Читать книгу Our Next-Door Neighbors - Maniates Belle Kanaris - Страница 3

Our life now became one long round of Polydores. They were with us burr-tight, and attached themselves to me with dog-like devotion, remaining utterly impervious to Silvia’s aloofness and repulses. At last, however, she succumbed to their presence as one of the things inevitable.

“The Polydores are here to stay,” she acknowledged in a calmness-of-despair voice.

“They don’t seem to be homebodies,” I allowed.

The children were not literary like the other productions of their profound parents, but were a band of robust, active youngsters unburdened with brains, excepting Ptolemy of soup plate fame. Not that he betrayed any tendencies toward a learned line, but he was possessed of an occult, uncanny, wizard-like wisdom that was disconcerting. His contemplative eyes seemed to search my soul and read my inmost thoughts.

Pythagoras, Emerald, and Demetrius, aged respectively nine, eight, and seven, were very much alike in looks and size, being so many pinched caricatures of their mother. To Silvia they were bewildering whirlwinds, but Huldah, who seemed to have difficulty in telling them apart, always classified them as “Them three”, and Silvia and I fell into the habit of referring to them in the same way. Huldah could not master the Polydore given names either by memory or pronunciation. Ptolemy, whose name was shortened to “Tolly” by Diogenes, she called “Polly.” When she was on speaking terms with “Them three” she nicknamed them “Thaggy, Emmy, and Meetie.”

Diogenes, the two-year old, was a Tartar when emulating his brothers. Alone, he was sometimes normal and a shade more like ordinary children.

When they first began swarming in upon us, Silvia drew many lines which, however, the Polydores promptly effaced.

“They shall not eat here, anyway,” she emphatically declared.

This was her last stand and she went down ingloriously.

One day while we were seated at the table enjoying some of Huldah’s most palatable dishes, Ptolemy came in. There ensued on our part a silence which the lad made no effort to break. Silvia and I each slipped him a side glance. He stood statuesque, watching us with the mute wistfulness of a hungry animal. There were unwonted small red specks high upon his cheekbones, symptoms, Silvia thought, of starvation.

She was moved to ask, though reluctantly and perfunctorily:

“Haven’t you been to dinner, Ptolemy?”

“Yes,” he admitted quickly, “but I could eat another.”

Assuming that the forced inquiry was an invitation, before protest could be entered he supplied himself with a plate and helped himself to food. His need and relish of the meal weakened Silvia’s fortifications.

This opening, of course, was the wedge that let in other Polydores, and thereafter we seldom sat down to a meal without the presence of one or more members of the illustrious and famished family, who made themselves as entirely at home as would a troop of foraging soldiers. Silvia gazed upon their devouring of food with the same surprised, shocked, and yet interested manner in which one watches the feeding of animals.

“I suppose he ought not to eat so many pickles,” she remarked one day, as Emerald consumed his ninth Dill.

“You can’t kill a Polydore,” I assured her.

I never opened a door but more or less Polydores fell in. They were at the left of us and at the right of us, with Diogenes always under foot. We had no privacy. I found myself waking suddenly in the night with the uncomfortable feeling that Ptolemy lurked in a dark corner or two of my bedroom.

Even Silvia’s boudoir was not free from their invasion. But one door in our house remained closed to them. They found no open sesame to Huldah’s apartment.

“I wish she would let me in on her system,” I said. “I wonder how she manages to keep them on the outside?”

“I can tell you,” confided Silvia. “Emerald and Demetrius went in one day and she dropped Demetrius out the window and kicked Emerald out the door. You know, Lucien, you are too softhearted to resort to such measures.”

“I was once,” I confessed, “but I think under Polydore régime I am getting stoical enough to follow in Huldah’s footsteps and go her one better.”

Our conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Diogenes.

Silvia screamed.

Turning to see what the latest Polydore perpetration might be, I saw that Diogenes was frothing at the mouth.

“Oh, he’s having a fit!” exclaimed Silvia frantically. “Call Huldah! Put him in a hot bath. Quick, Lucien, turn on the hot water.”

“Not I,” I refused grimly. “Let him have a fit and fall in it.”

“He ain’t got no fit,” was the cheerful assurance of Pythagoras, as he sauntered in.

“Your mother would have one,” I told him, “if she could hear your English.”

“What is the matter with him?” asked Silvia. “Does he often foam in this way?”

“He’s been eating your tooth powder,” explained Pythagoras. “He likes it ’cause it tastes like peppermint, and then he drank some water before he swallowed the powder and it all fizzed up and run out his mouth.”

“I wondered,” said Silvia ruefully, “what made my tooth powder disappear so rapidly. What shall I do!”

“Resort to strategy!” I advised. “Lock up your powder hereafter and fill an empty bottle with powdered alum or something worse and leave it around handy.”

“Lucien!” exclaimed my wife, who could not seem to recover from this latest annoyance, “I don’t see how you can be so fond of children. I did hope–for your sake and–on account of Uncle Issachar’s offer that I’d like to have one–but I’d rather go to the poorhouse! I’d almost lose your affection rather than have a child.”

“But, Silvia!” I remonstrated in dismay, “you shouldn’t judge all by these. They’re not fair samples. They’re not children–not home-grown children.”

“I should say not!” agreed Huldah, who had come into the room. “They are imps–imps of the devil.”

I believe she was right. They had a generally demoralizing effect on our household. I was growing irritable, Silvia careworn. Even Huldah showed their influence by acquiring the very latest in slang from them. Once in a while to my amusement I heard Silvia unconsciously adopting the Polydore argot.

As the result of their better nourishment at our table, the imps of the devil daily grew more obstreperous and life became so burdensome to Silvia that I proposed moving away to a childless neighborhood.

“They’d find us out,” said Silvia wearily, “wherever we went. Distance would be no obstacle to them.”

“Then we might move out of town, as a last resort,” I suggested. “Rob says he thinks there is a good legal field in–”

“No, Lucien,” vetoed Silvia. “You’ve a fine practice here, and then there’s that attorneyship for the Bartwell Manufacturing Company.”

My hope of securing this appointment meant a good deal to us. We were now living up to every cent of my income and though we had the necessities, it was the luxuries of life I craved–for Silvia’s sake. She was a lover of music and we had no piano. She yearned to ride and she had no horse. We both had longings for a touring-car and we wanted to travel.

“I’ve thought of a scheme for a little respite from the sight and sound of the Polydores,” I remarked one day. “We’ll enter them in the public school. There are four more weeks yet before the long summer vacation.”

“That would be too good to be true,” declared Silvia. “Five or six hours each day, and then, too, their deportment will be so dreadful that they will have to stay after school hours.”

I thought more likely their deportment would lead to suspension, but forbore to wet-blanket Silvia’s hopes.

I made my second call upon the male head of the House of Polydore to recommend and urge that its young scions be sent to the public school. I had misgivings as to the outcome of my proposition, as the Polydore parents believed themselves to be the only fount of learning in the town. To my surprise and intense gratification, my suggestion met with no objections whatever. Felix Polydore referred me to his wife and said he would abide by her decision. I found her, of course, buried in books, but remembering Ptolemy’s mode of gaining attention, I peremptorily closed the volume she was studying.

My audacity attained its object and I proferred my request, laying great stress on the quietude she would gain thereby. She replied that attendance at school would doubtless do them no harm, although she expressed her belief that the most thorough educations were those obtained outside of schools.

Silvia was wafted into the eighth heaven of bliss and then some, as the result of my diplomatic mission. Of course the task of preparing pupils out of the pestiferous Polydores devolved upon her, but she was actively aided by the eager and willing Huldah and between them they pushed the project that promised such an elysium with all speed. The prospective pupils themselves were not wildly enthusiastic over this curtailment of their liberty, but Huldah won the day by proposing that they carry their luncheon with them, promising an abundant supply of sugared doughnuts and small pies.

Pythagoras foresaw recreation ahead in the opportunity to “lick all the kids,” and I assumed that Ptolemy had deep laid schemes for the outmaneuvering of teachers, but as his left hand never made confidant of his right, I could not expect to fathom the workings of his mind.

Early on a Monday morning, therefore, our household arose to lick our Polydore protégés into a shape presentable for admission to school. It took two hours to pull up stockings and make them stay pulled, tie shoestrings, comb out tangles, adjust collars and neckties, to say nothing of vigorous scrubbings to five grimy faces and ten dirt-stained hands.

At last with an air of achievement Silvia corralled her round-up and unloaded the four eldest upon the public school and then proceeded to install the protesting Diogenes in a nursery kindergarten. Huldah stood in the doorway as they marched off and sped the parting guests with a muttered “Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

Silvia returned radiant, but her rejoicing was shortlived. She had scarcely taken off her hat and gloves when the four oldest came trooping and whooping into the house.

“What’s the matter?” gasped Silvia.

“Got to be vaccinated,” explained Ptolemy with an appreciative grin. Of all the Polydores he was the one who had least objected to scholastic pursuits, but he seemed quite jubilant at our discomfiture.

We were somewhat reluctant to undertake the responsibility of their inoculation, especially after Ptolemy told us that his mother didn’t believe in vaccination.

“I’ll take ’em down and get ’em vaccinated right,” declared Huldah. “Their ma won’t never notice the scars, and if one of you young uns blabs about it,” she added, turning upon them ferociously, “I’ll cut your tongue out.”

“Suppose there should be some ill result from it,” said Silvia apprehensively.

“Don’t you worry!” exclaimed Huldah. “Most likely it won’t amount to anything. It’ll take some new kind of scabs to work in these brats. They’re too tough to take anything. Come on now with me,” she commanded, “and after it’s done, I’ll get you each an ice cream sody.”

Through Huldah’s efficiency the vaccination was quickly accomplished and the children of our neighbor were reluctantly accepted by the school authorities.

The Polydores were not parted by reason of dissimilarity of age or learning, as they were put into the ungraded room. To keep them there enrolled taxed to the utmost our ingenuity in the way of framing excuses for their repeated cases of tardiness and suspension.

Silvia felt a little remorseful when she listened to the tale of woe recited to her by their teacher at a card party one Saturday afternoon.

“She said,” my wife repeated, “that yesterday Pythagoras brought two mice to school in his marble-bag and let them loose. She doesn’t believe in corporal punishment, but she determined to experiment with its effect on Pythagoras, so she kept him and Emerald, who was slightly implicated, after school and sent the latter out to get a whip. When he came back he said: ‘I couldn’t find any stick, but here’s some rocks you can throw at him,’ and handed her a hat full of stones. This made her too hysterical to try her experiment, so she took away his recess for a week.”

“We ought to make her a present,” I observed.

“She said,” continued Silvia, “that they had given her nervous prostration, but she had no time to prostrate, and if she didn’t succeed in getting them graded by the coming fall term, she should accept an offer of marriage she had received from a cross-eyed man, and you know how unlucky that would be, Lucien!”

“We may be driven to worse things than that by fall,” I replied ruefully.