“Is—is he very stern, with new teachers, I mean?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Whiteside. “That depends. If they haven’t had their dinner, he’s a regular bear. He shouts at them. But when they’ve just got up from the table, he’s only just fierce.”
Molly laughed happily. “You have children,” she said. “Oh, you’ve raised lots of children—and you like them.”
Mrs. Whiteside scowled. “One child raised me. Raised me right through the roof. It was too hard on me. He’s out raising cows now, poor devil. I don’t think I raised him very high.”
When Molly had finished eating, Mrs. Whiteside threw open a side door and called, “John, here’s someone to see you.” She pushed Molly through the doorway into a room that was a kind of a library, for big bookcases were loaded with thick, old comfortable books, all filigreed in gold. And it was a kind of a sitting room. There was a fire place of brick with a mantel of little red tile bricks and the most extraordinary vases on the mantel. Hung on a nail over the mantel, slung really, like a rifle on a shoulder strap, was a huge meerschaum pipe in the Jaegar fashion. Big leather chairs with leather tassels hanging to them, stood about the fireplace, all of them patent rocking chairs with the kind of springs that chant when you rock them. And lastly, the room was a kind of an office, for there was an old-fashioned roll-top desk, and behind it sat John Whiteside. When he looked up, Molly saw that he had at once the kindest and the sternest eyes she had ever seen, and the whitest hair, too. Real blue-white, silky hair, a great duster of it.
“I am Mary Morgan,” she began formally.
“Oh, yes, Miss Morgan, I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you sit down?”
She sat in one of the big rockers, and the springs cried with sweet pain. “I love these chairs,” she said. “We used to have one when I was a little girl.” Then she felt silly. “I’ve come to interview you about this position. My letter said to do that.”
“Don’t be so tense, Miss Morgan. I’ve interviewed every teacher we’ve had for years. And,” he said, smiling, “I still don’t know how to go about it.”
“Oh—I’m glad, Mr. Whiteside. I never asked for a job before. I was really afraid of it.”
“Well, Miss Mary Morgan, as near as I can figure, the purpose of this interview is to give me a little knowledge of your past and of the kind of person you are. I’m supposed to know something about you when you’ve finished. And now that you know my purpose, I suppose you’ll be self-conscious and anxious to give a good impression. Maybe if you just tell me a little about yourself, everything’ll be all right. Just a few words about the kind of girl you are, and where you came from.”
Molly nodded quickly. “Yes, I’ll try to do that, Mr. Whiteside,” and she dropped her mind back into the past.
There was the old, squalid, unpainted house with its wide back porch and the round washtubs leaning against the rail. High in the great willow tree her two brothers, Joe and Tom, crashed about crying, “Now I’m an eagle.” “I’m a parrot.” “Now I’m an old chicken. “Watch me!”
The screen door on the back porch opened, and their mother leaned tiredly out. Her hair would not lie smoothly no matter how much she combed it. Thick strings of it hung down beside her face. Her eves were always a little red, and her hands and wrists painfully cracked. “Tom, Joe,” she called. “You’ll get hurt up there. Don’t worry me so, boys! Don’t you love your mother at all?” The voices in the tree were hushed. The shrieking spirits of the eagle and the old chicken were drenched in self-reproach. Molly sat in the dust, wrapping a rag around a stick and doing her best to imagine it a tall lady in a dress. “Molly, come in and stay with your mother. I’m so tired today.”
Molly stood up the stick in the deep dust. “You, miss,” she whispered fiercely. “You’ll get whipped on your bare bottom when I come back.” Then she obediently went into the house.
Her mother sat in a straight chair in the kitchen. “Draw up, Molly. Just sit with me for a little while. Love me, Molly! Love your mother a little bit. You are mother’s good little girl, aren’t you?” Molly squirmed on her chair. “Don’t you love your mother, Molly?”
The little girl was very miserable. She knew her mother would cry in a moment, and then she would be compelled to stroke the stringy hair. Both she and her brothers knew they should love their mother. She did everything for them, everything. They were ashamed that they hated to be near her, but they couldn’t help it. When she called to them and they were not in sight, they pretended not to hear, and crept away, talking in whispers.
“Well, to begin with, we were very poor,” Molly said to John Whiteside. “I guess we were really poverty-stricken. I had two brothers a little older than I. My father was a traveling salesman, but even so, my mother had to work. She worked terribly hard for us.”
About once in every six months a great event occurred. In the morning the mother crept silently out of the bedroom. Her hair was brushed as smoothly as it could be; her eyes sparkled, and she looked happy and almost pretty. She whispered, “Quiet, children! Your father’s home.”
Molly and her brothers sneaked out of the house, but even in the yard they talked in excited whispers. The news traveled quickly about the neighborhood. Soon the yard was filled with whispering children. “They say their father’s home.” “Is your father really home?” “Where’s he been this time?” By noon there were a dozen children in the yard, standing in expectant little groups, cautioning one another to be quiet.
About noon the screen door on the porch sprang open and whacked against the wall. Their father leaped out. “Hi,” he yelled. “Hi, kids!” Molly and her brothers flung themselves upon him and hugged his legs, while he plucked them off and hurled them into the air like kittens.
Mrs. Morgan fluttered about, clucking with excitement. “Children, children. Don’t muss your father’s clothes.”
The neighbour children threw handsprings and wrestled and shrieked with joy. It was better than any holiday.
“Wait till you see,” their father cried. “Wait till you see what I brought you. It’s a secret now.” And when the hysteria had quieted a little he carried his suitcase out on the porch and opened it. There were presents such as no one had ever seen, mechanical toys unknown before—tin bugs that crawled, dancing wooden Negroes and astounding steam shovels that worked in sand. There were superb glass marbles with bears and dogs right in their centers. He had something for everyone, several things for everyone. It was all the great holidays packed into one.
Usually it was midafternoon before the children became calm enough not to shriek occasionally. But eventually George Morgan sat on the steps, and they all gathered about while he told his adventures. This time he had been to Mexico while there was a revolution. Again he had gone to Honolulu, had seen the volcano and had himself ridden on a surfboard. Always there were cities and people, strange people; always adventures and a hundred funny incidents, funnier than anything they had ever heard. It couldn’t all be told at one time. After school they had to gather to hear more and more. Throughout the world George Morgan tramped, collecting glorious adventures.
“As far as my home life went,” Miss Morgan said, “I guess I almost didn’t have any father. He was able to get home very seldom from his business trips.”
John Whiteside nodded gravely.
Molly’s hands rustled in her lap and her eyes were dim.
One time he brought a dumpy, woolly puppy in a box, and it wet on the floor immediately.
“What kind of a dog is it?” Tom asked in his most sophisticated manner.
Their father laughed loudly. He was so young! He looked twenty years younger than their mother. “It’s a dollar and a half dog,” he explained. “You get an awful lot of kinds of dog for a dollar and a half. it’s like this … Suppose you go into a candy store and say, ‘I want a nickels worth of peppermints and gumdrops and licorice and raspberry chews.’ Well, I went in and said, ‘Give me a dollar and a half’s worth of mixed dog.’ That’s the kind it is. It’s Molly’s dog, and she has to name it.”
“I’m going to name it George,” said Molly.
Her father bowed strangely to her, and said, “Thank you Molly.” They all noticed that he wasn’t laughing at her, either.