From the Relief Society Magazine, February 1953 –
Trite, But True
By Iris W. Schow
After getting out of Madge’s new red and tan convertible, Karen Moore lingered, holding the large box from Clarrell’s Apparel absently, while everyone talked about the trip. Her short chestnut hair, gently waved at the very ends, made her slender face look a little rounder, she thought hopefully.
For, perhaps, the dozenth time the idea had been expressed by one girl or another. Karen said, “The main point is to have everybody picked up and be actually leaving town by five a.m.”
“Sure thing!” agreed Shirley, bounding out of the back seat and moving up in front, followed by Jane Ann.
“I’m so thrilled,” said Madge. “Not that I haven’t already been to Yellowstone several times – but driving instead of going with the family, and deciding where to eat and stay all night! Won’t it be special?”
Might as well say I’ve never been , thought Karen, her eager hazel eyes growing serious. Anyway, sooner or later I’d give it away by some remark.
“It’s my first trip to Yellowstone,” she said. “Well, I’ll see you – before daylight.”
She started for the house, their gay voices ringing after her.
“Will we ever keep you busy, seeing everything we point out!”
“See you before five!”
“Now, be ready! be alerted!”
As they drove away Karen became aware of the box she carried. She hurried, hardly able to wait to show Mom and the little girls its contents, the cleverly tailored brown skirt, the lovely, long-sleeved gold blouse, and the cute little green weskit. She could use last year’s sports jacket when it was chilly.
How lucky it was that her pal, Jane Ann, had that wonderful older sister Madge, who had been working long enough to own a beautiful new convertible! How lucky that Madge and Shirley were willing to have her and Jane Ann along! Lots of older girls wouldn’t be.
“Mom, where are you?” Karen called, before discovering that she was alone in the house. She remembered then that her mother was doing her Relief Society visiting teaching. That responsibility, plus the cherry canning and Karen’s preparations for the trip, had provided Mom’s reason for leaving the washing until Tuesday.
Well, Mom would be home any minute. Meantime, Karen could finish packing and set the table.
Deciding to set the table first, she hurried to the breakfast nook. On the table was a little heap consisting of Joyce’s blouse that needed the sleeves shortened to get rid of the worn elbows, a lunch cloth with the hem picked out far enough so that a frayed edge could be sewn under on the machine, and the top of the pajamas that Ray liked so well, with a patch pinned in place under the arm. They were all folded neatly in a pile, of course, still they gave the room a cluttered effect.
Funny thing about Mom, she was such an efficient mother in most ways. Her canning was perfect, and she had the cleverest ideas for sewing and making over. But she was always laying out little piles of things, intending to mend them sometime during the day. If she stopped to think about it, she would know perfectly well she couldn’t do it on a full day like this. Karen seized the sewing, started for Mom’s chest of drawers, hesitated. Maybe she could run up this little bit herself before dinner. No, she positively wouldn’t get time.
In the front bedroom she noticed Mom’s print dress that needed taking up in the shoulders, spread out on the bed. Mom knew it would have to have the collar taken off and the top of the sleeves undone to get to the shoulder seams. Then someone must help her fit it, to do a really good job. There was no point in getting it out today and pinning it to see how it would look. Karen put it away and hurried to the kitchen.
On the counter were the quarts of rosy cherries they had canned that morning, cool now and ready to store. They looked grand. But there lay a dish towel, with a streak of gravy across it … mom had forgotten to use the potholders again. Karen dropped the towel into the laundry chute and started for her room with her purchases.
Just then the telephone rang imperatively.
Hello, Moores’?” asked a man’s voice urgently. “Karen? This is Joe Reed. My boy Joey and your brother Bert have had an accident, riding Joey’s motor scoot. They’re both in the hospital. Now, Bert is going to be all right, but they are sure he has a broken pelvis, and one wrist is broken, too. I’ve tried to get your house, and then your father at the store, but the line was busy, so I tried the house again. You’d better get your mother and bring her over.”
“Thanks, Mr. Reed,” said Karen. “She’s out visiting teaching, but I’ll locate her.” She tried to get control of her shaking hands and weakened knees. “How about Joey?” she asked as an afterthought.
“He isn’t hurt as seriously as Bert, but he’s pretty battered up,” stated Mr. Reed. “Well, we’ll see you.”
Poor, poor Bert! What a shock for an eleven-year-old boy, Karen thought. Maybe Mom was coming. She dashed out to the sidewalk to look. No one was in sight on the shady street. She started for the house. What should she do? Call some of the homes in Mom’s district? She would just look again. And sure enough, there was Mom coming around the corner, looking neat and brisk, unaware of the trouble she must face in a few minutes. Karen hurried to meet her.
The next few hours brought Karen a series of vivid impressions: Mom’s alarmed face paling as Karen talked to her, the two-block dash to the hospital, calling Daddy, Bert’s pain-widened eyes.
It was well into the evening before Karen noticed her box from the store by the telephone, and remembered her packing. The trip was out of the question now. Bert would want and need Mom at his bedside much of the time for the next few days. Someone must get fifteen-year-old Ray off to pick cherries, prepare meals, and look after Joyce and Nancy, who were only seven and four. Oh, well, she wouldn’t want to be away from home with one of the family in such a serious condition, anyway.
She talked to Jane Ann and Madge on the telephone. “I hate to drop out,” she told Madge. “I know you’ve all been counting on four to pay the expenses.”
“Think nothing of it,” said Madge. “It won’t be much extra. Probably we can get a roll-away bed put in the room, and all stay together nights. We’d wait for you,” she added, “but with all the scheming it took to make our vacations overlap for a week, I don’t think we could all four get together again this summer.”
“Well, have fun for me, too,” said Karen, keeping back her tears with an effort.
Next morning Karen had an early breakfast ready for Ray.
“I’m going to tackle the washing today,” she announced. “I’ll get it sorted now.”
“I’ll stay home a few hours and help you,” offered Ray, his mild blue eyes looking kind like their father’s. “There’s too much lifting connected with running that old washer of ours.”
“Oh, I can manage,” protested Karen.
But their father said, “Good idea, Ray. Karen hasn’t had much experience being responsible for the whole washing, and our equipment isn’t first class.”
The sorting was easy in general, though a few items almost defied classification. Then Karen measured the soap and left Ray to fill the washer, while she went up to the kitchen to make starch.
“Does the pile where the white shirts are go in first?” he called up the stairs.
“Sure thing!” she replied.
A few minutes later he was shouting urgently, “Better come down, Sis! I’ve made a real boner!”
There were the best white clothes in the suds, while Ray was picking up the dolly from a near-by tub.
“Is there any way to get this thing on without taking out all the clothes?” he asked.
Karen began to laugh. Then they both giggled until it was a slow process wringing out the unwashed clothing.
When, at last, the washing was under way, Karen hurried back upstairs, to be met by Joyce, who held Mom’s little ornamental lamb in one hand and in the other its leg, which had been snapped off. Nancy trailed dismally after her.
“Nancy climbed up and took it off the bookcase,” said Joyce, adding appealingly, “but she might not have broken it, if I hadn’t come in. When she saw me, she hurried so fast to put it back, she knocked it right over.”
“I just wanted to love it,” said Nancy.
“Well, you just mustn’t love Mom’s little ornaments,” asserted Karen, testing how the leg looked fitted back in place. “But maybe I can glue it back on.” She laid the pieces inside the cupboard.
Next day, after getting everyone off to work or out to play and tidying the house, Karen freshened her own appearance and started on the ironing. She really had everything under control today, she thought. She was going to be all right at running the house.
As she ironed, Karen found that the stitching of one cuff placket of Daddy’s best shirt was undone. She could mend that best by turning under the edges carefully by hand, she decided. She laid the folded shirt at the end of the counter farthest from the cooking. Ray’s shirt, with a button missing, was laid aside also.
Then she discovered that part of the ruffle on Nancy’s dress was loose, and one of Mom’s aprons had a string nearly off. These she took to the sewing machine in Mom’s bedroom. She could save time by doing such bits of mending before putting things away.
When Karen looked at her watch it was fifteen to twelve. She had forgotten about lunch. By calling Joyce to set the table, and choosing foods which took no preparation, she had lunch nearly ready when Daddy brought Mom home.
It was almost two before Karen returned to the ironing. She must hurry and finish. Then she could rest while she mended, before cooking dinner. The ironing went on and on. The two little girls certainly did use a lot of play suits and pinafores, mostly ruffle-trimmed. The number of shirts seemed high, too. Through at last, she hurried to put away everything that needed no mending.
Karen sat down at the sewing machine and repaired several pieces. This was really a restful change after standing or racing around all afternoon. Then she glanced at her watch, and hurried to the kitchen to start dinner. When you had everything to do in the home, those meals kept interrupting until you simply couldn’t get ahead!
With the carrots and potatoes started, she might be able to sew buttons on some of the things on the counter while she watched the meat, Karen thought.
“You forgot all day to look in the mailbox,” called Joyce from the living room. “Isn’t that funny? There’s a lot of mail, too.”
Karen dashed in to see it, brushing back her damp hair from her perspiring forehead. She certainly looked untidy, she thought, as she passed the mirror.
Jane Ann and the others had sent one of those postcards where you choose and check your messages. It was actually from all three. The key on the back explained that red pencil was Jane Ann’s, while Shirley had checked in ink, and Madge in ordinary pencil. They all had marked, “Wish you were here,” and several items they had added, “Wardrobes reasonably adequate,” “Too much talk at bedtime,” and the like. Jane Ann had checked practically everything. It was so clever!
The odor of burning meat sent Karen scurrying for the kitchen. She turned off the unit, put out her hand to move the pan, saw or felt that it was too hot, snatched a dish towel, and lifted the pan from the heat. It was frightfully hot. She tried moving a piece with a fork, decided on a spatula, dropped the fork on the dish towel, and began turning the meat inquisitively. Only one piece was burned much. Karen trimmed all of it hopefully and finished frying it.
Now the potatoes were done, and the gravy wasn’t even started! How did you ever get it all to come out even?
Stirring the gravy, Karen glanced around the kitchen. The greasy fork on the dish towel caught her eye. Forgetting to use the potholders! On the table lay the little ornamental lamb Nancy had broken yesterday. Karen had thought she could mend it with china cement in her spare time today. The things needing buttons and Daddy’s best shirt cluttered the counter. She remembered the open sewing machine piled with other pieces needing a stitch. Little piles of things waiting to be done all over the place! And she was the one who thought Mom was always planning more than she could do!
Mom came in, her kind face tired beneath the dark hair that was beginning to show several locks of gray.
“How has my young housekeeper been making out?’ she asked, putting her arm around Karen.
“Oh, Mom!” exclaimed Karen, “when I came home that day Bert got hurt, you know what I was thinking? I was feeling a little critical of you for not using the potholders, and for pinning your rayon print, and laying out your little piles of mending, and thinking you’d have time to do them, when you wouldn’t. But I’ve done the same way, only worse. I’ve got everything I ironed that needs mending laid out in little piles. I’ve burned the meat. I’ve been learning the old trite, but true lesson, mothers have an awful lot to do!”
Her mother smiled. “It is a trite, but true lesson, dear. But it has its beautiful and important side. for having things you honestly think you are going to do sometime during the day, that would actually require more time than there is in the day – that’s part of the secret of being happy, for a woman.”