Ice Cream on Monday

BOB and Cleve came in with the milk and found their mother and Kitty arguing.

‘Well now, Kitty,’ Mama Hubbard was saying, ‘what do you think I am, a ninny? I guess I can call up my own sister and talk to her and nobody think anything! I ’ll just ask how they all are and if there’s anything going around their neighborhood, whooping cough or anything. If the Wesleys are quarantined or anything, she’ll know it and say so.’

‘Mama, don’t you do it!’ Kitty said. ‘You wouldn’t mean to, but you’d likely let it out. Aunt Marge would ask you something about Hazel and him, if they went in to the band concert or something, and — Eastridges listening in — Hazel d never get over it! ’

‘Well,’ Mama Hubbard said, breaking eggs into the skillet and frowning over the heat of the stove, ‘I don’t know’s she’ll get over this very fast, like it is. I’m not going to sit around and see her looking like she looks this morning and not. do a thing! He can’t go with her all fall and winter and quit like this, no quarrel or anything, and Hazel not a notion of what’s the matter.’

‘Whatta you mean — quit?’ Bob said, and reached up to the platter in the warming oven and helped himself to a crisp curl of bacon. ‘Just because he did n’t come over one Sunday. That’s not anything! Don’t get so worked up. He’il call up to-day, likely. I saw him in town Thursday and he was all right.’

‘You did!’ Mama Hubbard cried. ‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing. I tell you —

‘He wasn’t with that Eastridge girl?’

‘No, of course not. I’ve told you, Mama, he’s not paid any attention to any girl since he started going with Hazel.’

‘Well,’ Kitty said, setting down the pile of oatmeal bowls with a bang, ‘it’s not like it was you and Rose, scrapping and breaking it off and making it up half the time. They don’t fight. They’ve never had a fight all winter, all the time they’ve been going together.’

‘Go easy, Mama,’ Bob said, ignoring his sister’s remarks on his own love affair. ‘Don’t call Aunt Marge or anything. Just wait.’

‘Kitty,’ Cleve said, ‘what’s the idea in not fixing the separator? Here the separator ain’t together again!’

‘ Oh dear,’ Mrs. Hubbard said, ‘ Hazel was starting to fix it and I told her to go up and get the little boys up and make the beds. I thought maybe she’d be better off by herself. ’

Mr. Hubbard came in with a tubful of cobs. ‘Breakfast ready, Mama?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ Mrs. Hubbard said. ‘Call the little boys, will you, Papa? We’ll eat as soon as Cleve’s separated.’

‘Where’s Hazel?’ Papa Hubbard asked over the noise of the separator.

‘She’s upstairs,’ Kitty said in what she considered a casual voice. There was an unspoken agreement between her and her mother that Mr. Hubbard should be spared the family anxiety about Hazel. So far no one had mentioned it to him. He always said the farm was his to see to and the house was Mama’s, and he was likely to be oblivious of family affairs until they were brought to his attention. Then talk would not do for him: he always wanted to do something, and at once.

There was a great racket on the stairs and the little boys, Lewie and Baby, rushed in and raced to touch the broom. ‘I beat, I beat,’ Baby yelled, held the broom high like a flag, and ran into the dining room and around the table with it.

‘Get to the table, boys,’ Mrs. Hubbard said.

‘ Where’s Hazel,’ Papa Hubbard said again, when all the others were seated; ‘is n’t she coming?’

‘She’ll be down,’ Mama Hubbard said, and bowed her head for the blessing.

‘We’ll wait,’ Papa said, threw back his head, and called, ‘Hazel!’

Hazel came, almost at once, and slid into her place between the two little boys, and retied Baby’s bib before the blessing.

Mr. Hubbard, after a good drink of coffee, was in one of his gentle, joking moods. ‘Well, Sister,’ he said to Hazel, ‘when’d you get in last night? You look kinda sleepy.’

‘Papa,’ Mrs. Hubbard said, ‘don’t you want your other egg?’ and passed the big platter.

Papa took the egg. ‘I said, when’d you get in last night, Sister?’

Kitty gave Hazel one of her most sisterly looks. Was not Hazel’s romance partly hers? Had not Hazel told her first when Clay Wesley had first seen her and wanted to go with her? Did she not know what nobody else in the family knew, that it was last October third, and out by the swing cottonwoods, that Clay had first kissed Hazel? ‘Papa,’ she said, loudly and like a spoiled child, ‘I want piano lessons! ’

‘What?’laughed Cleve. ‘Say,did n’t Papa waste hundreds of dollars on you when you were little and you just bawled and bawled and wore Mama out making you practise? And now you can’t play a thing!’

‘I was too little,’ Kitty said with decision. ‘I’ll practise now. We can phone in for the piano tuner and get the piano tuned, and — I think a young lady should play the piano if she can. She should have all the accomplishments she can.’

Bob laughed.

‘What do you say, Mama?’ Mr. Hubbard said, and to Kitty, ‘I got that piano for you little girls and you’ve hardly touched it. These are pretty bad times to talk about piano lessons. Anyway,’ and he smiled on his elder daughter, ‘Hazel does n’t play the piano and I believe it’s said she’s done pretty well for herself.’

Hazel was looking at her plate.

‘Bring your father some coffee!’ Mama Hubbard cried, alarmed over the tightness of Hazel’s lips, and Hazel got up and hurried into the kitchen for the coffeepot.

‘There was n’t any hundred dollars spent on music lessons for me!’ Kitty said to Bob, appealing to him with her eyes to keep the talk away from Hazel. ‘Anyway, mister, what about that old saxophone you made Papa buy you? Where is it? Up in the attic! ’

Papa Hubbard put an arm around Hazel as she stood beside him pouring his coffee. ‘Mama, this girl’s thinner!’ he said. ‘I think she’s going too much, and up too late.’

‘Miss Fullerton’s cut down, Papa,’ Kitty said, ‘She charges only fifty cents a lesson now.‘

‘All right, all right,’ Papa Hubbard said, ‘if you’ll practise and not wear your mother out making you. Hazel, I asked you, and Kitty interrupted. When did you get in last night?’

Hazel set the coffeepot down on the table and hurried into the kitchen. They heard the back-porch screen door slam behind her.

Mama Hubbard laid down her hands, flat on the table, and said, ‘Papa, are you blind as old Baldy, or what is the matter with you?’

‘Huh?’Mr. Hubbard said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘ Matter! ’ said Mama. ‘ You ’ve done nothing but torture the girl since you sat down at the table.’

‘Torture?’ Papa said, looking around. ‘Why, I don’t care, Mama. She can have music lessons if she wants ’em. I said she could, did n’t I? Had ’em once, and would n’t practise.’

Kitty looked beseechingly at her mother, to leave Papa thinking she was the tortured one, but Mama was too worked up.

‘You talk to that child like that,’she cried, ‘after she’s not slept a wink for two nights! Looks like she’s had enough — her heart just broken! Did n’t come Saturday, or Sunday either — did n’t call or anything. What’s a body to think? And that Eastridge girl doing her level best to get him back all the time, Marge says. He did n’t go with her but a little, and has n’t gone near there since he started going with Hazel. She has n’t slept, she’s worried sick, and you talk to her like that!’

‘Did Hazie get hurt?’ Baby asked, ready to cry.

‘Aw, Mama,’ Bob said, ‘don’t get so worked up! It’s likely nothing — it’s likely nothing at all!’

‘Oh, you mean Hazel,’ Mr. Hubbard said.

‘Who else would I mean?’ Mama cried. ‘The rest of us worrying our heads off, and you go around and joke, and never notice a thing!’

‘Well, good Lord!’ Papa said, and got up from his chair and went into the kitchen.

‘Papa, come back!’ Kitty cried. ‘Leave Hazel be, please, Papa. She feels awful! She does n’t feel like talking.’

‘Where is she?’ Papa asked.

‘Oh, down in the orchard, like as not,’ Mama said. ‘ But Kitty’s right — leave her be, Papa. She’ll know you did n’t know.’

‘Yes,’ Kitty said. ‘Please, Papa.’

Papa turned on the step to say, ‘You can have those lessons, Kitty.’

Kitty groaned — t he prospect of revived piano practice was becoming very real — and looked at her mother.

‘Never mind,’ Mama said to Kitty; ‘he’ll forget it.’

Baby ran after Papa, put his hand in his, and went along, taking three steps to his father’s one. ‘There’s Hazie,’ he said, and pointed down along the rows of blossoming apple trees to where Hazel sat on the ground with her arms about her knees, her yellow head resting on her arms.

She did not look up when her father came and stood beside her. ‘Hazie got hurt,’ Baby whispered, and looked up at his father to see what they should do.

Papa Hubbard cleared his throat. ‘I forgot something,’he said. Hazel did not look up. ‘Baby,’ he said, ‘run to the house and tell your mother to make ice cream. You and Lewie can turn the freezer.’ Baby ran, without a backward look for Hazel.

At the words ‘ice cream’ Hazel had sobbed aloud. Papa Hubbard fumbled in the hip pocket of his overalls. ‘I forgot something,Daughter,’ he said, ‘and it’s a shame.’

Hazel wiped her eyes on her apron and looked up.

‘I was in town Thursday — Bob and I were in town,’ he said, ‘and we saw that young fellow, what’s-his-name; and while Bob was in the creamery he came back and said he was going to Omaha, going down to drive home their new truck. He said he’d be back Monday, and to give you this.’

‘Oh, Papa,’ Hazel said, and held up both hands for the letter.

Mr. Hubbard looked around on his orchard and thought the blossoms had never been so thick. He said as much to his daughter. ‘These trees are going to set more fruit than they ever have.’ She nodded without looking up from her letter. He walked a few feet away from her, and turned to say, ‘You won’t need to tell your mother I forgot it? ’

‘Oh, Papa,’ Hazel said, laughing and crying, on her knees in the clover. Without looking up from her letter she waved him away with her hand.