The Egg and I (18 page)

Then came spring and the Stove Man. Along in January, Stove developed virulent digestive trouble. In fact, where his grate had been there was a gaping hole and I had to build my fire like a blazing fringe around the edge. Stove was "taken" in January, but it was March before anything was done about it. We of the mountains didn't dash into town for a new grate. We wore our already taut nerves to within a hair of the snapping point trying to cook on the circle of fire or that faint warm draught that wafted from the ash pit down around Stove's feet, where the pieces of grate and all of the wood had fallen, and waited for a mythical character known as the Stove Man who was supposed to make rounds in the spring.

One morning I had reached the stage where I was craftily planning to chop up a chair or two and build a fire in the sink in an effort to drive Bob to some immediate action, when the Stove Man arrived. With him also were a truckload of stove parts and tools, his wife and three-year-old daughter. Stove Man quickly disembowled Stove, something which I had been longing to do to that big black stinker all winter, spread the entrails all over the kitchen floor and went out to the chicken house to point out to Bob the many opportunities for failure in the chicken business.

This black-future attitude was not from any manic depressive tendencies on the part of Stove Man, but was the reflected attitude of the farmer. The farmers wanted to be sad and they wanted everyone who called on them to be sad. If your neighbor's chickens were each laying a double-yolked egg every single day, all of his cows had just had heifer calves, his mortgage was all paid, his wheat was producing a bushel per stalk and he had just discovered an oil gusher on the north forty, you did not mention any of these gladsome happenings. Instead, when you looked at the chickens, you said, "A heavy lay makes hens weak and liable to disease." The neighbor, kicking sulkily at the feed trough, would reply, "Brings the price of eggs down too."

When you went into the barn you looked over the heifer calves and said, "Lots of t.b. in the valley this year. Some herds as high as 50 per cent." The neighbor said, "Contagious abortion is around too." Leaning morbidly on the fence around the groaning wheat fields, you said, "A cloudburst could do a lot of damage here." The neighbor said, "A heavy rain in harvest time would ruin me." I learned that our farmers were like those women who get some sort of inverted enjoyment out of deprecating their own accomplishments—women who say "This cake turned out just terribly!" and then hand you a piece of angel food so light you have to hold it down to take a bite.

Our farmers were big saddos and our farmers' wives were delicate. Farmers' wives who had the strength, endurance and energy of locomotives and the appetites of dinosaurs were, according to them, so delicate that if you accidentally brushed against them they would turn brown like gardenias. They always felt poorly, took gallons of patent medicines and without exception they, and all of their progeny, were so tiny at birth that they slept in a cigar box and wore a wedding ring for a bracelet.

Stove Man's wife—"Just call me Myrtle"—and Darleen, the small white thready-limbed child, stayed in the house while Stove Man and Bob made their gloomy journey around the ranch. As lunchtime approached with Stove still in surgery, Myrtle and I, accompanied by the drop, drop, drop of her leaky heart, made sandwiches and brewed tea over some canned heat. I offered to warm some soup or vegetables for Darleen, but Myrtle demurred with "That kid eats anything—strong as a horse."

The horse ate for her lunch one white soda cracker and a sweet pickle; then hung on the back of her mother's chair and whined. Not bothering to turn around and not missing a mouthful, Myrtle comforted her with threats of "I'll warm your bottom"; "I'll turn you over to your Dad"; "I'll lock you in the truck"; "I'll send for the bogey man"—all of which Darleen ignored and kept on swinging and whining. In desperation, I suggested a nap, but Myrtle said, "That kid has never took a nap since she was weaned—just don't need sleep—strong as a horse." Even though Darleen looked like something they had whipped up out of pipe cleaners, she certainly had endurance. She whined and swung until after five, when they left.

Much to my surprise Mr. Myrtle became very businesslike after lunch and put Stove back together with new grates and a new, more thorough ash shaker. Unfortunately Myrtle also became businesslike and insisted on cutting out dresses for small Anne from the eight lengths of dimity and nainsook I had brought from town the day before. I had patterns but she scoffed at these as totally unnecessary for children's clothes.

When I came in from one of my various trips to the chicken-house, baby buggy, feed room or coldframe, I found Myrtle slashing out the last dress. She stacked the cut-out garments, took Darleen to the outhouse and, with "See you next year if my heart holds out"—"Quit that, Darleen, or I'll smack you!"—"Hope the stove holds together," they were gone.

After dinner that night I examined the ready-to-sew dresses. Something seemed to be wrong. There were eight large round pieces of material—one from each length—and eight rims from which the circles were cut. I was unable to determine which were the dresses and which the scraps. I laid small obliging Anne on the bed and tried to fit her into these strange pieces, but all we were able to work out were the foundations for eight old-fashioned sweeping caps and matching ruffles for Anne's fat posterior.

Either Myrtle had a splendid idea which I was too stupid to grasp or Anne was the wrong shape. "Oh, well, see you next year, Myrtle," I said, dusting off the bedside table with one of the circles and putting the rest away in my bottom drawer, where they remained as long as we lived on the ranch.

For several weeks after the visit of the Stove Man the weather was clear and bright and we worked like maniacs to get caught up with Spring, which raced ahead of us each day, unfolding new tasks for us to do and cautioning us about leaving the old ones too long. Each night Bob drove the truck down into a small valley below the house and filled ten, ten-gallon milk cans with water, and the next morning as soon as I was dressed I filled Stove's reservoir and my wash boiler, and between chores I washed all day long. The clothes billowed and flapped whitely against the delphinium blue sky and the black green hills, and at night I brought in armloads of clean clothes smelling of blossoms and breezes and
dry
.

For three weeks I washed all day and ironed every night and felt just like the miller's daughter in Rumpelstiltskin, for there was always more. After all, I had been heaping dirty clothes in the extra bedroom ever since September and only washing what we had to have and what I could dry over Stove. After the baby came, I had to wash for her every day, so I threw everything into the extra bedroom. Finally one morning I found the room empty. I tottered back to the kitchen and emptied the wash boiler into the sink and collapsed by Stove. Immediately the sun was obscured by a heavy dark cloud, a wind came swooshing out of the burn; there was a light patter of rain and I fell asleep.

Like coming to the surface after a deep, deep dive, I came at last to the top of my sleep and heard hammering at the back door. I drifted through a heavy mist to the entryway and opened the door. It was the Rawleigh Man, who burst in and snapped me to attention by looking deep into my eyes, and saying, "I heard you got a new baby, organs all back in place O.K.?"

The Rawleigh Man sold spices, hand lotions, patent medicines, coffee, soap, lice powder, flea powder, perfume, chocolate—all kinds of dandy things—and in addition he fancied himself a self-made physician and asked the most intimate and personal questions as he opened his truck and brought out his wares. After I had put his mind at rest about my organs he told me all about his hernia and I'm sure would have showed it to me if I had been a customer of a little longer standing. He told me about a bad ovarian tumor up north, a tipped uterus near "Town," some incurable cases of constipation in the West Valley and a batch of ringworm down near Docktown which had resisted every salve he had.

I made him a cup of coffee and a ham sandwich and he asked me every detail of Anne's birth. He was pleased that I had gone to the "Town" hospital instead of going to the city. He couldn't have been any more pleased than I, for never in my life have I spent such a delightful two weeks.

The "Town" hospital, run by Sisters, was on a high bluff overlooking the Sound. My room had a ceiling about sixteen feet high, inside shutters on the four tall windows, which faced the sound, old-fashioned curly maple furniture, a bathroom with a chain pull toilet, and pale yellow walls. The Sisters had their own cows, chickens, turkeys, and garden. They baked all of their own bread and thought nothing of bringing a breakfast tray with home-canned raspberries that tasted so fresh I could almost see the dew on them, a thick pink slice of home cured ham, scrambled eggs, hot rolls so feathery I wanted to powder my back with them, hot strong coffee and cream I had to gouge out of the pitcher. They further spoiled me for any other hospital by having homemade ice cream and fried chicken on Sundays and by bringing me tea and hot gingerbread or chocolate cake or rock cookies in the middle of the morning. In the evenings the dear little Sisters brought their sewing to my room and we talked and laughed until the Mother Superior shooed them out and turned out my light. The prospect of two weeks in that heavenly place tempted me to stay pregnant all the rest of my life, but in spite of the coziness of our relationship I did not tell this to the Rawleigh Man.

Other door-to-door sellers were the nursery men, who identified our fruit trees for us and sold us English walnut, filbert, chestnut, apricot and peach trees; the shoe salesmen, who carried no samples, only pictures, and when the brown moccasin-toed oxfords I ordered came, I found out why. The shoes were sturdy—thick-soled—heavy stiff leather—strong sewing—(Gammy would have said they were "baked" together)—firm lining—but they were never intended to be worn. They were so full of tongues and lining and sewing that there was no place for the foot. A person with a more fleshy, less bony foot than mine, might have been able to get one on, but I doubt it. I put trees in them and put them in the closet where they gathered dust until Anne began to crawl. She found them one day and from then on they were her favorite toy. She filled them with blocks and dragged them around like little wagons and a sturdier, more lasting plaything has yet to be devised.

One of the outstanding things about these factory-to-you sellers was their friendly, non-commercial attitude. Money was not important at all. All business was transacted on the cuff and if you had the money in the house when the goods came, fine; if you didn't, you could pay next time. It was so easy and pleasant, with everyone staying for supper or lunch, that we naturally bought more than we needed and in many cases more than we could afford. That was one thing about mail order: you had to send the money with the order and it was hard on people like me who were suckers for deals like "A four-pound jar of Clover Cleansing Cream for only $4.98—pay when delivered" (or when you can).

There were also a Corset Lady and a Housedress Lady. They travelled together and one squeezed me into a corset and the other jammed me into a housedress. The Corset Lady had piercing black eyes and a large bust and stomach apparently encased in steel, for when I brushed against her it was like bumping into our oil drum. She was such a high-pressure saleswoman that almost before she had turned off the ignition of her car I found myself in my bedroom in my "naked strip" being forced into a foundation garment. First she rolled it up like a life preserver, then I stepped through the leg holes, then she slowly and painfully unrolled it up over my thighs, hips and stomach until she reached my top—then she had me bend over and she slipped straps over my arms and then snapped me to a standing position. My legs were squashed so tightly together I couldn't walk a step and I had to hold my chin up in the air for my bust was in the vicinity of my shoulders.

"Look, Ella," the Corset Lady called to the Housedress Lady, "Don't she look grand?"

The Housedress Lady, who looked just like the Corset Lady except that she had piercing blue eyes, said, "That's a world of improvement, dear. A world!"

I inched over to the mirror and looked. At that time I was thin as a needle and, encased in the foundation garment, I resembled nothing so much as a test tube with something bubbling out the top. Even if I had looked "grand," I had to walk and I wanted to lower my head occasionally, so I took off the foundation garment much more quickly and not nearly so carefully as it had been put on me. The Corset Lady was furious and made no effort to conceal it. While the Housedress Lady was showing me her wares, the Corset Lady sat in a kitchen chair, legs wide apart—but stomach in, bust up—and gazed stonily out the window. Some of the housedresses were quite pretty although electric blue and lavender were the predominating colors, and they were very reasonably priced. I ordered four and two pairs of silk stockings which turned out to be outsize, so I gave them to Mrs. Kettle.

There may have been others, but they were the transients, not the regular door-to-door sellers and not important. I believe that this bringing the store to you, instead of your going to the store, is a fine idea and is a strong factor in breeding contentment. After all, if you know that the Rawleigh Man carries only Field Clover and Wild Rose perfumes, you aren't going to go around whining for Chanel #5; and if you know that the Housedress Lady has nothing but electric blue, you're going to darn well learn to like it or wear feed sacks. Anyway, it takes the sting out of it if you know that all over the mountains and up and down the valleys all of the women are going to be wearing electric blue housedresses and smelling like Field Clover and Wild Rose.

SUMMER