drove slowly back the eight blocks to our old house. When I was almost there, I
spotted her, parked quickly and called her. She stopped and listened, let me
approach her, then scampered away, straight for her old home. No, her only home.
I watched in horror as she crossed diagonally at Meyer and Rockhill – two busy
boulevards. She make it safely and I breathed again and went back for my car and
drove to our old house, arriving as she did because I conformed to traffic rules
while she did not. I let per sniff around inside an empty house for a few minutes,
then picked per up and brought per home.
For the next ten days this was repeated once, and sometimes twice, a day. Then came
a day – the day after Labor Day, I believe – when a wrecking crew arrived to clear
the site. George had warned me, so that day I did not let per out. I took per there
– let her go inside as usual and sniff around, then the crew arrived and started
tearing the house down. Princess came running to me and I let per sit in my lap in
the car, at the kerb.
She watched, while the Only Home was destroyed.
Aside from fixtures, which had been removed earlier, nothing was salvaged. So they
tore down that fine old nineteenth-century frame structure in only a morning.
Princess Polly watching, unbelieving. When the wreckers hitched bulldozers to the
north wing and pulled it down, made it suddenly rubbish, she hid per face against me
and moaned.
I drove us home. I did not like watching the death of that old house, either.
I took Polly back the next day. There was nothing but soil scraped bare and a
basement hole where our home had been. Princess Polly would not get out of the car;
I am not sure she recognised the site. She never ran away again. Sometimes gentlemen
friends came to call on her, but she stayed home. I think that she forgot that she
had ever lived anywhere else.
But I did not forget. Never go back to a house you once lived in – not if you loved
it.
I wish that Priscilla’s problems had been as easy to cope with as Polly’s. It was
Friday before I saw Dr Rumsey; Thursday we moved to our new house and any such move
is exhausting, even though I used professional packers and handlers, not just their
vans. It was simplified, too, by the fact that most of the furniture was not moved
to our new house, but given to Good Will – I told both Good Will and the Salvation
Army that a houseful of furniture, plus endless minor chattels, were to be donated
to charity but they must send a truck. The Salvation Army wanted to come over and
select what they wanted, but Good Will was not so fussy, so they got the plunder.
We kept only the books, some pictures, my desk and my files, clothing, some dishes
and flatware, an IBM typewriter, and a few oddments. About eleven I sent Donald and
Priscilla over to the new house with all salvaged food from pantry and freezer and
refrigerator.
‘Donald, please come back for me after you unload. Priscilla, see what you can find
for lunch; I think they will be loaded by noon. But don’t fix anything for which
timing is critical.’
`Yes, Mother.’ Those were almost the only words she spoke to me that morning. She
had done whatever I told per to do but made no attempt to use initiative, whereas
Donald tackled the job with imagination.
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They drove away. Donald came back for me at noon, just as the crew-was breaking for
lunch.
‘We’ll have to wait,’ I told him, `as they are not quite finished. What did you do
with Princess?’
‘I shut her into my bathroom for now, with per sand box and food. She resents it.’
`She’ll just have to put up with it for a while. Donald, what is eating Priscilla?
Last night and this morning she has been acting as if someone – me, I think – had