Manners and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, American
Ed and Marcia were always doing charming things for her. Marcia had made
the cushions and the silk lampshades for her room. Marcia was always
bringing her jellies, and a quarter of a freshly baked cake done in
black Lutie's best style. Ed and Marcia insisted periodically on her
going with them to the theatre or downtown for dinner, or to one of the
gardens where there was music and dancing and dining. This was known as
"taking mother out." Hannah Winter didn't enjoy these affairs as much,
perhaps, as she should have. She much preferred a mild spree with one of
her own cronies. Ed was very careful of her at street crossings and
going down steps, and joggled her elbow a good deal. This irked her,
though she tried not to show it. She preferred a matinee, or a good
picture or a concert with Sarah, or Vinie, or Julia. They could giggle,
and nudge and comment like girls together, and did. Indeed, they were
girls in all but outward semblance. Among one another they recognized
this. Their sense of enjoyment was un-dulled. They liked a double
chocolate ice cream soda as well as ever; a new gown; an interesting
book. As for people! Why, at sixty the world walked before them, these
elderly women, its mind unclothed, all-revealing. This was painful,
sometimes, but interesting always. It was one of the penalties--and one
of the rewards--of living.
After some such excursion Hannah couldn't very well refuse to take the
children to see a Fairbanks film on a Sunday afternoon when Ed and
Marcia were spending the half-day at the country club. Marcia was very
strict about the children and the films. They were allowed the
saccharine Pickford, and of course Fairbanks's gravity-defying feats,
and Chaplin's gorgeous grotesqueries. You had to read the titles for
Peter. Hannah wasn't as quick at this as were Ed or Marcia, and Peter
was sometimes impatient, though politely so.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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