The Middle Moffat (22 page)

"Best friends" was over. At least so it seemed to Jane, for Nancy had not spoken to her in over a week. She had spoken
at
her—"Jane is a pain"—but not
to
her. Not since one night during a game of cops and robbers when Jane had sided with Beatrice in a dispute, instead of siding with Nancy.

The dispute arose over a question of boundary. Beatrice had gone past a certain house. Nancy said she should have gone up to that house, not past it. "Shouldn't she have, Jane?" And she appealed to Jane for support. Jane had hesitated before answering, because she liked to agree with Nancy. Then reluctantly she said she thought Beatrice was right. For she did really think so. But Nancy got mad at her and had not spoken since.

Today Jane remained in her seat when school was dismissed. The monitor wound up the Victrola, the music started, and Jane listened to the class march out. She had decided to stay and help the teacher clap the erasers and so give Nancy plenty of time to get out of sight before she started for home. She could not bear to hear Nancy shout, "Jane is a pain," and see her walk home with a big group of other children instead of with her, the way she used to when they were best friends.

First Jane leaned out the window and clapped the chalky erasers, trying not to get the dust in her nose and eyes. Then she washed the blackboards. One blackboard had a big chart on it where the teacher wrote in chalk the names of all the children who brought the first of wished her name was on the list.

Why was it, she wondered, that she was never the first one? She never got her name on the blackboard with something like this:

JANE M. HEPATICA APRIL 17

That's the way it would be if she were the first to find hepatica. But she never seemed to be the first to find hepatica or anything else. She had run in this morning with chickweed, only to see that someone else had brought it in just a few seconds before. She would have been content to be the first chickweed finder, or the first jill-in-the-grass finder. Nothing fancy like columbine or lady's slipper.

Maybe this afternoon she would look in the big lot across the street from home and find something. She and Nancy had been planning many trips to the top of Shingle Hill to look for wildflowers together. It was more fun to look for wildflowers with someone. Jane blinked back the tears. She hoped that by now Nancy was home.

But she wasn't. When Jane ran out of the schoolhouse, there was Nancy, talking to a group of girls.

"Jane is a pain!" she yelled lustily from the other side of the street. Jane walked home with as much dignity as she could muster, cheeks burning. Of course, she had to go home the long way. Now she could not take the shortcut through the little gate in Nancy's fence.

"Jane is a pain," she muttered. "I am not!" she angrily denied.

Jane felt cross and miserable, and it did not help her to feel better when Mama asked her to sweep down the stairs. Sweeping the stairs, dusting, washing dishes! These were Jane's regular jobs. Now she tramped up the stairs with the dustpan and brush. She made a big clatter and she skipped all the corners. In fact, she was through in just a couple of minutes.

When she went into the dining room, Mama was basting together a new middy blouse for her.

"Why do you baste first?" Jane asked. "When I sew for my dolls, I just sew, I don't baste first."

"Well," said Mama, "a good sewer bastes first. And I always say it's better to try and do a good job, or at least do the best you can, no matter what the job is. Otherwise what's the sense of doing it at all?"

Jane was silent. She wiggled her toes around in her shoes, feeling slightly guilty about the stairs. She went back and looked at them. Why do a job at all unless you do a good one? She certainly had done a terrible job on the stairs. Should she do them over? Well ... tomorrow she would do them right. She would not leave even one tiny, teeniest speck of dirt in the corners. She would get something as little as a paintbrush and get out every single speck from every corner.

After dinner, when all the dishes were washed and dried and put away, Jane sat down on the top step of the little square porch. It was quite dark now. Daylight was gone. Tomorrow they were going to begin saving daylight. Daylight saving time. And how could they save daylight? Jane wondered. When she first heard about saving daylight she had thought,
What a wonderful idea!
She envisioned an enormous storage box where the daylight could be saved and let out bit by bit as needed, particularly during the cold winter afternoons when an extra bit of daylight would come in very handy. If the gas meter ran out, and the Moffats did not have a quarter in the house, and the oil for the lamps was gone, all they would have to do would be to let a little daylight out of the box.

However, that was not what daylight saving time meant. It meant pushing the clock ahead an hour, calling it four o'clock when it was really three. Mama said this, too, saved quarters. But Jane was disappointed there would be no big box of daylight.

Even so, tomorrow daylight saving time began. It was an important day. Maybe it was as important as New Year's Day. Jane wondered if Nancy thought so.

If she did, she might make a resolution, the way people did for New Year's, to stop being mad at Janey Moffat, to stop yelling "Jane is a pain," and to start being best friends again.

Was "best friends" going to be over for good? Jane frowned back her tears. No more cops and robbers, or hide-and-go-seek, and playing in the house with the slippery floors?

Jane listened to the shouts that came from Nancy Stokes's yard. Over there all the children were having a good game of hide-and-go-seek.

"Any-body-roun'-my-goal-is-it!" Jane heard Nancy yell.

Jane swallowed hard. But goodness! She should be getting used to having Nancy not speaking to her anymore.

"All in! All in!" She heard Nancy's voice again.

Jane stared at the sky. There was no moon tonight, but millions and millions of stars pressing into the sky! The harder Jane looked, the more stars seemed to try to elbow into the heavens. So many stars!

Jane closed her eyes. She put her head in her lap. What a perfect night for a game like hide-and-go-seek or cops and robbers with Nancy Stokes.

Usually Nancy was right. Why not go over there now and say she thought Nancy was right after all that night? Then they could be best friends again. But she couldn't do that because in the first place it wasn't so. She didn't think Nancy was right that time.

"Beefsteak! Beefsteak!" she heard the children yell.

Jane cupped her chin in her hands and looked at the sky. "Please let Nancy think daylight saving time day is like New Year's and let her make a resolution not to be mad at me anymore," said Jane.

Someone came scuffling up the walk. It was Joey. Sparks flew out in the night from his heavy shoes.

"Hello," he said. "Gee, some night, isn't it?"

"M-m-m," said Jane.

"Come home! Come home! Wherever you are!" they heard the children yell.

"Sounds like a good game," said Joe. "Don't you want to play?"

"No!" said Jane defiantly.

Joe first stamped his feet to shake off some of the ashes from the oldest inhabitant's cellar. Although tonight was a soft warm spring evening, he had made a little fire just to take the chill off the house. Then Joey went indoors. Some of the sounds and the light inside came out for a second, and then it was darker and more lonely than ever outside.

"Come home! Come home! Wherever you are!" Jane heard Nancy's voice again. It was louder and clearer than anybody's. Suppose she went over and "ran in," and pretended that she had been playing all the while. But no. Nancy would yell, "Jane is a pain."

Maybe she should get a new best friend. Clara Pringle? Once or twice lately she had played with Clara. But Clara did not have the bravery Nancy had.

Or perhaps she should begin to live the way she used to live before she ever had a best friend, before she knew Nancy at all. Then there were just the four Moffats. There was always Joe or Rufus or Sylvie, or all three, to play with. Now everything was different.

Look at Sylvie! Practically a grown-up, graduating from high school soon, the valedictorian. And besides that, she got love letters, you might as well call them that, from some redheaded sailor who had not even set eyes on her since they were in Room Four together. Now when he was way out at sea, he remembered her long curls. Sylvie hardly remembered him. But she liked to get his letters. Naturally.... She was sweet sixteen.