From the Relief Society Magazine, 1931 –

Babes-in-the-Woods

By Ruth Moench Bell

Part I

Lesceline was glad that the path from the gate to the house was a long one. Dave’s father had very wisely, for this occasion, set his house in the exact middle of his acre lot. Dave’s father! Her father now! Whether the Blaynes knew it or not, whether they approved or not — and Lesceline had a quiet conviction that Mrs. Blayne did not approve — She and Dave were married. Soon, all too soon, the Blaynes would know. Oh, that blessed long, long walk. It was giving them a longer lease on their happiness.

Lesceline looked up at Dave — and it was some distance to his eyes. He looked down at her and patted her hand, the hand she had slipped in his arm. His eyes said, ‘Never mind, little woman. They shan’t eat you up — not while I’m there.’ Neverthe less, Lesceline detected a faltering in Dave’s footsteps. He was probably wondering how he could explain to his family that he had decided not to go east and become a great architect — not right away.

Lesceline did not know that at that precise moment the two most popular and spirited young people of Brixton College looked very much like two babes-in-the-woods, full of awe at this thing that they had done, full of wonder at the possibilities for disaster of this new world they found themselves in. In fact, it was David Blayne senior, ensconsed behind the heavy lace-curtained windows of the Blayne household, who had noted the resemblance to the ‘Babes-in-the-Wood’ and had so dubbed them.

“They’re married, Emily,” he smiled, as he beckoned his wife to join him at the window. “Nothing else could make those two look like that. They’re wondering how we’re going to take it.”

“I know how I’m going to take it,” Emily Blayne pursed her lips proudly, which was her way of icing her foes. “She’s ruined Dave’s career. He’ll never be an architect now.”

“Well,” David Blayne chuckled, “I’m not so sure he was exactly coerced into it.”

Unconscious of the scrutiny and comments they were exciting, Lesceline and Dave, hand in hand now, walked wistfully toward the house — their expression imploring the world to let them be happy.

“She’s frivolous, vain, extravagant,” Emily Blayne breathed between tight lips.

“It’s a good thing this house is so far from the gate,” David Blayne senior sighed. “You better go up to your room, Em, and get yourself in hand. Little Lesceline’s not so bad. And she’s Dave’s choice — you know — our Dave’s choice.”

“I’m not so sure she’s Dave’s choice.”

“Well, even at that, he might have done worse if he’d done the choosing himself. Come away, Em, they’re almost here.”

“If Lesceline could have been a daughter-in-law like — ”

“Every mother-in-law thinks she would have been an ideal mother-in-law if only her particular daughter-in-law had been different.” He kissed his wife and hurried down stairs. “I’ll tell them you are bathing,” David whispered back. “Be nice to her — they’re only young once.”

“I know what’s due a guest,” Emily cried proudly.

“That’s fine. Just treat her as a guest, that’ll suit Lesceline all right.”

The hall door was opening with visible reluctance, the next minute, and Blayne senior’s voice came booming down the hall. “Here, what have you two youngsters been up to?”

Right then, Lesceline decided that she was going to like her new dad. She adored a sport and flung her arms about his neck with an affection that delighted father and son.

Emily Blayne was less demonstrative in her greetings when she finally got herself in hand and allowed herself to be kissed and embraced by her son, and presented her cheek to be kissed by Lesceline. The daughter-in-law, every whit as proud and independent, brushed ever so lightly the cheek thus presented.

Lesceline noticed that Mrs. Blayne listened with polite reserve while Dave gave enthusiastic plans for making millions without becoming a great architect at once. She was glad that she and Dave were leaving next day in Dave’s roadster for Montana. A very little bit of polite reserve was plenty for Lesceline.

David Blayne joined in their plans more heartily and gave them a wedding present of two hundred dollars to tide them along until Dave got his first million. “Now I can’t send you another nickle,” he warned them laughingly, “this is the limit, so make it last till you get some more right in your hands.”

Mrs. Blayne offered bedding and cooking utensils so they could cook their meals at Auto Camps. But Dave burst out, “Great Scott, Moms, this is our wedding trip. We’re going to the best hotels. Lesceline’s not going to cook on our honeymoon.”

“And besides it’s good business to look successful,” Lesceline added. “Staying at good hotels and looking prosperous will give people confidence in us, and we’ll be more likely to succeed.”

“I guess they’re not so dumb,” Mr. Blayne laughed. “They’ve got all their wits about them, Emily.”

“That’s one thing I like about my new parents,” Lesceline confessed into this warmer atmosphere. “You don’t call each other ‘mother’ and ‘father’. You still keep your individuality. We’re going to be Lesceline and Dave as long as we live. We’re not going to let our children forget that we are real people, just as they are.”

“I’m glad she likes something about us, Emily,” Blayne chuckled, “for I’m getting rather fond of my new daughter already.”

Lesceline and Dave promised to write frequently and frankly, as they got into their roadster the next morning.

“A few years ago a young couple wanted a new home and a job when they started out” David Blayne joked. “Now if they have a marriage licence and a roadster they’re doing fine.”

“And a college degree apiece, Dad, don’t forget that,” Dave reminded him.

“Not so bad, after all, do you think,” Lesceline cried happily, as she waved back.

David senior smiled to his wife, as together they waved to the youngsters going out so confidently to conquer the world. “I’ll give them exactly one week,” he laughed.

“I admit that she seems more sensible than I thought,” Mrs. Blayne said, “but how about this talk of best hotels?”

“Oh, they have their pride. We don’t want them to break their pride. They know I won’t send more money.”

“If she’d only left him alone till he’d gone east and got his degree in architecture,” Emily sighed.

“After all, what they will learn together may mean much more to both of them than any degree and waiting. They have the main business in life settled now, and they have each other and health and intelligence to work out their problems together.”

Blayne was right. It was not long before a letter came bringing word that the two were trying another town. The change was made about the time that Dave, losing his job at a service station, happened in at an unusual time at a certain cafe, and found Lesceline, looking like a million dollars, imperiously waiting on tables.

“I thought you had lost all interest in cafes,” she told him haughtily, a little piqued that he had surprised her at work. “You said you cared for nothing but hot dogs and hamburgers.”

“I think that was about the time you began preferring apples and buttermilk to real meals,” Dave countered. “Let’s call it quits and get on with our career. I think we have enough to go on, now that we have lowered our lights.”

They were well along the load when Dave remarked, “You know some of these Auto Camps are rather nifty, showers and all. And we could make ourselves a cup of chocolate for breakfast.”

“And get some cooked cereal and sometimes an egg and some fruit,” Lesceline agreed with alacrity.

“And then we could have our darling car right under our window, so we could watch it all night. I’m always so afraid some one will steal it in a public garage.”

“It will save garage bills, too,” Dave blundered, “what I mean is, fenders get jinned up in public garages. And you can’t place the blame.”

Having the darling car right under their window, was not the unmixed joy Lesceline expected. Incidentally, they might have rested better if they could have backed the car into their cottage and tucked it in for the night. Then one or the other could have put a foot out from time to time to make sure that the car was still there, spare tires, motor and all. As it was, Dave really did not start up more than half a dozen times perfectly sure that he had heard some one making away with the spare tire. About the seventh time, when he jumped to his knees wildly, he collided with Lesceline, who had a sudden call to peer out of the window and make sure that the ‘spare’ was still there. Dave explained foolishly that he had dreamed some sort of nightmare, probably because of the late hamburger he had eaten.

Towards morning, Dave rose with a shout, “They’re jacking up our car to get our wheels.”

“I’m afraid they’ve got all four of them,” Lesceline cried excitedly. “I hope they haven’t lifted the motor out, too, “Dave said feverishly, as he dragged his boots on. He came back rather sheepishly. “Everything’s intact. But it’s daybreak, and I think we better be getting on.”

Dave was about to suggest that they go home for a visit, but a hurried count of their resources showed him that even gas could not be assured. They might ‘hock’ the car, but something happened which made that unnecessary.

When Lesceline had been at the wheel, Dave had liked to remind her that ‘there is always another car just around the curve, and it will be on your side and making seventy per, so drive accordingly.’

Lesceline would wrinkle up her nose and toss her head, remarking, “Also, every gun is loaded. ”

It happened, however, that it was not Lesceline but Dave who was at the wheel when the other car sprang into existence just around the curve. According to formula, the car was on Dave’s side and was doing, as near as anyone could estimate, fully seventy pen As a mere bagatelle, it also transpired that Dave was ‘stepping her up’ pretty lively, though no one could tell exactly what the speedometer registered when the impact came.

The ‘Babes-in-the-Wood’ title was not so inept, after all. ‘The robins so red’ might easily have ‘brought strawberry leaves and over them spread’ had not an irate driver brought them to their senses. He was demanding to know ‘what the Sam Hill they were doing over on his side of the road — and why Dave didn’t let his girl drive if he couldn’t do better than that?

Dave observed rather groggily that he though he had done pretty well, almost any other driver would have killed all three of them.

“Where’s our car?” Lesceline asked faintly, looking around at the unfamiliar scene. “My wrist feels awfully queer,” she moaned. “Why is Dave looking so pale?”

Dave looked around at the debris. “What’s the idea of the used car sale?”

“Yes, what’s the idea,” the other accessory-before-the-fact snarled.

“Fortunately no bones were broken,” Dave wrote home to his father. “And one can always get another car.”

“Fortunately or unfortunately,” Dave’s father wrote back, “that chicken ranch I took a mortgage on in Idaho, has fallen into my hands. Now it happens that you two are not far from Dudley, and if you’ll go over and try to save me from losing the whole works, I’ll finance you till you can make a go of it, or until I can sell out and get the thing off my hands. I’m enclosing a check to get you there and tide you over. This should keep you going till you can get an egg check in, if what they claim for the place is anywhere near true.”

“We’re on,” Dave wired back. “Lesceline’s game and we’re both delighted.”

“Your mother and I will drive up and sort of get you started,” David Blayne wrote back.

“And I’ll give them about twenty minutes to chuck the whole thing,” he remarked to his wife as he sealed the letter.

“We’ll give them the best fried chicken they ever ate,” Dave proposed.

“Don’t,” Lesceline laughed. “You are making me hungry. I could eat several myself.”

“The question is — can you fry them if I do the other acts,” Dave asked.

“I can after you get them rolled in flour and salted and peppered,” Lesceline sighed daintily. “If I so much as see them at any of the other stages, I can’t eat a bite.”

“Well, I’ll go whack off their heads,” Dave laughed.

Lesceline put her fingers to her ears and hid in the closet at the sound of the first squawk. But she was a good sport and had the water boiling to scald them. After what seemed plenty of time, Lesceline emerged from the closet.

“Are they washed, salted and floured?” she finally called from the other side of the kitchen door. “I’ll bring in some more wood,” she added. She did not want Dave to think her unsportsmanlike. But she gave a shriek that rent the skies when she happened onto the severed heads at the chopping block. The sight of their blood-stained feathers filled her with horror, and she held her nose in dismay at the odor that was wafted from their scalded feathers.

Lesceline happened in just as Dave was drawing them, not too expertly, and right then she decided that she would not care for any fried chicken. Even the sight of their white flesh as the pieces soaked in cold water prior to drying, salting, and flouring, was not reassuring to Lesceline.

Dave’s dad and mother arrived, very friendly and greatly surprised and delighted that these two should have settled down to realities so swiftly. Lesceline could see that even Mrs. Blayne was mollified, though dubious about the venture being of long duration.

The gracious greetings and the aroma of frying chicken whetted Lesceline’s appetite and she picked daintily at the piece of white meat which Dave ut on her plate, and soon she was eating as heartily as anyone.

“I suppose Lesceline knocked their heads off?” Dave’s dad joked.

“She did not,” Dave laughed. “Les ran and hid.”

“Always your mother’s trick. I finally got her to pull out their feathers.”

“But I did not relish them after,” Emily added.

‘Then I’ll never ask Lesceline to do even that,” Dave declared gallantly.

“Who gathers the eggs?” Mrs. Blayne asked, not without purpose, as Lesceline could see.

“Yes, you should have seen Les gathering them,” Dave roared. “I went out in time to see her poking at them with a stick and exclaiming, ‘Now get right off, you big brute, get off those eggs.’”

“I did not,” Lesceline defended.

“And then one hen pecked at her and Les dropped an egg. Of course all the hens made a dash for that egg as it smashed, so Lesceline uttered a shriek and dropped another egg. By that time I arrived with my plus twelves and managed to cover the two eggs, so the hens wouldn’t get the taste and start egg stealing.”

Under the table, Lesceline was trying to locate Dave’s generous ‘plus twelves,’ as he called them. But she could not find them to get the wireless over to him that he was showing her up in a rather bad light to her mother-in-law, who had her lips pursed tight again, and was obviously wondering what possible help her daughter-in-law would be on a chicken farm.

She heard Dave’s dad defending her, after supper when she was busy with the dishes and Dave was out taking the setters off the nest to lock them up and punish them for yielding to nature’s dictates.

“Oh, she’ll be game, Emily,” Lesceline heard his big booming voice saying, ‘wait till her test comes. This is all new and different for Lesceline. She isn’t complaining about living miles from anyone. Remember, she was one of the most popular girls at college — a Co-ed that went everywhere and was always the life of the party.”

Dave was coming whistling up the walk, so Lesceline did not hear Emily’s response. After the visit, the place seemed ten times lonelier. Was Dave really so interested as he seemed, or did he see in this chicken ranch the chance to earn the money that would take him east to study? Lesceline wondered as she saw him immersed in poultry journals in the evening, or talking poultry with every man he could meet, on those trips to the Association in the 1918 Model Ford which had been left with the place.

Lesceline strolled down to the hen house one evening when Dave had stayed extra long. She saw him cuddling a dove-like white pullet against either cheek. Strolling noiselessly to the house, Lesceline felt a new affection for Dave, a new insight into his nature and a new interest in his interest. After that, she went often with Dave and liked to hear him talk to his hens.

“See the nice clean saw-dust in your nests, girls,” he would exclaim. “Now show your gratitude.”

He would tweak their beaks, as they peered at him drowsily from their roosts at night. Sometimes taking their heads between his hands roughly and affectionately, he would tease and joke with them, just as if they understood.

“They’re just like a bunch of girls,” he would laugh, “squealing and scurrying away over nothing whatever.”

Sometimes Lesceline fed them the ‘scratch’. She liked to hear the raucous chorus they sang in anticipation. Scattering the grain about, made her feel like a Lady Bountiful bestowing largess while they scrambled eagerly.

(To be continued)