Just an Ordinary Day: The Uncollected Stories of Shirley Jackson (53 page)

Miss Athens smiled. “After all,” she said, “I did teach school for forty-one years. I imagine I could cope with most of your work. I can write a very neat, well-thought-out theme, for instance. I can do arithmetic, or spelling, or geography. You ought to be able to find two hours of work for me.” She laughed. “It’s only fair, after all.”

A light of the purest, most disinterested wickedness, a light possible only in the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy presented with an opportunity beyond his wildest anticipations, touched the earnest face and wide, truthful forehead of Allen Stuart. “Well,” he said, “I don’t know what my mother would say, but if
you
think it’s fair, Miss Athens. But only if you’re sure you
really
think it’s fair.”

“I would be a very poor sort of person, Allen, if I asked something of you and then refused to take my turn.” Miss Athens took up the pad of paper. “What shall I say? Just ‘I.O.U. two hours’ selected work’?”

“Oh, yes,” Allen said. “Oh, yes, that will be perfectly fine.”

“There.” Miss Athens signed her name with a flourish and handed the paper to Allen. “All fair and legal,” she said.

“Thank
you”
Allen said, picking up the paper with some haste. “Miss Athens, thank you very,
very
much.”

And that was how Miss Honoria Athens found herself committed, on her word of honor, to two hours’ playing shortstop for the Rockville Rockets baseball team.

Mr. Smith, the grocer, possessed of Allen Stuart’s promise to work for two hours upon demand, brought the I.O.U. home to his wife, who took it very seriously. “You see,” she explained to her husband, “this is as real as any promise. The little boy has given his word to do the work.”

Mr. Smith grinned. “You remember last Halloween?” he asked.

“Was that the same little boy? But you put back the doors of the garage long ago.”

“He must be an agile young fellow,” Mr. Smith said. “I took this paper only as a kind of a joke—thought it might keep him in line for a while if he knew I had it.”

“But I can
use
him.” Mrs. Smith was eager. “If he will push a wheelbarrow with rocks in it, I can use this two hours of work from him and make my rock garden, since”—and her voice became reproachful—“I have been three weeks asking
you
—”

“All right,” Mr. Smith said, “but just remember, I had to
buy
this paper.”

“Indeed?” said Mrs. Smith. “Will you next charge me for groceries out of the store?”

“What will you give me for it?”

Mrs. Smith thought, regarding her husband dubiously. Then, amused, she said, “I will make
you
a little paper. Just like this. Only instead of pushing the wheelbarrow I will promise you a stuffed cabbage with sour cream. I will sign my name on the bottom.”

“The big baking dish?” said Mr. Smith.

“The big baking dish.”

“Butterball,” Mr. Smith said, “you have made yourself a deal.”

It might, perhaps, have stopped there if Mrs. Watkins from Willow Street had not come into the grocery store the next morning, collecting for the P.T.A. food sale. Mr. Smith, who ordinarily contributed half a dozen cases of soft drinks to the food sale, took it into his head, this time, to contribute Mrs. Smith’s I.O.U. for one big baking dish of stuffed cabbage and sour cream. Mrs. Smith was understandably upset when she heard, and pointed out to Mr. Smith that not everybody was so foolish about what they ate as to prefer Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage to good ordinary food, and Mr. Smith would be hopelessly humiliated when everything at the food sale was sold except for Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage, left sitting there alone on the table because no one would buy it. Mr. Smith promised to go himself to the food sale and personally buy every scrap of Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage, and Mrs. Smith said that if he did, she would never forgive him, because that would
prove
that nobody liked her stuffed cabbage.

Allen Stuart, as it turned out, shortsightedly spent his movie money on a water pistol, which was confiscated almost at once by the seventh-grade teacher, and in order to get to the movies with the rest of his friends on Wednesday night (two cartoons and a serial, in addition to a double feature), he had to sign two further I.O.U.’s for his mother, one promising to help his sixteen-year-old sister with the dishes every night for a week, and the other for an hour’s free baby-sitting, which his mother did not need for herself, but which she used as a bribe in a trade with
her
sister, to get a sweater pattern and an I.O.U.—her sister having been captivated by the I.O.U. notion—for help with the hard part of the sleeves.

Mrs. Stuart got home, read over the directions for the sweater, and decided it was too hard for her after all, so she traded the directions and the I.O.U. for help around the sleeves to her daughter, who gave her in exchange an I.O.U. promising to help Allen with his arithmetic homework every night for two weeks. Mr. Stuart, dazzled by the sight of his older daughter bending her bright head over her younger brother’s arithmetic, made, of his own free will, an I.O.U. to foot the bill for a steak dinner for four at the Rockville Inn. “It’s such a blessed miracle,” he explained to his wife, “to see the two of them sitting next to each other in peace and quiet.”

Miss Athens, lying in wait morning and afternoon, captured and signed up eleven more twelve-year-old boys.

Frances Stuart was only human, and her golden head was sadly bowed. What girl could live, she wondered, what girl could positively, absolutely
live
when Florence Crain had drawn the name of Jeff Rogers out of the hat for the Grab Bag Dance? Actually, how could anyone
bear
it? It was simply too much. Naturally, no one would dream of hinting that Florence Crain had been peeking, but really, the whole thing was just too
obvious
a coincidence. Frances Stuart believed with all her heart that she would never, just
never
, live through Friday evening, and naturally Florence would wear the black dress, which was
ages
too old for her, and probably look utterly evil in it, and it was just all of it too
much
. For twenty-four hours Frances Stuart contemplated her own sudden death from a broken heart, and consoled herself with the picture of her stricken parents, and even a contrite younger brother bending over her deathbed, while somewhere—perhaps on the bank of a raging river or on a high cliff miles above cruel, jagged rocks—Jeff Rogers breathed her name just once before hurling himself to destruction. For twenty-four hours this was satisfactory. Then Frances Stuart, being not only human but of a certain shrewdness, armed herself with her aunt’s sweater pattern, the I.O.U. for helping with the sleeves, her father’s I.O.U. for a steak dinner for four at the Rockville Inn, and an unopened bottle of cologne, and made for Florence Crain.

Florence was a hard bargainer, but by throwing in a yellow skirt that was too big, anyway, and a further I.O.U. for two sodas at the drugstore, Frances came off with Jeff Rogers for the Grab Bag Dance, and an I.O.U. from Florence promising the black dress for the first dance of the fall season.

The P.T.A. food sale was held on Wednesday evening, and Mr. Smith got there too late. On Friday morning Miss Athens met Mrs. Stuart and her sister in the grocery, all converging upon Mr. Smith and intent on more of Mrs. Smith’s stuffed cabbage and sour cream. “Good morning,” Mrs. Stuart said to Miss Athens as she edged toward the counter. “I’ve been meaning to stop in and say hello. And of course to apologize for Allen’s causing you so much trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” Miss Athens said. “He very kindly helped me with my garden.”

“So I heard,” Mrs. Stuart said. “Actually, I was wondering if you had any I.O.U.’s you would care to trade. Allen is signed up to the absolute limit of his credit, and I
still
have no one to fix our broken back step. I thought perhaps one of the other boys…”

Miss Athens opened her pocketbook. “As a matter of fact,” she said,
“nothing
seems to stop them from using my yard as a shortcut, although they do seem to be
trying
not to step in the garden. I have more promises of help than I can ever use, though it has occurred to me that I could put up a little summer house, or a terrace or something, to use up all these hours of work.” She leafed through a little package of I.O.U.’s signed more or less legibly with the names of various young gentlemen, who still optimistically believed that Miss Athens’ backyard was the shortest way to school. “What kind of boy would you like?” she asked.

“Let me see.” Mrs. Stuart was, in turn, unfolding a little collection of slips of paper. “You have no use for baby-sitters, do you?”

“I can take the baby-sitting ones,” her sister put in. “I have one from my husband promising to put up a television aerial. Or I can trade my own promise to help you with those curtains, Grace.”

“I’m very clumsy with curtains,” Miss Athens said shyly. “I can’t seem to get mine to hang straight.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Stuart’s sister, “I can certainly use a couple of those boys, Miss Athens—I want to build an outdoor playpen for the baby.”

“Fine,” Miss Athens said. “I have four windows in my living room—would three boys at two hours each sound right?”

“Splendid,” Mrs. Stuart’s sister said.

“Wait,” said Mrs. Stuart. “Don’t trade away all your boys, Miss Athens.”

“I get more every day,” Miss Athens said cynically.

“How about dusting?” Mrs. Stuart asked. “My daughter, Frances, has promised half an hour of dusting every day for a week.” She laughed. “Here’s one I don’t suppose you need,” she said. “It’s from Allen, promising to get a haircut every two weeks until fall. It cost me a bag of marbles. How about one promising to substitute for chaperon at the dance Friday night? Or here’s one from the little Atkins girl promising not to give us any of their kittens for one year. Leaf-raking next fall? Snow-shoveling? Allen has been getting desperate. And here’s one from Mrs. Williams promising to make one of those sweet little knitted caps. I got
that
one from Frances, and she got it from the Williams girl in exchange for a home permanent, and the Williams girl got it from
her
mother for doing the family marketing and carrying home the packages. Dear me.” And Mrs. Stuart sighed, regarding her handful of papers.

“I could use the dusting,” Miss Athens said. “Is she careful of old china?”

“She will be,” Mrs. Stuart said. “She’ll be fine after the dance on Friday night.”

Mr. Smith spoke hesitantly. “My wife’s been after me,” he said. “I can’t find time to do things, much, and I thought I heard one of you ladies mention a television aerial.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Stuart’s sister.

“Only thing is,” Mr. Smith went on, “I don’t know how to go about trading. What do I offer you in exchange?”

Mrs. Stuart’s sister smiled happily. “Stuffed cabbage with sour cream.”

Miss Athens and Mrs. Stuart stopped for a minute to talk, in front of the grocery, and stepped aside as an unfamiliar young woman approached; she started to go into the grocery, hesitated, and then turned to Mrs. Stuart. “Excuse me,” she said, “but isn’t your name Stuart?”

Mrs. Stuart laughed. “Children are the world’s best newspapers,” she said. “I am Mrs. Stuart, I live directly across the street from you. Your name is Boone, you moved in yesterday, and you have two children, one a little girl about four and the other a baby.”

“A boy,” Mrs. Boone said. “Three months old.” She was pretty and smiling and breathless and clearly in the middle of unpacking: her hair was mussed and she was wearing blue jeans. “I’m ashamed of myself,” she said, gesturing at her clothes, “but we ran out of milk for the baby, and I’ve been trying to get dishes put away, and linen out so I could make the beds, and I can’t
find
anything.”

Mrs. Stuart nodded sympathetically, but Miss Athens, businesslike, took out her package of I.O.U.’s. “Exactly,” she said. “You sound like you could use four or five of my boys.”

Mrs. Boone looked puzzled. Then she said, “Why, I have one of those papers.” From the pocket of her blue jeans she took Mr. Stuart’s I.O.U. promising a steak dinner for four at the Rockville Inn. “I don’t understand it at all,” Mrs. Boone said. “Yesterday a very pretty dark-haired girl—”

“Florence Crain,” said Mrs. Stuart with admirable courtesy.

“Yes, of course. Florence. Mrs. Smith here in the grocery suggested that she might be able to watch the babies for me while I unpacked, and she was really terribly sweet about it, but
you
know how girls are—she came across a necklace of mine, nothing but costume jewelry and of no value at all, and actually I haven’t worn it for years, but
she
seemed to think it was just exactly the thing to wear with a black dress she has—”

“I know the black dress,” Mrs. Stuart said grimly.

“Much too old for a girl her age, I would think,” said Mrs. Boone, accurately interpreting Mrs. Stuart’s expression. “I told her I would be delighted to give her the necklace, because she had been so very nice with the babies, but she gave me this paper. She said it was a trade. But I believe it belongs to you.”