The Moffats (15 page)

"Took pennies right out of her hand?" Rufus reminded her impatiently.

"Indeed he did. Right out of her hand. She loved it." And again Mama fell silent in her memories until Rufus urged, "Go on, Mama."

"Well, one day when the organ-grinder and his monkey came along, Nora wasn't sitting up there in her usual place by the window. And do you know that monkey missed her! He climbed right up to the second floor and right into our house. When he didn't find her in the front room, he kept looking until he did find her in bed in the back room. He sat on the edge of the bed and made funny faces at Nora. Then he hung by his tail from the gas jet for the longest time. She just screamed with laughter and clapped her hands. The more she laughed the more fancy tricks he did.

"Then, mind you, he paraded around the room bowing and nodding and finally fetched up short right on her bed. He took off his hat then for his usual reward. Well, of course, Nora didn't have any pennies near her and she couldn't get up to get one. So she took a white rose from the vase beside her, broke off the thorns, and gave it to him.

"Oh, he did look comical as he backed out of her room, bowing and scraping with the white rose in his mouth (she told us all about it afterward). And all the children cheered when he poked his head out of the window, proud as a peacock with that rose. Yes, he sat up there for the longest time, smelling his rose and smelling his rose. The more the children laughed and screamed, the more he smelled his rose. At last he put it in his mouth and climbed down and off they went, the hurdy-gurdy man playing as he left and the monkey sitting on the organ with the rose in his mouth and waving his hat at us all. Oh, he was a comical one," laughed Mama, wiping her eyes with a corner of her blue-checked apron.

Tale after tale she told him of when she was little in New York. The magic names she knew! Lillie Langtry! Ada Rehan, the sweetest of them all, acting down at the Booth! Adelina Patti at the Metropolitan Opera House! "Of course we had to sit way up, way up ... it's bigger than anything you can imagine. But we had opera glasses and could see the elegant people in the boxes in their furs and jewels. I used to go with my cousin Julius. He was a great tease and called himself Julius Hausenchausenpschutzler..." Here, roars of delight from Rufus, who never could hear that name without nearly splitting himself in the middle with laughter.

There was no end to her stories.

"Tell about when you learned to ride a bicycle, Mama," Rufus said.

"Oh, that time," laughed Mama, shaking down the potbellied stove with a firm hand.

"Tell me, tell me," called Rufus.

"Well then," said Mama, "I'd saved my money and saved my money. What shall I buy, I wondered? I'll buy a bicycle, I thought. So I did. It was very handsome, a bright blue to match my eyes. And I bought a sailor suit, a little deeper blue, to wear when I went bicycling. Oh, it was very handsome, with white braid and all. Well, those bicycles in those days were very different from Joe's. We had a big wheel in front and a tiny one behind."

"Could they go faster?" asked Rufus.

"Well, they could go fast enough, as you shall hear. Some bicycles were made for two. You know that song,

'On a bicycle built for two...'

But mine wasn't. It was a singleton, just for me. So I practiced on it around Washington Square. Then after a few days I said to myself, 'I'm good enough for Fifth Avenue now.' So I rode onto Fifth Avenue and got going fine. Indeed, I got going too fine, because as I was sailing past a traffic policeman, he yelled at me:

"'Hey, stop! You're speeding.'

"'I can't,' said I. 'I'm just learning.' And by that time I was a block away and I couldn't stop until I'd reached the old Brevoort House. Then I walked my bike back to the policeman. I didn't want to make him angry since I wanted to ride on Fifth Avenue every day."

"Did he arrest you?" asked Rufus eagerly.

"No. He just said to take it easy and he complained about the traffic problem all us bicyclists caused. I wonder what he thinks of all these newfangled automobiles? Ah, they'll never be as handsome as the horses and broughams, I tell you," she said, smoothing out his pillows.

"Now can I get up?" demanded Rufus.

"No. Not today. But soon. And see! I'm going to move your bed to a different position. Then you can watch the others in the kitchen and besides, you'll get a better view out of this window onto the porch. The frost is beginning to thaw a little and soon you'll be able to see out altogether. There! How's that now?" she asked, puffing a little from the exertion.

"All right, but I wish I could get up," said Rufus.

Jane was sitting with her feet in the oven, warming them. She had gotten them wet building a snowman with Rufus. It was good to have Rufus to play with again. For now Rufus was all over the scarlet fever. He was back at school. They were all back at school. Several colonies had been settled in Janey's absence. Hard words like
squirrel
and
school
had been taken up in Rufus's class; and Washington had crossed the Delaware in Joe's. Sylvie was back at choir rehearsals. And now the children could go anywhere they liked in the whole block, in the whole town, in fact. Most important of all the Scarlet Fever sign was off the door. If only they had taken that old For Sale sign down, too, thought Jane.

"Mama, do you think, now that we're not contagious anymore, that someone will come and buy our house?"

"Someone might, but let's hope not until the cold weather is over anyway," replied Mama.

"Well, why couldn't we have left the Scarlet Fever sign on the door so no one would want to buy this house?" asked Jane.

"You couldn't have gone to school then. Not as long as the Scarlet Fever sign was on the door. Would you like that?"

"No-o-o, I s'pose not," answered Jane thoughtfully. She felt her toes. They seemed to be quite dry, so she went into the Grape Room to cut out a cardboard sole to fit in her shoes, which had worn a hole right through to the ground.

The Moffats were feeling the pinch of hard times this winter. The quarter meter ate up the quarters for gas so quickly—and coal! "A lump of coal is
as
valuable as a gold nugget," Mama said. Joe had to sift the ashes and resift them for possible good coals.

"Are we poverty-stricken, Mama?" Jane asked, returning to the kitchen with her new sole comfortably in place.

"No, Janey. Not poverty-stricken," said Mama soberly, and stroking Janey's cheek, "not poverty-stricken, just..."

"Rich, then?" asked Jane.

"No. Not rich, either, nor well-to-do, just poor..." answered Mama.

This satisfied Jane, for she thought if they were poverty-stricken she would have to go out into the cold and into the streets and sell matches like the little match girl. But she knew from the way the silver coins left Mama's hands when she was paying for the potatoes that fingers and coins parted company reluctantly. And the truth is, Mama was having to be a very careful manager to make ends meet. She had not been able to do any sewing while Rufus had scarlet fever. Moreover, the ladies in the town of Cranbury decided they would have to do without new dresses since times were so bad. They said, "Why have a gown made by hand when you can really pick them up so inexpensively in the shops nowadays?" There were many days when Mama and Madame had no sewing to do at all. Miss Chichester was the only steady customer and that was because there was that arrangement about the dancing lessons.

But finally, thank goodness, someone had decided that the little boys in town should organize into a Naval Reserve Corps. Joe was in it, and Mama was to make all the white sailor suits. This was a job! Fifty of them! For days and weeks Madame had looked altogether ridiculous with white middy blouses on her shoulders.

"Here," said Mama to Joe when he came in from school that afternoon. "Take this five-dollar bill and buy a bushel of coal. Count the change very carefully. That's the last bill we'll have until these sailor suits are ready."

Jane said she would go with Joe. Rufus wanted to go, too, but Mama said he couldn't. He had played outdoors enough for one day, as he didn't have all his strength back yet after his illness.

Joe dragged Jane over the hard icy pavement on his Flexible Flyer sled. She sat on the empty burlap bag that was to hold the coal. The short winter day was already breathlessly hurrying to an end. A strong wind had arisen and the going was difficult. The lamplighter was already making his rounds. Otherwise, very few people were on the street this cold day, and they were muffled up like mummies. They passed Peter Frost. He was belly flopping on his Flexible Flyer.

"Hello, Moffats," he said sneeringly, pretending he was going to bump smack into them but veering quickly aside just before crashing. His tone had improved very little since the ghost in the attic, but at least he no longer pulled Sylvie's curls and Jane's braids. He didn't honk his bicycle siren right in their ears, nor did he bark like a dog at Catherine-the-cat. On the whole, he treated all the Moffats with just a shade more respect.

Joe and Jane did not answer but trudged on. The wind made their scarves flutter madly and tried to snatch their hats from their heads. It put bright red spots on the ends of their noses, but it couldn't get at their ears, for Joe's furlined muffs prevented that, as did Jane's hand-crocheted red woolen tam.

"Be easier comin' back," shouted Joe, his breath coming out in white puffs.

They stopped for a few minutes in the shelter of a fruit and grocery store. The lights from the window shone on the ice and snow. Jane and Joey pressed their faces against the window and looked hungrily at the oranges, apples, tangerines, and grapefruit.

"Oh, my mouth's waterin' so," said Jane. "I can't see a window full of oranges without my mouth just waterin' and waterin'."

"Me—apples," put in Joe, thinking of the crunch of putting his teeth into one of them.

"Oh, come on, come on," said Jane, dancing up and down, for her chilblains hurt her. "I can't abide to look at those oranges any longer."