make her doilies—”
“Yes, sir.” She dreamed around the room with her wings out.
“Did you hear me?” he demanded.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes,” her eyes shut. “Oh, yes, yes.” Her skirts whished around. “Uncle,” she said, her head back, lolling.
“You’ll help your aunt with her doilies?” he cried.
“—with her doilies,” she murmured.
“There!” He sat down in the kitchen, plucking up the paper. “I guess I told her!”
BUT, NEXT morning, he was on the edge of his bed when he heard the hot-rod’s thunderous muffler and heard Marianne fall downstairs, linger two seconds in the dining room for breakfast, hesitate by the bathroom long enough to consider whether she should be sick, and then the slam of the front door, the sound of the jalopy banging down the street, two people singing off-key in it.
Father put his head in his hands. “Doilies,” he said.
“What?” said mother.
“Dooley’s,” said father. “I’m going down to Dooley’s for a morning visit.”
“But Dooley’s isn’t open until ten.”
“I’ll wait,” decided father, eyes shut.
That night and seven other wild nights the porch swing sang a little creaking song, back and forth, back and forth. Father, hiding in the living room, could be seen in fierce relief whenever he drafted his ten-cent cigar and the cherry light illumined his immensely tragic face. The porch swing creaked. He waited for another creak. He heard little butterfly-soft sounds from outside, little palpitations of laughter and sweet nothings in small ears. “My porch,” said father. “My swing,” he whispered to his cigar, looking at it. “My house.” He listened for another creak. “My lord,” he said.
He went to the tool shed and appeared on the dark porch with a shiny oil-can. “No, don’t get up. Don’t bother. There, and there.” He oiled the swing joints. It was dark. He couldn’t see Marianne, he could smell her. The perfume almost knocked him off into the rosebush. He couldn’t see her gentleman friend either. “Good night,” he said. He went in and sat down and there was no more creaking. Now all he could hear was something that sounded like the moth-like flutter of Marianne’s heart.
“He must be very nice,” said mother, in the kitchen door, wiping a dinner dish.
“That’s what I’m hoping,” whispered father. “That’s why I let them have the porch every night!”
“So many days in a row,” said mother. “A girl doesn’t go with a nice young man that many times unless it’s serious.”
“Maybe he’ll propose tonight!” was father’s happy thought.
“Hardly so soon. And she is so young.”
“Still,” he ruminated. “It might happen. It’s got to happen, by the Lord Harry.”
Grandma chuckled from her corner easy chair. It sounded like someone turning the pages of an ancient book.
“What’s so funny?” said father.
“Wait and see,” said grandma. “Tomorrow.”
Father stared at the dark, but grandma would say no more.
“WELL, WELL,” said father at breakfast. He surveyed his eggs with a kindly, paternal eye. “Well, well, by gosh, last night, on the porch, there was more whispering. What’s his name? Isak? Well, now if I’m any judge at all, I think he proposed to Marianne last night; yes, I’m positive of it!”
“It would be nice,” said mother. “A spring marriage. But it’s so soon.”
“Look,” said father, with full-mouthed logic. “Marianne’s the kind of girl who marries quick and young. We can’t stand in her way, can we?”
“For once, I think you’re right,” said mother. “A marriage would be fine. Spring flowers, and Marianne looking nice in that gown I saw at Haydecker’s last week.”
They all peered anxiously at the stairs, waiting for Marianne to appear.
“Pardon me,” rasped grandma, sighting up from her morning toast. “But I wouldn’t talk of getting rid of Marianne just yet if I were you.”
“And why not?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“I hate to spoil your plans,” rustled grandma, chuckling. She gestured with her little vinegary head. “But while you people were worrying about getting Marianne married, I’ve been keeping tab on her. Seven days now I’ve been watching this young fellow, each day he came in his car and honked his horn outside. He must be an actor or a quick change artist or something.”
“What?” asked father.
“Yep,” said grandma. “Because one day he was a young blond fellow and next day he was a tall dark fellow, and Wednesday he was a chap with a brown mustache, and Thursday he had wavy red hair, and Friday he was shorter, with a Chevrolet stripped down instead of a Ford.”
Mother and father sat for a minute as if hit with hammers right behind the left ear.
At last father, his face exploding with color, shouted, “Do you mean to say! You sat there, woman, you say; all those men, and you—”
“You were always hiding.” snapped grandma. “So you wouldn’t spoil things. If you’d come out in the open you’d have seen the same as I. I never said a word. She’ll simmer down. It’s just her time of life. Every woman goes through it. It’s hard, but they can survive. A new man every day does wonders for a girl’s ego!”
“You, you, you, you, you!” Father choked on it, eyes wild, throat gorged too big for his collar. He fell back in his chair, exhausted. Mother sat, stunned.
“Good morning, everyone!” Marianne raced downstairs and popped into a chair. Father stared at her.
“You, you, you, you, you,” he accused grandma.
I shall run down the street shouting, thought father wildly, and break the fire alarm window and pull the lever and bring the fire engines and the hoses. Or perhaps there will be a late snowstorm and I shall set Marianne out in it to cool.
He did neither. The heat in the room being excessive, according to the wall calendar, everyone moved out onto the cool porch while Marianne sat looking at her orange juice.
“YOU’RE GETTING TOO big for this!” Grandpa gave Doug a toss toward the blazing chandelier. The boarders sat laughing, with knives and forks at hand. Then Doug, ten years old, was caught and popped in his chair and Grandma tapped his bowl with a steaming spoonful of soup. The crackers crunched like snow when he bit them. The cracker salt glittered like tiny diamonds. And there, at the far end of the table, with her gray eyes always down to watch her hand stir her coffee with a spoon or break her gingerbread and lay on the butter, was Miss Leonora Welkes, with whom men never sat on backyard swings or walked through the town ravine on summer nights. There was Miss Leonora whose eyes watched out the window as summer couples drifted by on the darkening sidewalks night after night, and Douglas felt his heart squeeze tight.
“Evening, Miss Leonora,” he called.
“Evening, Douglas.” She looked up past the steaming mounds of food, and the boarders turned their heads a moment before bowing again to their rituals.
Oh, Miss Welkes, he thought, Miss Welkes! And he wanted to stab every man at the table with a silver fork for not