Image provided by: The Willamina Museum; Willamina, OR
About The Willamina times. (Willamina, Yamhill County, Oregon) 1909-1972 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1940)
THURSDAY. AUG. I. 1940 TIMES. WILLAMINA. OREGON two keys to a cabin B Y CHAPTER XII—Continued —18— “But since I took extra courses at High this year practically over Mother’s dead body, I have to stick at them.” Debby walked reluctant ly toward the door. “She wanted me to go to college.” “Why didn’t you want to go?” Gay asked. “If you dislike it here—” Debby glanced away, a flush stain ing her olive cheeks. “I’m talking too much, I guess.” She turned, came back to Gay, threw her arms around her. “ I think you’re love ly,” she said in a rush of impulsive words. “I don't know quite how John managed it—you—but I’m glad he did. Don’t you listen to anything anybody says, not that they’ll say much but—” “What do you mean, Debby?” Gay asked, puzzled. But Debby did not explain. “I’ve got to go,” she mumbled, not look ing at Gay, and went running out of the room. "You shouldn’t have gone to extra trouble for me, Mrs. Houghton,” Gay said, as John’s mother came into the living-room with a tray. “It’s no extra trouble.” Ann Houghton arranged dishes on the 6mall table before the open fire in the living-room. “It’s warmer here than in the dining-room.” John’s mother smiled faintly. Her skin was dark like John’s and Deb by’s. Her dark eyes, deeply set under straight dark brows, were as somber as John’s were when he was troubled. She held her taller than average figure erect but rath er, Gay thought, because some in domitable purpose, through a suc cession of years, had stiffened her spine, than because she realized or gave a thought to the decorative value of a fine carriage. Her hair was lovely, dark with only a sprin kling of gray. It waved back from her forehead and temples, softening the bony contours of her face. Prop erly dressed and with the stiffness relaxed she would have the distinc tion Uncle John had had. Gay won dered if she had ever had his warmth and humor, if she ever laughed aloud. “The fire is pleasant.” Gay poured coffee into a thin porcelain cup with a red sea-weed pattern. “I had no idea it could be so cold here in March.” “ We’re accustomed to the cold.” Ann Houghton, seated in a wing- chair at the opposite side of the hearth, took a length of knitting from a bag hanging on the arm of the chair. She was never idle, Gay had observed in the two days she had spent in John’s home. Her housekeeping was a ritual meticu lously performed. In those mo ments, as now, when she was not en gaged in some active task, her long hands with prominent knuckles and nails, nicely shaped but unmani cured, were busy with knitting or sewing. “It’s healthy but not very comfortable, especially since you’ve just come from Florida.” “I don’t mind at all,” Gay said quickly. “Can’t we go for a walk?” “I’m afraid I can’t spare the time,” John’s mother said in the cool deliberate tone which held Gay at an impassable distance. “But you go, if you like. Only you must wear Debby’s moccasins.” Her glance fell to Gay’s sturdy but dain tily fashioned oxfords. “It’s so easy to get your toes frosted. I shouldn’t want you to suffer from chilblains the rest of your life.” “You would probably enjoy a walk,” John’s mother said after an interval of silence during which the needles had clicked and Gay had de terminedly finished her breakfast. “It’s dull for you while Sarah and Debby are in school. If we had known you were coming, we might have arranged something entertain ing, though everybody has been storm-bound during the past two days.” “It was inconsiderate of me to have brought a blizzard. Coming almost directly from Florida, I should have done better.” Ann Houghton’s faint smile was her only acknowledgment of the pleasantry. “I don’t, ordinarily, encourage gaiety during the week,” she went on. “This is Sarah’s first year of teaching in the high school. She is naturally eager to make a favorable impression and she isn’t very strong.” Sarah looked strong enough, Gay thought, though a little subdued and unhappy. No, not actively unhappy, resigned. A little gaiety, the thought continued, would do Sarah more good than her mother’s persistent coddling. Still that was Sarah's concern—and her mother’s. “It’s pleasant Just to be here,” Gay said. She pushed her chair back from the table, slipped her L ID A L A R R I M O R E hand into the pocket that contained her cigarette case, reconsidered. “I've enjoyed my breakfast." Ann Houghton folded the knitting into the bag, rose briskly from the wing-chair with, Gay thought, an appearance of relief. She took a tray from the window sill and began to clear the small table from which Gay had eaten her breakfast. “Let me help you." Gay, too, rose, stood watching Ann Houghton's competent movements. “No, thank you. I know just where everything goes.” Ann Houghton’s voice was gracious but chillingly re served. “Amuse yourself if you can with our limited resources. I sup pose that John will come tonight.” “He said he hoped to when he called last night.” Ann Houghton glanced at the win dow through which sunlight streamed in dazzlingly across a frosting of snow on the sill. “I hope he won’t attempt it un less the roads are clear.” She turned to place the vase containing the ivy and geranium on the mantel above the fireplace. Was she going to tell her that John wasn’t strong? Gay wondered. As though anything, other than an emergency call would keep him from coming now that the storm was over. “John is accustomed to icy roads, I suppose,” she said, a faint note of exasperation in her voice. “He drives all winter.” Ann Houghton took up the tray. “It’s foolish of me to worry,” she said, “but when his work isn’t in volved, I don’t like him to take un necessary risks. Will you go for a walk now or wait until the sun is warmer? I do the upstairs work on Friday while Huldah is cleaning downstairs. It’s tiresome for you to be exposed to all the household ma chinery but when there are only two of us to keep the wheels turning we must observe routine. I try to spare Sarah, and Debby hasn’t a natural bent toward housework, I’m afraid.” “Let me help you,” Gay urged, smiling, ashamed of the exaspera tion her voice had revealed. “I haven’t a natural bent for house work, either, but I can learn.” Again Ann Houghton smiled faint ly. “ You’re far too decorative, my dear, to—” “To be useful?” “—to be expected to be useful,” Ann Houghton finished smoothly. “ Besides, it’s cold upstairs. No, you stay here by the fire until it's warm enough for a walk. Have you an interesting book? There are maga zines on the table.” “I’ll amuse myself.” The warmth and friendliness faded out of Gay’s voice. She walked to a table against the wall and picked up a magazine. John’s mother went out of the room. Gay returned to the hearth, dropped into a chair, sat with the magazine unopened on her lap. Ann Houghton resented her, she thought. It was obvious, though no reference had been made to it, that she was opposed to John’s marrying her. That was a little ironical. Mothers of eligible sons had courted her persistently since she was seven teen, that toothy dowager in Eng land, the Swiss countess who was a patroness of the school she had attended, mothers in New York and Palm Beach and Southampton. She was relieved when her engagement to Todd had put an end to that form of pursuit. It didn’t matter, except just now, when she was here—except that she felt, or imagined she felt, a dif ference in John. The afternoon he had brought her here, at dinner, later in the evening, she had felt Ann Houghton’s influence working a change in John. It was nothing she could define, a feeling that he was seeing her through her moth er’s eyes, weighing her words, her gestures, her reactions to the family life familiar to him by some scale of values which his mother supplied. A feeling— She had imagined it, perhaps. But when he came tonight, would she feel the same tension and strain? There was no change in Ann Houghton’s manner toward her. Would John—? But this brooding was morbid. She needed to get out of the house. The sun was shining and the sky was clear and blue. She wanted to explore the town where John had lived as a child, a boy, when he had spent his summers during the period that he had been in college and medical school. She would ask for Debby’s moccasins, since that seemed to be important. The maga zine slid to the floor as she rose from the chair. Climbing the stairs, she heard no sound on the upper floor, but as she walked along the hall, she caught a glimpse through the open door of John’s room of Ann Houghton’s brown skirt and dark red cardigan • MACRAK SM ITH CO. WNU SKRVICS sweater. She paused in the hall outside the door; meaning to ask for Debby’s moccasins and to tell Mrs. Houghton that she was going to take a walk. The words, forming on her lips, were checked there. The position of Ann Houghton’s figure held her motionless, silent. She stood with her back to the door, the palms of her hands pressed flat against the wall, looking at a long framed pan el between the windows. Her shoul ders sagged. Every line of her body, usually erect, drooped in some momentarily acknowledged defeat As Gay watched, her head bent slowly forward until it touched the panel against the wall. Gay drew back out of sight and called her name. The reply, when it came, was controlled, free from any hint of emotion. Ann Hough ton's shoulders were erect. She turned from adjusting a fold of the crisp white curtain at the window to glance with an inquiring expres sion and a faint smile toward the door. "If you can tell me where Deb by’s moccasins are,” she said, her own voice controlled with effort, “ I think I’ll go out now.” “They’re in her wardrobe, I think. I’ll get them. Debby’s wardrobe John’s mother smiled faintly. always resembles the spot that the cyclone hit. You’ll need heavy socks, too.” As John’s mother passed her, walking out into the hall, Gay glanced back into the room. The panel, as she had remembered, framed photographs of John taken at various ages. She followed his mother’s straight back and briskly tapping heels feeling a curious sense of pity mingled with resentment, ex asperation, fear. CHAPTER XIII The clock on the mantel, flanked by Chinese vases and branching clumps of coral, struck the half hour. John’s grandmother, Abigail Houghton, broke off an account of some early misdemeanor of John’s and turned h&r bright quizzical glance toward the sofa where Gay and Debby sat beside the fire-place in which a cannel-coal fire in a pol ished grate burned with blue and orange flames. * “ You children will take your death when you go out,” she said, “bundled into all that wool and fur, hot as it is in here.” “Might as well come clean, Gran ny,” Debby laughed. “ You’ve got a date and you want us to go.” The spare little woman in black silk with lace at her wrists and throat, chuckled as though she found her granddaughter’s remark ex tremely entertaining. “The Reverend Henry Longfellow Blake and his wife are coming for supper,” she said. “I must give Hannah a hand. She’ll leave the sherry out of the pudding if I’m not there to see that it goes in.” “ But should you put sherry in the minister’s pudding?” Debby asked. “It makes for a more sociable evening. I notice he always stops berating me for not going to church after he’s had his dessert.” She grasped the arm» of her chair and rose to a standing position. A cane with a crooked gold handle fell to the floor. “You can’t expect an old woman who hobbles around on a stick to go to church,” she added as Debby put the cane in her hand. “ But you go to the movies, Gran ny.” V Smiles Changed Ideas erend Henry’s attention.” Abigail "I never knew love wus like Houghton's sherry-colored eyes twin kled in her russet face touched with this.” “ Neither did I. I thought there color on the cheek-bones. She turned were more flowers and chocolates to Gay who came to her across the to It.” priceless Chinese oriental rug which covered the floor of the small par Many have decided views about lor from wall to wall. “I’m glad you came to see me," she said. "Ga marriage. Decided by their wives. briella. That's a pretty name. A relief from our Deborahs and Abi Conscience Is Clean gails and Anns. French, isn't it?” "Nora, you've left fingerprints “ French originally, I suppose. My on nearly every plate I" “ Well, mum, it shows I haven’t grandmother was Gabriella Lyons. She arrived in New York by way of got a guilty conscience, unywayi” New Orleans. They call me Gay.” “ And quite rightly so, too, I ex PASSED ’EM ON pect." Gay took the small veined hand John's grandmother extended, looked down into her friendly eyes beneath neat scallops of waved white hair. “ You must come to see me when the minister isn’t. I’ll make a pudding for you.” " I’m afraid there won't be time this trip. I’m going into Portland with John tomorrow.” “Oh, Gay I Are you?" Debby wailed. ”1 took great pains to make that "You’re making us a very short visit.” Gay was conscious of the encumber salad.” quizzical expression that narrowed ' "I know; I’ve got ’em.” the old lady's eyes. “ Yes," she said. “ I’m sorry." She Lucky Discovery was sorry here, in this small warm j The visitor paid his green fee, house, cluttered with curios, but fixed up a match, and went out bright and cheerful. Looking down j to the first tee. Taking his stance, into Abigail Houghton's face, wrin he gave a wild swing and missed kled softly like a russet apple which completely. has lain too long in a basket, she “ By Jove I” he said to his op thought she knew how she had looked ponent. “ It’s a good thing I found as a girl. She’d had reddish hair, out early—this course is at least she thought, with those eyes and— two inches lower than the one I “ What are you thinking, my usually play on.” dear?” “ I was thinking how you must His Shortcoming have looked when you were a girl,” •‘How do you like your new Gay said, a little disconcerted, con scious that she had been staring. boss?” “He’s all right, except he will “ Did you—Do you mind if 1 ask— talk shop during business hours.” Did you have freckles?” The old lady laughed. “Hundreds of them. And red hair. I was very plain. It’s been a cross all my life.” “ Applesauce, Granny! You know you snatched Grandfather from one of the most famous beauties in the j state of Maine.” “ And a good thing for him that ; I did.” Her eyes lifted across Gay's shoulder to the painting, which hung above the rpantel, of a blue-eyed ' Know Others gentleman with curling brown hair i He that To knoweth knows and side-burns, wearing a brass-but others; and he that himself is ignorant of toned blue coat. “She had an un- i himself could not write a very pleasant disposition.” Her eyes re- j profound lecture on other men's turned to meet Gay’s gently smiling glance. “John must bring you to j e heads.—Colton. see me often. When is the wedding to be?" The question was unexpected. It , had not been asked before. Nei- ! ther John’s mother or his sisters had referred to the subject of marriage. Strange that she felt an odd reluc tance to make a reply— “ I don’t know,” she said evenly but with quickened breathing. "John — You know—” “ Yes, 1 know.” The old lady’s voice was impatient. “ But there’s a way around anything if you’re smart enough to find it. I met my husband at a Fourth of July picnic and we were married the first of August. Neither of us ever regretted it. At least I know I didn’t and if he did he was too much of a gentleman to tell me.” NO MORE CANNING WORRIES! (TO BE CONTINUED) Forest Service Workers Get ‘On-the-Job’ Training The United States Forest service is training employees through “ex perience clinics,” “on-the-job” train ing, and “planned experience.” Such training provides a short cut to information and experience. Workers on the service roll are listed under more than 30 different types of skilled labor and 17 pro fessions. They are scattered over about one-thirteenth of the United States land area. Skilled workers engaged in forestry operations include fire guards, pack ers, bull-dozer operators, powder men, road locators, radio operators, telephone linemen, and clerical workers. The professional classifica tions include such positions as ad ministrators, foresters, engineers, range examiners, silviculturists, ac countants, economists, ecologists, chemists, and airplane pilots. Peter Keplinger, forest service training chief, reports that officers who spend some time in training employees, such as that given in fire-control schools, may expect the workers to accomplish more during the remainder of the year because of the short cuts and improved meth ods learned. He points out that many employees in some of the low er-pay positions take greater inter est in their work when they under stand its value to the public and its use in saving time for other service “Which has not escaped the Rev workers. Approved by Good Housekeeping Institute an d the Household Searchlight. 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