Not that Mrs. Jonsen complained about the encroaching city-at least not in my presence, anyway. She wasn’t a complainer, Mrs. Jonsen.
Matter of fact, if my negative feelings about the elderly hadn’t been dispelled by the rest of my Hot Supper charges, Mrs. Jonsen would’ve done the trick all by her lonesome. Even if the other names on the list had belonged to gnarled, senile old coots, Mrs. Jonsen alone would’ve turned me around.
Because if my image of old people as grotesque, barely living artifacts was a stereotype, then Mrs. Jonsen provided the necessary counter-stereotype. She was the universal grandmother; a kind, apple-cheeked old lady with (God help me) twinkling blue eyes and warm, winning smile.
On the other hand, she turned out to be far less spry than the other oldies-but-goodies I’d met thus far in my campaign. Like Mrs. Fox, she had arthritis, only much worse; she was pretty badly crippled, both hands and feet, and used a steel walker to get around her small house.
The house was a modest, single-story gray affair that had once been used as quarters for the hired hand and his family on the Jonsen farm. Mrs. Jonsen’s late husband had been a basically kind man (she said) but somewhat bigoted (she didn’t say that; I just gathered it). He had known that the cheapest labor he could find for his farm would be “coloreds” and therefore chose to situate the hired hand’s quarters on the far end of the farm, rather than the customary side-by-side arrangement.
This was only one of many interesting things Mrs. Jonsen told me that first night. She had been last on my list, and when she invited me to stay, I didn’t refuse.
“I have some oatmeal cookies, fresh-baked,” she said. “Would you care for a plate, young Mallory?”
Before Young Mallory could say don’t go to any bother, she was going to bother. She struggled out to the kitchen on the metal walker, and I took the plate of cookies she brought me after her equally slow and awkward return trip. The cookies were, of course, very good. Grandmotherly good.
“You’re wondering,” she said, letting go of the walker and flopping down into a soft armchair, “why I’d bake cookies and yet have my meals delivered.”
I admitted that that had occurred to me.
“Like to keep my hand in,” she said. “Wouldn’t mind cooking for myself, but Edward-that’s my son-says cooking’s too hard for me, what with my arthritis and all. D’you know Edward?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Edward’s a good boy, but I wish he’d get married, like his sister. But he’s forty-eight now, so I doubt that he will. He’s a nice-looking boy, but a bit plump. I guess I fed him too well as a child…. Well, my word, I forgot to bring you a glass of milk. What’s wrong with this old woman.”
“That’s okay, I’m fine….”
“No, I insist.”
She started to rise, clutching onto the walker, and I got up myself, saying, “I can find it,” and went after the glass of milk.
Her kitchen was spacious-considering the size of the house-as big as her living room and remodeled fairly recently. Though the walls and ceiling were cream-colored, as were the counters and cabinets and appliances, the dominant color was blue. Two walls were completely covered with mounted blue plates, decorative plates that upon closer observation revealed Christmas scenes: sleighs, decorated trees, reindeer, candlelit churches, lots of snow-all the standard concepts dressed up somewhat differently on each plate in shades from dark to baby blue. There were eighty-some plates, and each was dated, starting back at 1895. The designs were simple but striking, and it was an impressive display. Christmas seemed to radiate out of the wall, even if it was late June.
“Oh, the Christmas plates,” she said, when I returned milk-in-hand and mentioned them. “Our one extravagance.” She laughed. “From what you’ve heard me say about my husband Elwood, you may have guessed that he was… somewhat tight with a dollar?”
I nodded. I had indeed guessed that Elwood was tight with a dollar. He made Silas Marner look like Hugh Hefner. The only thing that might tie him to those Christmas plates was a kinship to Scrooge.
“Once a year… at Christmastime, as you might guess… Elwood would have one of his relatives in Denmark send over one of the plates, and that would be his special gift to me-special because it was not the practical sort of gift he’d usually give. Those plates aren’t cheap, you know. About twenty-two dollars apiece they’re up to now, if you send to Denmark-twice that in a store-and every year they break the mold, never make that particular plate again. Wouldn’t be surprised if that collection of mine’s valuable, as those things go. At least I know it means a lot to me, enough so’s I kept it up since Elwood’s passed on.”
“They go back a long way.”
“Elwood’s mother, for a wedding present, gave me her plates. She’d collected them from the start, in 1895. We were married in 1919, and we haven’t missed a plate since.”
The rest of the living room was antique-heavy, too, and when I mentioned that, she said, “More of Elwood’s mother’s things; that cabinet of china over there, all very nice, very old pieces; that set of crystal goblets on the mantel is, too…. She left all her things to Elwood and me.”
“She really collected some beautiful things.”
Mrs. Jonsen laughed and said, “Elwood certainly didn’t get his thrifty ways from his mother. Old Beth Jonsen spent her husband’s money and enjoyed it, which is what Elwood and I should have done, I’m afraid. When he passed on, twenty years back, I sold the farm lock, stock, and barrel, just holding onto this little house and the piece of ground it’s on. Used some of the money to fix the place up-spartan is the word for the way Elwood had it fixed up when the help lived here-and I gave a substantial portion of the rest of the funds to our boy Edward.”
There was a pregnant silence, and I said, “What did Edward do with the money?”
“Bought himself a filling station. Let me tell you a story about that. Edward always has been a determined boy, a lot like his father-all the stubbornness, if not the tightness of money… and though it’s unkind to say so about one’s own offspring, which you love very much, he just never had the horse sense his father had. How are the cookies holding out, young Mallory?”
“Fine.”
“Plenty more.”
“No, really.”
“Where was I?”
“Edward always has been a determined boy.”
“Oh yes, well, when Edward was just a youngster, he used to work at this certain filling station, pumping gas. My husband Elwood believed that a child had to earn his own way to appreciate the hardness of a dollar-and that was when a dollar was truly hard, remember-and so in addition to his farm chores, Edward went to work while he was still in junior high school, buying his own clothes and that sort of thing. Though in defense of my husband, we never made the boy pay room and board…. If you want more milk, just help yourself.”
“Thanks, ma’am.”
“Just go on out to the kitchen; this story’ll hold.”
“I don’t care for any more.”
“If you do, you know where it is. What was I saying?”
“Edward used to work at this filling station.”
“Edward worked at this filling station, where he got a lot of abuse from his boss, a fellow name of Meeker who liked to treat his help like so much dirt. You can tell a lot about a person by the way he treats his help, you know. That Meeker fellow divorced his wife, too, to give you some indication of the man’s character. As I was saying, Edward got it in his head that one day he would buy this Meeker out and own that station himself. And, well sir, determined boy that he was, he did. A lot of years went by first, of course, with Edward staying on at the farm and helping his father, but when Elwood came to his untimely early end, I gave Edward a substantial portion of the money we got for selling the farm, and he bought himself that filling station.”