The Man Who Loved Children (14 page)

Meanwhile, Evie and Ernest were whispering energetically and scowling at each other in reciprocating moods of admonition and Evie began to cry. As if a button had been pressed, Bonnie’s pale head floated in the dark hall doorway and she recited,

“Dogs delight to bark and bite for ’tis their nature so!” while Louie looked out of the dining-room window where she was reading the
Legend,
and shouted,

“Stop it!”

Ernest grinned. “Who’s cleaning my shoes?” called Henny.

Ernest made sham moves, while Evie, sniffling, began to trudge round to the kitchen steps.

“You do ’em,” shouted Ernest after her, “I did them yesterday.”

“Boy dear!” called Henny.

“Go on,” said Sam, giving him a push.

“Yes, Mother!” shouted Ernest.

“Little Ernie boy,” called Henny, “do Mother’s shoes?”

“There’s a darling, there’s a good boy,” crowed Bonnie: “there’s a mother’s boy; kiss its Bonnie. Who’s a good boy? Don’t use that rag, darlin’. Come, honey, give its Bonnie a big kiss.”

Ernest nonchalantly brushed a kiss on her cheek, in between two rubs.

“There’s a dear little man: someone’s going to be a big hit with the girls, I know.”

Ernest polished the shoes in an efficient style and rushed in with them, after putting away the polish and rags.

“Ten cents,” he said: “that’s what the shoeshine boys want, Mothering. That’s all I charge.”

“You go to Tokyo,” said Henny: “you’ll have to lend me your money box to go downtown.”

“How much?” inquired he excitedly. “How much? Will you give me the usual commission, Mothering?”

“You bet your sweet life,” said Henny. “Have you got a dollar, boy dear?”

“Five cents,” bargained Ernest.

“Maybe ten cents, if Hassie gives me any money. And don’t tell your father.”

“Do you think Old David will give me five dollars for my birthday like last time?”

“Shh!” said Henny, shocked.

“Preparedness!” Ernie grinned at her. Ernie and Henny lived in an intimacy of their own, largely built up of calculations, loans, and commissions. Ernie understood her need of money; she understood why Ernie should make a profit out of her need. Twinkling at his mother, as he handed her the dollar in small change, and nodding his head carefully as he counted the residue back into the slot, Ernie concluded,

“Well, got to write it down,” and he dashed upstairs to the attic to make the addition to his accounts notebook. He was a charming child, everyone’s darling, he made no enemies, and he managed to remain above the domestic battle through concentration on his money matters. They ranted, but he had already defined all his relations to the world—Sam gave him a nickel every Saturday, Henny was good for at least twenty-five cents a month commissions: Louie, who loved him and knew his passion, gave him money on his birthday instead of a present, and so on. His passion interested all his relatives, and they liked to give him money to add fuel to the flames! Odd human race, thought Ernie. But he himself was no miser. At Christmas and for the various birthdays, he disbursed handsomely and strictly in order and percentage of age. He had a calculator in the back of his notebook, which now stood as follows:

New Year’s Day, 1936.

Birthday presents (1936)

_______

90 cents

At Christmas Ernest divided his bank money by half and divided the half pro rata amongst his family. He always begged a gift for his rich grandfather from Henny, for Henny and he understood their duty.

Sam, issue of a poor family, ignored all such duties, and had chimeric views about money, the bright, the beautiful, the leveler, the just: he called it “the root of all evil.” Henny raged and Ernie smiled at this. Henny was thinking already, “That boy will get me out of a mess later on: if only Father stays alive until he grows up! I wish one of my brothers had had the
nous!
” And even Samuel would wink and grin to the others,

“Nary a word! A chip off the old Collyer block!” but at other times he would see a great chemist or physicist in Ernie.

Ernie heard things humming out at the back and, as soon as business was done, rushed out.

“Lumpkin!” shouted Bonnie. “Sweet lumpkin?”

“As she walks, she wobbles,” cried Sam provokingly from the porch, craning his head to discover Ernie; “as she walks she wobbles, boys!”

“Smithy is here!” Little-Sam told Ernie. Dribble Smith’s ten-year-old son had, in fact, escaped during roasting hour and climbed the side steps to view wonderful Pollitry in action. When Gregg Smith laughed, he also dribbled, or blew bubbles, the habit which had won little tenor Smith ignoble fame amongst many bureaucrats.

“As she walks, she wobbles,” chanted Sam, painting.

“Shh! That’s Mrs. Bannister,” said Saul from his perch on the handrail. “She’ll hear you, Pad.”

Bonnie rushed to the window of the kitchen, “So it is! Old Mother Slipperslopper.”

“You hate her, don’t you, Bonniferous?” teased Sam looking up.

“Sam, don’t be ridiculous,” said Bonnie, getting pink.

“Samsam, how will we paint the roof of the porch?” inquired Saul thoughtfully.

“Simplicissimus! Ex-cruciatingly simplicissimus,” exclaimed Sam. “Put the board across on our two ladders. As she walks, she wobbles, boys,” he continued, taking a dip of paint.

“As she walks, she wobbles,” said Tommy.

“Old Mother Bannister, sat on her canister,” said his father. Louie’s face loomed in the open dining-room window, “Daddy, don’t be so rude!”

The children were giggling, repeating Sam’s crack,
sotto voce,
“Old Mother Bannister.”

“You stop it; don’t be so rude,” cried Louie indignantly. Sam chuckled, “Toppid, Toppid, I god a gold id by dose!”

Old Mother White, oh, what a sight

In the middle of the night!

“Don’t make them do it, Daddy!” Louie shrieked, this time from the hall doorway, where she stood book in hand.

“Don’t get her mad,” said Saul wickedly from above.

“Get her mad,” winked Sam at Little-Sam; all the little faces turned toward Louie.

Sam obliged, “Old Mother Jewell is a durn foo-ell!”

The children shrieked in triumph. “Looloo’s as mad as a hornet,” confided Ernest.

“Make her mad, go on!”

Sam painted away merrily, “As she walks, she wobbles, all her skirts are hobbles, she tripped up on the cobbles, and oh, what a shine!” Ernest guffawed.

“You’re disgusting,” said Louie, lowering.

“Go on,” urged Little-Sam, “Daddy, go on!” The children and Smithy stood round with shining eyes. “Dirty Old Kydd has such greasy lapels! pooh,” said Ernest.

Sam sang, “Old Man Goat and Angela Kydd stewed old cats, that’s what they did: then they came to their last resource, they made potroast of a rocking horse.”

Even Louie melted at this, though the Kydds, who lived in a tiny wooden house at the back, were her friends. The Kydds made toys for a living and led a cat-and-dog life. Louie laughed.

“Now she’s not mad, oo-hoo,” cried Little-Sam dancing; “Now she laughed. You laughed, Louie, you laughed.” Louie began to giggle and bob about helplessly like a jelly.

“Say some more to make her laugh,” Ernie jogged his father’s elbow and whispered. Sam picked out the Boltons who lived in the expensive little brick bungalow across the road. They had one daughter, Charlotte, the seventeen-year-old brunette beauty whom Sam admired.

“Old Mother Bolton, couldn’t get a holt on, old Dad Bolton, so he gave her a jolt on—the beezer.”

The children writhed with joy. Ernie pulled his father’s overalls, “Mareta, Mareta!” Mareta was the little Jewell girl.

“Nothing could be sweeter than Mareta when you beat her in the mo-orning!” sang Sam.

“Why do you beat her; is she an egg?” inquired Little-Sam wickedly, looking at his eldest brother.

“She’s a good egg, mwsk!” said Sam throwing a kiss. “Oh, sweet Mareta, I’d like to meet her and then I’d heat her a cup of tea!”

“Ernest-Paine loves Mareta,” Saul confided.

Ernie blushed but was flattered.

“John Coverdale Jewell is drunk as a roo-ell,” sang Sam.

“Shut up, you fool,” suddenly shouted Little-Sam to his father, with dancing eyes and an impudent lip.

“Oh, Daddy, he called you a fool!” Evie was very shocked.

“I’m tired of you,” shouted Little-Sam, in a frenzy, “you make me sick!”

Sam giggled and winked at the children around him. “Say nothing,” he murmured, “say nothing.”

“You’re an old gasbag,” cried Little-Sam, a dervish.

Sam began to chant softly, a song about Little-Sam’s schoolteacher, “Ole Miss Jones, rattles her bones, over the stones: she’s only a porpoise that nobody owns.”

Little-Sam paused, eying his father.

“She has two glass eyes,” contributed Ernie. “Two glass eyes and two real eyes.”

“Saul is her pet,” Evie said nastily.

“When Old Bebbo comes round, she certainly is scared stiff,” said Ernie. “I saw her through the partition.”

“Ooh, her hair, I hate it,” cried Evie.

“When Old Bebbo comes in, she rushes round like a bat in hell,” Ernie persevered.

“Hades,” emended Sam.

“Hades.”

“When Old Bebbo comes round, she falls on the ground in a fit,” the father affirmed.

“But she loves Mr. McHenry,” Evie chattered. “When she can she runs and talks to him and laughs and talks: she’s in love with him.”

“She wants to marry him,” said the father coyly.

“But she can’t,” declared Ernie stoutly, “because she’s an old maid. Oh, I hate her. She’s so fat. And she’s got two glass eyes.”

Sam sang,

Two glass eyes, two glass eyes,

See how they run, see how they run,

Two glass eyes and a wooden leg,

She’s too ugly to teach and she ought to beg,

And she cut off her nose with a carving knife

Through two glass eyes.

They all watched Saul softly. Saul unconcernedly began to whistle to himself, but Little-Sam scowled.

“What’s her name?” whispered his father.

“Lil, Lillian,” they cried at once: “Old Lil.”

“She’s a Red,” said Ernie: “she’s always talking about the union.”

Sam neatly finished his section of the wall, singing,

Jack and Bill

Wouldn’t look at Lil;

It went to her head

And she saw red!

Saul began to climb down off the porch roof.

“Whar you a-goin’, Saul?” inquired his father, much surprised. Saul said nothing, but continued down to the ground. He put his paintbrush in the turpentine and went round to the front lawn, where he stood silently for some time waiting till the song, sung for the second time, was finished, and poking his fingers through the privet hedge, looking for any insect that might turn up. Sam watched him carefully for a while, making signs to the others. Nothing happened. Then the father nodded to himself, nodded to the others, winked and said merrily, “Not bad, not bad! Self-control!” He nodded again; and sent Little-Sam up on to the porch roof to finish Saul’s job.

“Taddy, can Isabel come in?” put in Evie.

“Isabel, wasabel-hasabel-possible,” Sam answered.

“Taddy!”

Sam flung his brushes in the pot, “Tired-oo. Hot head. Spell till munchtime,” said he. “Knock-off time, Littla-Sam!”

“Taddy, can Isabel go round the Wishing-Tree?”

“Powwow!” said Sam wearily. He squatted in the sun, drawing the children round him. “Got to tah youse kids ’bout my Wonderful Idea. It’s about Pangea, the Earth United, or what happened in the year 3000. I was in the orfus doing nothing and it all came to me clear as could be: I really saw it, kids. Little-Sam, go and get the papers off my desk! That is what Louie and me and you others would make—if Looloo would ever be a dood dirl, with our heads, our hearts, and our hands:

“
Heart and hands together, lads!
Go on, Little-Sam!
Ah, love could you and I with Fate conspire.
… But the beauty of it is, kids and Looloo,” he continued wildly, “is that we can, we can do so: you and I and little Tomtom can build this Pangea of mine, this Eugea, we can make it come true! Perhaps even little Tomtom will see the time when the last wars are done and we see the Federal States of Europe, and man no longer hidden under a cloud of misunderstanding, hate-engendered, from his brother man.”

Little-Sam came back, “I can’t find it, Pad.”

“The message to Garcia,” said Sam, “the message to Garcia! Where there’s a will there’s a way. Run along, Little-Sam. You’ll find it.”

“I don’t know which it is,” cried Little-Sam desperately: “there are millions of papers. Gee!”

“I dunno vitch I vant, a vatch or a veskit,” Sam ignored him, doing one of his favorite imitations, a vaudeville Jew. Little-Sam faded into the house, grumbling.

“I give you tree per cent,” continued Sam. “Vot you vant vid a veskit? Vid a veskit I kip my visky [whiskers] from flyin’ away in de vind!” The children screamed with laughter.

“Mr. Goldberg,” said Sam,
sotto voce,
“Mr. Goldberg!”

“Do a Frenchman, Taddy,” urged Evie.

“Oo, la-la! Vair is my corsets?” He pretended to tilt his hat over one eye (apparently wearing a stovepipe hat while looking for his corsets). “Vot ave you for little-breakfast zis mornin: I can only eat frogs!” The children capered.

Little-Sam came back rebellious: “I can’t find it!”

“Good-by, children!” called Henny from the hall. There was a rush for the house. Sam lay back and closed his eyes. At that moment, a little voice no bigger than two twigs creaking together on a tree, said from the side steps, “Mr. Pollitt Mr. Pollit!”