O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 Part 52

"I've always done it, Pinky. And while they may not be wearing attics in New York, we haven't taken them off in Winnebago. Come on up to your room, dear. It looks bare. If I'd known you were coming--the slip covers--"

"Are they in the box in the attic labeled 'Slp Cov Pinky Rum'?" She succeeded in slurring it ludicrously.

It brought an appreciative giggle from Mrs. Brewster. A giggle need not be inconsistent with fifty years, especially if one's nose wrinkles up delightfully in the act. But no smile curved the daughter's stern young lips. Together they went up to Pinky's old room (the older woman stopped to pick up the crumpled towel on the hall floor). On the way they paused at the door of Mrs. Brewster's bedroom, so cool, so s.p.a.cious, all soft greys and blues.

Suddenly Pinky's eyes widened with horror. She pointed an accusing forefinger at a large dark object in a corner near a window. "That's the old walnut desk! she exclaimed.

"I know it."

The girl turned, half amused, half annoyed. "Oh, mother dear! That's the situation in a nutsh.e.l.l. Without a shadow of doubt, there's an eradicable streak of black walnut in your grey-enamel make-up."

"Eradicable! That's a grand word, Pinky. Stylis.h.!.+ I never expected to meet it out of a book. And fu'thermore, as Miz' Merz would say, I didn't know there was any situation."

"I meant the attic. And it's more than a situation. It's a state of mind."

Mrs. Brewster had disappeared into the depths of her clothes closet. Her voice sounded m.u.f.fled. "Pinky, you're talking the way they did at that tea you gave for father and me when we visited New York last winter."

She emerged with a cool-looking blue kimono. "Here. Put this on.

Father'll be home at twelve-thirty, for dinner, you know. You'll want a bath, won't you, dear?"

"Yes. Mummy, is it boiled--honestly?--on a day like this?"

"With onions," said Mrs. Brewster firmly.

Fifteen minutes later Pinky, splas.h.i.+ng in a cool tub, heard the voice of Miz' Merz, high-pitched with excitement and a certain awful joy: "Miz'

Brewster! Oh, Miz' Brewster! I found a moth in Mr. Brewster's winter flannels!"

"Oh!" in choked accents of fury from Pinky; and she brought a hard young fist down in the water--spat!--so that it splashed ceiling, hair and floor impartially.

Still, it was a cool and serene young daughter who greeted Hosea Brewster as he came limping up the porch stairs. He placed the flat of the foot down at each step, instead of heel and ball. It gave him a queer, hitching gait. The girl felt a sharp little constriction of her throat as she marked that rheumatic limp. "It's the beastly Wisconsin winters," she told herself. Then, darting out at him from the corner where she had been hiding: "S'prise! S'prise!"

His plump blond face, flushed with the unwonted heat went darkly red. He dropped his hat. His arms gathered her in. Her fresh young cheek was pressed against his dear, p.r.i.c.kly one. So they stood for a long minute--close.

"Need a shave, dad."

"Well gosh how did I know my best girl was coming!" He held her off.

"What's the matter, Pink? Don't they like your covers any more?"

"Not a thing, Hosey. Don't get fresh. They're redecorating my studio--you know--plasterers and stuff. I couldn't work. And I was lonesome for you."

Hosea Brewster went to the open doorway and gave a long whistle with a little quirk at the end. Then he came back to Pinky in the wide-seated porch swing. "You know," he said, his voice lowered confidentially, "I thought I'd take mother to New York for ten days or so. See the shows, and run around and eat at the dens of wickedness. She likes it for a change."

Pinky sat up, tense. "For a change? Dad, I want to talk to you about that. Mother needs--"

Mrs. Brewster's light footstep sounded in the hall. She wore an all-enveloping gingham ap.r.o.n. "How did you like your surprise, father?"

She came over to him and kissed the top of his head. "I'm getting dinner so that Gussie can go on with the attic. Everything's ready if you want to come in. I didn't want to dish up until you were at the table, so's everything would be hot." She threw a laughing glance at Pinky.

But when they were seated, there appeared a platter of cold, thinly sliced ham for Pinky, and a crisp salad, and a featherweight cheese souffle, and iced tea, and a dessert coolly capped with whipped cream.

"But, mother, you shouldn't have--" feebly.

"There are always a lot of things in the house. You know that. I just wanted to tease you."

Father Brewster lingered for an unwonted hour after the midday meal. But two o'clock found him back at the cold-storage plant. Pinky watched him go, a speculative look in her eyes.

She visited the attic that afternoon at four, when it was again neat, clean, orderly, smelling of soap and suns.h.i.+ne. Standing there in the centre of the big room, freshly napped, smartly coiffed, blue-serged, trim, the very concentrated essence of modernity, she eyed with stern deliberation the funeral wheat wreath in its walnut frame; the trunks; the chests; the boxes all shelved and neatly inscribed with their "H's Fshg Tckl" and "Blk Nt Drs."

"Barbaric!" she said aloud, though she stood there alone. "Medieval!

Mad! It has got to be stopped. Slavery!" After which she went downstairs and picked golden glow for the living-room vases and scarlet salvia for the bowl in the dining-room.

Still, as one saw Mrs. Brewster's tired droop at supper that night, there is no denying that there seemed some justification for Pinky's volcanic remarks.

Hosea Brewster announced, after supper, that he and Fred were going to have a session with the furnace; she needed going over in September before they began firing up for the winter.

"I'll go down with you," said Pinky.

"No, you stay up here with mother. You'll get all ashes and coal dust."

But Pinky was firm. "Mother's half dead. She's going straight up to bed, after that darned old attic. I'll come up to tuck you in, mummy."

And though she did not descend to the cellar until the overhauling process was nearly completed she did come down in time for the last of the scene. She perched at the foot of the stairs and watched the two men, overalled, sooty, tobacco-wreathed and happy. When finally, Hosea Brewster knocked the ashes out of his stubby black pipe, dusted his sooty hands together briskly and began to peel his overalls, Pinky came forward.

She put her hand on his arm. "Dad, I want to talk to you."

"Careful there. Better not touch me. I'm all dirt. G'night, Fred."

"Listen, dad. Mother isn't well."

He stopped then, with one overall leg off and the other on, and looked at her. "Huh? What d'you mean--isn't well? Mother." His mouth was open.

His eyes looked suddenly strained.

"This house--it's killing her. She could hardly keep here eyes open at supper. It's too much for her. She ought to be enjoying herself--like those huge rooms. And you're another."

"Me?" feebly.

"Yes. A slave to his furnace. You said yourself to Fred, just now, that it was all worn out, and needed new pipes or something--I don't know what. And that coal was so high it would be cheaper using dollar bills for fuel. Oh, I know you were just being funny. But it was partly true.

Wasn't it? Wasn't it?"

"Yeh, but listen here, Paula." He never called her Paula unless he was terribly disturbed. "About mother--you said--"

"You and she ought to go away this winter--not just for a trip, but to stay. You"--she drew a long breath and made the plunge--"you ought to give up the house."

"Give up--"

"Permanently. Mother and you are buried alive here. You ought to come to New York to live. Both of you will love it when you are there for a few days. I don't mean to come to a hotel. I mean to take a little apartment, a furnished apartment at first to see how you like it--two rooms and kitchenette, like a play-house."

Hosey Brewster looked down at his own big bulk. Then around the great furnace room. "Oh, but listen--"

"No, I want you to listen first. Mother's worn out, I tell you. It isn't as if she were the old-fas.h.i.+oned kind; she isn't. She loves the theatres, and pretty hats, and shoes with buckles, and lobster, and concerts."