A Place in the Country
By Ruby Scranton Jones
Story 2: The Curtains
John and Ellen Martin stood at the window looking out over the two and a half acres that were theirs, or would be in the course of ten years or so. It was mid-July, and the scrawny apples on the nearest tree were turning red. A few daisies and pansies bloomed in the neglected garden.
“Our place in the country,” Ellen mused, leaning her dark head against her husband’s shoulder. “We have waited nine years for it, but it’s worth it. Betty looks better already, and you’ve coughed very little since we left Chicago.”
“I was beginning to think you’d have to give up living on a farm when you found that ad in the paper,” John replied, putting his arm around her.
Then they turned and looked again at the room they had just finished arranging. The woodwork and floor were spotless, but the paper was faded and cracked. There was a worn blue rug, much too small, two rocking chairs, a small table with a vase of daisies, and a bright picture of dancing nymphs over the grate.
“Nice,” Ellen said. “Sometime we’ll have a davenport over against that wall and a bookcase in that corner.”
“For our six books,” John laughed.
Ellen paid no attention. “But we can have curtains now. I’ve saved fifteen dollars.” She picked up her purse from the table and looked to make sure, and then continued, “Sheer curtains that won’t shut out the sunshine— ruffled ones— don’t you think, draped back?”
“Yes, ruffles, by all means.” John drew Ellen to him and kissed her. “I’ve known we’d have ruffled curtains for nine, long years.”
Ellen pulled away, a little offended. Then she laughed, too. “Let’s go to town now and get the material. I could have them up for Sunday—the front ones, anyway. Some of the neighbors might come to call, you know.” She picked up her purse again and started for the bedroom. “You call the children while I get ready.”
As the ancient Ford turned onto the highway, Ellen looked back. “It looks much better than it did a week ago. You’ve done wonders, John. It’ll really look elegant when the curtains are up.”
The town was busy as country towns are on Saturday afternoons. There were so many cars that John parked some distance from the general store and they walked slowly along, enjoying the sights so unusual to their eyes accustomed to the streets of a big city.
The children, a little ahead, had stopped in front of a grain store. “Hurry,” Johnny shouted, jumping up and down in excitement. “Come, see the puppies.”
There was a window full of them, all kinds and colors, rolling over each other. “I choose that one,” the boy exclaimed, pointing to a tan and white furry ball. “He’s beautiful.”
It had long been a game with the children to make choices of things they saw in store windows—clothes, shoes, books, boys. of course, they never expected to have them, but it was fun anyway.
“Which do you choose?” Johnny asked his sister.
“I like the same one. he’s so soft looking and, see, he doesn’t bite to hurt at all. He’s just playing.”
“We must hurry,” their father urged. “The store won’t be open much longer.” He took Johnny’s hand and they went on.
An obliging clerk got down bolt after bolt of curtain material before Ellen saw what she wanted. It was snowy white with tiny dots. “How much?” she asked.
“Forty-nine cents,” the girl answered, and started to unroll it.
“Twice fifty-0nine—one eighteen. Six windows. Twelve times one eighteen,” Ellen figured scarcely above a whisper, frowning a little in her concentration. “Yes, that will be just right.”
“Where’s Johnny?” Betty asked in a loud, anxious voice.
“Why, he was right here,” John replied, looking around the store.
“We must find him,” Ellen hastily turned from the counter and they hurried out.
They looked up and down the street where cars were traveling in both directions and some boys were galloping their horses. Ellen’s face went white. John asked all who passed if they had seen a small boy in a blue suit. His voice was calm, but he started to cough.
“The puppies,” Betty cried suddenly and ran down the street. John and Ellen followed. And there he was, his little face pressed against the glass.
“Don’t scold him,” Ellen whispered.
“He likes me,” Johnny’s voice was shrill. Just then the puppy came over and licked the glass in front of the boy’s face with a bright pink tongue. “Oh, I wish I could touch him just once.” His voice was low now as though he did not want to startle the puppy.
“Come,” his father spoke gruffly, taking his hand. “Come, or mother won’t get her curtains.”
“Don’t want curtains. want to watch puppies.” Johnny began to cry and pulled away.
Ellen marched into the store. “How much are they?” she asked of the man who came to meet her.
“Well, different prices. Which one do you mean?”
“The tan and white one.”
“the Scotch collie? He’s fifteen dollars.”
“So much!” Ellen exclaimed.
“That black one is ten. The little spotted fox terrier is only three. But the collie is the best. What do you want a dog for?”
“Well, for the children—and—for a watch dog.”
“The collie would be fine then. All collie shave good dispositions and they grow big enough to be good watch dogs.”
Ellen turned to leave and saw her son’s face through the glass. It was as full of happiness now as the pictured face of an angel she had seen once in an art gallery. She opened her purse. “Hee,” she said, “I’ll take him.”
The man reached into the window and lifted out the puppy as three pairs of eyes gazed in surprise. Ellen went out of the store and put the puppy in Johnny’s arms.
“Is he ours?” he asked when he was able to speak at all.
“Yes,” she answered. “Now we’ll go home. let Betty carry him to the car. You have to be very careful of puppies, you know.”
The children started on, talking happily.
“But your curtains,” John said. “You wanted them so badly.”
“Did I?” Ellen smiled at him. She was still a little pale. “It’s a bad habit I have— wanting things.”
“Well, it’s all that’s got us this far. But you shouldn’t have done it.” John took her arm as she stumbled on the uneven pavement.
When she next spoke her tone was a little belligerent. “Anyway, who ever heard of a place in the country without a dog?”
“When the neighbors come to call they will probably think, whoever heard of a house without curtains,” John retorted.
By the time they caught up with the children, they were both laughing.
(To be continued)
My grandmother said davenport. I wonder what the regional map is for that one.
After looking up what scotch collies look like, I had to scroll back up through the story to make sure that the little boy’s name wasn’t Timmy.
Then I had to go look up the history of the originating Lassie story, which would have been published at least 10 years before, but to dash my high hopes that this won’t be too much of a Johnny–in-the-well story, I see that Jeff and Timmy didn’t come along until after this story would have been published.
Waiting to find out what trope plays out here…
Jean, my grandma said davenport, too. She’s from Iowa. I’m guessing it is an Illinois/Iowa thing…making it authentic since the characters in the story are from Illinois.
(Wikipedia says it’s Midwest and New York that call a couch or sofa a Davenport… just like a tissue is a Kleenex, petroleum jelly is Vaseline, a copy is a Xerox, and a reclining chair is a La-z-boy, Davenport was the name of a pre-WWII sofa manufacturer.)
My Rochester, NY-born father often said “davenport.”
Growing up in Ohio, both davenport & couch were used to refer to the same piece of furniture.
I suppose that would make sense. My grandmother spent her youth in Nebraska before coming to California when she was around 12. She also said ‘warsh’ for ‘wash.’ I don’t think I ever met anybody else who said davenport.
(Ardis, you might like my grandmother’s story of moving to CA: Her mother had divorced her father, which forced her to let her daughter live with an aunt and uncle for some years, since she couldn’t support her. They adopted my grandmother without consent, having previously promised to give the child back whenever the mom could support her, and said she had no recourse. So my great-grandmother kidnapped her daughter back and headed out to California.)
Truth is going to beat fiction no matter how creative a writer is!
Was it a coincidence that your father was a photographer born in Rochester?
🙂 He was doomed, wasn’t he? As was our whole family, when all those yellow boxes crowded the celery for refrigerator space when I was growing up.
My grandma, who lived her entire life (1909-2007) in Idaho, also said “davenport.”
My father was a biologist by profession and a photographer by avocation, so we had the same yellow boxes in our spare refrigerator! Except the boxes competed for space with dead animals. Every time we moved, we had to look for a house with a room that could be converted into a darkroom.
“… when all those yellow boxes crowded the celery”: “Now, kids, be sure to eat your Kodachrome.”
LOL, Mike.
Left Field, yup. Except that my dad was also a carpenter so he built a darkroom wherever we lived — second bathroom, corner of a basement, whatever. I think he enjoyed putting up walls and building sinks more than the photography.
I hate celery. I think I’d rather eat the Kodachrome.
Two places we lived had an upstairs/basement apartment. When the tenants moved out, the apartment kitchen became the darkroom. One place, the spare bathroom doubled as a darkroom.
And we once bought a house that had been owned by a dentist who had his practice in one end of the house. It included a darkroom he used to develop x-rays, though it was too small to use for real photography. The room did have an awesome tub built into the counter that was perfect for washing prints. We first set up our darkroom in a small adjacent room that had been the dentist’s lab. My brother and I had our bedrooms in what had been the examination rooms. When my older brother moved out, his room became the darkroom. We put in a counter for the enlarger and constructed a 10-foot long fiberglass sink.
Back in the day, I spent many happy hours in the darkroom, but its been decades since I did any darkroom work.
Now that I think about it, I remember that I developed a few rolls of film on my mission. I couldn’t make prints of course, but I bought a developing tank and chemicals at a photo store. We had a closet that was dark enough at night to load the film, and I did the rest in the kitchen sink. I probably just couldn’t bring myself to pay someone to do what I was perfectly capable of doing myself. I think I still have that developing tank in a box somewhere.
We also had yellow boxes in the fridge; photography seems to run in the family. My dad built a darkroom in the garage (and sawed it in half to move it, twice) and my brother, even now, sometimes turns his bathroom into a darkroom.
Who knew so many of us shared this background?! 😀
On the off chance that anyone is mystified, Eastman Kodak’s products (paper, film, chemicals) all came packaged in the same intense yellow boxes/cans, and much of it needed to be stored in a cool place — hence the yellow boxes in the refrigerators. Kodak is headquartered at Rochester, New York, and my dad and many others of his family had early (some, very long lasting) employment with the local business.
My dad received training as a photographer during his Air Force service. He had a decent camera which he used to take photos of us kids and arty stuff. I remember a large quantity of black and white prints of things, the only detail left in my recall is photos of a pile of white deadwood, perfectly focused and exposed, printed at different sizes and crops. As our family grew, he left off such pursuits and the “lesser” photography prints ended up being stored in the garage, photos of the kids remained in the house. My mom didn’t understand the value of that stuff and gradually whittled it away in many purges. I nabbed all the slides a few years ago; they were all in compact yellow boxes and thus not so much of a storage space issue. My dad’s been gone for 30 years and I would love to have even one of those prints. They only exist in my memory now, and even that is not archival.
I’m enjoying this story.
My dad is using his retirement to go through the tens of thousands of negatives and proofs he has stored in the basement…it’s a monumental job.