From the Improvement Era, March 1952 –

Daughter Knows Best

By Leone E. McCune

With quick and expert efficiency, Helen Armstrong put the last pieces of silver and china on the dinner table. “Next week I’ll be setting three places at table,” she mused.

The telephone rang shrilly, and she went to answer it. She sat down on the small chair by the phone, a trim figure in her gay print, as pretty and neat as her lovely house. Her hand smoothed her dark upswept hair.

“Maud!” she exclaimed into the telephone. “How nice to hear from you! Dinner, you say? It sounds marvelous, but we can’t possibly come. I’m so sorry. Carol and the baby are coming home. The house they were living in has been sold, and they can’t find another place to live. . . . Yes, yes, it is too bad. Of course we’ll love having them. . . . She’d want me to go, of course, but I wouldn’t leave her. I’m looking forward to grandmothering, you know.” She laughed lightly. “I shan’t be able to do another thing while they’re here. Thanks a million though for thinking of us. Come and see Carol and the baby. “Bye now.”

Helen set the phone in its cradle.

She wished Bart would hurry and come home. Walking into the living room, she went to the window and looked out.

There he was, his long legs swinging down the street — he carried his topcoat over one arm and had removed his hat. His blond head was lifted in an attitude of keen enjoyment of the soft spring evening.

Helen went into the hall and opened the front door.

“Hurry, Bart,” she called, “we have a letter from Carol.”

Bart quickened his steps along the path and in a few moments stood in the hall. His anxious gaze swept her face.

“Nothing wrong is there?” Bart questioned.

Helen held up a smiling face for his kiss.

“Oh, no, dear, but I could hardly wait to tell you. A letter just came special delivery. Carol is coming home.”

Bart relaxed now and hung his coat and hat in the hall closet.

“Well, it’s a good thing Carol has a home to come back to,” he observed. “Too bad Jim couldn’t come with her.”

“He’ll be comfortable at the hotel, and he’ll have to stay and look for another place,” said Helen.

“Let’s see,” figured Bart, “if Carol leaves Glenville at seven o’clock Saturday, she should arrive here at four.”

“And here it is Wednesday and I’ll have to change the whole house around — at least the bedrooms,” Helen amended.

“Why not leave it and let Carol fix things the way she wants them?” Bart asked.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I want everything in order before she arrives.”

“I imagine she’s quite capable,” Bart smiled.

“Just the same, she’ll be glad to have me take care of them.”

The next two days Helen worked at top speed, moving clothes from the closet of the bedroom which was to be Carol’s, and crowding them into her’s and Bart’s and into the boys’ closet in the basement. They wouldn’t be home for two months, at least.

She arranged and re-arranged furniture. The baby’s bed must be out of any possible draft. “Precious little Jimmie,” she thought. He was three months old now, and she hadn’t seen him since he was six weeks old.

Everything was in perfect order when Carol’s train arrived on Saturday.

“Mom — Dad!” Carol exclaimed, hugging them. “Am I glad to see you! Jimmie didn’t enjoy his first train ride at all. He fussed nearly all day. How do you like your grandson? Hasn’t he grown?” She held the baby up, smiling at him proudly and possessively.

Helen and Bart looked tenderly at the baby, and he looked back at them from dark blue eyes set in a round pink and white face.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Helen said in awe.

“Look, Dad, his hair is coming in auburn like Jim’s. It was black at first.”

“Quite a fella, by George,” said Bart, chucking him under the chin and grinning with pride.

When they finally got all Carol’s belongings to the car Bart looked them over, aghast. “I should have hired a truck,” he said. Bathinette, basinette, baby buggy, bags for bottles, diapers, and clothes were jammed into the car.

“The highchair and playpen will come by express,” Carol said. “He won’t need them for awhile, but I had no other place to put them.”

Helen thought of the small closet and the not-too-large bedroom and wondered a bit wildly where she would- put everything.

The first night passed quite uneventfully, the baby sleeping from exhaustion and the sheer relief of being in a quiet room.

He cried out only once. Helen was in the room in a few minutes, but Carol was already bending over him. A pale blue robe hung loosely over her small figure, her dark softly curled hair fell in a cloud over her shoulders.

In the dim light of the shaded lamp she looked so young. “She’s only a child herself,” Helen thought tenderly.

Carol turned to smile at her mother.

“Go back to bed, Mom; he’ll be all right. Just wants to be turned over,” she said softly.

The baby made small sounds again.

“He wants his bottle. I’ll get it and put it on to warm.” Helen started off quickly to go to the kitchen.

“No, Mother, it isn’t feeding time. Go back to bed, or we’ll really have him awake.”

“Well,” Helen said and stood a little uncertainly, “if you’re sure you don’t need me.” But Carol gave her mother a gentle push toward the door.

The next day Helen bustled about insisting upon making the formula and giving Jimmie his bath.

“But, Mother,” Carol protested, “I love giving him his bath.”

“Of course, but you can relax a bit and let me help.”

But Helen was nervous, and the baby began howling so loud before she had finished that Carol had to take over.

The days passed quickly. They took the baby on walks when the days were warm. Sometimes Helen took care of Jimmie while Carol visited with her old friends.

“Let’s take in a show tonight,” Bart said as he came in one evening. “There’s a good one at the Paramount.”

Helen looked up from the pile of baby clothes she had been folding.

“Oh, I couldn’t go and leave Carol, dear. Why don’t you go if you like. I’ll stay and keep her company.”

“She’d want you to go. How about it, wouldn’t you like Mom to go to the show, Carol?” he called.

And Carol answered from the bedroom.

“Of course, Mom, do go. I shan’t be the least bit lonely. Dad, make her go.”

But Helen wouldn’t leave Carol, so Bart made a belated call on his aged uncle.

One day when Helen came home after doing the marketing, she found Carol in the kitchen feeding Jimmie pureed beets. She was incredulous.

“Why, I never heard of such a thing as giving beets to a tiny baby,” she exclaimed.

“But it’s in the baby book, and the doctor recommends it,” Carol said.

“I’d like to make him that soup of lentils, carrots, potatoes, and beans that I used to feed you children. I’ll make him some tomorrow.”

“But, Mother, why? It takes so much time and trouble. These prepared foods are so much easier.”

“She doesn’t think any of my ideas are any good at all,” Helen complained to Bart that evening. “She forgets I brought her up to be a fine specimen of health. She reads those baby books constantly. She won’t do anything without consulting the book.”

Bart’s eyes twinkled, and he nodded his head up and down teasingly. “Smart gal, our Carol. She might just turn out to be a lot wiser than her mother.”

“Why, I’m twice her age,” snapped Helen. “Aren’t you supposed to grow wiser as you grow older?”

“Well,” Bart drawled—

“Oh, skip it,” said Helen.

Almost two months had passed since Carol brought the baby home. Every few days a letter had come from her husband, Jim. He had been unable to find an apartment but was still looking and hoping.

Most of that time Carol had been cheerful and happy. There were a few times, however, when her spirits were low, and her parents had been at their wits’ end to try to cheer her.

“I don’t see why she can’t be happy here with us,” Helen lamented to Bart.

He looked at her with that familiar quizzical expression in his blue eyes.

“For a woman of forty plus,” he grinned and raised his eyebrows, “you’re not so sharp. Would you have been happy to leave me and take Carol home to your mother?”

“Of course not, but Mother had five others besides me. They couldn’t have done much for me.”

“I think all Carol needs is understanding. It’s hard for her,” said Bart.

“Yes, I know. She does miss Jim.”

Little Jimmie had been wonderfully well, and then one morning something upset him. Everything was in a turmoil for more than an hour.

Helen came rushing into the bedroom. Above the baby’s screams she spoke to Carol.

“Now, don’t be upset, dear, I’ll take care of him. I’ll give him a warm bath and some peppermint drops to soothe him. Hand me the thermometer and I’ll take his temperature.”

She picked up the baby, rocking him back and forth, patting him on the back.

“Poor little man,” she crooned, “poor little man.”

The baby stiffened and screamed louder than ever. She laid him on the bed. His little body arched and his eyes rolled back in his small red face.

Carol bent a strained face above him. She said, “I’m sure it’s the colic. The book says when the eyes roll back like that, it’s one of the symptoms. I’ll get some towels hot and put on his tummy.”

She went quickly to the drawer and brought one and placed it on the hot plate she kept in the bedroom.

In the middle of the commotion Bart came home for lunch.

“Well, well,” he said much concerned, “let’s see if his old granddad can help him.”

He took off the towel and picked up the squirming child and began pacing the floor.

“Poor little fella, poor little fella,” he kept repeating.

Carol stood looking a bit helpless for a moment, then put the towel on the plate again. When it was hot, she held it in her arms a minute then spoke impatiently to her father.

“Put him down, Dad, so I can lay the hot towel on his tummy.”

Bart gave her an odd glance and put the baby down quickly.

They all stood over Jimmie waiting for the heat to take effect.

Helen wiped the dampness from his little face and dark, fuzzy head. His howls continued, and Helen started to pick him up again.

Suddenly Carol turned to her parents, her small figure rigid, dark eyes luminous in her pale tense face.

“Now, if you two will just leave me alone with him,” she said sharply, “I’ll soon have him over this. I can’t take care of him when you constantly pick him up.”

Bart and Helen were so startled, they rushed from the room, and Carol closed the door with a slight bang.

They stood rather sheepishly for a moment, then Bart threw back his head and laughed softly.

“That’s telling us,” he said.

Helen crossed the hall quickly into their room. She moved toward the window, struggling to keep back the tears. Her husband followed and closed the door.

He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her face toward him.

“Honey, you’re not crying?” he said in amazement.

Helen fought for calmness.

“She doesn’t need me, Bart; she just, doesn’t need me.”

He shook her shoulders gently then held her still with a hard grip.

“Why, you foolish gal,” he chuckled softly. “Isn’t that exactly what we’ve tried to teach her all these years — to be self-reliant? And, by George, we’ve done a pretty good job if I do say so myself.”

He chuckled again.

“Listen,” he cocked his head toward the door. “Jimmie has stopped crying. Carol is all right; yes, sir, she’s all right.”

He smiled down at Helen, and now she smiled back.

“Oh, Bart, you’re such a comfort.”

“Know what,” said Bart, as he held her, “what with all the excitement, I forgot the big news. Jim tried and tried to get the line to phone Carol this morning, but the line was busy. He called me just as I was leaving. He’s found an apartment and wants Carol to pack at once.”

“I must tell her,” he paused and looked with a grin toward Carol’s door, “as soon as she comes out of the bedroom.”

He sighed gently.

“Be kinda nice just to be comfortable and middle-aged — and quiet again, eh, my dear?”