little sorry for Janey, in the slightly contemptuous and offhand way a beautiful sleek panther might feel about a young sheep she was trailing across an open field of daisies.
The second exception was the murderer of Paul M. Wernitz.
There was nothing in all this that made Smithville very different from any other town. Gus Blake was finding that out daily as he tried to make it sound unique and interesting for the Centennial edition of the Gazette. Nor was domestic conversation very different, even in the homes of the people who had been to the Maynards’ party the night before and had to be at the office the same time Saturday morning as they were the other five working days of the week.
Martha Ferguson, the red-haired wife of the president of Smithville’s leading bank, pulled the plug out of the coffeepot and glanced up, past her red-haired freckle-faced thirteen-year-old daughter, earnestly frying bacon and eggs, at the clock on the back of the electric range. It was ten minutes past eight, and Jim was still not down. Fortunately her son did not have to shave yet, and a bath, so far as she knew, had never taken him more than three minutes except under compulsion since he’d graduated from outside assistance. He was over at the sink, in as much of his football gear as was permitted by the house rules, diluting the frozen orange juice. Martha Ferguson put two more slices of bread in the toaster.
“I don’t know what on earth’s keeping your dad this morning,” she said. “The Maynards’ hoedown certainly doesn’t account for it. We were home by twelve.” She waited for the toast to pop up, took it out, and buttered it. “Do you people realize,” she said, “that all over the United States there are people just like us, waiting for the man of the house to get out of the bathroom and come down and eat? Millions and millions of them. Anybody that thinks the bathroom in the American home is a sanitary device is nuts. It’s nothing but a throwback to the prehistoric cave where the male could hide in comfort in his fur skins while the female and the young were outside in the cold hunting sticks to rub together. And if you spill much more of that orange juice, sweetie, there won’t be any left.”
She laughed at her son and went out into the hall.
“Jim, are you ever coming down? What on earth are you doing? If you’re eating soap, there’s bacon and eggs down here. You’ve got to get to the bank. You’re only president of it—you don’t own it.”
“Coming, darling.” Jim Ferguson, hurrying down from the landing, stopped to check his pockets for handkerchief, billfold, change, and fountain pen. She waited for him at the foot of the stairs.
“Do something about those checks of poor little Janey today, Jim.” She spoke earnestly, lowering her voice so the children could not hear her. “I simply can’t bear to think of her going around with all this hanging over her. Can’t we lend her the money to cover the things, Jim? I could get it from Dad. He might just as well loosen up a bit before he dies. I’ll write to him today. But for heaven’s sake, come and eat.”
At the Nelson Cadwallader Symses’ house in Bateman Street, Connie Maynard’s Aunt Mamie Syms towered like the chairman of the Committee of the Whole at the head of the heavy empire table in the old-fashioned dining room, where militant pieces of family furniture stood about against the brown-papered walls as if they had waited too long to march out and at last had given up hope. The dust of Aunt Mamie’s tenure had faded off their spit and polish into an adamantine gray except on the surface portions that even Aunt Mamie’s down-at-the-heel maid couldn’t overlook. As the long narrow windows were seldom washed and were hung with sun-faded brown rep curtains, it was hardly noticeable, and Aunt Mamie’s vigorous attention was fixed on civic, not domestic, problems. Except at the moment. She took off her reading-glasses and put
The second exception was the murderer of Paul M. Wernitz.
There was nothing in all this that made Smithville very different from any other town. Gus Blake was finding that out daily as he tried to make it sound unique and interesting for the Centennial edition of the Gazette. Nor was domestic conversation very different, even in the homes of the people who had been to the Maynards’ party the night before and had to be at the office the same time Saturday morning as they were the other five working days of the week.
Martha Ferguson, the red-haired wife of the president of Smithville’s leading bank, pulled the plug out of the coffeepot and glanced up, past her red-haired freckle-faced thirteen-year-old daughter, earnestly frying bacon and eggs, at the clock on the back of the electric range. It was ten minutes past eight, and Jim was still not down. Fortunately her son did not have to shave yet, and a bath, so far as she knew, had never taken him more than three minutes except under compulsion since he’d graduated from outside assistance. He was over at the sink, in as much of his football gear as was permitted by the house rules, diluting the frozen orange juice. Martha Ferguson put two more slices of bread in the toaster.
“I don’t know what on earth’s keeping your dad this morning,” she said. “The Maynards’ hoedown certainly doesn’t account for it. We were home by twelve.” She waited for the toast to pop up, took it out, and buttered it. “Do you people realize,” she said, “that all over the United States there are people just like us, waiting for the man of the house to get out of the bathroom and come down and eat? Millions and millions of them. Anybody that thinks the bathroom in the American home is a sanitary device is nuts. It’s nothing but a throwback to the prehistoric cave where the male could hide in comfort in his fur skins while the female and the young were outside in the cold hunting sticks to rub together. And if you spill much more of that orange juice, sweetie, there won’t be any left.”
She laughed at her son and went out into the hall.
“Jim, are you ever coming down? What on earth are you doing? If you’re eating soap, there’s bacon and eggs down here. You’ve got to get to the bank. You’re only president of it—you don’t own it.”
“Coming, darling.” Jim Ferguson, hurrying down from the landing, stopped to check his pockets for handkerchief, billfold, change, and fountain pen. She waited for him at the foot of the stairs.
“Do something about those checks of poor little Janey today, Jim.” She spoke earnestly, lowering her voice so the children could not hear her. “I simply can’t bear to think of her going around with all this hanging over her. Can’t we lend her the money to cover the things, Jim? I could get it from Dad. He might just as well loosen up a bit before he dies. I’ll write to him today. But for heaven’s sake, come and eat.”
At the Nelson Cadwallader Symses’ house in Bateman Street, Connie Maynard’s Aunt Mamie Syms towered like the chairman of the Committee of the Whole at the head of the heavy empire table in the old-fashioned dining room, where militant pieces of family furniture stood about against the brown-papered walls as if they had waited too long to march out and at last had given up hope. The dust of Aunt Mamie’s tenure had faded off their spit and polish into an adamantine gray except on the surface portions that even Aunt Mamie’s down-at-the-heel maid couldn’t overlook. As the long narrow windows were seldom washed and were hung with sun-faded brown rep curtains, it was hardly noticeable, and Aunt Mamie’s vigorous attention was fixed on civic, not domestic, problems. Except at the moment. She took off her reading-glasses and put
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