From the Relief Society Magazine, August 1968 –

Kitchen Money

By Sylvia Probst Young

When supper was over, Ellie sent Jase to the porch to relax and read the newspaper while she washed the dishes. He had never cared much for housework, and tonight he was especially tired after helping John Willey in the hayfield all day.

“We’re not as young as we used to be,” she mused to herself, as she cleared the table. In the mirror above the stove, she studied her reflection and sighed — wrinkles and sag lines and graying hair; but she wasn’t plagued with middle-age spread, and she seldom had a sick day, so what more could one expect at sixty-three? Jase was sixty-seven, and he still thought he could work as hard as he had done twenty years ago. Of course he moved a little more slowly, but he was slim as he had ever been and just as straight and tall. He always laughed at the idea of getting old, and secretly Ellie was proud that he felt that way because it helped her to feel the same.

“As long as you have a zest for living, you’ll never be old,” Jase often told her, “so you and I are just a couple of kids, Ellie, my girl.”

Smiling reflectively, Ellie put the dishes in the sink and turned her eyes to the window beyond which lay the cool meadow, rich green in the early June twilight.

June was always a favorite month, when summer returned in all of its fresh loveliness, bringing a chorus of birds, the call of crystal streams, and vacationing grandchildren to fill the old house with their young laughter.

Ellie had hoped to have the kitchen remodeled before they came this summer. She had visualized how surprised they would all be when they came in and found Grandma’s old-fashioned kitchen gleaming with new birch cabinets, formica drainboards, and a stainless steel sink and stove. There would be a new refrigerator that would never need defrosting. The linoleum, that needed weekly waxing, would be replaced with carpeting. Jase and she had made all the plans for it during the stormy, winter days. They had poured over catalogues and lumber-yard bulletins, everything had been figured and estimated. All they had to do now was to wait for Luke Crockett, who remodeled for everybody, to get around to them. He had promised to begin their work in April, but then he had had the misfortune to break a leg, so that had meant waiting, again.

Jase had tried to console her. “You’ve waited for twenty years, Ellie, so a few more months won’t be too bad, will they?”

Yes, she had waited for a long time. The kitchen money, as they had come to call any funds that were reserved for repairs in the home, had a way of being used for so many other things over the years, and Jase was not one to go in debt. He had always wanted to wait for anything new until they could pay for it. Well they had the kitchen money now, and it wasn’t needed for anything else, thank goodness.

Ellie had hoped that Luke would begin on her kitchen by the forepart of June, but he wanted to go fishing for a week or two, so he wouldn’t promise to come until after the first of July. She was keenly disappointed. The boys, two or three, if not all four, always came home for a family reunion on Jase’s birthday, which was the eighteenth of June, and she had hoped to surprise them with the new kitchen. “Don’t fret about it, honey,” Jase could always oil the troubled waters, “the surprise will be just as good next year.”

Dishes finished, Ellie took her knitting and went to the porch to join Jase. The sun, a great, blazing ball against the western horizon, colored the stratus clouds with a golden glow. Peace was like a benediction around them, as Jase looked up from his paper to smile at her.

“Ours is a summer haven,” he announced. Passing a section of the paper to her, he picked up a small pamphlet and a map from the wicker table.

Ellie grinned. “Where are we going next summer?” she asked.

Jase looked a little sheepish, she could read him like a book, but it didn’t matter. “How about Hawaii?” he challenged. “I’ve always wanted to go there, and I really think we could make it. Do you know how cheaply you can fly these days? Look!”

He brought the pamphlet to show her, eager as a schoolboy, but the sudden buzzing of the telephone interrupted.

Assuring him that she would see his plans on return, Ellie went into the house to answer it.

“Hello, Mother,” the voice through the phone was strong and masculine, “how are you?”

“Matt!” she cried. “How are you? Is anything wrong?”

“No,” he laughed, “of course not. I just called to tell you we’re coming home for Dad’s birthday.”

“Oh, Matt, that’s wonderful. When will you come?”

“We’re leaving in the morning, Mom, and we plan to bring Carole’s mother with us. She hasn’t been West for years, and she’s so lonesome without Mr. Bryson. Do you think you’ll have room for us all?”

“Of course we will, Matt, there are all of the upstairs bedrooms and the camper, too. Leslie has extra room if we need it. You’re all fine? Little Mary and Lisa? I’ll bet they’ve grown since we saw them.”

“They really have. How about Dad, how is he?”

“Fine. He’s been helping John Willey in the hay all day, thinks he’s about twenty years old.”

Matt laughed. “Well, maybe he is. Let me say hello to him.”

When Jase returned from talking to Matt he was all smiles.

“Say, won’t that be great having them come?” he exclaimed. “How long has it been since they were here?”

“Let’s see — they were here when Mary was a year old. She’s three now — summer before last.”

“That’s right — seems longer, though.”

Ellie nodded. “But you know, Jase, I’d really be happy about them coming if the kitchen were done. I’m ashamed of it like it is. If it were just Matt and Carole, I wouldn’t mind, but Carole’s mother — that’s something again. Her folks have always had money. Mrs. Bryson is used to the best.”

“Now — now, Ellie, Matt knows we’re just poor farm folks, and Carole knows it, too. If Mrs. Bryson can’t put up with what we have to offer, they can take her to a hotel.”

“Oh, Jase, you men folks don’t know what you’re talking about.” There was aggravation in Ellie ‘s voice. “Every woman likes a nice home.”

“Sure they do.”

Jase was so subdued that Ellie was instantly sorry.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she apologized. “I’ve always loved my home, you know that, and I know I’m going to have the new kitchen. I just wish it were done, that’s all.”

“I do, too, honey, and I suppose we could have had it long ago, if we hadn’t used the money for so many other things. But I guess the things we used it for were more important, don’t you think so?

She agreed, and her thoughts turned reflectively to the years gone by. The kitchen money had been used for Leslie and the boys — for college educations and missions — a loan to Bill to buy a part interest in the local pharmacy; for Mark, a down payment on his home. And the very first kitchen money had been used to buy a camper for a summer vacation!

Jase, reading her thoughts, nodded and smiled. “And it always paid dividends, Ellie, my girl, always paid dividends.”

Ellie knew he was right, but sometimes it had been hard not to become discouraged with the endless postponement of things she needed or wanted. And many times since they had come to the farm, twenty-seven years ago, she had wished that they had never seen it.

Fruit farming was a gamble. There had been years — more than two or three — when the peach trees, a sea of delicate beauty in their pink blossoming, had been smitten by killing frost that had left only brown, barren branches. During those lean years, much as he hated debt, Jase had had to borrow money to keep going. Yet, as he had pointed out, more than once, they hadn’t done too badly.

Ellie had been as willing as Jase to make the old do, to go without, but now, at long last, she would have her,, new kitchen. If only it could have been done before Carole’s mother came. Why couldn’t Luke go fishing in July?

When Leslie and Bill came on Tuesday evening to make plans for the reunion, Ellie talked about Mrs. Bryson’s coming.

“I don’t know why you’re so worried, Mother,” Leslie told her. “Carole has never put on airs, and I have a feeling that her mother will be as sweet and gracious as Carole is.”

|Matt and his family arrived on Thursday afternoon and Mrs. Bryson, a gray-haired, wiry, little woman, well in her sixties, but seeming much younger, greeted Ellie and Jase with such warm naturalness that all of Ellie ‘s worries vanished.

After helping Carole with the little girls, Mrs. Bryson spent time visiting with Ellie and Jase. She was interested in farm prices and cattle and summer vacations. When it was time to prepare supper, she peeled the potatoes and made a green salad. It seemed to Ellie that she had known Mrs. Bryson all of her life, and to Jase she described her as “a kindred spirit.”

On Friday afternoon, Bob’s family came from Denver, followed by the Tom Claytons and their children. Saturday morning brought Mark and Anne and their boys from Portland.

How would you like to have us for always?” young Mark asked Ellie, as he reached for a third sugar-cookie.

“She would take a green willow to you, as she used to to us,” his father laughed. “Remember the time, Matt, when you and I. . . .” He turned to his brothers, and the four of them, with Leslie, who had been there since early morning, began reliving the bygone days when they were all home together.

Ellie loved hearing them, and Jase glowed with pride. It was good having them all together again, and their wonderful children, filling the house with warmth and laughter.

ES y noon, the tables were all set up in the orchard, and they sat down to a home-cooked banquet, with platters of fried chicken, fresh garden vegetables, bread, hot from the oven, and freezers of homemade ice cream.

“What a good time we all have together.” Tom, who was oldest, looked over the long tables, and raised his glass of grape juice. “Let’s drink a toast to Mother and Dad,” he suggested, “the best parents in the world.”

“Speech, Grandpa, speech,” Julie Anne cried, and the rest joined in.

Jase rose slowly, looking over the group around him with misty eyes.

“You don’t know how good it is to have you all here,” he said, with a kind of catch in his voice. “It means more to Mama and me than you can know, and we think you’re the best children and grandchildren in the whole world.”

“Hey, Grandpa, can we boys stay?” Sammy wanted to know.

“That’s fine with us,” Jase told him, “if you don’t mind getting in on the remodeling, cause your Grandma and I are going to have the old kitchen modernized this very week.”

“We sure had lots of good times in that old kitchen,” Bob announced, “remember the candy pulls on winter nights.”

Leslie laughed, “And I remember you getting taffy from your heels to your head.”

“Remember the time I opened Dad’s prize root beer, and it fizzed up and went all over the ceiling?” Mark exclaimed.

“Yah, Mom made us help wallpaper the ceiling!”

“Remember those cheese sandwiches you used to make for picnics, Leslie?”

“Mom’s kitchen will always hold some of my dearest memories—when I think of the happy times we’ve had around that old table together.”

“Remember the winter mornings corning down to corn-meal mush bubbling in the kettle, and homemade sausage.”

And so they remembered — and it was a good day — a perfect day.

Then the Sabbath came and they all went to church, and Jase and Elbe were proud to have them there. But, too soon, the week end was over and they had to get back to their homes and work.

Matt and his family were staying until Tuesday morning, and then they would go on to California. Mark’s three boys would stay for a week.

After a supper of sandwiches and milk, Jase and Matt and the boys went out to the porch while Carole took the little girls up to bed and Ellie and Mrs. Bryson cleared up the dishes.

“It’s been just wonderful here with you,” Mrs. Bryson told Ellie. “I think I’ve been a little jealous of you having all of your family here together. And your husband is such a fine man. I visited with him for awhile the other night. He reminds me of my Cal, especially when he told me about the trip he wanted to take.” There was a wistful note in her voice. “Cal was like that, too. I’ve missed him so much, and looking back I wish we had done more things together.

“He had always wanted to spend a summer in the Canadian Rockies — fishing and that sort of thing. I’m not much of an outdoor girl, so it didn’t sound very exciting to me, but I agreed to go the next summer. He wasn’t here — then. . . .”

For a moment she couldn’t speak, then, composure regained, she went on. “Mrs. Clayton, why don’t you take the Hawaiian trip? You can always have the kitchen remodeled, you know.”

Long after she went to bed, Ellie lay awake pondering over the things Mrs. Bryson had said. I guess we get our values mixed up sometimes, she thought, and maybe we attach too much importance to some things. Maybe having the kitchen done over isn’t the most important thing this year, either. Could it be that Mrs. Bryson is right?

On Tuesday evening, when the supper dishes were done, and the boys had gone down to the creek to look for minnows, Ellie joined Jase on the porch to watch the night shadows that were stealing across the sky. On the table beside his chair were the travel folders- and the well-thumbed maps.

“Jase,” she said quite suddenly, “shall we go to Hawaii this summer?”

Jase looked up, startled, incredulous. “Ellie — what did you say?

“I said, shall we go to Hawaii this summer?”

“But Ellie, you know we can’t go. We’re going to have that kitchen done at long last.”

“The kitchen,” said Ellie, feeling light-hearted as a girl, “can wait another year.”

“Ellie!” His eyes glowed like stars in the darkness. “Ellie, look.” He opened the maps. “Let me show you.”

Ellie smiled knowingly, and moved her chair over beside him.