To Sail Beyond the Sunset (16 page)

Do let children welcome him; don’t let them smother him. He wants a mother for his children…but he wants a willing and available concubine, too. If you are not she, he will find one elsewhere.

Another commandment—Promises must be kept—especially ones made to children. So think three times before making one. In case of tiniest doubt, don’t promise.

Above all, don’t save up punishments “until your father comes home.”

Many of these rules did not yet apply when I had only one baby and that one still in diapers. But I did think out most of my rules ahead of time and then wrote them down in my private journal. Father had warned me that I had no moral sense; therefore it would be necessary to anticipate decisions I would have to make. I could not depend on that little voice of conscience to guide me on an ad hoc basis; I did not have that little voice. Therefore I would have to reason things out instead, ahead of time, forming rules of conduct somewhat like the Ten Commandments, only more so, and without the glaring defects of an ancient tribal code intended only for barbaric herdsmen.

But none of my rules were really difficult and I had a wonderfully good time!

I never tried to find out how much Briney was paid whenever I had a baby; I did not want to know. It was more fun to believe that it was a million dollars each time, paid in red-gold ingots the color of my hair, each golden ingot too heavy for one man to lift. A king’s favorite, lavished with jewels, is proud of her “fallen” state; it is the poor drab on the street, renting her body for pennies, who is ashamed of her trade. She is a failure and she knows it. In my daydream I was a king’s mistress, not a sad-faced mattress-back.

But the Foundation must have paid fairly well. Attend me—Our first house in Kansas City was close to minimum for respectable middle class. It was near the colored district; in 1899 this made it a cheap neighborhood even though it was segregated for whites. Besides, it was on an east-west street and faced north, two more points against it. It was on a high terrace with a long flight of steps to climb. It was a one-story frame house, built in 1880 with its plumbing added as an afterthought—the bath opened directly off the kitchen. It had no dining room, no hallway, just one bedroom. It had no proper basement, just a dirt-floor cellar for the furnace and coal bin. It had no attic, just a low, unfinished space.

But houses for rent that we could afford were scarce; Briney had been lucky to find it. I had thought for a while that I was going to have my first baby in a boarding house.

Briney took me to see it before he closed the deal, a courtesy I appreciated as married women could not sign contracts in those days; he did not have to consult me. “Think you could live here?”

Could I! Running water, a flush toilet, a bathtub, a gas range, gas lamp fixtures, a furnace—“Briney, it’s lovely! But can we afford it?”

“That’s my problem, Mrs. S., not yours. The rent will be paid. In fact you will pay it for me, as my agent, the first of every month. Our landlord, a gentleman named Ebenezer Scrooge—”

“‘Ebenezer Scrooge’ indeed!”

“I think that was the name. But there was a streetcar going by; I may have misunderstood. Mr. Scrooge will collect in person, the first of every month, except Sundays, in which case he will collect on the Saturday preceding, not the Monday following; he was firm about that. And he wants cash; no checks. He was firm about that, too. Real cash, silver cartwheels, not banknotes.”

Despite the house’s many shortcomings its rent was high. I gasped when Briney told me: Twelve dollars a month. “Oh, Briney!”

“Get your feathers down, freckled one. We’re going to be in it just one year. If you think you can stand it that long, you won’t have to deal with dear Mr. Scrooge—his name is O’Hennessy—as I can tie it down for twelve months with a discount of four points. Does that mean anything to you?”

I thought about it. “Mortgage money is six percent today…so three points represents the average cost of hiring the money, since you are paying in advance and they don’t own the money until they have earned it, month by month. One point must be because Mr. O’Hennessy Scrooge won’t have to make twelve trips here to collect his rent. So that comes to a hundred and thirty-eight dollars and twenty-four cents.”

“Flame Top, you continue to amaze me.”

“But they really ought to give you another point, for administrative overhead.”

“How is that?”

“For the bookkeeping they don’t have to do because you are paying it all in a lump. That brings it down to a hundred thirty-six eighty. Offer him a hundred and thirty-five, Briney. Then settle for one thirty-six.”

My husband looked at me in astonishment. “To think I married you for your cooking. Look, I’ll stay home and have the baby; you go do my job. Mo’, where did you learn that?”

“Thebes High School. Well, sort of. I worked awhile on Father’s accounts, then I found a textbook at home that my brother Edward had used,
Commercial Arithmetic and Introduction to Bookkeeping
. We had our schoolbooks in common; there were shelves of them in the back hallway. So I didn’t take the course but I read the book. But it’s silly to talk about me doing your job; I don’t know beans about mining. Besides, I don’t want that long streetcar ride down to the west bottoms.”

“I’m not sure I can have a baby, either.”

“I’ll do that, sir; I’m looking forward to it. But I would like to ride downtown with you each morning as far as McGee Street.”

“You are more than welcome, Madam. But why McGee Street?”

“Kansas City Business College. I want to spend the next few months, before I get too big, learning to use a typewriter and to take Pittman shorthand. Then, if you ever become ill, dearest man, I could work in an office and support us…and if you ever go into business for yourself, I could do your office work. That would save you hiring a girl and maybe get us past that tight spot the books say every new business has.”

Briney said slowly, “It was your cooking and one other talent; I remember clearly. Who would have guessed it?”

“Do you mean I may?”

“Better figure up what it will cost in tuition and carfare and lunch money—”

“I’ll pack lunches for both of us.”

“Tomorrow, Mo’. Or the next day. Let’s settle this house.”

We took the house, although that skinflint held out for a hundred and thirty-eight dollars. We stayed in it two years and another girl baby, Carol, then moved around the corner onto Mersington and into a slightly larger house (same landlord), where I had my first boy, Brian Junior, in 1905…and learned what had become of the Howard bonuses.

It was the spring of 1906, a Sunday in May. We often took a streetcar ride on Sundays, to the far end of some line we had never explored before—our two little girls in their Sunday best and Briney and me taking turns holding Junior. But this time he had arranged to leave our three with the lady next door, Mrs. Ohlschlager, a dear friend who was correcting and extending my German.

We walked up to Twenty-seventh Street and caught the streetcar heading west; Briney asked for transfers as usual, as on Sundays we might change anywhere, wind up anywhere. This day we rode only ten blocks when Briney pushed the button. “It’s a lovely day; let’s walk the boulevard awhile.”

“Suits.”

Brian handed me down; we crossed to the south side, headed south on the west side of Benton Boulevard. “Sweetheart, would you like to live in this neighborhood?”

“I would like it very much and I’m sure we will, in twenty years or so. It’s lovely.” It truly was—every house on a double lot, each house ten or twelve rooms at least, each with its carriage drive and carriage house (barn, to us country jakes). Flower beds, stained-glass fan lights over the doors, all the houses new or perfectly kept up—from the styles I guessed 1900; I seemed to recall building going on here the year we came to K.C.

“Twenty years in a pig’s eye, my love; don’t be a pessimist. Let’s pick out one and buy it. How about that one with the Saxon parked at the curb?”

“Must I take the Saxon, too? I don’t like that door that opens to the rear; a child could fall out. I prefer that phaeton with the matched blacks.”

“We’re not buying horses, just houses.”

“But, Brian, we can’t buy a house on Sunday; the contract would not be legal.”

“We can, my way. We can shake hands on it; then sign papers on Monday.”

“Very well, sir.” Briney loved games. Whatever they were, I went along with them. He was a happy man and he made me happy (in or out of bed).

At the end of the block we crossed over to the east side and continued south. In front of the third house from the corner he stopped us. “Mo’, I like the looks of this one. It feels like a happy house. Does it to you?”

It looked much like the houses around it, big and comfortable and handsome—and expensive. Not as inviting as the others, as it seemed to be unoccupied—no porch furniture, blinds drawn. But I agreed with my husband whenever possible…and it was no fault of the house that it was unoccupied. If it was. “I’m sure it could be a happy house with the right people in it.”

“Us, for instance?”

“Us, for instance,” I agreed.

Brian started up the walk toward the house. “I don’t think there is anyone at home. Let’s see if they left a door unlocked. Or a window.”

“Brian!”

“Peace, woman.”

Willy-nilly, I followed him up the walkway, with a feeling that Mrs. Grundy was staring at me from behind curtains all up and down the block (and learned later that she was).

Brian tried the door. “Locked. Well, let’s fix that.” He reached into his pocket, took out a key, unlocked the door, held it open for me.

Breathless and frightened, I went in, then was slightly relieved when bare floors and echoes showed that it was empty. “Brian, what is this? Don’t tease me, please.”

“I’m not teasing, Mo’. If this house pleases you…it’s my long-delayed wedding present from the groom to the bride. If it does not please you, I’ll sell it.”

I broke one of my rules; I let him see me cry.

Seacoast Bohemia

Brian held me and patted my back, then said, “Stop that infernal blubbering. Can’t stand a woman’s tears. Makes me horny.”

I stopped crying and snuggled up close to him. Then my eyes widened. “Goodness! A real Sunday special.” Brian maintained that the only effect church had on him was to arouse his passion, because he never listened to the service; he just thought about Mother Eve, who (he says) has red hair.

(I did not need to tell him that church had a similar effect on me. Every Sunday after church a “special” was likely to happen, once we got the children down for their naps.)

“Now, now, my lady. Don’t you want to look around your house first?”

“I wasn’t suggesting anything, Briney. I wouldn’t dare do it here. Somebody might walk in.”

“Nobody will. Didn’t you notice that I bolted the front door? Maureen… I do believe that you didn’t believe me when I said that I was giving this house to you.”

I took a deep breath, held it, let it out slowly. “My husband, if you tell me that the sun rises in the west, I will believe you. But I may not understand. And this time I do not understand.”

“Let me explain. I can’t really give this house to you, because it’s already yours; you’ve paid for it. But, as a legality, title still rests in me. Sometime this coming week we’ll change that, vest title in you. It is legal for a married woman to own real property in her own name in this state as long as the deed describes you as a married woman and I waive claim…and even that last is no more than a precaution. Now as to how you bought it—”

I bought it flat on my back, I did, “ringing the cash register.” The down payment was money Brian had saved while in the Army, plus money from a third mortgage his parents had accepted from him. This let him make a sizable down payment, with a first mortgage at the usual 6 percent, and a second mortgage at 8.5 percent. The house was rented when he bought it; Brian kept the tenants, invested the rent to help pay off the mortgages.

The Howard bonus for Nancy cleared that too-expensive second mortgage; Carol’s birth paid off Brian’s parents. The Foundation’s payment for Brian Junior let Brian Senior refinance the first mortgage down to the point where the rental income let him at last clear the property in May 1906, only six and a half years after he had assumed this huge pyramid of debt.

Briney is a gambler; I told him so. “Not really,” he answered, “as I was betting on you, darling. And you delivered. Like clockwork. Oh, Brian Junior was a little later than I expected but the plan had some flexibility in it. While I had insisted on the privilege of paying off the first mortgage ahead of time, I didn’t actually have to pay it earlier than June first, 1910. But you came through like the champion you are.”

A year ago he had discussed his projected program with his tenants; a date was agreed on: they had moved out quite amicably just the Friday past. “So it’s yours, darling. I did not renew our lease this time; Hennessy O’Scrooge knows we are leaving. We can move out tomorrow and move in here, if this house pleases you. Or shall we sell it?”

“Don’t talk about selling our house! Briney, if this truly is your wedding present to me, then at last I can make my bride’s present to you. Your kitten.”

He grinned. “Our kitten, you mean. Yes, I had figured that out.” We had postponed getting a kitten because there were dogs on both sides of the little house on Twenty-sixth—and one of them was a cat killer. By moving around the corner we had not gotten away from that menace.

Brian showed me around the place. It was a wonderful house: upstairs a big bathroom and a smaller one, a little bathroom downstairs adjacent to a maid’s room, four bedrooms and a sleeping porch, a living room, a parlor, a proper dining room with a built-in china closet and a plate rail, a gas log in the parlor in what could be a fireplace for logs if the gas log was removed, a wonderful big kitchen, a formal front staircase and a convenient back staircase leading from the kitchen, privately—oh, just everything and anything that a family with children could want, including a fenced back yard just right for children and pets…and for croquet and picnic dinners and a vegetable garden and a sand pile. I started to cry again.