Man and Boy Page 3

  “Mother—?” he said.

  “Is it blue or brown for Navy, Warren?”

  In the quiet she could hear water somewhere.

  “Do I hear water running?” she said.

  “Just boiling, Mother.”

  “Oh Warren—”

  “Yes, Mother—”

  “Is it blue or brown for Navy?”

  “It’s blue, Mother,” he answered. “For the Navy it’s blue.”

  MR. ORMSBY

  WHEN he heard Mother’s feet on the stairs Mr. Ormsby cracked her soft-boiled eggs and spooned them carefully into the heated cup. He heard her reach the landing, open the door, but when she failed to say “Bon jour, Warren,” her customary greeting, he turned toward her with the eggshells in his hand. Mother stood on the landing, her left hand half-upraised, in an attitude of blessing, and the index finger of her right hand pressed to her lips. As he knew what that meant, Mr. Ormsby turned to the kitchen window, scanned the chicken-wire bird box, then looked beyond it at the yard. He saw nothing. But he stood hushed as a man who did.

  “Blackbird—?” he said, tentatively, as the yard was often full of blackbirds.

  “Listen for the zeeeeeee—” Mother said, and perhaps she heard it, for she added: “Bombycilia cedrorum” and leaned over the kitchen stove. Watermelon seeds, spread out in a pan lid, were drying over the lighter flame. Mother didn’t care for melons, but some birds liked the seeds. “Blackbird—” she said, getting back to where he had interrupted, “any bird is a blackbird if the males are largely, or entirely black.”

  Well, he knew that, but it didn’t seem to help him much. Besides, talk about male and female birds troubled him. Although Mother was a girl of the old school she would never hesitate, anywhere, to speak right out about male and female birds. A cow was a cow, a bull was a bull, but to Mr. Ormsby a bird was a bird. To change the subject he said: “Mother, you like your toast dark?”

  “Among the birdfolk,” Mother said, “the men-folk, so to speak, wear the feathers. The female has more serious work to do.”

  Mother made this observation from behind the kitchen cabinet. She had her best thoughts, seemed to do her best thinking, behind something. Very rarely she spoke them, most of the time she wrote them down on a pad. They sometimes had something like a conversation between the first and the second floors, but it stopped the moment one of them came into view. It also stopped, by and large, when Mother made a sharp observation—such as the one she was nationally famous for. Before the Friends of the Quail, a national organization, she had given a talk she called “Consider the Lilies,” with special reference to the fact that they toiled not, neither did they spin. What she had in mind, as she pointed out, was not lilies but birds—male birds, of course, in particular. Requests for reprints of this speech were still pouring in. Small boys wrote in to say that they were now shooting only male birds. That was carrying it further than she wanted to go, but it was characteristic of Mother, just as she always seemed to be saying more than she said. He had never seen nor heard of a woman with a greater store of pithy sayings, though it sometimes took a little reflection to figure them out. The saying was plain enough, but Mother always managed to use it, like she did the lilies, in a very original way. It gave what was generally described as depth to everything she said.

  Mr. Ormsby waited for her to continue—one good thought often led to another—but the far side of the cabinet was quieter than usual. He faced toward the window, thinking it must be another bird.

  “Robin makes nest in street car—” Mother began, in the careful voice she reserved for reading, but a little strained as the paper she read was on the floor. “Eggs leave in morning—” she continued, “return to Mother at night. Conductor in quandary as to whether bird in egg is full fare.”

  Putting down the eggshells, Air. Ormsby walked into the living-room, found the scissors, then came back and snipped the article out. He put it in the Indian bowl on top of the cabinet. Mother had moved on to Walter Lippmann, which she read aloud in snatches, with reference to the passages that she would later underline. As he had learned, this performance was not for him. Mother read some things aloud to impress them, as she said, on her own mind. There was a pause, she took a spoonful of her egg, and as he poured her cup of coffee she said:

  “Put a dozen fresh eggs in a bag, Warren, she never sees a fresh egg.”

  “She—?” he said.

  “Mrs. Dinardo,” Mother said.

  That was the way her mind worked, all over the place in one cup of coffee, Walter Lippmann one moment, Mrs. Myrtle Dinardo the next. The eggs on his mind, Mr. Ormsby said: “If she’s not going to have a spare room, Mother—”

  “She has a house full of rooms,” Mother said.

  “Comparatively speaking—” Mr. Ormsby said, “her new quarters are considerably larger—” he stopped to reflect on the Dinardo family in the Race Street rooms. Nine Dinardos—now that three were in the war—in two and one-half rooms. Then Mr. Dinardo got a fine job in the Navy Yard, somewhere in Brooklyn, and Mrs. Dinardo had found a flat on 116th street. She had asked Mother to come and visit her. Mother had picked up the impression —she seemed to have trouble with Mrs. Dinardo’s letters—that in her new place she had room for all of them. “As I remember—” Mr. Ormsby said, and left the kitchen to look for the letter.

  “Under D in the telephone book,” Mother called.

  He found the letter under D—Mother never wrote, she telephoned, and used the telephone book as a letter-filing case.

  Returning with the letter, he began: “ ‘Dear Mrs. Ormsby—’ ”

  “Cowbird—” Mother interrupted, “Molothrus ater. Go on.”

  “ ‘Dear Mrs. Ormsby—’ ” he said again, then stopped to scan the page, as Mrs. Dinardo had a very unusual style. “ ‘I received your letter and I sure was glad to know that you are both well and think of me often and I often think of you too—’”

  It went on, but he stopped there to get his breath.

  “Is that all?” Mother said.

  “‘Well, Mrs. Ormsby—’” he continued, “‘I have more rooms all over the place and never know whether one of them or how many is empty at once. But come to See me I will have Something if you need Something.’ ” Mrs. Dinardo, for some reason, always liked to make a capital S, which made it a little harder to scan her style. “ ‘We are both well—’ ” he went on, “ ‘and he is Still in the Navy Yard. My I do wish the War is over it is So long. Do come and See us when you put your name on the boat. Mrs. Ormsby, wouldn’t a Street suit you better than a boat? If you’re going to put your name on Something why not a Street? Here in my hand is news of a boat just Sunk what is wrong with a Street? Well, we have the river here so near and it is nice. If you don’t find Something you can leave it to me to find Something. Love, Mrs. Myrtle Dinardo.’ ”

  It was quite a letter to get from a woman that Mother had known, known Mother, that is, for something better than twenty years. Mrs. Dinardo. had been brought in to nurse the boy. Something in Mother’s milk, Dr. Paige had said, when it was plain as the nose on your face that it was nothing in the milk, but something in the boy. He just refused, plain refused, to nurse with her. The way the little rascal would look at her, making a face like the milk was sour, and then the way he would gurgle when Mrs. Dinardo would scoop him up. For a year she was there every day in the week, listening to Mother talk about birds and flowers while she ate all of the wonderful things that Mother cooked. Mrs. Dinardo had been hired to cook, as well as sit around and nurse the boy, but so far as he knew she never once put a hand to the stove. Mother spent the mornings cooking something special for her lunch.

  Turning from the window Mother said: “What does she say?”

  “What she means to say—” Mr. Ormsby began—

  “I’ll telephone,” Mother said, and picked up her egg cup, her spoon, and her saucer, and headed for the sink. Mr. Ormsby cut in behind the cupboard to head her off. If she once got to the sink, she might be
there for an hour.

  “Now let me take care of that, Mother—” he said, but being as she often was when her mind was busy, preoccupied that is, she didn’t seem to see him standing there. She walked right past him and took her stand at the sink. With one hand—with the other she held her bathrobe close about her—she let the water slowly run into the large dishpan. “Mother—” he said, “now you telephone. You better telephone while you’re sure to get her.”

  “Cold water,” Mother said matter-of-factly, “cold water for eggs.”

  Long ago, long, long ago, Mr. Ormsby had learned the unwisdom of discussing with Mother the problem of washing egg. He took the dish-towel from the rack, folded it over his arm. He stood there while Mother went about the money-saving business of trying to make suds with a little piece of soap in a wire cage. The soap was very old, about the size of a button, and nothing like suds ever appeared, but the thrashing in the water stirred up a few bubbles that looked like soap. To meet this problem Mr. Ormsby kept, on top of the radiator under the sink, a paper bag full of fine powdered soap. Sooner or later, he would get his hand into it. From there to the dishpan was a simple step. “You see—?” Mother would say, as the water began to suds, and hold up, the stale button of soap for him to admire. He always did. It was getting to be something he believed in himself.

  “My own opinion—” Mr. Ormsby began, his mind still on the Dinardo business, but he stopped when Mother raised her hand. There were times when she looked exactly like the girl in the Song of the Lark. Like that girl, she was listening, but it was hard to tell if what Mother heard was more leaky plumbing, a thought coming on, or some rare bird. They stood quiet, and Mr. Ormsby listened to the stove clock, said to be silent, but nothing had been said about the low-keyed hum, like a time bomb.

  “Hylo—something mustelina—” Mother said, and dropped the wire cage, headed for the window. As she did, Mr. Ormsby got his hand into the bag of powdered soap. “Except for the nightingale,” Mother said, her head in the window looking for it, “the most popular of European songbirds.”

  “Very pretty,” Mr. Ormsby said, and in the distraction of the moment he had time to dip his hand in the water, work up a suds.

  “Hark!” Mother said, and Mr. Ormsby stilled the hand he held in the water, and heard again, like the rumblings of his stomach, the ominous whirring of the clock.

  While Mr. Ormsby washed the dishes Mother put out some fresh suet for the birds and some Pepperidge Farm whole wheat bread for the squirrels. It had got so the squirrels wouldn’t touch anything else. It was either Pepperidge Farm or nothing, and as in most cases it was nothing, Mother saw to it that they got their Pepperidge Farm. As he finished wiping the silver Mother came in with some flowers for Mrs. Dinardo, and arranged them, for a moment, in a tall glass.

  “According to her letter—” Mr. Ormsby began—

  “Warren,” she said, “your hands are dripping.”

  Mr. Ormsby put his hands over the sink and said: “If we’re going to be met at the Pennsylvania station—if we’re going to be met by Commander Sudcliffe—I don’t see how we’re going to give her any bouquet. I don’t see just how we’re going to deliver a dozen fresh eggs.”

  “I know that neighborhood,” Mother said.

  “There isn’t a fresh egg anywhere in it.”

  “We go from the station to the boat,” said Mr. Ormsby, “and as I understand, the boat is over in Brooklyn. To get to Brooklyn you don’t go near 116th street.”

  On the wall beside the icebox was a pad of paper with a blue pencil dangling on a string. On the top sheet of the pad Mother had already written Ars longa, vita brevis, but that had been last night and she had forgotten why. She stood there, the pencil point in her mouth, reflecting on it.

  “My own opinion is—” Mr. Ormsby said, “that we name the boat and then hustle back home. Right now it’s pretty hard to find a room in New York.”

  “Milkman—” Mother said, tearing off the top sheet and using a clean one. “Milkman—Gone for 2 days. Please leave no milk.”

  In very jovial tones Mr. Ormsby said: “I’ll bet we’re right back here before dark, Mother.” And that was all he said. That was every last word of it. All he wanted to do, in fact, all he did, was to try and call Mother’s attention to the fact that Mrs. Dinardo was not any too sure about rooms. And that 116 th street, down near the river, was not exactly on the route. That was all he said, but in the middle of her note, right at the end of the word “days,” she dropped the pencil, took a tuck in her bathrobe, and headed for the stairs. He knew. He knew what the tuck in that bathrobe meant. Mother never argued, she never raised her voice, she merely took a tuck in whatever she was wearing and then a week might pass before she spoke to anyone. The silent treatment left no room for argument. From the top of the stairs, she said, in a voice she reserved for peddlers:

  “Would you tell Commander Sudcliffe, Mr. Ormsby, that Mrs. Ormsby has decided to remain at home? She’s getting old, you know, and there are soooo many things she doesn’t seem to know.” She let that sink in, then she added: “After all, it’s your name on the boat, Mr. Ormsby. It doesn’t matter whose mother’s son it is, you know. It’s the name on the boat.”

  So gently that he couldn’t hear the latch, she closed the door. But he heard the key. She wanted him to hear the key turn in the lock. In the quiet Mr. Ormsby heard his swollen red hands drip water on the floor.

  Although he had been through this a thousand times—into it, that is, he had never been through it—he was never ready for it, somehow it always took him by surprise. And after all of these times it never left him anything at all but sick. He went into the front room, where it was dark, and let himself drop down before he remembered—but he remembered the moment his bottom crumpled the papers in the chair. He got up and looked around the room for a place to sit down. In the fireplace corner, behind the rack that held the unabridged dictionary, he found the Pennsylvania Dutch authentic milk stool, sat down on it. It brought his knees up so he could rest his head and arms on them. Ordinarily he could get up and leave the house and after four or five days it might blow over, but in all his life—their life, that is—there had been nothing like this. The Government of the United States was banking on her. Also banking on her—somewhere in Brooklyn—was a boat. At the thought of it he got up from the stool and walked to the table where the correspondence, eight months of it, was on display chronologically. There it all was, about twenty pages of it, his correspondence in a sense, as he had taken every piece of it down to the office, answered it there. Then brought home the letter he had written, for Mother to sign. He picked up the first:

  NAVY DEPARTMENT

  BUREAU OF NAVAL PERSONNEL

  Mrs. Violet Ames Ormsby

  Bel Air, Pa.

  My dear Mrs. Ormsby:

  As he knew it by heart, he put it down, picked up the one from the Secretary of the Navy.

  THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

  WASHINGTON

  Mrs. Violet Ames Ormsby

  Bel Air, Fa.

  My dear Mrs. Ormsby:

  He glanced at the signature, the personal signature of the Secretary of the Navy, then he put that letter down and thumbed ahead several months.

  OFFICE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT OF SHIPBUILDING

  U.S. NAVY

  Mrs. Violet Ames Ormsby

  Bel Air, Pa.

  My dear Mrs. Ormsby:

  That letter described what boat it would be, about when it would be ready for launching, and was followed by a letter from the builders themselves.

  FEDERAL SHIPBUILDING AND DRYDOCK CO.

  KEARNEY, N. J.

  Mrs. Violet Ames Ormsby

  Bel Air, Pa.

  My dear Mrs. Ormsby:

  There they all were—in a handstitched folder with cellophane sheets so that one could read them— along with the invitation from Commander Sudcliffe personally. The invitation mentioned the day, the train, and the hour. Seeing the hour, Mr. Ormsby paused to look a
t his own watch. With the folder in hand he walked to the stairs, opened the door a notch, and called: “Ohhh, Mother—”

  No answer, naturally.

  “ ‘My dear Mrs. Ormsby—’ ” he began, and read through, taking each word slowly, the official invitation of Commander Hugh Sudcliffe, USN.

  No answer.

  “ ‘My dear Mrs. Ormsby—’ ” he began again, but skipped ahead to the mention of the day, the train from Philly, and the hour they would arrive in New York. He followed this, quoting from memory, with the reply he had written for Mother, and the one she had signed, Violet Ames Ormsby, in her Aztec-brown ink.

  When he finished he found himself gazing, through slightly moist eyes, at the picture of Mother leading the birdlore hike in the Poconos. This picture bore the title LOCAL WOMAN HEADS DAWN BUSTERS, and marked Mother’s first appearance on the National birdlore scene. It was not one of her best pictures, as it dated from the early twenties and those hipless dresses, and round bucket hats, were not Mother’s type. This picture had appeared—perhaps it was the only picture of Mother that the Bulletin had—on the front page of the paper when the news came through that the boy was a hero. Until they saw that picture, and the article with it, some people had forgotten that the boy was missing, and most of them seemed to think that it was pretty smart to swap him for a boat. “How’s that boat of yours coming along, Ormsby?” they would say. No one had ever showed that much interest in the boy. Whose boy? Well, that was just the point. But everyone agreed that Ormsby was a fine name for a boat.

  “Warren—” she said.