“Hey, kid!” A whistle and another shout. Blake turned and saw a man beckoning to him. “You! Com’ere.”
A man by a delivery truck with a fiat tire. A job. Blake went back, the tears forgotten now. “Yes?”
“Look, can you carry a sack on that bike? Want to make a buck?”
So Blake was hired. The house he sought was an old Southern three-floored mansion long since turned into apartments. The first floor was leased by the Misses Laidley. Miss Annabelle Laidley, fifteen years in a wheelchair following a throw from a horse; Miss Lucy Jo Laidley, nineteen years a fourth-grade teacher, now retired; Miss Jessica Sue Laidley, seventy, fierce, lean, a former designer of ladies’ apparel; and last, the eldest of the Laidley girls, Miss Margaret Elizabeth Laidley, seventy-five, soft and yielding, but controller of the purse.
The Laidley girls took turns entertaining, each of them with different interests and a different circle of friends, overlapping here and there. Tonight it was Miss Lucy Jo’s turn to have the living room for her group. Card tables were set up and a sideboard was already laid out with glasses, a decanter of gin, a bowl of ice, lemonade, sausages, thin slices of pumpernickel, cheeses. She was waiting impatiently for the delivery of chips and collins mix when Blake turned up at the back door, his nose hard against the screen, his eyes large and fascinated. There was an aviary on the back porch. Miss Margaret Elizabeth’s birds lived there in a nylon net cage with miniature palm trees and orange trees, and forty-three potted geraniums and African violets. The birds were all screeching at the delivery boy. Conkling-by-the-Sea, Margaret’s ancient parrot watched the boy malevolently.
Miss Lucy Joe admitted him and checked the order against her list, added-up the figures, nodded, and then held out the promised dollar. Only then did she really look at the child. And she gasped.
“Boy, how long since you had a bath? And a meal?”
Blake was still staring at the birds, however, and he didn’t even see the proffered dollar bill. Miss Lucy poked him with a long slender finger and he started. “Yes, ma’am?” he said.
Miss Lucy Jo handed him the dollar. “You like the birds, don’t you? You can go look, if you’ve a mind to. But don’t put a hand in. They peck.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Blake said.
Miss Lucy Jo watched him with a pucker on her smooth forehead. Miss Margaret Elizabeth entered the kitchen, rustling in brown moire skirts from another era, and Miss Lucy Jo put a finger to her lips and pointed. The boy was standing close to the nylon. cage, and the birds and the boy were regarding each other. He whistled softly, a pale green and blue parakeet trilled in answer. The boy replied and a lemon yellow canary ruffled its feathers and sang a solo. Blake laughed aloud, then trilled back to the canary. Presently there were songs and chirping and warblings and it was impossible to tell which came from inside the cage and which from outside. Miss Margaret Elizabeth sat down staring at the scene. “I’ll be damned,” she said. The parrot said, “I’ll be damned, I’ll be damned.”
Miss Lucy Jo looked reprovingly at her and Margaret Elizabeth said, “I will though.”
Conkling-by-the-Sea said, “Shut up, you foulmouthed moth lure.”
They kept Blake with them for the next few days, at first trying to worm from him who he was and where he had come from, and getting only very polite refusals in return. When the end of the three days came about, the time they had agreed among themselves to permit him to stay and have some decent food and rest, they knew they couldn’t turn him out. He turned so white at the suggestion that they should notify the authorities, that they abandoned the idea without any discussion. Miss Jessica Sue insisted on questioning him severely before they came to a decision about his future. Jessica Sue was tall and very straight and dressed in black with white at her throat. She had white hair, as did all the sisters, and she had gold-framed glasses, on a black silk string that she wore around her neck most of the time. She seated Blake in a straight chair and stood before him, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Blake, you say that you have no people? Is that right?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“And you have never been to school? Nowhere?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Yet you can read very well, and you can do sums, and you play the piano. Can you explain these things?”
“I watched my… a girl learning how to play the piano. I guess I picked it up from her. And I don’t remember when I learned to read. Seems like I always could.”
Miss Jessica Sue stared at him hard. “Have you been to church?”
Blake felt himself blushing furiously and he stood up. “I guess I’ll be on my way, Miss Jessica,” he said slowly. “I’d like to tell Miss Lucy Jo, and Miss Margaret Elizabeth, and Miss Annabelle good-by, if that’s all right.”
“Blake, you sit right back down in that chair. So you came from a religious family? Is that it? You know we aren’t very religious here. You think we’ll hold that against you?’ Is that it?”
He stared at the floor. Miss Jessica pulled a chair close to his and sat down in it, reached for his chin and lifted his face. “Look at me, Blake. Tell me this, have you done anything you are ashamed of?”
He nodded. “But I didn’t want to,” he said. “Ob….the man I was with made me go on a stage and I was ashamed of that.”
Miss Jessica studied him intently, then nodded. “All right, Blake. Now tell me this. Where are you going if you leave us?”
“I don’t know. I’m strong. I can work.”
“Yes. Well, you have a job here in this house, if you want it. We need a strong boy here to carry groceries for us, and to take Annabelle for. walks. Would you like the job?”
Blake grinned, then sobered again. “I can’t stay with anybody,” he said. “Someone would say why isn’t that boy in school and you’d be in trouble.”
“We have a teacher here in the house. Wouldn’t be the first time she tutored private pupils either.”
Blake stayed, and people did indeed say, why isn’t that boy in school?, but Miss Lucy Jo swore that she tutored him, and that he was the son of a traveling businessman who preferred his child to be in a private home rather than in a boarding school. During the year, Miss Annabelle regained the use of her legs. and where at first he had wheeled her in the chair on daily walks, by the end of the year they could be seen each day strolling together, talking very seriously of poetry and music and art.
It was a calm year. Toward the end of it one night Miss Jessica Sue found Blake watching the television newscast and turned it off in order to talk to him. The other sisters were all busy, or out, and they had an uninterrupted half hour together.
“Blake, I have a feeling that you might not want to stay with us very much longer. No, don’t shake your head. Things change. Boys change. I remember how you came to us, hungry, dirty, no clothes…. If you ever feel that you have to leave here, Blake, I want you to know that you have our blessings. Here is some money, all in small bills so no one will question you about it. Three hundred dollars, enough for you to live on for a while. Eventually you will have to have identification papers, register “With the data bank, get a social security card, credit card. I don’t know how you’ll manage it all, but I’m certain you will. The brown suitcase I brought home last week, that’s yours. Pack it with things that you might need. And a coat. Don’t forget a coat, Don’t worry about needing the things. We’ll replace them now, but I want you to have a bag packed and ready so if you have to leave in a hurry you won’t feel that you’re wasting time by packing. You understand?”