Rufus M. (10 page)

The silver foxes and the red automobile made two things to talk about. Also he planned to tell her he still had all the cards she'd ever sent and that you could still see where the dime and the raisin had been stuck. And finally he could say that Mama sent her regards. Or he could say that first. Anyway, first or last, it made four things. He began to whistle.

Joe and Jane walked the longest way from their house on Ashbellows Place to Miss Myles's house on Thomas Street over near the railroad tracks. They crunched on some apples from Mrs. Stokes's apple orchard. Joe had another in his pocket for Miss Myles. If you counted the apple, he had five things to talk about.

They did not take any shortcuts and they didn't race. They walked over there and all the way Joe thought about the things he'd say. They stopped for a moment on the corner of Miss Myles's street to watch an express train go streaking past. The people inside the train looked warm and comfortable, reading their papers or looking out the windows. Joey and Jane waved and then they slowly continued to Miss Myles's house.

"This is it. This is number seventeen," Joe whispered.

"Yeah," said Jane. And then, to bolster their morale, she added, "You know, this is really an awfully nice thing to do—coming to see her like this. She's gonna be awfully pleased to see you."

"Hm-m-m," said Joe.

They stood quietly on the sidewalk, looking at the house.

"There's a light in there," said Jane.

"Means she's home," said Joey.

They looked at the house. It was a small, inviting house. There wasn't too long a veranda to tiptoe across. Just a couple of steps up, a little porch to cross, and they'd be at the door. They finished their apples and threw the cores across the street. Then Joe started slowly up the street.

"Let's walk around the block," he suggested.

"Yeah," said Jane.

So they walked around the block and Joey slowly revolved in his mind all the points of conversation. Silver foxes, long red touring car, the cards, the regards, and the apple. These would certainly take a long time to tell and when they were told they could go home.

And here they were back in front of Miss Myles's house. This time Joey surprised Jane by walking right up on the porch. She had thought they probably would walk around the block at least once or twice more, maybe the whole evening, and then go home.

Joey held his finger over the bell. Five things to talk about, counting the apple. He pressed the bell in. It rang with a startling suddenness, making Joey and Jane jump. And almost instantaneously they found themselves bathed in light as someone inside switched on the porch bulb. They blinked their eyes and wiped their hands on their coats, hoping they were still clean.

A lady opened the door.

"Who is it?" she asked.

Miss Myles and Joey had not seen each other for a long time. They only just wrote to each other. Joey scarcely recognized her. And Miss Myles didn't recognize him, either.

"Yes?" she said kindly.

She thinks we're selling something or that we want her to join the Red Cross,
thought Jane. Joe didn't say anything. Nobody said anything. Jane was just about to say, "This is Joey," when to her relief Miss Myles said:

"Why, Joey Moffat, come in! Come right in. And I supposed this is Jane. And where's my red automobile, young man?"

Joe smiled but said nothing. They all went in and sat down on Miss Myles's wicker furniture.

"So you came to take me for a ride in that red automobile of yours?" Miss Myles said again.

Joey smiled and stared at the ceiling. But he didn't say

anything. Then he looked at a porcelain cat that was supposed to keep the door from swinging and he kept looking at this cat for the rest of the evening. It was not easy to talk about the red automobile. And if he did talk about it, how could he jump from that to silver foxes? That's what Joe wondered, and it kept him from saying anything about red automobiles or silver foxes, either. Nobody said anything for a while. Everybody's wicker chairs creaked. Jane thought now was the time when she should put in a word. She was uncomfortable, too, though not as uncomfortable as Joe because, after all, Miss Myles was his particular friend and she scarcely knew Jane. She only knew about her. Joey sometimes mentioned her and the other Moffats in his cards to Miss Myles.

"Yes," repeated Miss Myles. "When I saw you at the door, Joey, I thought, ah, now here's where I get a ride in a beautiful red automobile."

Joe smiled on one side of his mouth. He shouldn't sit here grinning like that Cheshire cat. He knew that. He rehearsed in his mind. /
saw an ad. Just an ad about silver foxes...
Jane thought of something to say. She thought she could say Joe was going to save up for a red automobile. But she didn't say it because so far Joey hadn't said anything and he was the one should do the talking. At least he should talk first.

Joe thought, well, now they had talked about the red automobile, at least Miss Myles had, and if he could think how to begin he'd discuss this plan he had of raising silver foxes. It didn't sound good to him to start with "I saw an ad." He was just going to plunge in when his chair creaked loud. Very loud. The chair creaking like this made him realize how he'd sound when he began to talk. There was silence now. Then he'd talk. How'd his voice sound? Like that creak? He couldn't be sure how his voice would turn out. Sometimes it came out loud. Sometimes it came out in a high squeak. How could he count on it sounding like any ordinary voice? He had forgotten about his voice when he came here. He brushed his hand over his hair. Some of it was rearing up like telegraph poles again.

Jane thought the conversation was not going very well. In conversation one person was supposed to say something. Then another person. Then the first. Then another. No long silences in between times, especially when you pay a call. Silences are all right when you make a long visit, say for several days, because no one could keep up a conversation all that time. But in a short visit like this she and Joe and Miss Myles ought to talk and they weren't.

Miss Myles said something now and then but neither Joey nor Jane answered, because they both were so busy thinking they should talk and embarrassed because they weren't.

How long was everybody going to sit here like this? Jane wondered, squirming her toes around inside her shoes. By rights she shouldn't do the talking. Joey should, because this lady was his friend. But Jane finally realized that Joey had reached such a state of shyness he was not going to be able to say one thing. She felt desperate.
I'll have to talk,
she thought. And maybe, if she kept the conversation strictly on Joe, she would not be stealing his show.

"Joey has the best memory of all of us," she ventured bravely.

"I'm sure he has," agreed Miss Myles, "because he always remembers that he promised me a ride in a long red automobile."

"He remembers all dates," said Jane.

"My!"

"I don't mean just dates like when Columbus discovered America and Washington's birthday. I mean
all
dates."

"Goodness!"

"He remembers things like what date the parish house burned down and the New Haven depot, too. And the day Rufus fell out of the cherry tree, and the day Rufus got his bike."

"Gracious!"

"Yes. He remembers what date the parish house burned down," Jane repeated. "Don't you, Joe?" She looked at him encouragingly.

Joe nodded. Jane had hoped he'd answer the right date. But he didn't; he just nodded.

"Sure. And he remembers when the New Haven depot burned down. Don't you, Joe?"

Joe nodded again.

Nodding isn't exactly conversation but it is taking part,
thought Jane. Out loud, she said, "He doesn't have to write them down."

To this Miss Myles just raised her eyebrows incredulously.

"The funny thing is that most of these things happened in May and still Joey remembers them."

"In May?"

"Yes. The month of May."

Here Jane paused and she looked desperately at Joe. He could slide in now if he felt like it. He didn't feel like it, though. His forehead was damp. Jane plunged on.

"Yes. So many things happened in May, like birthdays in our family, but he keeps them all straight and doesn't mix them up with the fires."

Miss Myles had settled herself comfortably in her armchair and she nodded her head up and down, up and down, considering this. But she didn't say anything, so Jane continued.

"If you say to Joe, 'Joe, when did the parish house burn down?' he doesn't have to think a second. He says right off, 'May third.'

"I don't mean the parish house really burned down on May third. He knows the date. I don't."

Jane saw that Miss Myles looked a little confused.

"I'm just saying May third because I don't know the date and I'm just saying May third." This was hard to explain and the perspiration broke out on Jane's forehead now.

"I might have said the fifth!" she blurted out. "That's because I don't know the date. Only Joey knows in our whole family."

Miss Myles touched her handkerchief to her nose. Was everything clear? Jane wondered.

"I just said May third because it came into my head first."

"Well," said Miss Myles, turning to Joe with a slightly bewildered air, "the parish house did or did not burn down on May third?"

This required an answer. Joe said, "May eighteenth!"

And "May eighteenth" were the only two words that Joe said during the whole visit. Then Miss Myles left the room for a moment. Joe and Jane moved to the door. When Miss Myles came back, she gave each one of them a big round lemon cookie with a scalloped edge and they left.

The air smelled sweet, of ripe apples and grapes. They walked home, not saying anything until they were around the corner. They passed warmly lit houses and in some you could see the men smoking their pipes and reading the paper. And in another someone was playing the piano. In another a lot of ladies laughed. Joey whistled softly. When the children reached their corner, they went around to the backyard, climbed up on the fence, reached for some bunches of ripe purple grapes, and started eating them and spitting out the skins.

"Taste better at night than in the day, don't they?" said Jane.

"Yeah. Dew on 'em," said Joe.

"I wouldn't 'ave talked because she's really your friend, and I shouldn't 'ave done all the talkin'," said Jane apologetically. She did not want Joe to think she had deliberately stolen his show.

"Yeah," said Joe. "I should 'a' talked."

"Gee, it's hard to talk sometimes, isn't it?" said Jane.

"Yeah, it sure is hard to talk," said Joey. "I had a lot to tell her when I went in there," he went on, "but when I got in there I couldn't talk."

"I have a hard time talkin,' too," said Jane. "But sometimes I can make myself."

"Yeah? Well, I couldn't tonight. Talkin' sure is hard."

Rufus came out of the back door, leaving it open so that a path of light stretched into the yard.

"I heard you come home," he said. He shinnied up on the back fence and sat in the light from the kitchen. Joey reached up and felt around for a big bunch of grapes for him. And Joey also gave Rufus the apple they had meant for Miss Myles. He wondered how they had forgotten to give it to her.

"Go to Miss Myles's?" asked Rufus.

"Uh-huh."

"The lady in the red automobile?"

"Yeah."

"Rufe," said Jane, "can you talk?"

"Sure," said Rufus. "I got a tongue, ain't I?" And he stuck out his tongue and wagged it at them.

"Something must be done about the sewers," said the Town Improvement Association. "And something must be done about the drains at the street corners so we do not have all this mud!" they cried, and they did not stop campaigning until the town finally decreed that new sewers must be dug and that new drains must be made. Therefore one day men with pickaxes and shovels moved up and down the streets, digging deep, trenchlike ditches and lining the sides of the streets with big, round, dark red clay pipes.

Rufus was happy when at last the workers reached Pleasant Street and Ashbellows Place. The air smelled of gas fumes all the time and of damp red dirt. Since Rufus was the first one home from school, he was the first to see that the sewers had reached their street.