IN the square bedroom with the big window Mama and Papa were lolling back on their pillows handing each other things from the wide black tray on the small table with crossed legs. They were smiling and they smiled even more when the little boy, with the feeling of sleep still in his skin and hair, came in and walked up to the bed. Leaning against it, his bare toes wriggling in the white fur rug, he went on eating peanuts which he took from his pajama pocket. He was four years old.
“Here’s my baby,” said Mama. “Lift him up, will you?”
He went limp as a rag for Papa to take him under the arms and swing him up over a broad, tough chest. He sank between his parents like a bear cub in a warm litter, and lay there comfortably. He took another peanut between his teeth, cracked the shell, picked out the nut whole and ate it.
“Running around without his slippers again,” said Mama. “His feet are like icicles.”
“He crunches like a horse,” said Papa. “Eating peanuts before breakfast will ruin his stomach. Where did he get them?”
“You brought them yesterday,” said Mama, with exact memory, “in a grisly little cellophane sack. I have asked you dozens of times not to bring him things to eat. Put him out, will you? He’s spilling shells all over me.”
Almost at once the little boy found himself on the floor again. He moved around to Mama’s side of the bed and leaned confidingly near her and began another peanut. As he chewed he gazed solemnly in her eyes.
“Bright-looking specimen, isn’t he?” asked Papa, stretching his long legs and reaching for his bathrobe. “I suppose you’ll say it’s my fault he’s dumb as an ox.”
“He’s my little baby, my only baby,” said Mama richly, hugging him, “and he’s a dear lamb.” His neck and shoulders were quite boneless in her firm embrace. He stopped chewing long enough to receive a kiss on his crumby chin. “He’s sweet as clover,” said Mama. The baby went on chewing.
“Look at him staring like an owl,” said Papa.
Mama said, “He’s an angel and I’ll never get used to having him.”
“We’d be better off if we never had had him,” said Papa. He was walking about the room and his back was turned when he said that. There was silence for a moment. The little boy stopped eating, and stared deeply at his Mama. She was looking at the back of Papa’s head, and her eyes were almost black. “You’re going to say that just once too often,” she told him in a low voice. “I hate you when you say that.”
Papa said, “You spoil him to death. You never correct him for anything. And you don’t take care of him. You let him run around eating peanuts before breakfast.”
“You gave him the peanuts, remember that,” said Mama. She sat up and hugged her only baby once more. He nuzzled softly in the pit of her arm. “Run along, my darling,” she told him in her gentlest voice, smiling at him straight in the eyes. “Run along,” she said, her arms falling away from him. “Get your breakfast.”
The little boy had to pass his father on the way to the door. He shrank into himself when he saw the big hand raised above him. “Yes, get out of here and stay out,” said Papa, giving him a little shove toward the door. It was not a hard shove, but it hurt the little boy. He slunk out, and trotted down the hall trying not to look back. He was afraid something was coming after him, he could not imagine what. Something hurt him all over, he did not know why.
He did not want his breakfast; he would not have it. He sat and stirred it round in the yellow bowl, letting it stream off the spoon and spill on the table, on his front, on the chair. He liked seeing it spill. It was hateful stuff, but it looked funny running in white rivulets down his pajamas.
“Now look what you’re doing, dirty boy,” said Marjory. “You dirty little old boy.”
The little boy opened his mouth to speak for the first time. “You’re dirty yourself,” he told her.
“That’s right,” said Marjory, leaning over him and speaking so her voice would not carry. “That’s right, just like your papa. Mean,” she whispered, “mean.”
The little boy took up his yellow bowl full of cream and oatmeal and sugar with both hands and brought it down with a crash on the table. It burst and some of the wreck lay in chunks and some of it ran all over everything. He felt better.
“You see?” said Marjory, dragging him out of the chair and scrubbing him with a napkin. She scrubbed him as roughly as she dared until he cried out. “That’s just what I said. That’s exactly it.” Through his tears he saw her face terribly near, red and frowning under a stiff white band, looking like the face of somebody who came at night and stood over him and scolded him when he could not move or get away. “Just like your papa, mean.”
The little boy went out into the garden and sat on a green bench dangling his legs. He was clean. His hair was wet and his blue woolly pull-over made his nose itch. His face felt stiff from the soap. He saw Marjory going past a window with the black tray. The curtains were still closed at the window he knew opened into Mama’s room. Papa’s room. Mommanpoppasroom, the word was pleasant, it made a mumbling snapping noise between his lips; it ran in his mind while his eyes wandered about looking for something to do, something to play with.
Mommanpoppas’ voices kept attracting his attention. Mama was being cross with Papa again. He could tell by the sound. That was what Marjory always said when their voices rose and fell and shot up to a point and crashed and rolled like the two tomcats who fought at night. Papa was being cross, too, much crosser than Mama this time. He grew cold and disturbed and sat very still, wanting to go to the bathroom, but it was just next to Mommanpoppasroom; he didn’t dare think of it. As the voices grew louder he could hardly hear them any more, he wanted so badly to go to the bathroom. The kitchen door opened suddenly and Marjory ran out, making the motion with her hand that meant he was to come to her. He didn’t move. She came to him, her face still red and frowning, but she was not angry; she was scared just as he was. She said, “Come on, honey, we’ve got to go to your gran’ma’s again.” She took his hand and pulled him. “Come on quick, your gran’ma is waiting for you.” He slid off the bench. His mother’s voice rose in a terrible scream, screaming something he could not understand, but she was furious; he had seen her clenching her fists and stamping in one spot, screaming with her eyes shut; he knew how she looked. She was screaming in a tantrum, just as he remembered having heard himself. He stood still, doubled over, and all his body seemed to dissolve, sickly, from the pit of his stomach.
“Oh, my God,” said Marjory. “Oh, my God. Now look at you. Oh, my God. I can’t stop to clean you up.”
He did not know how he got to his grandma’s house, but he was there at last, wet and soiled, being handled with disgust in the big bathtub. His grandma was there in long black skirts saying, “Maybe he’s sick; maybe we should send for the doctor.”
“I don’t think so, m’am,” said Marjory. “He hasn’t et anything; he’s just scared.”
The little boy couldn’t raise his eyes, he was so heavy with shame. “Take this note to his mother,” said Grandma.
She sat in a wide chair and ran her hands over his head, combing his hair with her fingers; she lifted his chin and kissed him. “Poor little fellow,” she said. “Never you mind. You always have a good time at your grandma’s, don’t you? You’re going to have a nice little visit, just like the last time.”
The little boy leaned against the stiff, dry-smelling clothes and felt horribly grieved about something. He began to whimper and said, “I’m hungry. I want something to eat.” This reminded him. He began to bellow at the top of his voice; he threw himself upon the carpet and rubbed his nose in a dusty woolly bouquet of roses. “I want my peanuts,” he howled. “Somebody took my peanuts.”
His grandma knelt beside him and gathered him up so tightly he could hardly move. She called in a calm voice above his howls to Old Janet in the doorway, “Bring me some bread and butter with strawberry jam.”
“I want peanuts,” yelled the little boy desperately.
“No, you don’t, darling,” said his grandma. “You don’t want horrid old peanuts to make you sick. You’re going to have some of grandma’s nice fresh bread with good strawberries on it. That’s what you’re going to have.” He sat afterward very quietly and ate and ate. His grandma sat near him and Old Janet stood by, near a tray with a loaf and a glass bowl of jam upon the table at the window. Outside there was a trellis with tube-shaped red flowers clinging all over it, and brown bees singing.
“I hardly know what to do,” said Grandma, “it’s very. . .”
“Yes, m’am,” said Old Janet, “it certainly is. . .”
Grandma said, “I can’t possibly see the end of it. It’s a terrible. . .”
“It certainly is bad,” said Old Janet, “all this upset all the time and him such a baby.”
Their voices ran on soothingly. The little boy ate and forgot to listen. He did not know these women, except by name. He could not understand what they were talking about; their hands and their clothes and their voices were dry and far away; they examined him with crinkled eyes without any expression that he could see. He sat there waiting for whatever they would do next with him. He hoped they would let him go out and play in the yard. The room was full of flowers and dark red curtains and big soft chairs, and the windows were open, but it was still dark in there somehow; dark, and a place he did not know, or trust.
“Now drink your milk,” said Old Janet, holding out a silver cup.
“I don’t want any milk,” he said, turning his head away.
“Very well, Janet, he doesn’t have to drink it,” said Grandma quickly. “Now run out in the garden and play, darling. Janet, get his hoop.”
A big strange man came home in the evenings who treated the little boy very confusingly. “Say ‘please,’ and ‘thank you,’ young man,” he would roar, terrifyingly, when he gave any smallest object to the little boy. “Well, fellow, are you ready for a fight?” he would say, again, doubling up huge, hairy fists and making passes at him. “Come on now, you must learn to box.” After the first few times this was fun.
“Don’t teach him to be rough,” said Grandma. “Time enough for all that.”
“Now, Mother, we don’t want him to be a sissy,” said the big man. “He’s got to toughen up early. Come on now, fellow, put up your mitts.” The little boy liked this new word for hands. He learned to throw himself upon the strange big man, whose name was Uncle David, and hit him on the chest as hard as he could; the big man would laugh and hit him back with his huge, loose fists. Sometimes, but not often, Uncle David came home in the middle of the day. The little boy missed him on the other days, and would hang on the gate looking down the street for him. One evening he brought a large square package under his arm.
“Come over here, fellow, and see what I’ve got,” he said, pulling off quantities of green paper and string from the box which was full of flat, folded colors. He put something in the little boy’s hand. It was limp and silky and bright green with a tube on the end. “Thank you,” said the little boy nicely, but not knowing what to do with it.
“Balloons,” said Uncle David in triumph. “Now just put your mouth here and blow hard.” The little boy blew hard and the green thing began to grow round and thin and silvery.
“Good for your chest,” said Uncle David. “Blow some more.” The little boy went on blowing and the balloon swelled steadily.
“Stop,” said Uncle David, “that’s enough.” He twisted the tube to keep the air in. “That’s the way,” he said. “Now I’ll blow one, and you blow one, and let’s see who can blow up a big balloon the fastest.”
They blew and blew, especially Uncle David. He puffed and panted and blew with all his might, but the little boy won. His balloon was perfectly round before Uncle David could even get started. The little boy was so proud he began to dance and shout, “I beat, I beat,” and blew in his balloon again. It burst in his face and frightened him so he felt sick. “Ha ha, ho ho ho,” whooped Uncle David. “That’s the boy. I bet I can’t do that. Now let’s see.” He blew until the beautiful bubble grew and wavered and burst into thin air, and there was only a small colored rag in his hand. This was a fine game. They went on with it until Grandma came in and said, “Time for supper now. No, you can’t blow balloons at the table. Tomorrow maybe.” And it was all over.
The next day, instead of being given balloons, he was hustled out of bed early, bathed in warm soapy water and given a big breakfast of soft-boiled eggs with toast and jam and milk. His grandma came in to kiss him good morning. “And I hope you’ll be a good boy and obey your teacher,” she told him.
“What’s teacher?” asked the little boy.
“Teacher is at school,” said Grandma. “She’ll tell you all sorts of things and you must do as she says.”
Mama and Papa had talked a great deal about School, and how they must send him there. They had told him it was a fine place with all kinds of toys and other children to play with. He felt he knew about School. “I didn’t know it was time, Grandma,” he said. “Is it today?”
“It’s this very minute,” said Grandma. “I told you a week ago.”
Old Janet came in with her bonnet on. It was a prickly looking bundle held with a black rubber band under her back hair. “Come on,” she said. “This is my busy day.” She wore a dead cat slung around her neck, its sharp ears bent over under her baggy chin.
The little boy was excited and wanted to run ahead. “Hold to my hand like I told you,” said Old Janet. “Don’t go running off like that and get yourself killed.”
“I’m going to get killed, I’m going to get killed,” sang the little boy, making a tune of his own.
“Don’t say that, you give me the creeps,” said Old Janet. “Hold to my hand now.” She bent over and looked at him, not at his face but at something on his clothes. His eyes followed hers.
“I declare,” said Old Janet, “I did forget. I was going to sew it up. I might have known. I told your grandma it would be that way from now on.”
“What?” asked the little boy.
“Just look at yourself,” said Old Janet crossly. He looked at himself. There was a little end of him showing through the slit in his short blue flannel trousers. The trousers came halfway to his knees above, and his socks came halfway to his knees below, and all winter long his knees were cold. He remembered now how cold his knees were in cold weather. And how sometimes he would have to put the part of him that came through the slit back again, because he was cold there too. He saw at once what was wrong, and tried to arrange himself, but his mittens got in the way. Janet said, “Stop that, you bad boy,” and with a firm thumb she set him in order, at the same time reaching under his belt to pull down and fold his knit undershirt over his front.
“There now,” she said, “try not to disgrace yourself today.” He felt guilty and red all over, because he had something that showed when he was dressed that was not supposed to show then. The different women who bathed him always wrapped him quickly in towels and hurried him into his clothes, because they saw something about him he could not see for himself. They hurried him so he never had a chance to see whatever it was they saw, and though he looked at himself when his clothes were off, he could not find out what was wrong with him. Outside, in his clothes, he knew he looked like everybody else, but inside his clothes there was something bad the matter with him. It worried him and confused him and he wondered about it. The only people who never seemed to notice there was something wrong with him were Mommanpoppa. They never called him a bad boy, and all summer long they had taken all his clothes off and let him run in the sand beside a big ocean.
“Look at him, isn’t he a love?” Mama would say and Papa would look, and say, “He’s got a back like a prize fighter.” Uncle David was a prize fighter when he doubled up his mitts and said, “Come on, fellow.”
Old Janet held him firmly and took long steps under her big rustling skirts. He did not like Old Janet’s smell. It made him a little quivery in the stomach; it was just like wet chicken feathers.
School was easy. Teacher was a square-shaped woman with square short hair and short skirts. She got in the way sometimes, but not often. The people around him were his size; he didn’t have always to be stretching his neck up to faces bent over him, and he could sit on the chairs without having to climb. All the children had names, like Frances and Evelyn and Agatha and Edward and Martin, and his own name was Stephen. He was not Mama’s “Baby,” nor Papa’s “Old Man”; he was not Uncle David’s “Fellow,” or Grandma’s “Darling,” or even Old Janet’s “Bad Boy.” He was Stephen. He was learning to read, and to sing a tune to some strange-looking letters or marks written in chalk on a blackboard. You talked one kind of lettering, and you sang another. All the children talked and sang in turn, and then all together. Stephen thought it a fine game. He felt awake and happy. They had soft clay and paper and wires and squares of colors in tin boxes to play with, colored blocks to build houses with. Afterward they all danced in a big ring, and then they danced in pairs, boys with girls. Stephen danced with Frances, and Frances kept saying, “Now you just follow me.” She was a little taller than he was, and her hair stood up in short, shiny curls, the color of an ash tray on Papa’s desk. She would say, “You can’t dance.” “I can dance too,” said Stephen, jumping around holding her hands, “I can, too, dance.” He was certain of it. “You can’t dance,” he told Frances, “you can’t dance at all.”
Then they had to change partners, and when they came round again, Frances said, “I don’t like the way you dance.” This was different. He felt uneasy about it. He didn’t jump quite so high when the phonograph record started going dumdiddy dumdiddy again. “Go ahead, Stephen, you’re doing fine,” said Teacher, waving her hands together very fast. The dance ended, and they all played “relaxing” for five minutes. They relaxed by swinging their arms back and forth, then rolling their heads round and round. When Old Janet came for him he didn’t want to go home. At lunch his grandma told him twice to keep his face out of his plate. “Is that what they teach you at school?” she asked. Uncle David was at home. “Here you are, fellow,” he said and gave Stephen two balloons. “Thank you,” said Stephen. He put the balloons in his pocket and forgot about them. “I told you that boy could learn something,” said Uncle David to Grandma. “Hear him say ‘thank you’?”
In the afternoon at school Teacher handed out big wads of clay and told the children to make something out of it. Anything they liked. Stephen decided to make a cat, like Mama’s Meeow at home. He did not like Meeow, but he thought it would be easy to make a cat. He could not get the clay to work at all. It simply fell into one lump after another. So he stopped, wiped his hands on his pull-over, remembered his balloons and began blowing one.
“Look at Stephen’s horse,” said Frances. “Just look at it.”
“It’s not a horse, it’s a cat,” said Stephen. The other children gathered around. “It looks like a horse, a little,” said Martin.
“It is a cat,” said Stephen, stamping his foot, feeling his face turning hot. The other children all laughed and exclaimed over Stephen’s cat that looked like a horse. Teacher came down among them. She sat usually at the top of the room before a big table covered with papers and playthings. She picked up Stephen’s lump of clay and turned it round and examined it with her kind eyes. “Now, children,” she said, “everybody has the right to make anything the way he pleases. If Stephen says this is a cat, it is a cat. Maybe you were thinking about a horse, Stephen?”
“It’s a cat,” said Stephen. He was aching all over. He knew then he should have said at first, “Yes, it’s a horse.” Then they would have let him alone. They would never have known he was trying to make a cat. “It’s Meeow,” he said in a trembling voice, “but I forgot how she looks.”
His balloon was perfectly flat. He started blowing it up again, trying not to cry. Then it was time to go home, and Old Janet came looking for him. While Teacher was talking to other grown-up people who came to take other children home, Frances said, “Give me your balloon; I haven’t got a balloon.” Stephen handed it to her. He was happy to give it. He reached in his pocket and took out the other. Happily, he gave her that one too. Frances took it, then handed it back. “Now you blow up one and I’ll blow up the other, and let’s have a race,” she said. When their balloons were only half filled Old Janet took Stephen by the arm and said, “Come on here, this is my busy day.”
Frances ran after them, calling, “Stephen, you give me back my balloon,” and snatched it away. Stephen did not know whether he was surprised to find himself going away with Frances’ balloon, or whether he was surprised to see her snatching it as if it really belonged to her. He was badly mixed up in his mind, and Old Janet was hauling him along. One thing he knew, he liked Frances, he was going to see her again tomorrow, and he was going to bring her more balloons.
That evening Stephen boxed awhile with his uncle David, and Uncle David gave him a beautiful orange. “Eat that,” he said, “it’s good for your health.”
“Uncle David, may I have some more balloons?” asked Stephen.
“Well, what do you say first?” asked Uncle David, reaching for the box on the top bookshelf.
“Please,” said Stephen.
“That’s the word,” said Uncle David. He brought out two balloons, a red and a yellow one. Stephen noticed for the first time they had letters on them, very small letters that grew taller and wider as the balloon grew rounder. “Now that’s all, fellow,” said Uncle David. “Don’t ask for any more because that’s all.” He put the box back on the bookshelf, but not before Stephen had seen that the box was almost full of balloons. He didn’t say a word, but went on blowing, and Uncle David blew also. Stephen thought it was the nicest game he had ever known.
He had only one left, the next day, but he took it to school and gave it to Frances. “There are a lot,” he said, feeling very proud and warm; “I’ll bring you a lot of them.”
Frances blew it up until it made a beautiful bubble, and said, “Look, I want to show you something.” She took a sharp-pointed stick they used in working the clay; she poked the balloon, and it exploded. “Look at that,” she said.
“That’s nothing,” said Stephen, “I’ll bring you some more.”
After school, before Uncle David came home, while Grandma was resting, when Old Janet had given him his milk and told him to run away and not bother her, Stephen dragged a chair to the bookshelf, stood upon it and reached into the box. He did not take three or four as he believed he intended; once his hands were upon them he seized what they could hold and jumped off the chair, hugging them to him. He stuffed them into his reefer pocket where they folded down and hardly made a lump.
He gave them all to Frances. There were so many, Frances gave most of them away to the other children. Stephen, flushed with his new joy, the lavish pleasure of giving presents, found almost at once still another happiness. Suddenly he was popular among the children; they invited him specially to join whatever games were up; they fell in at once with his own notions for play, and asked him what he would like to do next. They had festivals of blowing up the beautiful globes, fuller and rounder and thinner, changing as they went from deep color to lighter, paler tones, growing glassy thin, bubbly thin, then bursting with a thrilling loud noise like a toy pistol.
For the first time in his life Stephen had almost too much of something he wanted, and his head was so turned he forgot how this fullness came about, and no longer thought of it as a secret. The next day was Saturday, and Frances came to visit him with her nurse. The nurse and Old Janet sat in Old Janet’s room drinking coffee and gossiping, and the children sat on the side porch blowing balloons. Stephen chose an apple-colored one and Frances a pale green one. Between them on the bench lay a tumbled heap of delights still to come.
“I once had a silver balloon,” said Frances, “a beyootiful silver one, not round like these; it was a long one. But these are even nicer, I think,” she added quickly, for she did want to be polite.
“When you get through with that one,” said Stephen, gazing at her with the pure bliss of giving added to loving, “you can blow up a blue one and then a pink one and a yellow one and a purple one.” He pushed the heap of limp objects toward her. Her clear-looking eyes, with fine little rays of brown in them like the spokes of a wheel, were full of approval for Stephen. “I wouldn’t want to be greedy, though, and blow up all your balloons.”
“There’ll be plenty more left,” said Stephen, and his heart rose under his thin ribs. He felt his ribs with his fingers and discovered with some surprise that they stopped somewhere in front, while Frances sat blowing balloons rather halfheartedly. The truth was, she was tired of balloons. After you blow six or seven your chest gets hollow and your lips feel puckery. She had been blowing balloons steadily for three days now. She had begun to hope they were giving out. “There’s boxes and boxes more of them, Frances,” said Stephen happily. “Millions more. I guess they’d last and last if we didn’t blow too many every day.”
Frances said somewhat timidly, “I tell you what. Let’s rest awhile and fix some liquish water. Do you like liquish?”
“Yes, I do,” said Stephen, “but I haven’t got any.”
“Couldn’t we buy some?” asked Frances. “It’s only a cent a stick, the nice rubbery, twisty kind. We can put it in a bottle with some water, and shake it and shake it, and it makes foam on top like soda pop and we can drink it. I’m kind of thirsty,” she said in a small, weak voice. “Blowing balloons all the time makes you thirsty, I think.”
Stephen, in silence, realized a dreadful truth and a numb feeling crept over him. He did not have a cent to buy licorice for Frances and she was tired of his balloons. This was the first real dismay of his whole life, and he aged at least a year in the next minute, huddled, with his deep, serious blue eyes focused down his nose in intense speculation. What could he do to please Frances that would not cost money? Only yesterday Uncle David had given him a nickel, and he had thrown it away on gumdrops. He regretted that nickel so bitterly his neck and forehead were damp. He was thirsty too.
“I tell you what,” he said, brightening with a splendid idea, lamely trailing off on second thought, “I know something we can do, I’ll—I. . .”
“I am thirsty,” said Frances with gentle persistence. “I think I’m so thirsty maybe I’ll have to go home.” She did not leave the bench, though, but sat, turning her grieved mouth toward Stephen.
Stephen quivered with the terrors of the adventure before him, but he said boldly, “I’ll make some lemonade. I’ll get sugar and lemon and some ice and we’ll have lemonade.”
“Oh, I love lemonade,” cried Frances. “I’d rather have lemonade than liquish.”
“You stay right here,” said Stephen, “and I’ll get everything.”
He ran around the house, and under Old Janet’s window he heard the dry, chattering voices of the two old women whom he must outwit. He sneaked on tiptoe to the pantry, took a lemon lying there by itself, a handful of lump sugar and a china teapot, smooth, round, with flowers and leaves all over it. These he left on the kitchen table while he broke a piece of ice with a sharp metal pick he had been forbidden to touch. He put the ice in the pot, cut the lemon and squeezed it as well as he could—a lemon was tougher and more slippery than he had thought—and mixed sugar and water. He decided there was not enough sugar so he sneaked back and took another handful. He was back on the porch in an astonishingly short time, his face tight, his knees trembling, carrying iced lemonade to thirsty Frances with both his devoted hands.
A pace distant from her he stopped, literally stabbed through with a thought. Here he stood in broad daylight carrying a teapot with lemonade in it, and his grandma or Old Janet might walk through the door at any moment.
“Come on, Frances,” he whispered loudly. “Let’s go round to the back behind the rose bushes where it’s shady.” Frances leaped up and ran like a deer beside him, her face wise with knowledge of why they ran; Stephen ran stiffly, cherishing his teapot with clenched hands.
It was shady behind the rose bushes, and much safer. They sat side by side on the dampish ground, legs doubled under, drinking in turn from the slender spout. Stephen took his just share in large, cool, delicious swallows. When Frances drank she set her round pink mouth daintily to the spout and her throat beat steadily as a heart. Stephen was thinking he had really done something pretty nice for Frances. He did not know where his own happiness was; it was mixed with the sweet-sour taste in his mouth and a cool feeling in his bosom because Frances was there drinking his lemonade which he had got for her with great danger.
Frances said, “My, what big swallows you take,” when his turn came next.
“No bigger than yours,” he told her downrightly. “You take awfully big swallows.”
“Well,” said Frances, turning this criticism into an argument for her rightness about things, “that’s the way to drink lemonade anyway.” She peered into the teapot. There was quite a lot of lemonade left and she was beginning to feel she had enough. “Let’s make up a game and see who can take the biggest swallows.”
This was such a wonderful notion they grew reckless, tipping the spout into their opened mouths above their heads until lemonade welled up and ran over their chins in rills down their fronts. When they tired of this there was still lemonade left in the pot. They played first at giving the rosebush a drink and ended by baptizing it. “Name father son holygoat,” shouted Stephen, pouring. At this sound Old Janet’s face appeared over the low hedge, with the tan, disgusted-looking face of Frances’ nurse hanging over her shoulder.
“Well, just as I thought,” said Old Janet. “Just as I expected.” The bag under her chin waggled.
“We were thirsty,” he said; “we were awfully thirsty.” Frances said nothing, but she gazed steadily at the toes of her shoes.
“Give me that teapot,” said Old Janet, taking it with a rude snatch. “Just because you’re thirsty is no reason,” said Old Janet. “You can ask for things. You don’t have to steal.”
“We didn’t steal,” cried Frances suddenly. “We didn’t. We didn’t!”
“That’s enough from you, missy,” said her nurse. “Come straight out of there. You have nothing to do with this.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Old Janet with a hard stare at Frances’ nurse. “He never did such a thing before, by himself.”
“Come on,” said the nurse to Frances, “this is no place for you.” She held Frances by the wrist and started walking away so fast Frances had to run to keep up. “Nobody can call us thieves and get away with it.”
“You don’t have to steal, even if others do,” said Old Janet to Stephen, in a high carrying voice. “If you so much as pick up a lemon in somebody else’s house you’re a little thief.” She lowered her voice then and said, “Now I’m going to tell your grandma and you’ll see what you get.”
“He went in the icebox and left it open,” Janet told Grandma, “and he got into the lump sugar and spilt it all over the floor. Lumps everywhere underfoot. He dribbled water all over the clean kitchen floor, and he baptized the rose bush, blaspheming. And he took your Spode teapot.”
“I didn’t either,” said Stephen loudly, trying to free his hand from Old Janet’s big hard fist.
“Don’t tell fibs,” said Old Janet; “that’s the last straw.”
“Oh, dear,” said Grandma. “He’s not a baby any more.” She shut the book she was reading and pulled the wet front of his pullover toward her. “What’s this sticky stuff on him?” she asked and straightened her glasses.
“Lemonade,” said Old Janet. “He took the last lemon.”
They were in the big dark room with the red curtains. Uncle David walked in from the room with the bookcases, holding a box in his uplifted hand. “Look here,” he said to Stephen. “What’s become of all my balloons?”
Stephen knew well that Uncle David was not really asking a question.
Stephen, sitting on a footstool at his grandma’s knee, felt sleepy. He leaned heavily and wished he could put his head on her lap, but he might go to sleep, and it would be wrong to go to sleep while Uncle David was still talking. Uncle David walked about the room with his hands in his pockets, talking to Grandma. Now and then he would walk over to a lamp and, leaning, peer into the top of the shade, winking in the light, as if he expected to find something there.
“It’s simply in the blood, I told her,” said Uncle David. “I told her she would simply have to come and get him, and keep him. She asked me if I meant to call him a thief and I said if she could think of a more exact word I’d be glad to hear it.”
“You shouldn’t have said that,” commented Grandma calmly.
“Why not? She might as well know the facts. . . . I suppose he can’t help it,” said Uncle David, stopping now in front of Stephen and dropping his chin into his collar, “I shouldn’t expect too much of him, but you can’t begin too early—”
“The trouble is,” said Grandma, and while she spoke she took Stephen by the chin and held it up so that he had to meet her eye; she talked steadily in a mournful tone, but Stephen could not understand. She ended, “It’s not just about the balloons, of course.”
“It is about the balloons,” said Uncle David angrily, “because balloons now mean something worse later. But what can you expect? His father—well, it’s in the blood. He—”
“That’s your sister’s husband you’re talking about,” said Grandma, “and there is no use making things worse. Besides, you don’t really know.”
“I do know,” said Uncle David. And he talked again very fast, walking up and down. Stephen tried to understand, but the sounds were strange and floating just over his head. They were talking about his father, and they did not like him. Uncle David came over and stood above Stephen and Grandma. He hunched over them with a frowning face, a long, crooked shadow from him falling across them to the wall. To Stephen he looked like his father, and he shrank against his grandma’s skirts.
“The question is, what to do with him now?” asked Uncle David. “If we keep him here, he’d just be a—I won’t be bothered with him. Why can’t they take care of their own child? That house is crazy. Too far gone already, I’m afraid. No training. No example.”
“You’re right, they must take him and keep him,” said Grandma. She ran her hands over Stephen’s head; tenderly she pinched the nape of his neck between thumb and forefinger. “You’re your Grandma’s darling,” she told him, “and you’ve had a nice long visit, and now you’re going home. Mama is coming for you in a few minutes. Won’t that be nice?”
“I want my mama,” said Stephen, whimpering, for his grandma’s face frightened him. There was something wrong with her smile.
Uncle David sat down. “Come over here, fellow,” he said, wagging a forefinger at Stephen. Stephen went over slowly, and Uncle David drew him between his wide knees in their loose, rough clothes. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” he said, “stealing Uncle David’s balloons when he had already given you so many.”
“It wasn’t that,” said Grandma quickly. “Don’t say that. It will make an impression—”
“I hope it does,” said Uncle David in a louder voice; “I hope he remembers it all his life. If he belonged to me I’d give him a good thrashing.”
Stephen felt his mouth, his chin, his whole face jerking. He opened his mouth to take a breath, and tears and noise burst from him. “Stop that, fellow, stop that,” said Uncle David, shaking him gently by the shoulders, but Stephen could not stop. He drew his breath again and it came back in a howl. Old Janet came to the door.
“Bring me some cold water,” called Grandma. There was a flurry, a commotion, a breath of cool air from the hall, the door slammed, and Stephen heard his mother’s voice. His howl died away, his breath sobbed and fluttered, he turned his dimmed eyes and saw her standing there. His heart turned over within him and he bleated like a lamb, “Maaaaama,” running toward her. Uncle David stood back as Mama swooped in and fell on her knees beside Stephen. She gathered him to her and stood up with him in her arms.
“What are you doing to my baby?” she asked Uncle David in a thickened voice. “I should never have let him come here. I should have known better—”
“You always should know better,” said Uncle David, “and you never do. And you never will. You haven’t got it here,” he told her, tapping his forehead.
“David,” said Grandma, “that’s your—”
“Yes, I know, she’s my sister,” said Uncle David. “I know it. But if she must run away and marry a—”
“Shut up,” said Mama.
“And bring more like him into the world, let her keep them at home. I say let her keep—”
Mama set Stephen on the floor and, holding him by the hand, she said to Grandma all in a rush as if she were reading something, “Good-by, Mother. This is the last time, really the last. I can’t bear it any longer. Say good-by to Stephen; you’ll never see him again. You let this happen. It’s your fault. You know David was a coward and a bully and a self-righteous little beast all his life and you never crossed him in anything. You let him bully me all my life and you let him slander my husband and call my baby a thief, and now this is the end. . . . He calls my baby a thief over a few horrible little balloons because he doesn’t like my husband. . . .”
She was panting and staring about from one to the other. They were all standing. Now Grandma said, “Go home, daughter. Go away, David. I’m sick of your quarreling. I’ve never had a day’s peace or comfort from either of you. I’m sick of you both. Now let me alone and stop this noise. Go away,” said Grandma in a wavering voice. She took out her handkerchief and wiped first one eye and then the other and said, “All this hate, hate—what is it for?. . . So this is the way it turns out. Well, let me alone.”
“You and your little advertising balloons,” said Mama to Uncle David. “The big honest businessman advertises with balloons and if he loses one he’ll be ruined. And your beastly little moral notions. . .”
Grandma went to the door to meet Old Janet, who handed her a glass of water. Grandma drank it all, standing there.
“Is your husband coming for you, or are you going home by yourself?” she asked Mama.
“I’m driving myself,” said Mama in a far-away voice as if her mind had wandered. “You know he wouldn’t set foot in this house.”
“I should think not,” said Uncle David.
“Come on, Stephen darling,” said Mama. “It’s far past his bedtime,” she said, to no one in particular. “Imagine keeping a baby up to torture him about a few miserable little bits of colored rubber.” She smiled at Uncle David with both rows of teeth as she passed him on the way to the door, keeping between him and Stephen. “Ah, where would we be without high moral standards,” she said, and then to Grandma, “Good night, Mother,” in quite her usual voice. “I’ll see you in a day or so.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Grandma cheerfully, coming out into the hall with Stephen and Mama. “Let me hear from you. Ring me up tomorrow. I hope you’ll be feeling better.”
“I feel very well now,” said Mama brightly, laughing. She bent down and kissed Stephen. “Sleepy, darling? Papa’s waiting to see you. Don’t go to sleep until you’ve kissed your papa good night.”
Stephen woke with a sharp jerk. He raised his head and put out his chin a little. “I don’t want to go home,” he said; “I want to go to school. I don’t want to see Papa, I don’t like him.”
Mama laid her palm over his mouth softly. “Darling, don’t.”
Uncle David put his head out with a kind of snort. “There you are,” he said. “There you’ve got a statement from headquarters.”
Mama opened the door and ran, almost carrying Stephen. She ran across the sidewalk, jerking open the car door and dragging Stephen in after her. She spun the car around and dashed forward so sharply Stephen was almost flung out of the seat. He sat braced then with all his might, hands digging into the cushions. The car speeded up and the trees and houses whizzed by all flattened out. Stephen began suddenly to sing to himself, a quiet, inside song so Mama would not hear. He sang his new secret; it was a comfortable, sleepy song: “I hate Papa, I hate Mama, I hate Grandma, I hate Uncle David, I hate Old Janet, I hate Marjory, I hate Papa, I hate Mama. . .”
His head bobbed, leaned, came to rest on Mama’s knee, eyes closed. Mama drew him closer and slowed down, driving with one hand.