36
PARTISAN REVIEW
from one to another, prodding and kicking them with her white
pointed toe. The firemen looked up slowly at the waving roof and the
colonial columns which were beginning to bend like wax candles in
the sun, then hoisting their quids all together to the other side of their
faces they announced, "It ain't a fire," and lay down again, covering
their necks against the afternoon sun. "But the highboy!" my mother
cried. "The highboy! It belonged to my grandfather, it's been in my
family for two hundred years, my little old Aunt Mary left it to me
in her will. She was so weak she could hardly hold up her head, and
she whispered to me"-here my mother's voice broke-"she said, 'I
want you to have it, because it's the loveliest thing I have, and you're
the only one that's stood by me all these years.' "
This recital so moved my mother that for a full minute she stood
with her face in her hands, sobbing, but perceiving that she had still
had no effect on the Fire Department she whipped away the last
traces of her grief and turned to hunt out Cedric the servant. Cedric,
however, was in no condition to be called upon. The collapse of the
kitchen ell, taking with it the entire outer wall of his room, had re-
vealed him stark naked playing pinochle with one of the summer
residents, an incident that he was now trying to explain to the sax-
ophonist. "Cedric!" my mother shouted. "Come here at once!" But
just then a shutter fell on Cedric from the attic window and with a
moan he dropped to the ground, followed by his friend. Fortunately
my mother was spared this scene. She had just remembered de Mau-
passant and was threatening to run into the house for him when she
was assured that someone had seen someone taking him away.
In the end it was Myrtle who went in for the highboy. She was
not at all anxious to go, even cried a little when it was first suggested,
which was rather a surprise because everyone knew that her life was
not worth anything. She had lost four fingers in a meat-chopper, so
perhaps it was the pain she was afraid of, or the noise: it was hard
to tell. At any rate, as soon as she heard that the Selectmen had
chosen her for the job she began to whimper and for several minutes
stood twisting her fingers in her apron, made out of an old pair of
bloomers my mother had given her, and chewing her hair. "Oh no,"
she muttered to herself, "you don't see
me
going in there" -she had
the habit of talking to herself while she worked, even told herself
long stories sometimes as she cleaned out the toilets-"Not me, nossir!
They come up to me all together and they says, 'Now Myrtle,' they
says, 'you just run along in there and bring out that hairloom. 'Tain't
as heavy as it looks,' they says, kind of coaxing-like, 'and mind you
don't smash it on the way out.' I like that! Mind you don't smash it,
they says, on the way out! And there was the whole house rolling
