A Nice Cool Drink on the Porch

by RICHARD BISSELL

HERE’S the way Aunt Roma operates. First she called up my wife Alice and said she wanted to “do something about Margie Henshaw and her children. I think it’s perfectly awful about George being in Manila.” Manila is what she calls Korea. “I think I’ll have her and the children out on the summer porch for a cool drink. I think it would be nice if you came too. I had thought of Wednesday but maybe tomorrow would be better. Or would Thursday be better for you? Why don’t I call Margie first and then call you back?”

“Any time but Thursday would be fine,” Alice says.

Fifteen minutes later Aunt Roma calls up and says the big “cool drink on the summer porch" affair will be Thursday afternoon. Alice explains that that’s the only time she can’t come. Aunt Roma calls Margie back and tells her Alice can’t come on Thursday and it’ll be Wednesday. ‘Then she calls Alice and tells her that she has told Margie. Then she calls Margie again and tells her that she has explained the change to Alice.

The next morning while Alice is making bread and is doused in flour Aunt Roma calls and changes the time from 4.00 P.M. to 3.30. That afternoon, just as Alice has got the boys olf to school, dishes washed, wash sprinkled, small daughter installed in room with toys, baby off to afternoon land of Nod, and has lain down for a rest, the phone rings and it is Aunt Roma. She changes the hour for the colossal summer porch jamboree back to 4.00 P.M. The baby wakes up and begins to holler.

Finally the affair comes off, after two or three telephone crises on the day of the big fiesta as to who is coming in whose car. Margie tells all about Manila, and the kids each have a brownie and a glass of ginger ale and overt urn somet hing and want to go to the bathroom — it is some big social event and the Northwestern Bell Telephone system gets a couple of hours rest and ought to have a brownie also.

That evening Aunt Roma calls Margie just as she is in the midst of feeding the kids their supper and tolls her how much she enjoyed the children and hearing about Manila. ‘Then she calls Alice, who is trying to get some Pablum into the baby while the boys tease their little sister, and tells her what a lark it was hut isn’t little George Junior rather pea ked-looking?

The next morning our real-life drama jerks to a start again when Margie calls Alice about some baby question and in conversation says, “Georgia apparently lost the beh to his coat at Aunt Roma’s yest erday.”

“Oh dear,” says Alice. “Well, my advice is to forget it. Buy him a new belt or throw the coat a way.”

“Why, whatever do you mean by that?” Margie asks.

“That’s my advice is all,” Alice says.

But before Margie can decide whether to telephone Aunt Roma or to drive out for the belt, the phone rings and Guess Who?

She says she has found a belt, belonging to one of the children no doubt. Margie says oh good, glad to hear it is found and she will drop by soon to pick it up.

That seems to be satisfactory and Margie says what a lovely time she had at the summer porch party and hangs up presently.

Two days later 1 am sitting in my office in the factory arguing with one of the foremen when the elevator boy brings in a brown envelope and gives it to me. After the foreman goes out I look at it and it is addressed to Margie Henshaw and has one of Aunt Roma’s little ret urn-address gummed stickers up on the corner. Inside there is a. small-size wool belt with a cheap nickel-plated buckle on it. There are no stamps on the envelope.

Aunt Roma had fixed it up ready to mail, I realized, and then decided to save six cents postage and bring some drama into the return of the belt by giving it. to Uncle Harold to give to his secretary to give to the office boy to give to the elevator boy to give to me to give to Alice to give to Margie. I was feeling pretty peevish after my talk with the foreman, so when the elevator boy made his rounds again I gave the package to him and told him to put it in Uncle Harold’s mail basket, that there must be some mistake.

The next morning the envelope with the small woolen belt was in with my morning mail with a note in l ncle Harold’s handwriting pinned to it. Note said, “Margie H. will call at your house for this.”

Meanwhile the telephone at Margies house had been very active, with belt calls from Aunt Roma running as high as three a day. Alice had two and possibly more but was out in the yard hanging up wash, so may have missed scoring on some.

I pinned a note on the envelope which said, “Margie H. says she will call at your house,” and sent it back to Uncle Harold.

That evening Margie came over after The Belt.

“Aunt Roma called me several times,” she said, collapsing and accepting a cup of coffee.

“I told you it would be this way,” Alice said.

“But isn’t the belt here?” Margie asked.

“Richard wit h his usual sunny spirits sent it back to Uncle Harold,” Alice said. “I suppose he took it home and it’s out at Aunt Roma’s again.

The next morning Margie loaded her kids in the car and drove out to Aunt Roma’s to get the belt. As she drove down Grandview Avenue she passed Uncle Harold, on the other side of the parkway, driving in the opposite direction instead of going down Dodge Street as usual. About the same moment. that Aunt Roma’s housemaid was opening the front door to Alargie, Uncle Harold arrived at our house and presented Alice with a brown-paper parcel containing a small-size wool belt with a cheap nickel-plated buckle on it .

Margie didn’t get over to our house that day, and the next day she got the telegram about George and moved to San Francisco.

The parcel with the belt in it is on the top shelf of the pantry behind some fruit jars. Alice says who knows, Margie might move back to Dubuque someday.