“Store?” with the rising inflection that seemed to indicate suspicion of anyone who tried to communicate with him by means of this unreliable instrument.
“This is Mrs. Allison, Mr. Babcock. I thought I’d give you my order a day early because I wanted to be sure and get some—”
“What say, Mrs. Allison?”
Mrs. Allison raised her voice a little; she saw Mr. Allison, out on the lawn, turn in his chair and regard her sympathetically. “I said, Mr. Babcock, I thought I’d call in my order early so you could send me—”
“Mrs. Allison?” Mr. Babcock said. “You’ll come and pick it up?”
“Pick it up?” In her surprise Mrs. Allison let her voice drop back to its normal tone and Mr. Babcock said loudly, “What’s that, Mrs. Allison?”
“I thought I’d have you send it out as usual,” Mrs. Allison said.
“Well, Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock said, and there was a pause while Mrs. Allison waited, staring past the phone over her husband’s head out into the sky. “Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock went on finally,
“I’ll tell you, my boy’s been working for me went back to school yesterday, and now I got no one to deliver. I only got a boy delivering summers, you see.”
“I thought you always delivered,” Mrs. Allison said.
“Not after Labor Day, Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock said firmly,
“you never been here after Labor Day before, so’s you wouldn’t know, of course.”
“Well,” Mrs. Allison said helplessly. Far inside her mind she was saying, over and over, can’t use city manners on country folk, no use getting mad.
“Are you sure?” she asked finally. “Couldn’t you just send out an order today, Mr. Babcock?”
“Matter of fact,” Mr. Babcock said, “I guess I couldn’t, Mrs. Allison.
It wouldn’t hardly pay, delivering, with no one else out at the lake.”
“What about Mr. Hall?” Mrs. Allison asked suddenly, “the people who live about three miles away from us out here? Mr. Hall could bring it out when he comes.”
“Hall?” Mr. Babcock said. “John Hall? They’ve gone to visit her folks upstate, Mrs. Allison.”
“But they bring all our butter and eggs,” Mrs. Allison said, appalled.
“Left yesterday,” Mr. Babcock said. “Probably didn’t think you folks would stay on up there.”
“But I told Mr. Hall…” Mrs. Allison started to say, and then stopped. “I’ll send Mr. Allison in after some groceries tomorrow,”
she said.
“You got all you need till then,” Mr. Babcock said, satisfied; it was not a question, but a confirmation.
After she hung up, Mrs. Allison went slowly out to sit again in her chair next to her husband. “He won’t deliver,” she said.
“You’ll have to go in tomorrow. We’ve got just enough kerosene to last till you get back.”
“He should have told us sooner,” Mr. Allison said.
It was not possible to remain troubled long in the face of the day; the country had never seemed more inviting, and the lake moved quietly below them, among the trees, with the almost incredible softness of a summer picture. Mrs. Allison sighed deeply, in the pleasure of possessing for themselves that sight of the lake, with the distant green hills beyond, the gentleness of the small wind through the trees.
The weather continued fair; the next morning Mr. Allison, duly armed with a list of groceries, with “kerosene” in large letters at the top, went down the path to the garage, and Mrs. Allison began another pie in her new baking dishes. She had mixed the crust and was starting to pare the apples when Mr. Allison came rapidly up the path and flung open the screen door into the kitchen.
“Damn car won’t start,” he announced, with the end-of-the-tether voice of a man who depends on a car as he depends on his right arm.
“What’s wrong with it?” Mrs. Allison demanded, stopping with the paring knife in one hand and an apple in the other. “It was all right on Tuesday.”
“Well,” Mr. Allison said between his teeth, “it’s not all right on Friday.”
“Can you fix it?” Mrs. Allison asked.
“No,” Mr. Allison said, “I can not. Got to call someone, I guess.”
“Who?” Mrs. Allison asked.
“Man runs the filling station, I guess.” Mr. Allison moved purpose-fully toward the phone. “He fixed it last summer one time.”
A little apprehensive, Mrs. Allison went on paring apples absentmindedly, while she listened to Mr. Allison with the phone, ringing, waiting, ringing, waiting, finally giving the number to the operator, then waiting again and giving the number again, giving the number a third time, and then slamming down the receiver.
“No one there,” he announced as he came into the kitchen.
“He’s probably gone out for a minute,” Mrs. Allison said nervously; she was not quite sure what made her so nervous, unless it was the probability of her husband’s losing his temper completely.
“He’s there alone, I imagine, so if he goes out there’s no one to answer the phone.”
“That must be it,” Mr. Allison said with heavy irony. He slumped into one of the kitchen chairs and watched Mrs. Allison paring apples. After a minute, Mrs. Allison said soothingly, “Why don’t you go down and get the mail and then call him again?”
Mr. Allison debated and then said, “Guess I might as well.” He rose heavily and when he got to the kitchen door he turned and said,
“But if there’s no mail—” and leaving an awful silence behind him, he went off down the path.
Mrs. Allison hurried with her pie. Twice she went to the window to glance at the sky to see if there were clouds coming up. The room seemed unexpectedly dark, and she herself felt in the state of tension that precedes a thunderstorm, but both times when she looked the sky was clear and serene, smiling indifferently down on the Allisons’
summer cottage as well as on the rest of the world. When Mrs. Allison, her pie ready for the oven, went a third time to look outside, she saw her husband coming up the path; he seemed more cheerful, and when he saw her, he waved eagerly and held a letter in the air.
“From Jerry,” he called as soon as he was close enough for her to hear him, “at last — a letter!” Mrs. Allison noticed with concern that he was no longer able to get up the gentle slope of the path without breathing heavily; but then he was in the doorway, holding out the letter. “I saved it till I got here,” he said.
Mrs. Allison looked with an eagerness that surprised her on the familiar handwriting of her son; she could not imagine why the letter excited her so, except that it was the first they had received in so long, it would be a pleasant, dutiful letter, full of the doings of Alice and the children, reporting progress with his job, commenting on the recent weather in Chicago, closing with love from all; both Mr. and Mrs. Allison could, if they wished, recite a pattern letter from either of their children.
Mr. Allison slit the letter open with great deliberation, and then he spread it out on the kitchen table and they leaned down and read it together.
“Dear Mother and Dad,” it began, in Jerry’s familiar, rather childish handwriting, “Am glad this goes to the lake as usual, we always thought you came back too soon and ought to stay up there as long as you could.
Alice says that now that you’re not as young as you used to be and have no demands on your time, fewer friends, etc., in the city, you ought to get what fun you can while you can. Since you two are both happy up there, it’s a good idea for you to stay.”
Uneasily Mrs. Allison glanced sideways at her husband; he was reading intently, and she reached out and picked up the empty envelope, not knowing exactly what she wanted from it. It was addressed quite as usual, in Jerry’s handwriting, and was postmarked Chicago. Of course it’s postmarked Chicago, she thought quickly, why would they want to postmark it anywhere else? When she looked back down at the letter, her husband had turned the page, and she read on with him: “— and of course if they get measles, etc., now, they will be better off later. Alice is well, of course, me too. Been playing a lot of bridge lately with some people you don’t know, named Carruthers. Nice young couple, about our age. Well, will close now as I guess it bores you to hear about things so far away. Tell Dad old Dickson, in our Chicago office, died. He used to ask about Dad a lot. Have a good time up at the lake, and don’t bother about hurrying back. Love from all of us, Jerry.”