Cottage on the Curve

Jane Murray walked slowly down the wide corridor. It was the last day of school. Her desk was empty. For the first time since last September her locker stood neat and bare. Gone were the old gym socks, the forgotten rainhat that had been wedged under an old theme cover, the candy bar wrappers, and the umbrella with the split seam.

Patsy and Dor had reached the street ahead of her and were screaming at the top of their lungs.

“Janie, oh, Janie! Hurry! We’re going to have an ice-cream cone.”

Janie shook her head regretfully. “Run along with the others, my funny friends. I must go home and put a fresh dressing on Butchie’s paw.”

They were off like race horses. “Perhaps I should have gone,” she thought. The back of her neck was just a little damp under the light brown curly mop. A cone or a swim. Oh boy! I could do with a swim right now, and with her head full of summer dreams she started off down the maple-shaded street.

Springhill was a lovely old town in southern Wisconsin. The houses were set well back from the street. They were large and old-fashioned, with screened porches. Some of them had turrets running up to the third floor level. Janie had read of a famous architect who disapproved of such decorations. “Inverted rutabagas,” he called them, but Janie didn’t care. The turret on the Murray house was enchanted land. From its circular windows they could see all over town, and down the valley to the river. Once they found a gray squirrel’s nest up there, and on rainy days there was the parallel bar for doing stunts.

“Inverted rutabaga, my eye,” said Janie.

“What’s a rutabaga, Janie,” said a small voice at her elbow. She jumped.

“Oh, Robin, it’s you. I must have been talking to myself. It’s old age creeping on.”

“How old are you, Janie,” the small voice persisted.

“I’m thirteen.” She picked up the afternoon paper with one hand, ruffled Robin’s hair with the other, and ran up her own front steps.

“Mom, oh Mom,” she called as the screen door slammed behind her. “School’s out, and I’m not even happy about it. Oh Mom, may I make some lemonade?”

Mrs. Murray called from upstairs, “Yes dear, make some for the boys while you’re at it, and don’t spill any sugar on the floor.”

The sugar, lemons, and ice cubes were assembled, but before Jane could finish there was an excited chirping, hopping, and rattling on the back porch.

“Oh Butch, you darling monkey! I almost forgot to fix that bandage.” She gathered the little furry fellow up in her arms. He was the adored pet of the youngest of Jane’s brothers, Davey.

Janie could never forget that windy fall night two years ago when they first saw Butch. Daddy had been working on the case of an organ grinder who became involved in difficulties with the immigration authorities. All pleas failed and Mr. Calento made plans to return to his native Italy, but he couldn’t take his monkey with him. Monkeys catch pneumonia easily, and an Atlantic voyage in the stormy month of October would have been dangerous to his health. With tears in his eyes Mr. Calento presented his pet to Daddy as part payment of his fee.

What an uproar that was! Of course the children were enchanted, but Mom was aghast.

“A monkey,” she cried. “My goodness, Jim Murray, are you a lawyer or a zoo-keeper? Supposing your next client owns an elephant?”

Daddy laughed and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry dear,” he said. “If you don’t want him we’ll take him down to the zoo in the morning.”

“The zoo?” wailed Davey. “Please don’t take him to the zoo.”

Mom was firm. “His place is in the zoo,” she said.

He would have been banished the very next day except that a quarantine had been placed on the zoo because of the illness of some of the larger animals, and no new animals were being admitted. One day led to the next and Butchie stayed on. Mom had to take care of him during the day when the children were at school, and she grew to love him so that by the time the quarantine was lifted the Murrays had a monkey, and that was that.

Jane sat him on the porch sewing table, and ran in to heat the boric solution. He waited patiently, and extended his little paw in perfect trust. “Oh, what a good monkey you can be,” murmured Janie as she fastened the fresh bandage. “You could save yourself a lot of trouble, Butch, by keeping your paws off the screen door when the Murrays come thundering home.”

“Eeek Eeek,” chattered Butch, and his little nurse replied gravely, “You’re welcome.”

Mom came down the stairway just as Janie finished.

“Where’s all the lemonade I’ve been hearing about?” she asked.

“In a minute, Mom. I’ve been fixing Butchie’s paw.”

They sat at the kitchen table and took a long drink of the delicious cold lemonade before either spoke.

“What’s this about your not being happy, my child,” said Mom with a teasing glint in her eye.

Janie put her glass down, and rested her cheek on one hand. “Mom,” she replied, “I know you’re right about us staying home with Daddy this summer. I know he has a big case coming up in court, and that if you wouldn’t be here to take care of him he’d stay up half the night working. He wouldn’t eat the way he’s supposed to, and everything would go wrong. I know all these things, but on a warm day like this I just can’t help wishing we could go to the lake like we always used to.”

“And what would you say, daughter,” said Mom in the same teasing tone of voice. “What would you say if I told you that we could go to the lake this summer just as we always used to?”

Jane’s eyes grew wide, “Oh Mom, tell me when. Can Daddy come too? Tell me Mom. Oh, Mom, how wonderful!”

Mrs. Murray took a deep breath and laughingly pushed her delighted daughter away. “What muscles,” she said.

“Mom, if you’re not serious, I’ll just die! I would so love to go to the lake. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. Blue skies, clear water, little robins singing.” In her happiness Jane waltzed around the kitchen, and Butch clapped his hands together happily from the back porch.

Mrs. Murray laughed and rose to rinse out her lemonade glass. “I can’t tell you any more about it now,” she continued, “but when your father comes home and the boys are all gathered together, we’ll get the story.”

Janie knew her mother well enough to press her no further. Mom was funny. She had her moods. Sometimes, in the morning when they were all getting ready for school, she would whirl in and out among them dancing to the ballet music of Daddy’s early morning radio program. In her yellow sweater and faded blue denim skirt, with her hair done in short pig-tails, she was very gay, a real pal. But there was nothing gay about the look in her eye if she’d spy a C on your report card.

In the morning when Dad shaved he would sing at the top of his lungs while he chopped away at his whiskers, and any one who came near him was playfully anointed with his well-lathered brush. Daddy could be gay too but all this spring he had been distracted and busy. He often worked late at the office, and then he’d bring papers home and his light would burn far into the night.

Janie remembered the night she couldn’t sleep and went down to the kitchen for a glass of milk. There was a light in the library, and Daddy sat with papers strewn all over, his hair rumpled, and lines on his forehead making Venetian blinds of worry.

“Daddy! It’s almost one o’clock!”

He looked up in surprise. “Oh, hello there, puss. Why aren’t you asleep?”