“What’s that unearthly squalling sound in the other room?”
“He’s practicing with his voice-throwing gadget. He’s going to perform at the school closing show.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to cut the lawn myself.”
“I’m sorry, dear. But you know how they are.”
“Yes, I’m beginning to learn how they are.”
“Are you in a bad temper? Did you have a hard day?”
“Let’s see. No, I guess not. I’ve been on my feet all day. The thought of pushing the lawnmower doesn’t make me jump with joy.”
“We should have a power mower. The Johnsons have one you can ride on.”
“We should have a gardener and a gardener’s boy. My grandfather did. Ride on? Allen might cut the lawn if he could ride.”
“Don’t be mean to him. He’s only fourteen. They’re all like that.”
“Who do you suppose established the fallacy that children are cute?”
“You are in a bad temper.”
“Let’s see. Yes, I guess I am. And that squalling is driving me crazy.”
“He’s practicing.”
“So you said.”
“Now don’t take your bad temper out on him.”
“All right, but it would help if I could.” Ethan pushed through the living room, where Allen was squawking vaguely recognizable words from a vibrating reed held on his tongue. “What in the world is that?”
Allen spat it into his palm. “From that box of Peeks. It’s ventriloquism.”
“Did you eat the Peeks?”
“No. I don’t like it. I’ve got to practice, Dad.”
“Hold up a moment.” Ethan sat down. “What do you plan to do with your life?”
“Huh?”
“The future. Haven’t they told you in school? The future is in your hands.”
Ellen slithered into the room and draped herself on the couch like a knob-kneed cat. She rippled out a steel-cutting giggle.
“He wants to go on television,” she said.
“There was a kid only thirteen won a hundred and thirty thousand dollars on a quiz program.”
“Turned out it was rigged,” said Ellen.
“Well, he still had a hundred and thirty grand.”
Ethan said softly, “The moral aspects don’t bother you?”
“Well, it’s still a lot of dough.”
“You don’t find it dishonest?”
“Shucks, everybody does it.”
“How about the ones who offer themselves on a silver platter and there are no takers? They have neither honesty nor money.”
“That’s the chance you take—the way the cooky crumbles.”
“Yes, it’s crumbling, isn’t it?” Ethan said. “And so are your manners. Sit up! Have you dropped the word ‘sir’ from the language?”
The boy looked startled, checked to see if it was meant, then lounged upright, full of resentment. “No, sir,” he said.
“How are you doing in school?”
“All right, I guess.”
“You were writing an essay about how you love America. Has your determination to destroy her stopped that project?”
“How do you mean, destroy—sir?”
“Can you honestly love a dishonest thing?”
“Heck, Dad, everybody does it.”
“Does that make it good?”
“Well, nobody’s knocking it except a few eggheads. I finished the essay.”
“Good, I’d like to see it.”
“I sent it off.”
“You must have a copy.”
“No, sir.”
“Suppose it gets lost?”
“I didn’t think of that. Dad, I wish I could go to camp the way all the other kids do.”
“We can’t afford it. Not all the other kids go—only a few of them.”
“I wish we had some money.” He stared down at his hands and licked his lips.
Ellen’s eyes were narrowed and concentrated.
Ethan studied his son. “I’m going to make that possible,” he said.
“Sir?”
“I can get you a job to work in the store this summer.”
“How do you mean, work?”
“Isn’t your question, ‘What do you mean, work?’ You will carry and trim shelves and sweep and perhaps, if you do well, you can wait on customers.”
“I want to go to camp.”
“You also want to win a hundred thousand dollars.”
“Maybe I’ll win the essay contest. At least that’s a trip to Washington anyway. Some kind of vacation after all year in school.”
“Allen! There are unchanging rules of conduct, of courtesy, of honesty, yes, even of energy. It’s time I taught you to give them lip service at least. You’re going to work.”
The boy looked up. “You can’t.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Child labor laws. I can’t even get a work permit before I’m sixteen. You want me to break the law?”
“Do you think all the boys and girls who help their parents are half slave and half criminal?” Ethan’s anger was as naked and ruthless as love. Allen looked away.
“I didn’t mean that, sir.”
“I’m sure you didn’t. And you won’t again. You stubbed your nose on twenty generations of Hawleys and Allens. They were honorable men. You may be worthy to be one someday.”
“Yes, sir. May I go to my room, sir?”
“You may.”
Allen walked up the stairs slowly.
When he had disappeared, Ellen whirled her legs like propellers. She sat up and pulled down her skirt like a young lady.
“I’ve been reading the speeches of Henry Clay.[52] He sure was good.”
“Yes, he was.”
“Do you remember them?”
“Not really, I guess. It’s been a long time since I read them.”
“He’s great.”
“Somehow it doesn’t seem schoolgirl reading.”
“He’s just great.”
Ethan got up from his chair with a whole long and weary day pushing him back.
In the kitchen he found Mary red-eyed and angry.
“I heard you,” she said. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing. He’s just a little boy.”
“That’s the time to start, my darling.”
“Don’t darling me. I won’t stand a tyrant.”
“Tyrant? Oh, Lord!”
“He’s just a little boy. You went for him.”
“I think he feels better now.”
“I don’t know what you mean. You crushed him like an insect.”
“No, darling. I gave him a quick glimpse of the world. He was building a false one.”
“Who are you to know what the world is?”
Ethan walked past her and out the back door.
“Where are you going?”
“To cut the lawn.”
“I thought you were tired.”
“I am—I was.” He looked over his shoulder and up at her standing inside the screened door. “A man is a lonely thing,” he said, and he smiled at her a moment before he got out the lawnmower.
Mary heard the whirring blades tearing through the soft and supple grass.
The sound stopped by the doorstep. Ethan called, “Mary, Mary, my darling. I love you.” And the whirling blades raged on through the overgrown grass.
Chapter twelve
Margie Young-Hunt was an attractive woman, informed, clever; so clever that she knew when and how to mask her cleverness. Her marriages had failed, the men had failed; one by being weak, and the second weaker—he died. Dates did not come to her. She created them, mended her fences by frequent telephone calls, by letters, get-well cards, and arranged accidental meetings. She carried homemade soup to the sick and remembered birthdays. By these means she kept people aware of her existence.
More than any woman in town she kept her stomach flat, her skin clean and glowing, her teeth bright, and her chinline taut. A goodly part of her income went to hair, nails, massage, creams, and unguents. Other women said, “She must be older than she looks.”
52
speeches of Henry Clay: (1777-1852) American statesman and persuasive orator whose speeches were often more fervent than carefully documented.