trying to find the correct words of apology for having insulted Mr. Alcott’s home and sensing that perhaps this was not the best time to initiate a serious discourse.
I studied the strange choreography taking place in the front parlor for several seconds as I took off my coat, discerned the several problems immediately at hand, and set about correcting them, even before removing my flapping hemisphere hat. A piece of cheese was procured and placed in a corner. Lizzie was given a pot and told to put it over the mouse as soon as it reappeared. Father would then slip the morning newspaper under the pot and remove both cooking vessel and God’s creature to the backyard, probably near the refuse bin, where it might feast to its little mousy heart’s content on carrot peels.
I sent Mr. Hall to Trevelyan’s Pipe Shop for some Cuban blend for Father’s pipe. It was the one gift guaranteed to soothe him, and I knew that for all his surreptitious ogling of pretty Lizzie, Mr. Hall was a respectable young man and an irreplaceable boarder. He made no noise, rarely ate in, never, ever wanted his meal on a tray, and always paid on time. As for little Walter Campbell, his pockets would be searched from hence, to prevent the carrying of any other contraband into the Alcott schoolroom/parlor.
Peace restored, we made ourselves comfortable in the worn furniture of the little room and had a good laugh at ourselves. Abba was dusty, Lizzie was blushing, and Father couldn’t remember why he had been so harsh with young Mr. Hall, nor how he came to be holding a mouse in his palm. May was sweet-talking the little brown creature and threatening to turn it into a pet. My hat flopped before my eyes and I swept it off my head and into the corner with a flourish.
“I cannot abide that hat. From now on I will wear caps and cloches,” I said.
“I never liked it,” agreed Father, now looking somewhat less stately since he and the trembling mouse were eye-to-eye in steady contemplation of each other. “Hats should never hide the windows to the soul. It was of the soul I was writing before this domestic crisis called my attention elsewhere. Louisa, you will remember in Pilgrim’s Progress that fine moment when the pilgrim first senses the divinity of his own—”
“Bronson, take the mouse outdoors,” Abba said sternly.
“Ah, yes, the mouse . . .” And he ambled back into his study, still eye-to-eye with the creature.
“Another sentence left unfinished by Father,” May crooned.
“That, too, is an incomplete sentence,” I said. “Go back to your lesson, May.”
“Do I have to?” complained the child, and Abba and I responded, “Yes!” in unison.
I went to my mother and hugged her.
“It was awful with Mrs. Brownly.” I sighed. “She barely wept. A single tear, that was all. She was afraid of the talk.” I looked at my mother, at the small parlor with its ragged furnishings, thought of the vegetable meals, the worn linen, the long workdays, and the damp-bottomed schoolchildren . . . all precious to me, since they were part of a destiny that had saved me from having a father who died of apoplexy because another daughter was born to him, or a mother who calmly poured tea and said of that daughter’s death, “It is a great loss. . . . Cream or lemon?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Heir Is Taken Unawares
THE NEXT DAY, Tuesday, after my schoolchildren had been dismissed, I decided to pay a call on the Brownly heir, Edgar, he of the gobbled fish sandwiches.
This was a trickier business than that of the day before, since Edgar Brownly spent most of his time at a little studio he rented near the Customs House, and Boston society frowned upon single maidens paying visits to unwed men in their studios. The way to get about that difficulty was to invite Sylvia to join the occasion, and to have her bring someone as chaperon. To avoid gossip, Sylvia chose not the usual vicar but Father Nolan, a Roman Catholic priest we had met during our
I studied the strange choreography taking place in the front parlor for several seconds as I took off my coat, discerned the several problems immediately at hand, and set about correcting them, even before removing my flapping hemisphere hat. A piece of cheese was procured and placed in a corner. Lizzie was given a pot and told to put it over the mouse as soon as it reappeared. Father would then slip the morning newspaper under the pot and remove both cooking vessel and God’s creature to the backyard, probably near the refuse bin, where it might feast to its little mousy heart’s content on carrot peels.
I sent Mr. Hall to Trevelyan’s Pipe Shop for some Cuban blend for Father’s pipe. It was the one gift guaranteed to soothe him, and I knew that for all his surreptitious ogling of pretty Lizzie, Mr. Hall was a respectable young man and an irreplaceable boarder. He made no noise, rarely ate in, never, ever wanted his meal on a tray, and always paid on time. As for little Walter Campbell, his pockets would be searched from hence, to prevent the carrying of any other contraband into the Alcott schoolroom/parlor.
Peace restored, we made ourselves comfortable in the worn furniture of the little room and had a good laugh at ourselves. Abba was dusty, Lizzie was blushing, and Father couldn’t remember why he had been so harsh with young Mr. Hall, nor how he came to be holding a mouse in his palm. May was sweet-talking the little brown creature and threatening to turn it into a pet. My hat flopped before my eyes and I swept it off my head and into the corner with a flourish.
“I cannot abide that hat. From now on I will wear caps and cloches,” I said.
“I never liked it,” agreed Father, now looking somewhat less stately since he and the trembling mouse were eye-to-eye in steady contemplation of each other. “Hats should never hide the windows to the soul. It was of the soul I was writing before this domestic crisis called my attention elsewhere. Louisa, you will remember in Pilgrim’s Progress that fine moment when the pilgrim first senses the divinity of his own—”
“Bronson, take the mouse outdoors,” Abba said sternly.
“Ah, yes, the mouse . . .” And he ambled back into his study, still eye-to-eye with the creature.
“Another sentence left unfinished by Father,” May crooned.
“That, too, is an incomplete sentence,” I said. “Go back to your lesson, May.”
“Do I have to?” complained the child, and Abba and I responded, “Yes!” in unison.
I went to my mother and hugged her.
“It was awful with Mrs. Brownly.” I sighed. “She barely wept. A single tear, that was all. She was afraid of the talk.” I looked at my mother, at the small parlor with its ragged furnishings, thought of the vegetable meals, the worn linen, the long workdays, and the damp-bottomed schoolchildren . . . all precious to me, since they were part of a destiny that had saved me from having a father who died of apoplexy because another daughter was born to him, or a mother who calmly poured tea and said of that daughter’s death, “It is a great loss. . . . Cream or lemon?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Heir Is Taken Unawares
THE NEXT DAY, Tuesday, after my schoolchildren had been dismissed, I decided to pay a call on the Brownly heir, Edgar, he of the gobbled fish sandwiches.
This was a trickier business than that of the day before, since Edgar Brownly spent most of his time at a little studio he rented near the Customs House, and Boston society frowned upon single maidens paying visits to unwed men in their studios. The way to get about that difficulty was to invite Sylvia to join the occasion, and to have her bring someone as chaperon. To avoid gossip, Sylvia chose not the usual vicar but Father Nolan, a Roman Catholic priest we had met during our
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