Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings

by Shirley Jackson

  “What?” said the woman, and then, “I just simply don’t believe it.”

  “It’s true,” Hilda said, nodding. “When I saw about it in the papers I just said, ‘So they caught him finally.’ He used to steal anything he could find. He stole from other kids. And once he tried to steal his own father’s car but he couldn’t get it started. I was right there and I saw him.”

  “I don’t believe it,” the woman said. “I just don’t believe it.” Then she turned to Hilda and said, “What Anderson boy are you talking about? Are you sure you mean Johnny Anderson?”

  “I certainly do,” Hilda said. “The one who stole the watches and said the other boys gave them to him and it was all in the paper. I used to know him and he stole things all the time.”

  “Hard on his people,” another woman said, and someone else said, “No matter how much you try to bring kids up right…”

  “Well, I just never would have believed it,” the first woman said. She sighed and turned away to look at some things on a shelf. “He was always so polite, too.”

  Someone started asking to have oranges weighed and the grocery clerks were putting things into bags, and Hilda came over to me. “Come on,” she said, and we sneaked out. No one paid any attention to us, of course, and we went on down the street and Hilda squeezed my arm hard. “How was that?” she said, and I said, “Ghastly,” which of course is our word meaning pretty wonderful. “Let’s do some more,” I said, and then Hilda said, “Well, it’s your turn next,” and I began to get nervous because I can’t do it anywhere near as ghastly as Hilda.

  I thought I would try the newsstand on the corner because usually they’re easy, and I cheated by using an old game although of course it’s always fun. Hilda kind of stood back and I went up to the newsstand and the man behind it was selling a paper so I waited till he finished and then when he looked at me I said, “Please, we’re lost, my friend and I. We don’t have enough to telephone.”

  He looked at Hilda standing a little in back of me, and then he looked at me again and finally he said, “Well, where do you live?”

  I told him on Manica Street, which was all right because we had been there once and people lived there, and he looked surprised and said, “Well, what are you doing all the way out here?”

  This was where Hilda was always better. She would tell him something like we were trailing her father’s divorced wife, or we had seen a man kill someone and we were following him, and maybe he wouldn’t believe her but he’d kind of laugh and give in. I never had that kind of courage, so I’m not as good as Hilda. All I could think of to say was “We got on the wrong streetcar and kept thinking it would be time to get off at the right corner, but it was going the wrong way.”

  You could tell he thought I was kind of foolish at my age to get on the wrong streetcar and come so far away from home, but there was no real reason for him not to believe me, so at last he said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “We don’t have enough to telephone,” I said.

  He looked at Hilda again and then at me and finally he reached into the moneybox under the stand. “Well,” he said, “I guess your folks will be worrying.” He took out two quarters. “Think you can find your way home without getting lost again?” he asked me, and I could tell he was still a little doubtful because I had done it so badly. I took the quarters and said, “Oh, thank you, mister. We can get home now.”

  “See that you go straight home, too,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said, and Hilda said, “Thank you,” and we went off toward the streetcar stop because he was still looking at us. “How did I do?” I said, and Hilda said, “Ghastly,” but we both knew it really wasn’t because no matter how I try I can never think of things the way Hilda can.

  “I’m going to do a house,” Hilda said all of a sudden, and that really scared me because in all the time we had been having fun we had never tried a house before, but then I saw the house she was going for and I could kind of see what she had in mind. This was a little house, and it was unusual, because instead of being right on the street with a little fence and all it was set far back, and it had almost a garden, and on one side of it was a house that was clearly empty with no one living there and no curtains and the steps falling down, and on the other side was just a vacant lot.

  —

  [This story was left unfinished by the author. We include it here because we feel the characters she has created are unique and the work warrants it.]

  Bulletin

  (Ed. Note: The time travel machine sent out recently by this University has returned, unfortunately without Professor Browning. Happily for the University Space Department, however, Professor Browning’s briefcase, set just inside the time travel element, returned, containing the following papers that bear ample evidence of the value to scientific investigation of sending Professor Browning on this much-discussed trip into the twenty-second century. It is assumed by members of the Space Department that these following papers were to serve as the basis for notes for the expected lecture by Professor Browning, which will now, of course, be indefinitely postponed.)

  (From a newspaper, torn, heading reading only “…ld Tribune, May 8, 2123”:)

  …indifference in high quarters which has led so inevitably to this distressing result. Not only those directly affected—and they are many—but, indeed, thoughtful and reasonable persons everywhere, must view with extreme alarm an act which has given opportunism an advantage over intelligent planning. It is greatly to be regretted that, among those in power who were in a position to take action, none except the unpopular Secretary chose to do so, and his opposition was, as so frequently it must be, disregarded. In any case, let us unite in hope that the possible consequences will not take place, and prepare to guard ourselves with the utmost vigilance against a recurrence of such incidents.

  (From what appears to be a private correspondence:)

  June 4

  Dear Mom and Dad,

  I am haveing a fine time at camp. I went swiming and dived, but Charley didnt. Send me a cake and some cokies and candy.

  Your loveing son,

  Jerry

  (A mimeographed sheet:)

  American History 102

  Mid-Term Examination

  April 21, 2123

  1. Identify twelve (12) of the following:

  Nathan Hale

  Huey Long

  Carrie Chapman Catt

  Merry Oldsmobile

  Cotton Mather

  Robert Nathan

  George Washingham

  Oveta Culp Hobby

  Sinclair (Joe) Louis

  Alexander Hamilton

  Grover Cleveland

  Woodrow Wilson I

  Joyce Kilmer

  Edna Wallace Hopper

  Chief Sitting Bull

  Old Ironsides

  John Philip Sousa

  Sergeant Cuff

  R. H. Macy

  2. The historian Roosevelt-san has observed that “Twentieth-century man had both intelligence and instinct; he chose, unfortunately, to rely upon intelligence.” Discuss.

  3. Some of the following statements are true, some are false. Mark them T and F accordingly:

  A. Currency was originally used as a medium of exchange.

  B. The aboriginal Americans lived above-ground and drank water.

  C. The first American settlers rebelled against the rule of Churchill III and set up their own government because of the price of tea.

  D. Throat-scratch, the disease which swept through twentieth-century life, was introduced to this country by Sir Walter Raleigh.

  E. The hero Jackie Robinson is chiefly known for his voyage to obtain the golden fleece.

  F. Working was the principal occupation of twentieth-century humanity.

  G. The first king in America, George Washingham, refused the crown three times.

  H. The cat was at one time tame, and used in domestic service.

  4. Describe in your own words the
probable daily life of an American resident in 1950, using what you have learned of his eating, entertainment, and mating habits.

  5. In what sense did ancient Americans contribute to our world today? Can we learn anything of value by studying them?

  (A narrow card, identifiably from a machine:)

  YOUR WEIGHT AND FORTUNE

  Your weight is…186

  Your fortune for today: Expect permanent relief in minor domestic problems, but avoid too-hasty plans for the future. Try not to dwell on the past. You are determined, clear-sighted, firm: use these qualities. Remember that you can be led but not driven.

  (Ed. Note: This last item seems of great significance. It is well known that Professor Browning’s weight when he left the University in the time travel element was better than 200 pounds. The evident loss of weight shown indicates clearly the changes incident to time travel, and points, perhaps, to some of its perils; there is possibly a hint here of an entirely different system of weights and measures than that currently in use. We anticipate that several learned and informed papers on this subject are already in preparation.)

  Family Treasures

  Anne Waite was a most unfortunate girl, although she was, of all the girls living in the small women’s dormitory, the only one who might not be persuaded to agree that she was unfortunate. More than any of the other girls in the house, Anne felt herself to be free and unconfined, accepting the ordinary regulations of institutional community life as a concession to the authorities, rather than as an imposed obligation. The university was large, and Anne was small, yet the university was more strictly bound by iron rules than Anne, and was, on the whole, Anne would have said, more unfortunate. The university authorities had been brought to recognize Anne particularly because of the death of her mother during the last term of her freshman year; Anne, returning to college as a sophomore, was without one surviving relative except for the university. Her college education had been paid for in advance, along with a regular, although small, allowance, that duly provided for—in case the university should not extend its paternal benevolence—the purchase of Anne’s clothes.

  The university provided Anne with a small, fairly well-maintained room in one of its more comfortable living centers, where, as did fifteen other girls, Anne had a bed and a chair and a desk and a dresser. She was required to present herself for breakfast at seven, arrive promptly upon call at fire drill, and be in the house with the front door locked behind her no later than eleven on weeknights, twelve on Saturdays. She was also required to be reasonably friendly with the other girls, a friendship in no cases to extend to extreme devotion, pointed whispering in the dining hall, or sleeping two in one bed; she was expected to rise when the house mother entered the room, and be decently civil to the maids.

  Anne’s mother had died shortly after the end of the football season, and long before the season of spring dances, and although Anne was at that time a shy and rather friendless girl, everyone in the house, from the house mother to the three girls on the first floor who had received permission to set up a darkroom in the first-floor bathroom for developing photographs, had sought Anne out either in the gloomy weather before she had set out for home, or in the bright warm days that followed immediately after her return, to offer both sympathy and a quick, friendly curiosity for details of the funeral. Anne had a vague comprehension, although naturally she could never investigate the fact fully, that several of the girls—Helena, for instance, on the second floor, and Cheryl, who was of course the house president—who had sat with her, choking up and saying “I know how I’d feel if it was my moth—” before dissolving into tears with her, had gone directly from Anne to dates with well-dressed boys who parked their cars, as a matter of hallowed custom, on the hill near the lake, where Cheryl certainly, and Helena probably, had sat laughing, and drinking beer, and what else?, Anne wondered.

  Anne minded none of this particularly; what she did mind, and found insulting, was the immediate decrease of her value in the eyes of the other girls in the house shortly after her mother was buried. It was no longer in good taste to commiserate with Anne, because, as was generally known, Anne was Trying to be Brave. With her bravery clearly established by her anonymity, Anne faded back into the colorless girl on the third floor who lived alone, had no friends, and rarely spoke.

  It was too much to hope, naturally, that Cheryl and Helena would introduce Anne to any of their young men just because her mother had died, or that the three girls on the first floor would allow her to develop pictures in their bathroom darkroom, but Anne had cherished a hope, along with so many other people to whom sudden and unusual things have happened, that after it was all over she might be changed—her face a little prettier, perhaps, or her hair a more decided color, or at least an interesting sadness in her manner, and the ability to think quickly and effortlessly of things to say when she passed the other girls in the hall.

  At the beginning, then, of her sophomore year at the university, Anne was doing as well as might be expected in her studies, had an unblemished record at fire drill, could certainly not be accused of any disproportionate friendships, and was, in fact, very little better off after her mother’s death at all.

  It did not take long for Anne to recognize this, since she was, in her silent and veiled manner, very agile; consequently it was in only about the third week of the school year that Anne stole Helena’s ankle bracelet and hid it in her mother’s trunk. It went under her mother’s books and papers and the ancient fur cape, which was of no value but had become Anne’s in the disposal of Anne’s mother’s private things, during which the bank holding all of Anne’s money had, with the air of an impersonal machine humanizing itself through a sentimental understanding of a small detail, sent it neatly wrapped to Anne as a memento.

  Helena’s ankle bracelet was of solid gold, and had been given to Helena by a young man in whom she no longer had any profitable interest. Anne had seen it during the glorious days of her bereavement, in a blue china trinket box on Helena’s dresser, where it would be difficult to discover its loss casually out of the mess of necklaces and compacts and odd little items donated to Helena by various young men whose names Helena could remember easily when she looked over their honorary insignia in the box on her dresser, although in most cases she had forgotten the occasions when she had received her trophies. The ankle bracelet was neither the greatest nor the least of Helena’s treasures, and Anne, stealing it and hiding it safely away, was confident that in all the mixture of young men’s gifts in the box, Helena would forever be unable to recall the name on the ankle bracelet without its presence to remind her.

  One evening, several days after the ankle bracelet had joined Anne’s mother’s fur cape in the trunk in Anne’s closet, Anne passed Helena’s room, full of noise and chatter, with six or seven girls inside, and after hesitating for a minute in the doorway, she slipped inside and sat down on the floor near the door. Although everyone noticed her and greeted her amiably enough, no one asked her any questions or addressed any particular remarks to her; nor did the tenor of their conversation change materially with her entrance. While Anne was there, Helena several times consulted the trinket box, twice to put things away and once to determine the year in which a young man under discussion had made the university’s scholastic honorary society. Not in all this evening did Helena notice that she no longer had one of her gold ankle bracelets.

  The day on which a notice appeared on the dormitory bulletin board announcing the date of the university’s winter dance, Anne went quietly, in her slippers, into Cheryl’s room while she was in class. In the top drawer of Cheryl’s desk—Anne had seen it before—was an inexpensive black pen-and-pencil set, which, in its particular box, had been awarded to Cheryl when she graduated from high school by the members of her class, whom, as class president, she had inspired to be exactly the same as every other class graduated from that academy. Anne had heard Cheryl telling about the pen-and-pencil set (the pen no longer worked) with becomin
g modesty: they had voted her most likely to succeed, and given her the pen-and-pencil set, and there were shy little jokes about the great books she had been expected to write with the pen and the great pictures she had been expected to sketch with the pencil but how, as a matter of fact, she used neither, although she was the house president and a member of the senior council of the university. Along with her name, on both the pen and pencil, was written “Voted Most Likely to Succeed.”

  Anne put the pen-and-pencil set with the ankle bracelet, on the bottom of her mother’s trunk, and if Cheryl noticed that it was gone, she said nothing to Anne about it, although Anne had taken of late to joining the other girls in the living room after the house was closed for the night, where, in pajamas and bathrobes, they drank Cokes ordered from a neighboring drugstore and ate sandwiches barely inferior to the college food.

  There was a girl named Maggie, who was accounted a great wit, and from her room Anne stole a stuffed gray bear that Maggie ordinarily kept securely hidden under her pillow; by the time the bear had settled comfortably into Anne’s mother’s trunk, Maggie had probably discovered her loss but, after a noble battle with herself, had apparently decided to say nothing about it, but to sharpen her sarcasms against the world until her errant bear should return, wending his individual way back as he had taken his secret way of going.

  Anne’s usual method was to watch, pressing herself softly against the slight crack in the door of her third-floor room, or leaning back beside a window with the curtain before her, until the girl whose room she had chosen to violate had left the house. Then, wearing felt slippers and usually a bathrobe over her clothes, and sometimes carrying a bath towel to avert suspicion and to cover any bulky objects, Anne would move softly out of her room, her heart shaking deliciously, biting her lips to keep from smiling. In the early afternoons, when the house was most quiet, Anne could go from one floor to the next by the backstairs, without being seen or attracting attention if she were. If anyone noticed her, she could say that the tub on the third floor was occupied and she had come to the second floor to take a bath, or to the first floor to answer the phone; if she were seen coming out of someone’s room—which never, to her knowledge, had happened—she could say, with perfect truth, that she was looking for something.