She wanted to wrench out, if she could, her hateful resentment about Aunt Ruth.
I agreed to let her come, yes. But “the gift without the giver is bare,” she told herself angrily, hurrying along.
She could hear her father’s voice. “That’s mighty kind of you kids.” But she didn’t feel kind. She wished she did; but she didn’t.
Inside St. Paul’s, she flung herself down on her knees. The church was almost empty. Morning light came through green-and-yellow windows and made a pattern on the clean white walls. It was a plain church—plain brown choir stalls, a plain cross on the altar. The service began.
“Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open….”
Betsy dug her head into her arms. “Help me, God! Please help me!” she prayed.
This was the first real problem of their marriage. Up to now, everything had been perfect. Her struggles with cooking, Joe’s low moods hadn’t mattered, really. This was different. It was a real disagreement.
Joe had decided it. “But I wanted him to. One person in a family has to have the final word. I want it to be Joe, always.”
If only he could have decided that they didn’t have room for Aunt Ruth…that it was too bad, but she would have to manage some other way….
That thought brought Betsy’s head up, sharply.
Would she really have liked that, she asked herself? Why—why—it wouldn’t have been Joe! How would she like Joe not being Joe? If she needed him, or someone in her own family needed him, how would she like Joe not being Joe? What would it be like, not to be sure, always, that Joe would do whatever he thought was right?
All of a sudden everything came clear.
The beautiful ritual unfolded, and Betsy began to make the responses, a little absently, but with a heart so full of love and thankfulness, she knew God wouldn’t mind. She felt all right. She felt like herself. When the service ended, she went home on flying feet.
Joe, in his dressing gown, was sitting in the blue easy chair, with the Real Estate section of the paper. His face looked worried, but it changed when he saw Betsy’s face. He stood up, and she came over and slipped her arms underneath his so she could hug him tightly. She put her head down on his chest.
“Joe,” she said, “I feel all right about Aunt Ruth. I mean—I think it’s the right thing to do. I don’t mind, any more.”
“Oh, Betsy!” Joe said. He sounded as though he’d like to cry. They hugged each other until Betsy broke away.
“See here!” she said. “I don’t smell coffee. What kind of a husband are you, anyway?” She shook him. “I’ll make some. And you get dressed. And we’ll go find us a house.”
“If there’s anything I don’t like, it’s a bossy woman,” Joe said, and pulled her back into his arms.
After breakfast Betsy put on her green cardigan over the ruffled blouse and green plaid skirt Joe liked. Swinging hands, they started out.
Previously they had decided that the Bow Street neighborhood was too expensive for them. They had been searching farther out. All Joe’s clippings from the paper today were for more distant places. But now, instead of taking the streetcar, they headed for the lakes.
“We’re at home in this part of town. Let’s give it a try,” Joe said.
The hoarfrost was gone. Sunshine gleamed on lawns and sidewalks. They crossed Hennepin Avenue at a small business district and were walking toward Lake of the Isles when Betsy stopped. She waved toward a short street that cut off a pie-shaped section of more important avenues.
“I think that Canoe Place is cute,” she said, “because it’s only a block long.”
Then she squealed, and Joe said, “Well, for crying out loud!” For on a lawn halfway down Canoe Place was a For Sale sign. They started to run.
The brown-and-yellow cottage was set on a very small lot. It didn’t have a barn or a garage. At the back rose the back of a tall apartment building, but there were only houses on Canoe Place itself. There were maple trees along it, and the cottage had a neat lawn, cut in two by a walk leading to the porch.
The porch was big; it was screened. “We could eat out there,” Betsy said, “all summer long.”
The porch door was locked and the house was plainly empty. They walked around to the left side and saw lofty leaded windows.
“They’ll be over a built-in buffet. That must be the dining room. The kitchen’s behind, probably,” Betsy decided.
On the right side were two large windows and one small leaded one. They peeked in on what was certainly a living room. The leaded window rose above a turn of the stairs.
They squinted at the upstairs windows.
“Must be three bedrooms,” Joe said.
They walked around in back and Betsy clutched Joe’s arm. “Darling! An apple tree!”
The apples were red, and there was a birdhouse in the branches.
The For Sale sign directed Joe and Betsy to a Mr. Munson on nearby Hennepin Avenue. They rushed off to find him.
Mr. Munson reminded them both of Mr. Ray.
“Yes, young folks, that’s a good little house.”
“What does it sell for?” Joe asked.
“Four thousand, five hundred.”
“We could stand good monthly payments,” Joe said. “And we’re responsible people. I’m on the Courier. But we can’t pay much down.”
“Just three hundred dollars,” Betsy put in.
Mr. Munson tapped his teeth thoughtfully with a pencil. “I don’t believe,” he said, “that the size of the down payment matters much in this case. The owners are old people; well fixed; going to California. I think it could be arranged.”
Joe looked at Betsy, blue eyes snapping. Her hazel eyes were snapping too, and color was dancing in her cheeks.
“Did you bring the check book, honey?”
“Yes, dear.” She drew it out of her bag.
“Whoa!” said Mr. Munson. “I can’t show you that house today. I can’t get a key until tomorrow.”
“We looked in the windows,” Betsy explained politely.
“They might as well have our three hundred dollars, sir,” said Joe, taking out his pen.
“I won’t cash that check,” said Mr. Munson, “until you can look through the house. Of course, it’s all right. It really is. A good hot water furnace. Hardwood floors.”
He stopped for they weren’t listening.
Joe was proudly waving the check to dry it, and Betsy looked off with dreamy eyes. She was thinking about the apple tree, and the apples. And the birdhouse, too, of course.
13
Night Life for the Willards
“NEXT SPRING,” SAID Mr. Ray, “I’ll make a cutting of that vine I brought from Deep Valley. I’ll plant it beside your front porch.”
He surveyed the new Willard home with a smiling satisfaction which was shared by all the Rays.
The Crowd inspected 7 Canoe Place with eager interest; Joe and Betsy were the first ones to buy a house. Everyone went upstairs and down through the shiny, empty rooms and even into the basement—all but Tib, who lingered in the kitchen.
“You could really cook here, Betsy,” she said. “I’ll come sometime and roast you a duck with apple dressing.”
Anna, too, when she came to help Betsy paper the shelves, smiled on the big, sunny room. “This is a good kitchen to have a cup of coffee in, lovey,” she said. And coffee they had often through September, sitting happily on packing boxes, for Joe and Betsy moved by degrees from the apartment to the new house.
They came over every day with linen for the linen closet, or clothes for the clothes closets, or just to walk proudly around their new domain.
“This,” Betsy said, standing in the smallest bedroom, “will be the study—until we need it for a nursery, that is. We’ll hang the Harvard etchings here.”
“And the long-legged bird,” said Joe.
“No, I’m going to write in our bedroom, beside the window that looks down on our apple tree.”
He nodded, munchi
ng one of the apples. “Wonderful flavor!” he remarked in an aside.
It was delightful, planning the rooms, but troubling, too. For the apartment furniture would make only a spatter in this mansion. And there were so many, many windows! White, ruffled curtains all over the house would be both charming and inexpensive, but rugs were a more serious matter. Betsy and her mother scoured the secondhand stores, ending triumphantly with two ancient orientals. In living room and dining room, their faded colors glowed.
The blue rug from the apartment would go into their bedroom, Joe and Betsy planned. And their white bedroom furniture would look very well there. But what would they put in the third bedroom, equally large, assigned to Aunt Ruth? Their savings were sinking like water in a sand hole. They had bought a dining room set on monthly payments.
“And there mustn’t be any more of that!” Betsy said.
The problem was still unsolved when their wedding anniversary came around.
Joe brought home a box of red roses and Betsy put one radiantly into her hair, but after dinner they went over to Canoe Place to settle their books in the built-in bookcases. They were busy with this blissful task when they heard a motor car. It was the Hawthornes.
“We just stopped by to tell you we remembered,” Mrs. Hawthorne said, in a mirthfully affectionate tone. “It’s paper, isn’t it, for the first anniversary?” She extended Donn Byrne’s Messer Marco Polo.
“Oh, thank you!” cried Betsy. “I haven’t read it.”
“I have. And I’m certainly glad to own it.”
“Well, where shall we put it?” Brad Hawthorne dropped down beside the pile of books. He and Joe began to browse, and Betsy showed Mrs. Hawthorne over the house. In Aunt Ruth’s room she explained:
“We’re still shopping for this one. We do want it to please her, but we can’t spend much. Joe and I just won’t go into debt.”
Mrs. Hawthorne looked around. “Does Aunt Ruth like old-fashioned things?”
“Oh, yes! She’s very old-fashioned.”
“Then we have just the set! It’s been gathering dust in our attic for years. Come on! We’ll go look at it.”
And, running downstairs, she and Betsy pulled the men into the motor car. At the tall peaked house among the oaks, they ran up two flights of stairs, joined by Sally Day in yellow pajamas.
The lofty headboard of the old black walnut bed was covered with ornate carving, and so were the bureau, the chest, and the washstand, which had a marble top.
“Of course, we’ll pay you for it,” Joe said.
“Nonsense!” Mrs. Hawthorne answered. “We’ve no use for it. I’ve just had a sentiment about giving it away. But you two seem like our own children.”
“Do me a favor! Take it!” her husband hissed.
“If you take it,” Sally Day chimed, “I’ll have more room for the circus I’m giving up here. I’m going to do tricks. Want to see some?”
“It’s all decided, and now we’ll celebrate with waffles.” Mrs. Hawthorne led the way to the kitchen.
She stirred up batter—Joe advised the addition of a sprinkle of nutmeg. He made coffee while Mr. Hawthorne read aloud from Penrod, and Betsy set the dining room table with green glass dishes trimmed in silver. Sally Day was sent to bed and came bouncing back, was sent to bed again and again came bouncing back, and at last was allowed one waffle—butter and syrup unlimited!
On the day the movers brought the furniture from the Willard apartment they went to the Hawthornes’ and picked up the old bedroom set.
It was thrilling to see the furniture put into place in the new house. Numerous bare spots remained, but Joe and Betsy filled them mentally with things which would come later—a piano here, a phonograph there, a couch…! The porch was still empty but it would be ridiculous, Betsy said, to furnish an open porch in the fall. Next spring they would buy a swing, and wicker chairs and tables.
Joe, who had taken the day off, rushed about with a tack hammer. Betsy rushed about with Goethe’s cup, Joe’s mother’s vase, the angel from Oberammergau, and other treasures she was afraid to put down.
Coal was delivered. It rattled into the basement bin and Joe ran down to watch while Betsy listened, smiling, to the cozy sound!
She was sweeping colored maple leaves off their front walk, when Joe came out briskly.
“I started a fire. We don’t really need it. But I thought I’d better get acquainted with that furnace.”
“It’s a fine idea,” Betsy said.
Eating baked beans and pumpkin pie that Anna had sent for their supper, they listened proudly to the sizzle of heat in their radiators. And before going to bed they went out on the porch and looked up at a misty moon.
“Joe!” said Betsy. “Isn’t it wonderful to have our own house?”
“Now that we’ve taken the plunge,” he confided, “I’m scared.”
“Now that we’ve taken the plunge, we’ll swim.”
“It may be hard swimming. Gol darn newspaper salaries!”
“You wouldn’t be anything but a newspaper man. And I wouldn’t have you be, until you can be an author.”
“I could use a raise,” Joe said dourly.
The next night when he came home for the first time to 7 Canoe Place, to candles on the dining room table and Betsy in a hastily-tied-on frothy apron, he was grinning, but the grin was dour.
“Well, the Lord and Brad Hawthorne helped us out! I have a raise.”
“Joe Willard!” Betsy hugged and shook him. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you pleased?”
“I am pleased. But it’s night work. Six to two.”
“Why, we won’t mind that! I’ll keep the same hours you do. It will be sort of interesting, working and living at night. Sit down and tell me about it.”
Joe sat down, frowning. “What I don’t like, really, is that I won’t be writing.”
“You won’t be writing!”
“I’ll be on the copy desk. I worked there while I was going to the U, you remember. I’m good at editing copy, writing heads.”
“But you’re good at writing stories, too. You’re wonderful! It isn’t worth the extra money,” Betsy cried indignantly.
“We can use ten dollars more a week. It will settle all our worries.” He reached out for her hand. “Don’t think I’m blue. This raise makes me think somehow that we’re doing the right thing.”
Betsy didn’t answer. It was strange, she thought, how things worked out. Something was given to you but something was taken away. An apple tree for an elm tree. A raise, but you lost the chance to do what you really wanted to do. Joe was a writer.
He was stroking her hand. “Maybe,” he said, “this new setup will give me more time for fiction.”
Betsy looked up. Her hazel eyes, which had been close to tears, grew luminous.
“Of course!” she said. “Of course! I was just trying to think it through. Good things come, but they’re never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.”
Joe laughed. “You have to wrestle with them,” he said. “Like Jacob with the angel.” Joe hadn’t gone to church very much but he knew the Bible better than Betsy did.
“What about Jacob and the angel?”
“Why, Jacob took a grip on him and said, ‘I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.’”
“Well, we won’t let this job go until it blesses you!” Betsy cried. “And I don’t mean any old ten dollars a week. You can sleep until noon and then go into that little study and shut the door and pound your typewriter…” She stopped, sniffed, and shrieked.
“My pork chops! Burning on!”
She dashed for the kitchen and Joe followed, chortling. “Well, at least it isn’t a meat pie!”
He was to begin his new work Sunday, and that afternoon Aunt Ruth arrived. She was welcomed according to Ray tradition—Willard tradition now—with a shining house, a gala dinner.
Following Tacy’s example, Betsy had long since learned a company dinner. Scalloped potatoes c
ooked with ham, canned peas, a moulded salad, muffins, and a lemon meringue pie. Everything but the muffins could be prepared ahead of time. She baked them after the return from the depot while Aunt Ruth rested.
Aunt Ruth seemed tired when Joe put her bulging bags down in her bedroom. She pushed back wisps of hair and looked around, almost bewildered, at the big soft bed under a snowy comforter, the old bureau with its bouquet of petunias, the washstand turned into a bedside table for magazines and a shaded lamp.
But she came down to dinner wearing a black silk dress with a handmade lace collar, her grayish hair smoothly brushed. She looked nice.
“The minute I touched that bed, I went to sleep,” she said. She was carrying presents for Joe and Betsy; a jar of watermelon pickles, pillow cases with crocheted lace edges, a big silver coffee pot.
“Alvin gave me that for our silver wedding, and I want you children to have it,” she said, smiling at their pleasure.
She didn’t eat much, but her eyes were bright as she looked around the pretty table.
Joe left for work—it was twilight and other husbands were coming home. Aunt Ruth went to bed early. The house seemed strange that night. But Betsy knew that she and Joe would adjust more easily to a third member in the household because their routine had changed so drastically.
As soon as Aunt Ruth seemed at home, Betsy began to keep Joe’s hours. They all shared an early dinner, and after the dishes were washed, Aunt Ruth crocheted. Betsy brought out her mending basket, but Aunt Ruth took possession of it.
“I’m used to mending,” she said.
Crocheting or mending, she wore a shawl, for no matter how warm the house was kept, Aunt Ruth was always cold. And through the long evenings, she talked and Betsy listened.
Betsy had loved her grandmother’s stories and she loved Aunt Ruth’s now. Stories about Joe’s father, about his beautiful mother, even about Joe when he was a baby. Stories about Uncle Alvin’s wooing, about the death—stillborn—of their only child, about the elopement of Aunt Ruth’s sister.