Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 54
AFTER all that had happened was it any wonder that what Alice wanted was a peaceful day, though if one pinned her down to it she would have had to confess that her notions of peace were very high? In fact they were so high it meant that for one whole day the children should cease disturbing her. If she could not get away on a visit, at least she wanted to be free from the sudden reprisal between Sara and Robert, no loud voiced squawkings from Sara for, when all was said and done, charming as Sara was, charming enough indeed to make her spend her life—or most of it—in trying to please, Sara was an awful squawker, so much so that it was one of those things that made both parents wonder secretly "where she got it from."
A peaceful day meant freedom from squawking, from insistently monotonous and nerve racking noises. Which meant somehow or other you must be out of earshot of Jamie's eternal tom-tomings, and the raids of Sara on Robert, and Robert on Sara, and Jamie on Sara, and so on throughout the six possible combinations. This all somehow or other had to be avoided.
This idea of a peaceful day had been as impossible as Alice's vacation. But now the time had come when she absolutely had to have one, because she had to write a paper for the Club on "Woman in Civic Life To-day," and to write a paper on this topic required freedom from interruption. It required freedom from all those casual runnings in and out of the children, freedom from the various—"Mother, where is?" "Mother, may I get?" "Mother, I want" "Mother, will you read?"
Indeed, after three or four days of trying, Alice felt that these little runnings in and out, instead of being as joyful as a bubbling brook through the dusty spaces of life, were like the painful peckings of innocent, harmless birds on some raw spot. She felt her patience and her nerves and all her inner quiet being remorselessly pecked away from her by each successive innocent query.
After several fruitless days she realized what the matter was—she had not taken her children into her confidence, but had imposed upon them from without an arbitrary command which they did not understand. She could not, of course, expect to change their method of life without knowing exactly why.
After breakfast then Alice took them into her confidence. It was a rather bothersome and difficult task.
"Darlings," she told them, "do you want to help mother about something?"
It was easy to see the darlings did.
"Well, Mother has got to write a paper. Will you help her?"
Indeed they would! They would be only too delighted to help Mother at any time and any hour.
There was sometimes nothing so sweet in life as Sara's helpfulness, and again there was nothing that could be so irritating. Some days one had to confess that Sara was so helpful that the archangels themselves would have to suppress regret that the old time ear-boxings were no longer in vogue.
"Well," went on Alice, "the way you can help Mother is by being perfectly still."
"Just being still?" said Sara in her shrillest staccato. "Just sitting? Sitting still will help you?"
Alice replied that just sitting still would help her immensely.
"What's the paper about?" Robert wanted to know.
Alice told him.
"What's that?" he inquired. The morning was flying, but Alice took him into her confidence some more. When she had finished, his disappointing comment was merely, "Shucks!"
To this Alice replied, "Well, Robert, shucks or not, it interests me. I want to write this paper, and I can't write it unless you children stop interrupting me every five minutes. Just don't come near my room—that's all. And, Sara, don't take Jamie's things away from him. And, Robert, don't tease Sara."
Alice realized the moral tone of the interview had lowered perceptibly, and that she was speaking with a decided briskness.
Jamie was gently beating a tattoo upon the floor; the whole thing floated over his placid head. He was intent on his own imaginings. He had understood only one thing, and that was that Sara was not to take away his things as was her custom.