In the evening the family talked, as they did every year when spring gripped them with energy and stirrings of ambition, about tearing out the big central chimney and putting in a real bathroom with a tub and an electric hot water heater. If Mim could get a few days of cleaning for the new summer people, or sell a few more flowers—if John could get more time from the town running the grader or the snowplow, or a few more jobs helping Cogswell, then they could pay for it. That year they also talked about the auctioneer—about his plans for the town. There was an excitement to his coming that seemed of a piece with the quickening of spring. It reconciled them to Bob Gore’s visits to hear him talk about the things that were happening just beyond the edges of their farm.
“That’s what I always said,” claimed Ma. “That all them people are comin’ here on account of this is where America began. They get to see that all that fast livin’ ain’t worth the trouble it starts.”
“That’s why you watch all them jack-a-dandies on your programs like they was givin’ out the word of God,” John teased.
“And what would you have me do, with my legs no more use than two popple sticks?” Ma cried.
“If the auction checks came out to just a mite more,” Mim said, “could be we’d get our bathroom after all.”
But finally they decided, as they always did when the days grew warmer and lazier, that any change should wait until they had the money in hand.
One Saturday morning, their curiosity got the better of their list of chores. John and Mim and Hildie took a bar of Ivory soap down to the pond and cleaned up. Afterward, scrubbed from scalp to toes, they dressed to go to town—John in clean khakis, Mim in a flowered skirt and yellow blouse, and Hildie in a hand-me-down dotted swiss dress from one of the Cogswell girls. Mim gave Ma a sponge bath and helped her to pull her lisle stockings over her lumpy legs and lace up the black dress shoes.
Secretly, Mim liked going to town, but she wondered if her clothes were right, if she would say something foolish to somebody. She remembered the way people had looked at her when she first came to Harlowe, and she brushed furiously at her hair, as if that would somehow soften the laugh lines around her eyes and make her seventeen again. Now that it was too late, it would have been all right to be admired. Although she had grown up in Powlton, only one town away, she had always felt out of step in Harlowe. John did not hunt or play poker, and she, in turn, did not take part in bake sales or sewing circles. When the others her age had been raising babies, baking, and fancying up their homes, she had known only planting and milking and cutting wood. “No children,” she knew they had commented over their sewing. “Too pretty, that’s why.” Then, when the others, with children in high school, were putting in formica counters and central heat, she was finally raising a baby, continuing to cook and heat with wood, and finding things quite all right and cheaper the way they were. And, although she and John sold flowers to the church, because Ma always had sold flowers to the church, they didn’t feel the need to attend.
If anyone had asked, Mim would have said she was friends with Agnes Cogswell. In summer the Cogswells were their nearest neighbors. Two or three times a year—at least once during blueberry season and once at Christmas—Mim went over and spent a day there. And occasionally Agnes called her up with some question or tidbit of gossip. Agnes wasn’t fashionable either, though not because she didn’t try. Agnes’ problem was that she overdid everything to the point where she scared people away. But Mim, in a quiet way, appreciated her affection and enjoyed visiting in the harum-scarum household with its six noisy children.
Four abreast on the seat of the old green truck, the Moores were all silent as they rattled over the dirt road toward town— Ma with discomfort, John and Mim with their thoughts, and Hildie with eagerness. The auctions were being held on the Parade like the firemen’s auctions. Although they were early, the road that circled the green was parked solid on all four sides, and a good group of people milled around examining the things for sale clustered around the bandstand.
“Balloons!” cried Hildie, jumping ahead of the others as they walked slowly toward the auction.
There was only a smattering of Harlowe people among the summer people and strangers—little girls in pink shorts and jerseys and new sneakers covered with stars, boys in crisp new jeans sporting bright cap pistols, lean couples in baggy clothes, fat ladies with jangling bracelets, and a few serious antique dealers in dark jackets.
“Please, Papa, please,” Hildie cried. “I need a balloon.”
It was Mudgett selling the balloons. John followed Hildie and gave up the thirty cents. He made no mention of the fact that Mudgett had been gone for nearly twenty years.
“Be very careful now,” Mudgett warned. “If you let go, the balloon will float right up into the sky and disappear just like a bad child.”
Flat on his hip lay a neat black leather holster like the one Gore wore when he answered trouble calls. “You need a pistol to sell balloons, Red?” asked John.
“Never can tell,” said Mudgett and straightened up without a smile, his dark eyes dull as charcoal, his once red hair long since tarnished to brown like neglected copper.
John shook his head as they walked toward the chairs to settle Ma. “Red always had that way,” he said. “When he was in school, he just had to look at you to set you squirmin’ without half knowin’ why.”
Mim helped Ma into a chair and hooked her canes over the rungs beneath her.
“Like quicksilver with the Bible verses, that boy,” Ma said. “One look and he could rattle them off better’n the preacher. In the preacher’s way too—so close it made your flesh crawl. Oh, he was wicked fresh.”
“You still got it in for him ’cause you caught him takin’ off on you that time,” John said, grinning.
Ma shook her head. “Some boy he was. Too big for his britches even then. He was settin’ up to get out of Harlowe before he was half growed.”
“Guess he found out the rest of the world’s no different,” John said. “Don’t know of anyone glad to see him back.”
“Fanny says that girl he married’s from Manchester, and she’s showin’ already,” Mim said.
“Him a father,” John said, his foot up on the chair in front of Ma, his elbow on his knee. “God help the child. He used to have this dog. Remember, Ma? One of them black-and-white spotted hounds. He wanted that dog to be a killer. Tried and tried to make him mean. But nothin’ would do. The dog just put his tail between his legs and shivered. At school we’d all stand around, our eyes buggin’ out to watch Red punish the beast. Once in winter, he lowered the dog into the well. And once he dragged him up to the roof of the schoolhouse and let him slide down and fall. He finally killed him feedin’ him broken glass. He pulled the dog the whole way to school in a wagon so we could all see him vomit blood.”
“Well, I know other men was fresh when they was boys,” Ma said. “A baby may soften him up some. I know someone turned soft as a grape.” Her eyes darted here and there in queer contrast with her slow body. “Now you young people get over there and take a look at what’s for sale,” she said. “I see a bed frame looks quite fancy.”
So John and Mim and Hildie moved toward the bandstand and wandered among the things set out for sale.
“A heap of barns gettin’ cleaned this year,” John said.
“Why do you suppose anyone’d put this out to the barn? Mim asked, running her hand down the cornerpost of the fine spool bed Ma had spotted. It was beautifully oiled and finished. “This is a darn sight better than what I call rummage.”