That one set Darleen back on her heels. She didn’t know how you went about explaining a party to a child. Even at the Home they had known what a party was.
‘It’s where you have a good time, and everybody acks the nicest they know how, and you have good things to eat.’ She hoped he got the idea.
She handed Myrna a glass of orange juice.
‘Where’s mine?’ Pierpont asked impatiently.
‘Keep your shirt on, Pierpont! Ladies first!’
Then she passed the cookies to Myrna. Myrna stretched her hand out.
‘One at a time, Myrna!’ Darleen instructed. ‘What do you say?’
‘I din’ say nuffin’!’ Myrna replied, shaking her curls.
‘Well, you had ought to! You had ought to say “thank you!”’
Myrna thought that one over for a second, and then said: ‘Fank you.’ Pierpont, observing the lesson, took a cooky and thanked Darleen without being told to.
‘Gimme s’more!’ Myrna demanded.
‘You had oughta say, “Can I have another one, please?”’ Darleen coached.
Myrna did, and Darleen passed the plate to her.
‘Have another one, Pierpont?’ Darleen offered politely.
Pierpont caught on quickly: he took one and said, ‘Thank you.’ This game was kind of fun.
Just as the three were finishing their orange juice, Mrs. Rasmussen and Miss Tinkham emerged from the Ark decked out for a foray on the markets. They were armed with their string shopping bags. The twins had been fed and loved and were sound asleep again. Mrs. Feeley stood in the door watching them.
The shoppers came over to Darleen.
‘I’ll be back to fix dinner,’ Mrs. Rasmussen explained. ‘They’ll eat about one o’clock, same as us. The cookies had oughta hold ’em.’
‘Why don’t you tell Mrs. Rasmussen you liked the cookies, Pierpont?’ Darleen suggested.
He took a step in Mrs. Rasmussen’s direction and she yelled:
‘Don’t you come near me, boy! I’m all cleaned up for the street!’
‘Them ole cookies was damn good!’ he said.
‘Dammit, boy! You hadn’t oughta swear so!’ Mrs. Rasmussen admonished and turned on her heel.
Watching from the door, Mrs. Feeley could see the pleased grin on Mrs. Rasmussen’s face as she and Miss Tinkham marched out of the yard. Well, the work was all done inside and the twins would sleep till two. ’Long as Darleen was getting along so good with the children out in the yard, she guessed she’d rest herself and have a beer.
B
Y
FRIDAY NIGHT
Mrs. Feeley had decided that Darleen was a born child psychologist. Pierpont and Myrna no longer banged the screen door nor spat on people. True it was that Pierpont sneaked into the Ark unnoticed by the guardian angels and gave the sleeping twins a hot-foot apiece. He stuck the head of a safety match in his mouth for a second, then lit it and stuck the damp match-head to the sole of each sleeping twin’s foot. The shrieks of the tortured babes brought all hands running at top speed. Miss Tinkham was the first to notice the smoldering match-head clinging to the tender flesh. Pierpont was conspicuous by his absence.
Mrs. Rasmussen was fit to be tied. She ran through the parking-lot brandishing her wire hairbrush. Pierpont was going to get it, but good. Old Timer got down his ancient razor strap from where it hung on the wall of his shed. Miss Tinkham was all for phoning the Reformatory, and Mrs. Feeley was going to dip him in boiling oil.
Darleen, though entirely unfamiliar with the works of the late Messieurs Gilbert and Sullivan, was the first to figure out a punishment to fit the crime. She finally treed Pierpont up on top of a pile of lumber and went up after him. Realizing that Pierpont was definitely
persona non grata
at the Ark, Darleen looked around for a quiet place to mete out the punishment he had so richly earned for himself, calmly and without suggestions or advice from the outraged ladies. All at once her eye lit on the trailer: that would be just fine! She carried the writhing culprit over to it and went inside. The trailer was silver-gray and resembled nothing so much as a half-moon that had fallen to earth, landed smack on its flat side, and stayed there. There were two casement windows in each side. Under the windows, and above them, were bunks.
‘You sit right down on that stool until I get back,’ Darleen said coldly, closed the door and locked it. Then she went into the Ark and collected Myrna and a couple of other things. The twins still had tiny black scorched places on their feet, but Mrs. Rasmussen’s speedy application of butter must have worked, for they were no longer crying. The ladies were astonished at the grim lines around Darleen’s mouth.
‘What you aimin’ to do to him?’ Mrs. Feeley asked.
‘Plenty,’ Darleen said succinctly.
They gave her a head-start, then followed her out to the trailer; through the windows they could see plainly all that took place inside.
‘Myrna, you sit right here and don’t you dare move,’ Darleen ordered, and sat Myrna down on another stool facing Pierpont.
‘Why’d you give the twins the hot-foot?’ she demanded of the culprit.
‘For fun!’ Pierpont answered defiantly.
‘Okay. That’s all I wanted to know!’ Without further ceremony Darleen grabbed Pierpont and held him on her lap firmly with one arm. With the other hand she moistened and lit two matches and gave Pierpont a thorough dose of his own medicine—one on each foot. His screams were ear-splitting and enough to chill the marrow in the bones of any bystanders.’ Myrna began to’ shriek in sympathy. Calmly Darleen allowed the matches to sting on.
‘Is it fun, Pierpont?’ she demanded.
‘No-o-o-o-o! Take it off!’ he shrieked.
‘Are you ever going to do it to anybody again as long as you live?’ Darleen insisted.
‘Aw, Darleen,’ Mrs. Feeley said through the window. ‘Knock it off! He’s had enough!’
Pierpont wailed that he would not give anyone the hot-foot ever, and Darleen pulled off the match-heads which were pretty well burned out by then, anyway, and proceeded to rub the burned spots with butter.
‘Now you and Myrna climb into those bunks and stay there the rest of the day,’ she said calmly, and walked out.
Outside, the ladies regarded her with awe.
‘Gawd, if you ain’t rugged!’ Mrs. Feeley said.
‘Magnificent display of disciplinary action—swift and sure!’ Miss Tinkham complimented.
‘That’ll learn him,’ Darleen said and closed the subject.
At noon Darleen carried a tray of lunch out to the children. They ate large slices of liver-loaf, baked carrots, and spinach soufflé without a murmur.
‘By rights you hadn’t oughta get this custard,’ she said severely. ‘Mrs. Rasmussen made it ’specially for the twins, but she said you could have some.’
While the children ate, Darleen looked around at the trailer. The lad who was off fighting in Africa had been a good planner. The bunks were neat and had comfortable springs and mattresses. There were small built-in cupboards, a tiny stove, sink, and wash-hand basin, and against one wall a collapsible table. The trailer was wired for electric light, a regular little home on wheels. The owner was a smart fellow and Darleen wondered what he looked like. Then she shook her head to clear out the cobwebs.
‘Now you kids take your clothes off and take a nap,’ she ordered.
Without a word they obeyed. When they were down to their panties, they started fighting over who was going to sleep where.
‘I’ve got the top one!’ Pierpont shouted.
‘Top! Top!’ Myrna yelled, reaching up.
‘There’s plenty of top bunks,’ Darleen said. ‘And maybe, if you’re good, you can sleep in them tomorrow—but on account of you was so cruel and mean to the twins—in the bottom bunks you sleep today!’
Without another word she took the tray back to the Ark and had her own lunch. There was little conversation at the table. They were all just a little in awe of Darleen’s display of Spartan motherhood.
‘They’re gonna get punished all afternoon, so when I come back in would you mind showing me how to mend the rips in their clothes?’ Darleen asked Mrs. Rasmussen.
‘Sure!’ that worthy replied.
‘God knows it ain’t their neighbors needs it!’ Mrs. Feeley added piously.
Out in the trailer all was quiet and serene; the discipline must have worked, for the children had climbed into the assigned bunks.
Back at the Ark Darleen sat down to mend their ragged suits and dresses. Mrs. Rasmussen even provided little bits of cloth for patches. Miss Tinkham was sitting by the front door memorizing French irregular verbs from a battered Chardenal she had bought for fifteen cents at Ye Old Booke Shoppe.
A man drove by in a truck with flats full of Giant Ruffled Petunias. It was too much for Mrs. Feeley.
‘Have we got a loose half-dollar we don’t need, Mrs. Rasmussen? The garden ain’t had no thin’ new since the cow jumped over the moon!’
‘Sure!’ Mrs. Rasmussen said, and they set off to get the tiny seedlings.
‘Them spitoonias is sure showy,’ Mrs. Feeley said, happily clutching the flat to her stomach. ‘I’ve raised ’em so big an’ so double you couldn’t hardly tell what they was!’
They came inside to get the trowel to plant the beauties at once. As they went out the door Mrs. Rasmussen snickered: ‘Darleen handles that there needle just like she was pryin’ oysters off a rock!’
‘Damned if she don’t!’ Mrs. Feeley agreed. ‘But Gawd! Can’t she make them boogers mind?’
At half-past five Darleen asked Mrs. Rasmussen for two bowls of bread and milk.
‘Just bread an’ milk? I had some bacon scraps I was aimin’ to fix for ’em with some porched eggs,’ Mrs. Rasmussen said.
‘Bread and milk,’ Darleen said, in a tone that left no room for argument.
While Mrs. Rasmussen prepared it, she went to the trailer and opened the door. The occupants were playing quietly on the floor—they had made up a game by arranging beer-caps in the squares of the linoleum.
‘Time for your bath,’ Darleen announced.
Silently she marched them in and bathed them. When she finished, the twins were having their six o’clock bottles. She took the Garfunkles over to the twins and made Pierpont kiss the soles of their feet.
‘You kiss the place and make it well,’ she said.
‘Your bread an’ milk’s on the kitchen table,’ Mrs. Rasmussen reminded. Out the back door Darleen went with the children; when they had finished their supper, she told them they could play until she got back. Inside the Ark, she took the sheets and blankets off Myrna’s crib and Pierpont’s bed.
‘You ain’t aimin’ to let ’em stay out there by theirselfs all night? Without nobody?’ Mrs. Rasmussen asked.
‘Sure,’ Darleen said. ‘The trailer’s cool and fixed up real nice inside. Besides, you could hear them if they so much as sneezed!’
‘Don’t it seem kinda fearsome leavin’ ’em all alone without no light nor nothin’?’ Mrs. Feeley inquired.
‘They’re not used to babying,’ Darleen replied. ‘They been left alone three and four days at a time. The trailer’s just like it was made for them!’ And off she went.
‘Ain’t you gonna read us funny-books?’ Pierpont asked.
‘Not tonight. Funny-books is only for good boys.’ Darleen went out and returned in a few moments with an ancient slop-jar.
‘That there’s your potty! If you have to, use it!’
Darleen scarcely touched her supper—she told the ladies she was too tired to eat. She thought she would go to the movies and then go home to bed.
‘You mustn’t take it so hard, girl, just because them little devils got in a picklement!’ Mrs. Feeley cautioned kindly. ‘All kids is cruel to one another—an’ I don’t believe he’ll ever do a thing like that ’long as he lives!’
Darleen agreed, and went away, saying she would see the ladies in the morning.
‘Gawd,’ Mrs. Feeley breathed when she had left, ‘she sure don’t aim for them two whelps to make none o’ the mistakes she’s made! Sure beginnin’ young!’
‘If such strength of character can only be developed in her own behalf,’ Miss Tinkham said, ‘she will soon become a pillar of virtue!’
‘Yeah. But I wish to hell that Johnny’d get back! Even if ’twas only for a coupla days—just long enough to keep her in the buggy!’ Mrs. Rasmussen was too practical to expect to see figs grow on thistles. Seeing that her house-mates were occupied with their beer and Hobby Lobby on the radio, she sneaked out the back door with some cookies in her pocket.
The next morning Darleen was late. When she did appear, she was downcast and extremely quiet, even for her.
‘Her eyes looks like two holes burned in a saddle-blanket,’ Mrs. Rasmussen whispered when Darleen took the children out to the yard.
‘Gawd, she sure looks bed-raggled,’ Mrs. Feeley agreed.
‘Of course, Johnny has been gone a great many months,’ Miss Tinkham explained, ‘and you just can’t rationalize that! Sublimation is all very well, but after all—’ Miss Tinkham raised her eyebrows and shrugged.
Mrs. Feeley and Mrs. Rasmussen looked at her with new respect: for an old maid, she certainly knew what the score was.
‘You can call it all them fancy words you’ve a mind to,’ Mrs. Feeley announced. ‘But I can tell you what it is: it’s them damn picture shows she goes to; them Clark Gables! Sits through ’em twice, she does! Mr. Feeley always said, “What the eye don’t see, the heart don’t long for!”’