My Own Two Feet by Beverly Cleary Page B

sometimes called out, “Miss Bunn, I want a dwink of water.” Running around the staircase with a glass of water was the only interruptionin peaceful, comfortable evenings in a quiet living room with a view of the lights of San Francisco. As I absorbed the soothing silence, I felt the Berkeley Hills must be the loveliest spot in the world and longed to live there myself someday.
    My senior year I became house secretary, a position that relieved me of a work shift but required that I take minutes of compulsory monthly house meetings and post them on the bulletin board. These meetings were usually short because everyone was anxious to get to the library. The house president made announcements: “Please do not linger over good-nights. Necking on the front steps gives Stebbins a bad name.” To my surprise, for several years afterward, whenever I met someone who had lived at Stebbins, she often said, “Oh, you’re the one who wrote those hilarious minutes.” Hilarious? I wasn’t trying to be funny. I simply recorded what took place. Years later, when I read a statement by James Thurber, “Humor is best that lies closest to the familiar,” I began to understand.
    Council meetings went on much longer—too long, we felt, if we had papers due or tests the next day. These meetings dealt with more serious matters, often individual behavior, and minutes were not posted for all to read. A major problem was the Dean of Women, who felt we should cut expenses by eliminating the switchboard, whichcost what now seems like a ridiculously small amount, something like twenty-eight dollars a month for all of Stebbins. Never, we vowed, would we part with the switchboard. If we could not receive incoming calls, how could men get in touch with us? Then there was the problem of the girl who wore slacks to the library. It was agreed she be told that slacks were inappropriate for wear outside the house. And what about the girl who was conspicuously pregnant but behaved as if she hadn’t noticed? Should she be allowed to remain at Stebbins? Someone pointed out that people were saying, “You see what comes out of Stebbins Hall.” Although we all felt we had our good reputation to maintain, we decided, after long and serious discussion, that the girl should stay. We would say nothing. She needed us no matter what others said about the virtue, or lack of virtue, of the residents of Stebbins Hall.
    At the beginning of my second semester the house manager announced that the eighteen dollars a month we had been paying did not cover “depreciation of fixed assets.” Our fee must therefore be raised to twenty-four dollars a month. We were aghast. Where could we find an additional six dollars a month when most of us could barely manage eighteen? Some girls felt they would have to drop out of school (as far as I know nonedid); others reluctantly wrote home for money, something I refused to do. One girl had a white fur “bunny” jacket that she rented for fifty cents an evening to girls going to formal dances. It shed on dark suits. Some found odd jobs typing or baby-sitting. I was a poor typist, and baby-sitting, except for my one customer, was too time-consuming. Where could I find another six dollars?
    I found six dollars in the style of the times. Hems twelve inches from the floor were no longer fashionable, so I opened a skirt-shortening business: fifty cents a skirt if it was straight and didn’t have pleats. I could shorten a straight skirt in half to three-quarters of an hour, which beat the forty cents an hour Cal set for student labor, and I saved precious time because I could work in my room. My business, although hardly flourishing, did bring in enough to make up the six dollars without my having to write home for money, something I had vowed I would never do. I wanted independence more than anything.

Fun at Cal
    At the beginning of the semester, on late sunny afternoons, some