Ten North Frederick (10 page)

“I'll turn down the bed,” said Ann.

“Thank you, and then will you tell Mary to come up?” said Edith. “Why don't you have a nap too?”

“I might try,” said Ann.

“Then don't bother to come down. Call down to Mary and tell her to come to my room.”

“All right, Mother,” said Ann. She whistled into the speaking tube and at Mary's “Yes, ma'am,” she said, “Mary, will you go to Mother's bedroom, please?”

“I will,” said Mary.

Ann saw her mother to the stairs, then went to Joby's room. He was asleep on the counterpane, breathing deeply two notes in a minor key. She put a comforter over him and he did not stir.

 • • • 

W. Carl Johnson, new Superintendent of Schools, had no trouble walking home from the post-funeral lunch. His house was only a block—a “square,” it was called in Gibbsville—from the Chapin residence, and some indication of the intimacy existing between the Chapin and Johnson families was the fact that Edith's note inviting W. Carl Johnson to be a pallbearer was sent to the superintendent's office in the Gibbsville High School building. From Number
10
North Frederick Street to the Johnsons' rented house at Number
107
was actually less than a block, but Edith Chapin had first known Number
107
as the Lawrence property, then as the Reifsnyders', and after that it had been occupied by a succession of clergymen, educators, and engineers who brought their families to Gibbsville during some extended construction work. The house was the property of the Lutheran church, which made for a continuing respectability of tenancy.

The
100
-block in North Frederick Street (there were no dwellings on South Frederick, which was only a block long) was abruptly steep after the flat of the block in which the Chapins lived. Cars parked on upper North Frederick were turned toward the curb. An advantage of upper North Frederick Street was that it provided children with a fine hill for coasting during the rather long Gibbsville winter, but that could be said of many Gibbsville streets. In the whole town there was not a street that was level for more than a single block. The Johnsons' neighbors in the
100
-block were a railroad engineer, two railroad firemen, a young chiropractor, a Civil War veteran and his maiden nieces, a pharmacist, two salesmen for clothing stores, an insurance adjuster, the manager of an absentee-owned bakery, a state forestry official, a freight clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad, and a newspaper man. Most of the neighbors were married and took in roomers, who were usually carefully screened. The rooms were rented to men, never to women, and the relationship between landlord and roomer was kept businesslike. Some of the landladies referred to the paying guests as boarders, but meals were not provided, no cooking was permitted in the rooms, and specific arrangements were always made in the case of men who wanted the privilege of getting their own coffee in the early morning. Sometimes the boarder, or roomer, would go for two or three weeks without encountering his landlord or landlady. So long as he left his weekly payment (always in cash) in an envelope on the hall table he was not disturbed, and two weeks was the outside limit for delinquency in rent payment. A testimonial to the screening of roomers was the record of North Frederick Street: fewer than a dozen men had been locked out in thirty years. There had been two suicides, three deaths from natural causes, and one arrest for embezzling, but only nine or ten men had lost their rooms through nonpayment of the modest rates. The record likewise testified to the character of the householders of North Frederick Street.

W. Carl Johnson and his wife Amy had not yet taken in roomers. Johnson's job paid well—$
9
,
000
per annum—and since Amy was quite pretty, without her glasses, and only thirty-seven years of age, extra care would have to be taken in the screening. It was not that Amy was fearful of rape; but appearances still counted for a great deal in Gibbsville, Pennsylvania, and the school superintendent's wife was expected to be so high above reproach that the sex question never must come up. The ideal roomer for the Johnson establishment would have been old and ugly, but there the Johnson daughters became a consideration. Carlotta, eleven, and Ingrid, nine, were pretty children, and as experienced schoolteachers the Johnsons were acquainted with the problem of elderly degenerates.

Amy Johnson was not cognizant of the distinction she had attained as she and her husband made their departure from the Chapin house. It would be days or weeks before she fully realized that there were Gibbsville women—and men—who had wanted all their lives to see the inside of the Chapin home, and she had eaten a meal there in her first year. She took her husband's arm as they walked northward.

“Who was the little man that talked to everybody? He must have been some relation.”

“Her brother. Mrs. Chapin's brother,” said Carl Johnson.

“The younger man. That was her son.”

“Yes. Joseph B. Chapin Junior,” said Carl.

“And the daughter, she never came downstairs, or at least I never saw her.”

“I was surprised that Mrs. Chapin herself came down,” said Carl.

“Oh, she was a tower of strength, I thought.”

“Yes.”

“There must have been at least a hundred people there, and she spoke to every one of them. She even remembered my name.”

“Well, don't forget she knew most of the people there. We were practically strangers.”

“But she didn't make me feel like a stranger. Very friendly. Nice.”

“It's an art. I've always said so. I guess I haven't got it.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I knew I was out of it in that group, the pallbearers, but I'm as important as Jenkins, or Hooker, or even Judge Williams. At least my job is. I'm the only superintendent of schools. Hooker isn't the only newspaper editor, and Judge Williams isn't the only judge. And yet when one of those men said a kind word to me I was like a kid being patted on the head.”

“They ought to see you with a bunch of teachers.”

“Do you know something? Most of those men would seem just as important among a bunch of teachers. That Donaldson. Did you ever hear of him before? No, and neither did I. But I don't know whether you noticed the Governor. When Donaldson said something, the Governor hung on every word. When you get a group like that together they take one look at each other and they know right away who belongs and who doesn't. Maybe they never saw each other before and don't even know what the other does, but there's an American type, or maybe fifty American types, and they're all used to having authority.”

“You have, too. It's just a different kind.”

“It's so different that I'm damn glad I don't have to exert any authority over any of those men. They'd tell me to go to hell. And I'd go.”

“By a different kind of authority I meant that men like that recognize your ability in your field. It isn't a question of whether you can boss them around or not.”

“Oh, that. Well, I'm good at my job, sure.”

“That's all you're supposed to be. If the Governor rushed across the room to light your cigarette—I saw him do that for the lame man—it wouldn't make you feel any better, or more important. You're responsible for the education of almost three thousand kids and your budget is almost half a million dollars, for teachers' salaries alone.”

“If you only knew it, honey, you aren't making me feel more important. You're making me feel less.
I'm
not responsible for the education of three thousand kids, and nobody knows that better than you. And as far as my budget is concerned, there were men there today that have incomes, personal incomes, as big as my whole teaching salary item. So calm down, honey. I'm just sore at myself for saying I'd be a pallbearer for a man I hardly knew. I don't like to be used.”

“Well, they didn't invite
you
, Waldemar. They invited the Superintendent of Schools. They thought old Chapin was that important, and why complain? You're just as annoyed when people like that
ignore
the school system.”

They were at their front door. “Naturally I left my door key in my other suit,” said Carl.

“I have mine,” said Amy. She took it out of her purse and handed it to him and he opened the door and allowed her to precede him. When he had closed the door he put his hand under her bottom and squeezed.

“Stop goosing me!” she said.

“You thought you were getting away with calling me Waldemar.”

She smiled. “I wondered if you noticed.”

“I warn you, one of these days—right out on the main street. You'll call me Waldemar, and I'll give it to you.”

“You do and you'll be sorry,” she said. “I wonder how long we'd last here if you ever did.”

“‘Why did you leave Gibbsville, Pennsylvania?' Well, you see I was walking along the main drag and my wife called me by my real first name, so I goosed her. She has a nice little ass, only it's not so little any more.”

“All right, all right. Do you want a cup of coffee, with saccharin?”

“Yes. I'll go upstairs and change my suit. Do you know why superintendents get more money? Because they have to wear suits all the time, and teachers can wear slacks.”

“And change your tie,” she said.

“I'll be down in a minute,” he said.

“Black ties remind me of funerals.”

Amy Johnson put the kettle on, stashed away her coat and hat, and got out the cups and saucers, the spoons, the top-milk, the saccharin bottle. Carl appeared in the kitchen as the water came to a boil. He was carrying his coat and vest, which he draped over the back of a kitchen chair.

“If you weren't a Phi Bete would you wear a vest?”

“If I had a dollar for every time you've asked me that.”

“But you always have a different answer,” she said.

“Well, let me think of one for this time,” he said. “If I didn't have a Phi Bete key, maybe I wouldn't have a vest.”

“I've had that answer before.”

“I was afraid so,” he said. “Well, would I wear a vest if I weren't a Phi Bete? You don't wear a vest, you never wear your key. Would you wear a vest if you didn't have a Phi Bete key? There is a switch. You have a key, you never wear a vest. If you didn't have the key, would you wear a vest?”

“Have some coffee,” she said. “Are you going to the office right away?”

“As soon as I drink my coffee and smoke one cigarette.”

“Why don't you hang around a little while longer? The children will be home shortly. You'll probably work late and this would be a good chance to see them.”

“Maybe I will,” he said.

“You might as well,” she said. “You've already put in a day's work, but nobody's going to consider it a day's work, going to an important funeral. Most people would say a schoolteacher should consider himself darn lucky to be with such important people.”

“In a way they'd be right,” said her husband.

“I refuse to give luck much credit. We've worked hard.”

“So have a lot of other men and women we know. Let's just say I'm lucky to have got this far, but not lucky in that I don't seem to have the knack of using people. Brice Conley. Think of what Brice Conley would have done today, with all those big shots.”

“Don't forget, part of it would have been Dot Conley. She'd have had them all back to her house.”

“Can't you see us entertaining that group? The Governor of the state, the partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, and so forth and so forth.”

“No, but I can see Dot and Brice Conley doing it.”

“Well, they like to do it, and Brice's job pays twelve thousand and mine pays nine. We're doing what we like to do, and they're doing what they like to do. Three thousand a year difference in their favor, so from the financial point of view what they like to do is three thousand dollars better than what we like to do.”

“You'll pass Brice and leave him way behind.”

“Maybe, but on a day like today I wish I had more of what Brice has and fewer principles.”

“No, you don't.”

“No, I don't,” said Carl. He inhaled his cigarette and examined it. “What did you have to do to get a pack of Philip Morrises?”

“Mm. Wouldn't you like to know? I got two packs.”

“You had to do it twice.”

“No, just once. Anybody can get one pack. I got two.”

“Oh, proficient,” he said.

“Very,” she said. “Tomorrow I'm going to get three packs.”

“All right,” said her husband. “But when he starts giving you a carton, I'm going to complain.”

“Why should you complain? You're the one that smokes most of them.”

“I know, but it's the principle of the thing. If I could only go out and earn my own cigarettes.”

“You poor man,” said Amy. “You want some more coffee?”

“All right,” said her husband.

She poured the coffee and he watched the fragment of saccharin dissolving.

“All right, what's on your mind?” she said.

“What's on my mind? Well—Gibbsville, at the moment. It's an interesting place.”

“Why?”

“Of course any town is interesting, but this place is getting to be an interesting experience. It's the only place where we really started from scratch. In college we knew a lot about college beforehand. Columbia, we'd heard about New York and knew quite a little about it. And the other towns where we've worked, either you had some previous connection with it or I did, or both of us did.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I'm finding out about this town. It's kind of a bastard town. It's supposed to be a coal town, or at least that's how it was always described for us. But you never see any miners on the streets.”