Mary Emma & Company (15 page)

“Doesn't Ralph put his money in your purse?” he asked her.

“Why yes,” Mother told him, “but, you know, Ralph is the man of our family, and . . .”

Mother must have noticed as quickly as I did that Philip's lip was beginning to tremble, because she hesitated for only a moment before she went on, “. . . and you are my man, too, so you run right out and put your half-dollar in with Ralph's.”

I think Philip was as proud of earning that fifty cents as if it had been fifty dollars, and he was all smiles again when he came back to the parlor. Mother read to us that night until after eleven o'clock.

16

Housewarming

O
F COURSE
I knew that Mother would let us work on Sunday only when it was absolutely necessary, but I was anxious to find out what kind of a job I could do on the shelves and table for the laundry room. So when we were finishing breakfast Sunday morning I said, “I guess I'd better get started on those shelves and the table right away, or else they won't be ready for our next batch of laundry tomorrow.”

“Oh no, Son,” Mother said, “not on Sunday! Sunday is a day of rest. You'll have plenty of time to nail those boards together tomorrow evening. You children must hurry right along with your baths, so you won't be late for Sunday School. I'm afraid that ‘hen' we got at such a bargain has turned out to be a rooster, but it should make us a good stew if it simmers slowly while we're at church. Hal, suppose you take Elizabeth into the parlor and tell her a nice long story while we're clearing up the breakfast dishes.”

I'd just finished my bath when Hal came running back from the parlor shouting, “Mother, a two-wheeled buggy has stopped in front of our house, with a man on a little seat way up high in back.”

We all went running to peek out the front windows, and, sure enough, there was a hansom cab standing in front of our house. The driver was climbing down from his seat, and Uncle Levi was coming out of the cab, seat first. He was just about wide enough to fill the whole doorway. Mother didn't even stop to take off her apron, but ran onto the piazza, calling, “Uncle Levi! Uncle Levi! Oh, I'm so glad to see you! Why didn't you let us know you were coming, so the boys could have met you at the carline?”

“Wa'n't no sense of that; I didn't come on the streetcar,” Uncle Levi called back as Mother ran toward him, “and I told Gracie and Ralph to tell you . . .”

By that time Mother had reached him, and he hugged her up over his stomach until only her toes were touching the snow. “What did you tell the children, you old rascal?” she asked him as soon as he stood her down.

“Told 'em to tell you I wa'n't goin' to wait much longer for you to have a housewarmin', and, by hub, I wa'n't. I fetched it with me. Ralph, come help me lug some of this rubbish into the house. Why, Mary Emma, it's a right nice-lookin' place you got here. How be you, Gracie? And there's Muriel, and Phil and Hal and the baby. Named her Elizabeth after your mother, didn't you, Mary Emma? You get back inside 'fore you catch your death-o-cold; I and the boys'll fetch the stuff in.”

Uncle Levi turned back to the hansom cab and began handing out bundles, boxes, jugs and bags as if he were unloading a farm wagon. They came so fast that I could only pile them up on the sidewalk, and it looked as though he'd bought out half the stores in Boston. There were two great big bags of fruit, every sort of vegetable you could think of, a turkey that weighed nearly as much as Elizabeth, a two-gallon jug, and a dozen or so packages that were tied up so that I couldn't see what was in them. After all the packages and bags were out he passed me what I thought was a wooden suitcase, but the minute I got hold of it I knew from the weight that it was a tool box. Then, without turning around, he asked, “Where's Phil?”

“Right here!” Phil called from beside me.

“Ain't you the delivery man?” Uncle Levi asked.

“Yes, sir. Or, anyway, I'm going to be,” Philip told him.

“So I heard tell. Calc'lated you might need a sled, so I fetched one along. Snow's no use to a boy lest he's got a sled.”

As Uncle Levi talked he backed out of the cab, holding a sled that was nearly as long as he was tall, and had
Flexible Flyer
painted on it in bright red letters. “Kind of long for belly-bump slidin',” he said as he passed it to Philip, “but mebbe it'll do for haulin' wash baskets. How 'bout you skedaddlin' over to Frank's house and tellin' 'em we're havin' a housewarmin'? Tell Frank to fetch his tools along, and his overhauls; we got a job o' work to do.”

If that wasn't the first steering sled in Medford, except for double-runners, it came pretty close to being, and it was certainly the best one. Philip would hardly take his hands off it long enough to go into the house for his overcoat and mittens.

As soon as Uncle Levi had paid the cabby I told him to go right into the house, that I'd bring the packages. But I didn't hurry. With every armful I expected Mother to say, “Now hurry right along, Son; you children mustn't be late for Sunday School.” She didn't say it, though, and none of us reminded her.

When I carried the last load into the kitchen Mother was sitting on Uncle Levi's lap and laughing as he bounced her up and down and sang, “Round and round the cobbler's bench.” I'd saved the turkey back for the last, and as I brought it in Mother cried, “My stars, Uncle Levi! Why you've brought enough to feed an army! What in the world will we ever do with it all?”

“Eat it! Eat it! It's all good victuals!” Uncle Levi sang out. “By hub, ain't we goin' to have fun!” Then he stopped bouncing Mother, and asked, “Did you fetch in my tool case, Ralph?”

“Yes, sir,” I told him. “I put it in the laundry room down in the basement.”

“Ain't it about time we was gettin' at that table?” he asked me. “The women folks won't want us clutterin' up their kitchen whilst they're cookin' the victuals.”

“Oh, Uncle Levi, you know I'd love to have you right here where we could visit,” Mother said quickly. But she didn't say anything about Sunday being a day of rest, and she didn't make any fuss when I went up to my room and put on my overalls.

I never thought there'd be a man I'd like to work with as well as I used to like working with Father, but Uncle Levi came awfully close to it. When I took him down to the laundry room he took off his coat and collar, rolled up his shirt sleeves, and pulled on the overalls he'd brought in his tool case. Then he stood looking down at the little pile of lumber for a minute or two, and said, “By hub, it looks like they run it through a coffee mill, 'stead of a planer. Must'a picked over forty-'leven stacks to find it. How was you calc'latin' on buildin' the table?”

“Well,” I told him, “I was planning to saw one of these two-by-fours into pieces for the legs, then spike other pieces on one end of them to make a frame, and nail the boards on top. Mother wants the table ten feet long and . . .”

I was still telling him when Uncle Frank called, “Hi there, Levi!” from the top of the stairway.

“Get your overhauls on and fetch your tools down,” Uncle Levi called back to him. “We got a job o' work on our hands, and a mess o' lumber that ain't fit for makin' hog-troughs.”

“Be with you soon's I get Hilda started off,” Uncle Frank called back. “She's going to roast the turkey over home. One stove won't handle all the stuff.” Then I heard him say, “Oh, let 'em both go, Mary Emma; that sled will hold a dozen youngsters.”

Uncle Levi was still looking over the lumber and sorting it out when Uncle Frank came down to the laundry room. “What did they send her, a bunch of number-two stuff?” he asked as he came in.

“Number two!” Uncle Levi grumbled. “Number nine, ten, 'leven! It's a God's wonder they could get it through a doorway! Hard pine boards warped till they look like ribbon candy, and brittle as glass. Split like kindlin' if you was to drive a nail into 'em. Hemlock two-by-fours, and there ain't one of 'em but what's twisted like an auger bit. By hub, I'd like to lay hands on the man that'd send this kind o' rubbish to a widda-woman, but it's too late to send it back now. Let's heist some o' these straightest boards atop the tubs here, so's to make a bench.”

Father had always been careful with his tools, and about the way he put them into his tool box, but nothing compared to Uncle Levi. Every tool was fastened into its own place, every plane blade and chisel was as sharp as a razor, and down each side of his case he had little drawers for finish nails and brads and screws and flake glue. When all the tools were laid out the way he wanted them, he set a little pot of glue to simmer on the furnace, and told us, “Don't calc'late we can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but like as not we can work the worst kinks out'a this stuff. Frank, you could do the rippin' if you've a mind to. And, Ralph, you can look after the planin' whilst I do the markin' out and cut the mortises and tenons. Don't try to take too big a bites; a deep cut would rough up them cussed knots. Slow and easy goes fer in a day.”

When we'd finished our jobs we had four of the prettiest table legs you could find. Each one was as straight as a gun barrel, tapered evenly from its two-by-four shoulder to the inch-square end that would sit on the floor, and mortised perfectly on two sides. Uncle Levi picked our straightest boards for side and end stringers. When they had been ripped, planed, and tenoned, I painted the inside of the mortises with hot glue, and the pieces fitted together as perfectly as if they'd been the parts of a fine watch.

It seemed to me that it was a shame to make so fine a table frame when we had only warped boards for the top and under shelf, but the boards weren't warped when Uncle Levi had finished with them. He planed the edges until they fitted with barely a hair line between them, bored holes in the sides, and glued dowel pins tightly into them as Uncle Frank and I sprung out the warp. Then he had us squeeze the boards snugly together while he screwed them into place from underneath, so that no holes showed from above. When the top and under shelf were planed and sandpapered, they were as smooth and even as if they'd been made of glass.

“There!” Uncle Levi said as he stood back and looked at the table. “Calc'late that'll come nigh to fetchin' it, soon's I whack up a couple o' drawers and fit 'em in; a table ain't no good without drawers.”

I was still rubbing my hand over the table top when Mother called down from the head of the kitchen stairway, “How would you men like some hot apple pie and doughnuts? That turkey's so big it will take at least six hours to roast, so we won't have dinner till nearly four, but I've just taken a pie out of the oven, and Gracie will have doughnuts out of the kettle in a few minutes.”

“By hub, that would hit the spot!” Uncle Levi shouted back. “And how 'bout sendin' down a pitcher o' cider? I'm dryer'n a toad in hayin' time.”

I'd expected Mother or Grace to bring the lunch down, but it was Muriel who brought it. She had Mother's best apron on, with the top tied just below her armpits and the hem nearly touching the floor, and she was as businesslike as if she'd been a regular waitress in a restaurant. “Calc'lated you little shavers would all be out slidin',” Uncle Levi said when she came in.

“They are,” Muriel told him. “Philip has slid John and Hal and Elizabeth all over town to show off his new sled, but, you know, I'm the housekeeper; I have to stay here to take care of things while Mother and Grace are cooking. And I'm minding Louise while Aunt Hilda's over at her house roasting the turkey. Oh my! I forgot to bring a tablecloth, and we mustn't get any spots on that pretty table before Mother sees it.”

She'd brought a whole apple pie on a big tray, and plates and forks and glasses, but no knife to cut the pie with. While she was gone for the tablecloth Uncle Levi kept looking at the pie and smacking his lips. “By hub,” he said, “I wisht the little tyke would forget 'bout that tablecloth, and fetch a knife and a pitcher o' cider. Don't know where a man could find better victuals than fresh apple pie, lest it's hot doughnuts with a dollop o' sweet-apple cider to wash 'em down.”

We ate the whole pie, and about two-dozen red-hot doughnuts—just as fast as Grace could fish them out of the kettle—and drank the whole pitcher of cider. “By hub, it's a God's wonder I ain't busted a seam,” Uncle Levi said as he got up from the table. “Whilst I'm whackin' together a couple o' drawers you boys might get to goin' on them shelves Mary Emma wants for layin' out her fancy work. We ought to have just about time to finish up 'fore the turkey's roasted and the main victuals is ready.”

“I don't think we'll be able to do much about the shelves,” I told him. “I didn't plan on an underneath shelf, or drawers, or board stringers for the table when I made out the order for the lumber, so we're six boards short and two two-by-fours over.”

“So much to the good!” Uncle Levi told me. “You wouldn'ta been able to do no good with them rock-hard, warped boards no way, and you can rip the two-by-fours in half for uprights; that'll give Mary Emma stouter shelves; ones that won't sag whenst she puts a load on 'em.”

He turned to Uncle Frank and told him, “Frame it up, same's you would for a cupboard, and make it two boards deep, so's she'll have plenty of room; you could rip crossbars out'n some of this waste. Notch them two left-over boards for the bottom shelf, but don't nail 'em down. That way Ralph can use 'em for a pattern when he goes to cut the balance. And, Ralph, you tell that lumberman to send you number-one-clear white pine boards that's milled smooth, or I'll be up there to settle with him.”

“And if he soaks you over four cents a board foot,” Uncle Frank told me, “you can tell him I'll be up there to find out the reason for it.”

Uncle Frank and I had finished the frame for the laundry shelves, and Uncle Levi was just slipping the second drawer into the table when Mother called from the top of the kitchen stairs, “Twenty minutes, and everything will be on the table! You carpenters had better knock off and get washed up.”

When we had finished the pie and doughnuts I was so full that I thought I'd never want to eat again, but the smells that came down the stairway when Mother called us brought my appetite back in a hurry, and I felt as if I were starving to death.

I'd barely scrubbed my face and hands and changed back into my Sunday clothes when Philip pulled his sled up to our back steps and shouted, “Ralph, come help me with this turkey; it weighs a ton!”