Aunt Muriel, Margot, Al, Margie and Dad (Gramps) arrived on Sunday, their advent putting to an end my sneaking off to type about our activities temporarily. The reason is obvious: getting adjusted, organizing into shifts and swinging into high gear cooking and other activity simply was all-absorbing.

 

Breakfast suddenly became a real meal, with us eating bacon and eggs in shifts, the grown-ups sitting around afterwards gossiping and draining the coffee pot. Lunchtime came all too soon, and after it, dinner seemed to be in order before you could catch a fish! Afterward there was the sunset to watch and the kids to put to bed and bridge to play and the gossip. Then you were weary and said so with amazement, but quite definitely you said it and then it was the next day.

 

One day there was the swimming with the lunch afterward at the boathouse, when Margie quietly fell in the lake. This was such a scare and horror to all of us that the pleasure was gone for a while and writing anecdotes did not seem in order.

 

Then there was the day the kids decided to take a hike to Berwanger’s without telling us, which called for well-delivered and windy lectures from us adults and the drawing up of new rules about who could go where and why not – much serious order-giving and discussion. But these out-of-order episodes were over and done with and everything seemed to be swinging along in sunshine today.

 

It was the day we were to get Gran’s car from the garage where its mashed fender had been pounded into shape again. The plans were laid: Gran and Muriel were doing the cooking, so they left the after-lunch cleanup to Margot and me, and went fishing with Dad (Gramps). They were to return by four o’clock so that Margot and I could take Gramps’ car and whatever kids were awake and make the trip to Woodruff to get the car and a cabbage. And the mail, of course.

 

At exactly four o’clock by the kitchen clock, which we had just set, Gramps and Gran and Muriel came up the path bearing one fish. Gramps and I had caught one fish last night and the kids and Gramps had caught eight panfish the day before, so this pike made an adequate dinner for tonight. Muriel and Mother had baked pies, a lemon and an apple, for dinner. They wanted the cabbage for slaw, as it is so tasty with fish, and we agreed not to forget it.

 

“And what time dinner?” asked Gran and Muriel, sincerely wanting to have things exactly as everyone required or preferred or wanted.

 

“Five-thirty,” said Margot promptly, and I agreed.

 

“Yes, five-thirty is very good. Five-thirty is the very best time for dinner: the kids have time to play a little afterwards, the dishes are done by sunset, and you even have time to go out on the lake for a while. Five-thirty is the perfect time.”

 

Everyone agreed that it was and we said so again a few times, trying to make ourselves absolutely certain that our decision was the right one. Then we took off, with the kids in the back seat. All of them had been awake and wanted to go except Margie, who was still in bed. Oh yes, and Nancy decided that she would rather stay home and read. But Margot decided that Margie should be wakened to come along, which was done and finally we were all set and off.

 

We drove along in Gramps’ car, Al and Margie remarking how fine to be riding in it again – the first time since they rode home in it to Rockford from Bremerton. We drove into Woodruff and entered the Palace market and proceeded to buy some lamb chops which we saw in the butcher’s case. We were rather numbed by our good future: after all, we had seen neither hide nor hair of a lamb chop all these many months. These cost sixty-five cents a pound and looked very nice, I thought, drooling. We happily bought them and some Velveeta cheese and cottage cheese and graham crackers and then remembered the cabbage.

 

We bought some pop for the kids because we had decided that this would be a good time for us to stop somewhere for a bottle of beer, if we could get it. We thought we’d pick up the car first, then meet at the little log cabin of a tavern we knew about for the beer, leave the kids in the car with their pop, and be able to enjoy our beer without their friendly voices buzzing at us and their little backsides pasted to bar stools while they whirled.

 

Jordan’s Garage was an odd sort of garage. You take the life of your car in your hands when you go into it. It consists of a steep, sandy road going down into a very sandy yard, at the end of which is a big, open barn. Your car stands in the yard and all the ailing parts are taken off or out and worked on in the barn. But once you are in the yard, just try to get out! You have to turn around, and in order to do so, you must back into sand a foot deep. At this point, everyone who works at the garage comes to tell you what to do, which way to turn, and to push you if necessary. Then you are warned to take it easy at the top of the hill leading in, because the cars on the highway go very fast and you say okay and smile like you know just how it’s done and what is meant and roar off up the hill.

 

You stop for the highway and just try to start onto it again without killing your motor. Not once but many times you kill your motor, then grit your teeth and really concentrate and back onto the highway, either thanking your stars that no one’s coming or hoping the guy that is coming sees you in time.

 

Well, to avoid all this, having gone through it before, I said to Margot, “Why don’t I get out and walk down the hill for the car while you turn around and go back to our little log cabin of a bar and I’ll join you?

 

“Okay, that is fine.” So I get out and Merrily and her pop get out and Margot drives off and we go down the hill. The car looks wrong down there in the yard: the hood of it is up in the air and I know before I talk to the man that the car is not finished.

 

I say, “Is it done?” and he says, “No.”

 

Then I am running up the hill, shouting that I have to flag a ride. He evidently catches on – at least he ways no more until I have looked vainly up and down the road with no glimpse of “my ride.” So I come back down and say, “Well, what is holding the car?”

 

And he says, “Paint. That’s what’s wrong. We couldn’t get the paint, but it’s all pounded out.”

 

I look at what he has pounded out and compliment him but I say, “Oh, When will it be finished?”

 

“Tomorrow. One o’clock.” He is really a nice man, but I say, “Golly, how far is it to that little log cabin of a bar from here?”

 

I had Marilyn hanging onto my hand, drinking her pop, and I felt pretty silly saying a bar was my destination but on the other hand, I was desperate. I did want a ride if he could possibly arrange it. He tried to. He had an old red car there and he got into it and tried to start it. It did not act enthusiastic and I was about to say, “never mind, we’ll walk, we love to walk, we walk every chance we get.”

 

You see he had stopped spraying paint on a car when we came in and I had visions of it’s owner being in my same predicament if it weren’t done and I thought that the man should get back on his job right away. Besides, I was not in favor of bucking back up that hill onto the highway in that red car. It looked like a terrible incapable car.

 

Just then, the black Packard nosed into the road that comes down the hill to the garage and Margot stuck her head out the window.

 

“Stay there,” I shouted. “Don’t come down, we’ll come up!”

 

“There’s my ride,” I said to the man, and Margot was yelling when would the car be done and the man was yelling all the information about the paint that didn’t come and all this time Marilyn and I were happily crawling into the Packard.

 

We backed out and Margot announced some change in plans. It seemed that while they were turning around, they saw a place called The Gables. On the front porch of this place were three cages containing squirrels. Red squirrels, gray ones – even flying ones. These squirrels would run around on a wheel that was in the cage until the wheel got going good, ride along a minute, then jump out of the wheel’s holes. This went on and on and would be wonderful amusement for the kids while the mommies had their beer, which came only in half-gallon bottles.

 

Fine. We watched the squirrels for a bit, then entered the bar, leaving the kids and squirrels taking each other in. It was Pabst beer which we could get, ice cold and very, very good. We talked happily to the barmaid about the beer shortage and the Coke shortage and the squirrels. Then the kids came in and we would give them potato chips and tell them to play with the squirrels. This went on, but we were slowly enjoying the beer – the way people do now that you can’t often get it. Then the barmaid went off duty and a young man came on.

 

He was a very clean young man and freshly shaven. He looked as though he had a good purpose in life. The kids came in. Merrily said, “That next room looks like a dance room.”

 

“It is,” said Margot.

 

“I can dance,” said Al, and everyone looked as though you couldn’t believe him.

 

“Well,” said the nice young man with a good purpose in life, “I will put a nickel in the machine and you kids may dance.” So he did.

 

The ugly, ornate machine lit up like a would-be Christmas tree, but instead of the garish music that often comes with machines, this music was soft and sweet and altogether pleasing. The kids scampered around the dance room – we could see them through the big doors. Al flitted, Merrily slid on her knees or her stomach, and Margie just jumped around. The young man continued to look purposeful, Margot chattered about how most machine music was horribly loud, and I just sat and watched the kids in their antics.

 

The beer was gone. “We’d better go,” I said. We got the kids rounded up, said goodbye to the clean young man, and got into the car. Much chatter about the squirrels. Much chatter about the dance floor.

 

What time is it? My gosh, it’s twenty-five after five! Hope they aren’t worried about us. We wanna to stop and ride the horses. See? Those kids ride the horses, look at the man on the horse. I can ride! I can ride! Mom, we wanna ride! No, it’s suppertime. And WE insisted on five-thirty. But don’t hurry too fast. The beer tasted so good. And such fine music. This went on as the pines hurried by on each side of our car.

 

We got the mail from the box and turned off on Squirrel Lake Road, the last five miles of our trip. We drove into the yard at the cottage and entered the aromatic kitchen. The cooks had the fish done and cooling, the potatoes done and cooling, and likewise the vegetables and their cook’s eyes. They were thwarted. Their dinner was a half-hour late.

 

Margot’s guilt and mine spread over us, but the kids were roaring excitedly and everybody began to get ready for dinner. Too late for the cabbage – they had cut up tomatoes instead. Oh, well – guess it was all right.

 

We ate our dinner, during which Merrily enthusiastically described the dance room and all the kids vied to describe the squirrels. It all came out in a nice, friendly way about the beer – even the fact that you can only get it in half-gallon bottles.

 

The kids were not very hungry, which was a little discouraging to the cooks. But then they brought out the pie. They had baked two, an apple and a lemon. We all had a taste of one and a big piece of the other.

 

In the flush of their pie success, the cooks made a confession. They were sore from sitting with Gramps in the boat from one until four. They ate pie and giggled about it and cussed boat seats. Gramps came in from the living room where he had gone to light his cigar.

 

“Would you two elderly ladies care to go for a boat ride?” he asked the cooks, who giggled and sighed and went, leaving us dishwashers to start in on our chores.

 

The kids got dressed snugly in their anti-mosquito rigs: bandanas, windbreakers, slacks, sneakers – everything but mittens.

 

“We are going to the clearing to see a deer,” they said, and went.

 

Marg and I tore into the dishes, anticipating sitting on the porch for sunset. We finished up the last wet dish towel. There was some coffee left. Margot thought she’d have some and I already did, so we set it on the kitchen table and ourselves alongside. We began discussing the meaning of it all, stopping only for a trip to the little house.

 

On my way back from the little house, I saw the sky hanging over and into the lake and I began to run.

 

“We’re missing sunset!”

 

We went onto the porch and settled in chairs to finish the evening. The kids returned and started loud enjoyment of living. We stood it for ten minutes, then the trek to bed seemed to be in order.

 

They washed, brushed teeth and went through the ritual. Then, compete with pots# and shouted goodnights to each other, they climbed the stairs and crawled into bed. They all asked me to type tonight because they say they go to sleep better. I’m darned if I don’t believe them.

 

Right now, every one of the four of them is sawing wood like a backwoods angel, and I hear voices signifying that the boat riders have returned. The bridge will start in a minute. In the meantime I have started out to write about a spree, which we seemed to have had.

 

Somehow it doesn’t stand out as being as special as the dinner and the sunset I saw on the way back from the little house.