Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 41
AS every mother knows, all families have invariably one trunk too few. This is one of the mysteries of life; no scientist has yet arisen to explain why it is that with every trunk and bag packed to the bursting point there yet remain bulky objects—sweaters, shoes, raincoats—to say nothing of toilet articles and the last little odds and ends that one has discovered yet to be tucked away into the non-existent spaces in the trunks.
And it was with this one trunk too few that Alice began to pack trunks for the vacation by the seashore. She packed for a while swiftly and with marvelous good temper, considering that Sara insisted upon helping her.
There is scarcely a woman in the world who does not think of Herod as one of the noblest characters in history if her children happen to be about when she is packing her trunks, and Alice reflected that she was a sort of super-mother in that she could endure Sara's prattle which went:
"Now we put this pile here, and the other pile there and tuck stockings in the corner, and, oh, Mother, can I try on your shawl? If I was a boy, this is how I'd look, Mother." This with Jamie's hat on the back of her head.
This was all very well, but when it came to saying: "Now let's put all my dollies in the trunk," Alice protested.
"Sara," she said, "you can't put all your dolls in."
"Not put in all my dollies?" said Sara, and she frowned dramatically.
Alice was in no mood for histrionics.
"You won't want them; where we are going there will be all kinds of other things to play with," she informed her child.
"Who will take care of my childwens," said Sara, "when I am away?"
"Well, Sara," said Alice, "it's very bad for children to travel."
"Oh, no, it isn't; oh, no, it isn't," said Sara. "They need a change. Sea air is good for childwens; you said so; you told Father so."
"Sea air is good for my children, but not for your children," said Alice firmly. "Their eyes drop out and their hair comes off."
"I've got lots without hair, and painted-in eyes," Sara said. "Evelyn Dearie isn't painted. I want my childwens. You don't go off without your childwens, Mother."
"No," said Alice to herself gloomily, "but I wish I did. It is not my fault," she reflected in this moment of bitterness. "If I do not, it is because of my conscience."
"I won't leave them at home!" cried Sara. "Mices will eat them."
"Nonsense, Sara!" responded Alice tartly. "You can pack one doll in the trunk, and one small one you can carry in the train. That's all. Now, decide at once."
From the outside this would seem to be a simple matter, but in childhood you never know when your words may prove to be as harmful as the sowing of dragons' teeth. At this word Sara began to get out her dolls and set them up in rows around the wall, where they, together with Sara, were extraordinarily in the way. They also seemed to have multiplied like rabbits; it had not occurred to Alice that Sara owned so many dolls.
There were new and beautiful dolls with eyes that opened and shut, there were Kewpie dolls and peasant dolls, there were battered old wrecks that Sara had cherished but had not played with for months, for Sara was not one of your sentimental children who touchingly cherished her oldest doll and loved her the better that her bright color had been kissed away. The broken wrecks were relegated to positions of servitude; they were scalped when the children played Indians, they were thrown to the lions, and passed through as many vicissitudes as Pauline of the Moving Pictures, but respected or loved they were not, except on an occasion like this, when Sara, under the spurious excuse of obeying her mother cluttered up the room with their lamentable fragments.
It was this pretense of obedience that finally exasperated Alice and caused her at length to say:
"I'll pack this one, and you can take that one," and when Sara's rising remonstrance of, "Oh, why—" was spoken in the tone of Gladys Grayson, Alice's cup of bitterness overflowed. She reverted to the days of her grandmother, and without reasoning and in a tone of authority she said:
"March right down-stairs, Sara, and stay there, or it'll be the worse for you." Such was the menace in her tone that Sara, sniffing but obedient, departed. Later Sara came in the room when Alice's back was turned and deposited something in the trunk.
"Whatever you put in the trunk you can take out," cried Alice.
"What thing?" asked Sara with innocence.
Alice inspected the trunk; there was nothing visible.
"Clear out," she cried. "I don't want to see you again!"
With Sara out of the way you might have thought that the coast was clear, but Alice, hearing a noise, turned from her packing to look into the candid eyes of Jamie. His arms were full of his cherished cast-iron toys. He smiled at his mother, and without speaking dropped them, the whole armful of them, into the tray containing Sara's best muslin dresses—the ones adorned with ribbons—and Alice's shirtwaists. Having accomplished this he beamed at his mother.
"I packed my things," he said, upon which he took three dancing steps sideways and three dancing steps back again, triumphant and lilting little steps. A mother in times of stress may be stern, she may nip the hopeful but unpractical desires of her children in the bud, but there are no weapons that a normal human being has in the face of the happy assurance of babyhood.