Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 46
ALICE was not even to be allowed to weep in peace. She had not had time to finish comfortably, not to get half way through, indeed, before a tremendous racket in front of her house made her look out of the window. A voice which was at once both deep and flat was saying:
"Tom Marcey! Ataboy! Tom Marcey, old scout! Ahoy! Avast!"
These cries were accentuated by the honking of a motor horn of the largest size. A car had drawn up in front of the Marceys' house. From this there burst a regiment—in fact, everything seemed to be bursting. A plump lady who came tottering up the walk on precipitously high heels was bursting from an expensive lingerie waist. From where she was Alice could observe a sunburst of the largest size upon her ample bosom. Four children, two stout ones, and two gimlet-eyed lean ones, gamboled about her. She could hear the man's voice:
"Well, Tom, old scout! At last—at last!" And she heard Tom crying in pleased surprise:
"Well, old Bill Mullins!"
"Meet Mrs. Mullins!" Bill shouted. "Some baby, eh, what?"
By this time all the Marcey children had joined the others, and it seemed to Alice that the children had multiplied miraculously, like the loaves and fishes. There seemed to be at least sixteen Marceys and eighty-three little Mullins. Alice could hear Mr. Bill Mullins booming:
"Well, Tom, old top, when we used to train together little you thought you'd see me driving up in my own two thousand dollar car—and my old girl with diamonds all over her!"
Tom stormed up the stairs, crying:
"Say, Alice, Bill Mullins has turned up! You must have heard me speak of him."
"No, I haven't," said Alice. Incredibly, he liked these people.
"Oh, yes, you have—he was our town's bad boy. Why, I almost got expelled from school trying to live up to Bill. He was my ideal. I copied him in everything at least one whole year. Why, Alice, of course you have! He was the fellow who taught me to play baseball!"
"I've never heard you speak of Mr. Mullins," insisted Alice, still more coldly.
Tom waved this aside. He had weightier matters to discuss.
"Listen here," he said, "they'll all, of course, stay to supper, and you can see for yourself what kind of people they are—their tables just groan! Bill's mother, I remember, was a bang-up cook. It was one of those families where pies get baked by the dozen, not just a little anemic pie or so. And I want you to have some broiled chicken and hot biscuit and a grand peach shortcake."
"Broiled chicken?" interrupted Alice, "Why don't you ask me to serve a few little diamond croquettes, or something?"
"Why, what's the matter with you, Alice?" Tom cried sorrowfully.
"There's nothing the matter with me," said Alice. "The only thing there's anything the matter with is our bank account. Right at the end of the month, and the bills as high as high already from stocking up after our vacation. And now you say to me chickens! How many broiled chickens do you think a family like that, Tom Marcey, a man and his wife and four children and our three—will eat? And how much do you think they are a pound this season?"
"I'm going to have broiled chicken," Tom said in that calm tone, as hard as iron. "When your friends come, I notice everything's all right; but when it's my friends—old Bill Mullins, and his wife I've never met before—and you can see she's one of the whole-heartedest and most simple people in the world"
"I loathe expensive, dirty, white shirtwaists and diamonds!" was Alice's inappropriate rejoinder.
"Well, loathe all you want" Tom began. Then he patted Alice on the shoulder, "Oh, come, Alice, don't be sore! Come along and help me have a good time."