Newspapers / The Elkin Tribune (Elkin, … / Jan. 13, 1944, edition 1 / Page 15
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TH£li£IS TOM JOSEPHINE LAWRENCE/ CHAPTER VII Big-hearted Sarah Daffodil acts in every capacity for the four-family house in Garset af ter her husband’s death. The frugal, elderly Mr. and Mrs. Peppercorn and the newly-weds Andrew and Candace Thane oc cupy the two top-floor apart ments and below them middle aged Bert Pitts and his wife — who is too engrossed in war ac tivities to care for her home — and King Waters, veteran of World War I, and his wife Em ma, a devotee of fine crochet ing. The Thanes plan to invite six couples to their Thanksgiv ing feast and great preparations are afoot! His wife nodded. It didn’t make sense, she soothed him, perhaps it was quite true that many of the tasks she had Zither perform, or helped her to perform, would pass unnoticed and in any case would not compensate if the dinner fail ed “But I do think, Andy,” main tained the clear voice, “that eve ryone is more at ease in a house that is clean and in order. Not stiff, mind you, but livably neat. It’s more a feeling than a matter of actual vision, or perhaps it is only that the hostess is more re laxed if she knows her house is clean.” * * * The cash grocery store, Sarah Daffodil relfected, might lack the props of the old-time general store and might operate on a shorter day, but its atmosphere, clientele and social advantages, with some allowance for general alterations, remained essentially unchanged. Tonight as she waited in the background of the late shoppers she i saw most of her tenants in the group pressing purposefully up against the counters. King Waters was buying meat, Toni Pitts stood counting oranges into a bag. Be fore the dairy counter Mr. and Mrs. Peppercorn, Doggie tucked securely under the old man’s arm, watched the scales as the clerk cut a pound of tub butter for them. “Awful, trying to get waited on, isn’t it?” Toni Fitts had spied Sarah. “I’m having soup and orange salad tonight, nothing else. It's so hard to keep food from ac cumulating, but we’re going away for Thanksgiving — down to At lantic City. Bert’s taking me for a rest.” She had been working day and night, she asserted, try ing to be fair to every organiza tion, anxious to do her best for each. “And fancy, they want us to ask some of the Service men for Thanksgiving dinner. Selectees from camp. I simply couldn’t un dertake another thing and Bert put his foot down.” It’s a good story, if one can imagine Bert Fitts putting his foot down, Sarah reflected. I can’t. “Hello, Mr. Waters—you’re luckier than I am, for you’re on your way out.” King Waters removed his hat, smiled mechanically. “Thanks giving rush, I guess. I hope you’re planning a pleasant day, Mrs. Daffodil. My wife and I are din ing with an old friend of mine— a buddy who saw service abroad with me.” “Yes, I think of good old Bar rows, every time I see the war news,” King Waters was saying biskly. “He’s in the Reserve and likely more serious. I had lunch with Barrows last week and he said he didn’t know how the Gov ernment could use him — he has fallen arches, sinus trouble, his arteries are in bad shape and he has been out of active business for several years. But he said to 1. Orange* Crush t.m neo u * on CARBONATED BEVERAGE AMERICA'S LEADING BOTTLED ORANGE DRINK Bottled By NORTH WILKESBORO COCA-COLA BOTTLING COi. me, ‘King, if Uncle Sam needs me, if my country calls, I’ll go.’ I suppose he’ll get a desk job in Washington and release a young er man for field service. The sal ary,” Waters added contempla tively, “would be a godsend to him.” She couldn’t help wondering, Sarah murmured knowing that she had no business to wonder, if it wasn’t a reserve officer’s pa triotic duty to keep himself ip good physicial shape. “He’d be more of an asset if he were half way fit.” No one could expect a veteran to be as resilient as a younger man, Waters reproved. Physical deterioration wasn’t serious, where the mind remained unim paired. “Barrows won’t have to endure long marches or be under fire — it’s the youngsters’ turn to undergo all that. We served our time at it.” As she watched him make his way to the door, Sarah told her self that she understood how such complacency drove younger people to profane and rude re torts. Sarah Daffodil considered the question of waiting on herself to save the clerk’s time, but the Peppercorns were coming toward her, all smiles. Doggie’s tail wag ged in friendly greeting, too. “The store looks so nice!” Old Mrs. Peppercorn beamed. Her black coat, cut full like a cape, seemed to weigh her down and it’s hem almost touched the floor. She went on to say that she loved to smell the freshly ground coffee and to see the bright colors of the oranges and lemons, the bunches of yellow bananas, the mountains of polished apples. “It makes you hungry for Thanksgiv ing dinner,” she said. Their Thanksgiving? Oh, yes, they were invited out, she replied happily, answering Sarah’s ques tion. Hen, the junkman, had promised to provide a complete dinner for the family he had be friended and who occupied the second floor of his house still. “They get along,” chimed in old Mr. Peppercorn, “hut they don’t have many luxuries, that’s to be expected. Hen has no family of his own and he got the idea that he’d like to get up a turkey din ner with all the fixings. Mother and me are going down to his house to cook it. He’s got a right nice kitchen down there, gas stove and all. You’d be surprised to see how handy he is at housekeeping, though of course a real Thanks giving dinner is a little too much for him to tackle all alone.” Zither, when she came at one o’clock Thanksgiving Day, re ported that the wind was raw and felt like snow, she still disliked to answer bells or to speak to strangers, but now that she had accustomed herself to the Thanes, she sometimes talked a good deal while she worked. One had to listen attentively to hear her, for "she spoke faintly and unless she faced her listener many of her words, as Andy complained, seem ed to fall back into her throat. If she had something to say, she was likely to say it whether she had1 auditors or not, but this, Candace insisted, should not be regarded as talking to herself. “If no one’s there and she starts a conversation, who’s she talking to if she isn’t talking to herself?” Andy not unreasonably demand ed. She couldn’t explain it properly, Candace informed him,*but it was not the same as talking to one self. “It’s different. You needn’t hoot — what I mean is that if Zither talks she’s talking to me, whether I’m there or not. It’s the way she talks at home, I think— whenever she has something to say she says it and takes a chance that someone will hear her say it. You get the impression that she isn’t terribly important in her auntie’s household, even if she does help finance it.” To Candace there was some thing pathetic in the colored girl’s admiration of the pretty, conven ient kitchen and the simple furn ishings of the other rooms. Zither was as eager to be a success as the young host and hostess whose anxiety she shared. I could’t do all this for someone else, not un less I had something of my own to go home to, Candace thought watching Zither’s absorbed face as she counted out the dessert plates. Leila Orton and Kurt Hermann arrived first because Kurt, Leila said, was still on daylight saving time. “He liked it last Summer and he sees no reason for ever changing anything he once liked.” Thinner and more beautiful than ever, Leila in her almohd green sweater and matching skirt looked, Andy told her apprecia tively, like an endorsement for a cojd cream advertisement. She wore her thick hair parted in the center and knotted low on her neck. Kurt, she remarked casually, hated a fussy hair-do. The arrival of Minnie Davis and Halsey Kenneth set Andy to mix ing highballs and a few minutes later Muriel Wright rang the doorbell. She was alone and look ed pinched and cold. “Isn’t Hugh here?” She gazed nervously around the room after the intro ductions. “He was to meet me—I gave him the address.” Her hus band, she murmured, had gone uptown to see an old friend. “Give him time, give him time,” Andy’s placid voice advised her. “Here’s your warmer-upper, Muri el. it’s all right to call you Muriel, Dace said, if you don’t mind.” Muriel Wright was rather large, pleasant-facen and looked older than the other women, perhaps because she wore glasses. Every thing she had on, dress, shoes, even her too tight permanent, ap peared to be new — Candace sur mised that she had spent money, perhaps saved with difficulty, to make herself attractive for her husband’s return. They had had one round of highballs and Zither was mani festing uneasiness about the din ner, when the house phone rang. Someone asked to speak to Mrs. Wright on the outside phone, Sar ah Daffodil said. She. had just locked her door, ready to start for her dinner engagement, when the ringing bell had called her back. Andy took Muriel down to the first floor, waited for her in the hall. When they returned, the girl’s embarrassment was evident. “I don’t know what you’ll think, Dace — Hugh isn’t coming.” She sounded close to tears. “These people he went to see have ask&l him to stay for dinner and go to a show. I told him we’d already accepted your invitation and that we were waiting dinner for him, but he — well, he wants to go to the show. I don’t know what to say, Dace, there isn’t anything I can say to excuse him.” But after they were seated, with the silver at Hugh’s place hastily removed and the colorful fruit cups before each guest, Muriel made one more attempt. It was because Hugh was a soldier, she declared, the Army did nothing to foster unselfishness in the man in service. “I suppose when they have to sacrifice so much, nothing should be asked of'them. Hugh has forgotten how to be a hus band — he’s so used now to hav ing a fuss made over him that he thinks he can get away with any thing he chooses to do.” The yellow candles burned steadily, their shining light re flected in Candace’s great, soft eyes. “I think that thousands of men who see service will find it hard to settle down to normal, or dinary living,” she agreed. “Sure,” Halsey Kenneth put down his fork. “You take the Air Corps. Aviators get a dozen thril’s a day, every flight is a gorgeous, pulse-racing adventure. Those fel lows won’t be able to settle down to a humdrum existence, once they’re discharged. They’ll be restless, always wanting to be on the go, Impatient of drudgery, eating their hearts out for the spectacular.” ‘‘What are you trying to do— scare Dace?” Leila Orton chal lenged belligerently. She didn’t scare worth a cent, Dace smiled as Zither brought in the turkey. “The secret is to mar ry your man first — ahead of camp, or ahead of war. If he’s a husband before he’s a soldier — well, I think you both have a greater chance of being happy when he comes back.” After dinner, when the living room had been restored to its sin gle function and the brightly blazing fire drew the group to sit in a semicircle around the hearth, Minnie said that her brother would soon be called for selective training. "It’s all right to say for a year — call it a year’s training, if it makes you feel any better. He’s lived through a depression and maybe we will live through a war.” “I wonder if ours is the lost generation you hear about.” Hal sey Kenneth lighted a cigarette for her, avoiding her eyes. Muriel Wright, her face turned from the first, laughed cynically. “Generations have been lost for the last thirty .years, haven’t they? It’s an old story.” “No—Minnie’s right,” Andy said and for all his calmness he man aged to gain their attention. “We —the ones who got out of high school between 1830 and 1935 — have played out of luck. That’s not a whine, just a statement of fact. We tramped our feet off looking for jobs, and those we got were poorly paid and led nowhere. We couldn’t marry, because we had to help out at home, for no one had much work. Between our dependents and our small wages Dace and I had to stay engaged three years. Nobody’s fault — we just didn’t get the raisins when our cake was sliced.” (To Be Continued) REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR! 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The Elkin Tribune (Elkin, N.C.)
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Jan. 13, 1944, edition 1
15
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