The Miners came to call, marking a sort of unofficial opening of our summer Up North. We had gone to their cabin next door singly and in pairs, and Mr. Miner had come to see us once; but this was the official “call” of the summer. It happened just after our afternoon swim, when we are clean and vigorous and loquacious and hospitable. At such times, it is a pleasure to cover any subject that comes up, press points and give out impressions. The Miners feel the same way about conversation, only they feel that way consistently – without benefit of swimming.

 

So the big screened porch began to buzz as we all congregated. With Mr. and Mrs. Miner came their sister, Mrs. Richards, and Jack and Jill. Jack was the Miner’s grandson and Jill was his pal, blonde and charming and very young. Margie and Marilyn and Nancy and Al scampered around the squeaky swing, pushing for places on it, while the rest of us (Margot and Gran and I) tried to shoo them away and got chairs for everybody. We brought ashtrays and cigarettes, and everyone was being wonderfully nice to everyone else.

 

Mr. Miner, who looked and spoke startlingly line Franklin Delano Roosevelt, started things out conversationally, but before he got well under way Mrs. Miner began to talk to Gran in a low voice. Mrs. Richards commented to Margot and Jill listened too, adding something enthusiastically. Soon I was the only one who was hanging on Mr. Miner’s tale and apparently my grasp was not strong – or how could I have observed all this?

 

I stood it as long as I could. I wanted to talk to Jack, who had just been mustered out of the Navy after having survived the Indianapolis disaster*. We all knew about that and somehow it made us particularly interested in Jack, though of course we didn’t intend to quiz him on it. He was a charming boy of twenty, very much at ease with all the young folks and old folks too. He had helped us get out the chairs, and he had a quick way of speaking that was inflected with humor.

 

I got up and started the children on a game of Tiddlywinks at the other end of the porch, then eased into a chair near Gran and Jack. We commented on the huge amount of rain this year, and got around to the enormity of the mosquitoes. I described my aerosol bomb which Ernie had given me as a going-away present when I left Rockford. I’m not sure why I am sold on the bomb, for mosquitoes seem to flourish in spite of it, but I did it up proud with all my best adjectives.

 

“It’s a cute blue color and shaped like a real bomb,” I ended up, knowing that of course Jack knew exactly what a real bomb looks like, although I’m sure I don’t. Al put down his Master Tiddlywink, and sidled up to Jack, drawn by the word “bomb.”

 

“Can you swim?” he asked, looking penetratingly into Jacks face. Jack admitted that he could.

 

“Did your boat go down? How far down did it go? Did you swim then?” Al was off to a good fast start for a five-year-old. Gran groaned.

 

“Jackie, you don’t have to pay any attention to Al, just tell him to go play,” she suggested feebly, But Jack answered Al’s questions one by one. I waited a minute, hoping to ask Jack what he thought of our woods and other things besides the mosquitoes, but Al kept on and I turned to Mrs. Miner.

 

We talked about poetry for a long time, then suddenly Gram was mentioning the book, Claudia, which we had just finished reading aloud. We had enjoyed it, but Mrs. Miner thought the book inferior to the play and quite a discussion ensued. During it I glanced at Al, who was practically in Jack’s lap, and then at Margot, who was completely engrossed in a vivid account of the weather in Seattle. Jill and Mrs. Richards listened with appreciative sympathy.

 

“Al, I think your mother wants you,” I said. Al looked at her.

 

“No she doesn’t,” he told me and looked at me as though I were a little queer. I glanced at Mr. Miner, who was now the only silent person on the porch. He never looks completely comfortable when silent, but I suppose he was reasoning that it was better that way than if he tried to shout above the continuous roar of conversation already in progress. Even Nancy and Margie and Marilyn were taking part. When no one listened to them, they tugged for attention. The Tiddlywinks lay scattered and deserted and lonely.

 

“I put Nancy’s birthday cake on the table in the house,” Mr. Miner mouthed across the animated rocking chairs to me.

 

“Did anybody find it?” “How wonderful of you to bring it! I’ll go see about it,” I mouthed back, with gestures. I got up and went to look, found it and began to worry. Should we cut it now and have it as a sort of tea, or should we wait and have it after our dinner, or what? I thought maybe it would be nice to put candles on it and let Nancy cut it and everybody enjoy it now. I groaned inwardly when I thought of serving cake to twelve people – four of them definite Spillers. But as it was, we weren’t having anything to eat for our “call,” and it might be nice...

 

I went out and whispered to Gran.

 

“No,” she said, and went on talking to Mrs. Miner as though no one had distracted her.

 

“Well, that settles it,” I said, but it seemed to me Mr. Miner looked hungry. I went over to him and asked, “Shall we cut the cake now?”

 

“Oh, no!” he said. “Frieda baked it to have after your special birthday dinner tonight. That’s what it’s for.” I put it out of my mind and took my place again in a niche in the conversation. Mrs. Richards asked me which children were mine and I got very busy locating their familiar faces among the cousins and pointing them out. Back of me, I heard Al saying,”And is the water cold when you’ve been in it, or does it get warm?”

 

Jack was answering, but I don’t know what he said because I was searching in the vacuum of my mind for a good way to get Al sidetracked. Gran, too, looked as though she might be searching her mind for about the same thing while listening to Mrs. Miner at the same time.

 

Margie, attracted now by Jack and anxious to tell him about a ship she had seen while in Bremerton at the age of three, was at Jack’s knee beside Mr. Miner’s chair, kicking it rhythmically. Mr. Miner was silent again, no doubt thinking what to do about the kicking. Nancy was describing just how she paints a picture to Mrs. Miner. Her voice rose higher and higher in her enthusiasm. Mr. Miner rose. “Time to go, gals and boys,” he said. No one responded. After a moment he sat down again. A lull came. Whence is a miracle, but it came. They all rose slowly.

 

“We must go... we’ll see you again... wish we could stay on all summer... you must come over, too!... our weekly bridge must start now... adore the game... I do too... goodbye? Goodbye?” Then they were gone. Their presence lingered gently, a neighborly aura on the porch among the pines. We set the chairs back in place, and began to get ready to go out to dinner.

 

We passed the cake in the pantry on our way to the car. It seemed an emblem of their good wishes and their friendship – and Frieda’s cooking.

 

“It was nice to see them,” Margot said after we had loaded the car and started out the drive.

 

“Goodness, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Jack, and I especially wanted to.”

 

“Neither did I,” said Gran. “May and I got to talking...” she hesitated. “I guess no one did,” I said grumpily.

 

“I DID!” announced Al happily. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* The USS Indianapolis sunk after being torpedoes by a Japanese submarine in the South Pacific during WW II.  Her sinking led to the greatest single loss of life at sea in the history of the U.S. Navy. Approximately 300 went down with the ship.The remaining 900 faced exposure, dehydration, saltwater poisoning, and shark attacks while floating with few lifeboats and almost no food or water. The Navy learned of the sinking when survivors were spotted four days later by the crew of a PV-1 Ventura on routine patrol. Only 317 survived. [Wikipedia 2014]