hard life, don't we, ma?"
She straightened up and looked at me with amazement. "Now why would you say a thing like that?"
"Well, Sarah Jane's cousin Laura is visiting from the city, and she says we do. Not just us O'Dells," I hastened to add. "But everyone who lives out here in the country. She says she doesn't know how we live without servants to do the work."
Ma went back to her kneading. "I can tell her if she's really interested."
"That's what Sarah Jane's ma told her, too. But Laura says she thinks we must be terribly unhappy. Do you suppose we should be feeling bad, and we just don't know it?"
"That's a possibility," ma admitted. "But I'd just as soon not find out." She deftly separated the dough and formed a panful of rolls. Then she set them on the back of the stove to rise. "I don't know what I'd do with a servant if I had one."
"She could do the cooking and baking."
"I'll take care of my own cooking and baking, thank you," ma replied. "That way, I always know what I'm eating. Besides, I enjoy it."
"She could do the dishes. You don't always enjoy those."
"I have a perfectly good daughter who needs to know how to do dishes," ma said. "How are you going to know how to run your own home when you grow up if you never help someone else do it?"
With a lot of servants, I thought to myself. But I wouldn't say that to ma. I was convinced that she didn't know what she was missing.
As we sat around the supper table that night, my mind was still on the subject. "Pa, would you like to have a servant?"
"A what?"
"A servant. Someone to do your work for you."
"I don't mind having a hired hand at harvesttime, but I don't want someone doing my work," pa replied. "What would I do?"
Reuben was quick to offer some suggestions. "You could spend some time fishing, and some time just sitting around the house..."
"Not my house, you couldn't," ma put in quickly. "I have enough to do without working around useless bodies. Now if you were old and feeble, I'd let you sit by the stove and chuck a piece of wood in now and then. But you're not, thank the Lord."
No one seemed to agree with me, so I didn't say anything more. I thought a lot about it, though, until an unusual happening straightened out my thinking.
A few days before school was out, Sarah Jane met me at the end of our lane. "Mabel! Have I got some news for you! You'll never believe it!"
"What? What is it?"
Sarah Jane was jumping up and down. "You just won't believe it!"
"Oh, for goodness' sake, Sarah Jane. Are you going to tell me or not?"
"Of course I'm going to tell you! Just give me a chance. My cousin Laura has asked me to come to the city for a week as soon as school is out. She wants you to come, too. My ma is going to ask your folks tonight. What do you think of that?"
Sarah Jane was right. I didn't believe her. I had never been away from home that long in iny life. The thought of visiting the city took my breath away.
"Do you think your folks will let you go?" Sarah Jane was saying.
"Oh, I hope so! I'll be good for the rest of my life if they will!"
"I don't think I'd mention that if I were you. Parents have a way of thinking you ought to be good without getting paid for it."
I nodded in agreement, and we walked on to school. All that day, I wondered if ma and pa would say yes. That evening when Sarah Jane's mother came over, I was sure the answer would be no.
But it wasn't! If Laura's parents really wanted two houseguests, I could go. The next few days were a flurry of getting ready.
"I'll only need to take my very best summer dresses, ma," I told her, "and my good shoes."
"What do you plan to wear to play in?" she asked me. "You can't run around outside in your good clothes."
"I don't think you run around outside in the city," I replied. "I think you just dress up and look pretty."
"That could get old in a hurry. You'd better take a few things, just in case."
My box was packed and repacked several times before the Monday arrived to leave.
"If you don't stand still," ma warned me that morning, "I won't have your hair combed by the time the Clarks get here. You don't want to keep them waiting, do you?"
I didn't, nor did I want to wait myself. So I stood as still as possible while ma finished getting me ready. I couldn't eat any breakfast, but ma insisted that I drink the hot cocoa.
Finally Sarah Jane and her folks arrived, and we were on our way to the city.
"Can you imagine having someone do everything for you?" I said to Sarah Jane. "We'll be real ladies, won't we?"
"Oh, yes. I don't think I'll ever want to come back home. I won't make a bed, or do a dish, or dust a chair all the time we're here. Laura's mama even has a seamstress to do her mending!"
"Her 'mama'?" I inquired.
"That's what Laura calls her. It's more stylish, you know. She calls her pa 'papa,' too."
I couldn't imagine acting stylish when I returned home, not with Roy and Reuben around. But I would remember how they lived in the city. Maybe, when I had a home of my own...
We arrived at our destination before dusk. As we climbed down from the buggy, I regarded the big house with awe.
"It has three whole floors! Do they live on all of them?"
"Certainly," Sarah Jane assured me. "We'll sleep on the top one. There's a library and a music room, too, and a big yard to play in. I've never stayed here before, but I visited once with my folks."
We were ushered into a large hallway, and Laura came to meet us. "Oh, good," she exclaimed. "You're here in time for dinner. Come on in!"
I opened my mouth to say that we had eaten dinner at noon; then closed it again. Something told me that the less I said, the better off I'd be.
But when we were seated in a big dining room, lighted with gas lamps, I could no longer contain my curiosity.
"Where does Laura's mama fix her meals?" I whispered to Sarah Jane."
"She doesn't. The cook fixes them."
"But where?"
"In the kitchen, of course," Sarah Jane said. "It's downstairs."
"In the cellar?" I squeaked, and then blushed when everyone looked at me.
"It's not called the cellar," Sarah Jane explained. "It's the lower floor. We'll see it tomorrow."
We were taken to our room very early. Once we crawled into the strange bed, I lay for a long time looking at the ceiling.
"Sarah Jane," I said at last, "when do they eat supper here?"
"We just finished eating it a little while ago. Don't you remember?"
"But Laura called that dinner. At home we eat dinner at noon."
"Oh! Well, they call supper 'dinner,' and they call dinner 'luncheon,"' she explained. "You get the same stuff to eat, though."
That really didn't make good sense to me. But I decided if I were going to grow up to be a society lady, I'd better learn some of the finer points. I fell asleep thinking about eating in ma's warm kitchen with the good smells of food cooking and wood burning.
The following morning as we watched Sarah Jane's folks drive off toward home, my heart sank. I almost wished I were going, too. The feeling only lasted a few moments, though, for Laura soon hurried us off to shop in the big stores.
"Don't lag behind me, girls," she warned, "or you'll get lost. You may never find the front door again."
"I think that might be the truth," Sarah Jane said. "We'd better keep an eye on her."
We didn't lose Laura. But we didn't see much that was in the store, either. She moved through the many aisles as if she were running a race. We were both glad to be back at the house, protected by the big spiked fence that surrounded it.
"This house doesn't really look very lived in, does it?" I asked as we sat on the steps.
"I guess it isn't, not as much as ours," Sarah Jane admitted. "Laura is out a lot, and her mama goes calling every day. Her papa works in a big office
so he never comes home, except to eat at night and sleep."
"Why don't we go out to the barn?" I suggested. "Animals would remind us of home."
"That's not a barn," Sarah Jane sighed. "It's a carriage house. All it has is horses and buggies."
I was stunned. "No cows? No chickens? Where do they get their milk and eggs?"
"Buy'em. They buy everything, or else have someone else make it for them. I always thought that would be sort of nice. But there's something nice about a big barn with cows bumping around in it."
I heartily agreed with her. Gloom settled over us as we thought about the days ahead.
We did have nice times, though. Laura and her folks did their best to make us happy. Nevertheless, when the Clarks's buggy came into sight at the end of our visit, both Sarah Jane and I were ready to start for home. I could hardly wait for the buggy to drive up our lane.
"Oh, ma!" I cried when I finally burst into our kitchen. "Are you glad I'm back?"
Ma grabbed me and gave me a big hug. "I should say I am. It's been too quiet around here with no one helping me. Did you happen to bring a servant back with you?"
I shook my head. "We're not hard up at all, ma. They don't have any food or milk or anything unless they buy it. We have it right here free! And they never get to eat in the kitchen, or sit by the cookstove, or walk in the woods. I'd rather be right here with you and pa and the boys."
"Good," ma said. "I was hoping you'd feel that way. People live all different kinds of lives. But this is where God has placed us, and I'm glad you're happy with it. You can tell us all about your visit at suppertime."
"Supper will really taste good tonight," I said as I started toward my room. "I haven't had one since I left home!"
The Dog Who Could Spell
ONE AFTERNOON as grandma and I were looking at some old pictures in her album, I noticed something strange. There were no casual photographs like the ones I was used to seeing. They all looked as though they had been taken in a studio.
"Most of our pictures were," grandma said when I pointed this out to her. "Families didn't usually have cameras of their own. They were too expensive. Often visiting photographers came around to take our pictures."
