Radio Mirror (Jan-June 1947)

Aunt Jenny Proves That Home Is Where The Heart Is (Continued from page 23) to get pretty discouraged. Anyone would! And looking at the girl, lying there so pale and worn out, and so near her time, too, I did what I'd sworn I'd never do. I heard myself saying, "Well — Calvin and I live here all alone, and I've got a nice big guest bedroom. You're welcome to it, and to use of the kitchen, if you want." Did they want to stay? The girl's eyes flew open, and the boy kind of swallowed hard and said, "Oh — " and wasn't able to say anything else for about a minute. BUT mixed in with their gratitude was something else. It was a day or so before I began to notice it. Not that they didn't appreciate the room, because they did. They were just a pair of decent, honest kids, and when they said I'd saved their lives I believed they meant it. Still — this wasn't what they wanted. I could feel that they knew it was just temporary, and were straining to make it as temporary as it could possibly be. For instance, I didn't miss the excitement in Nick's tone the evening he came home and announced, as soon as he was inside the door, that a new housing development was being started. "There is?" Wanda said, leaning forward in her chair, and you'd have thought she'd just been told there was a chance of her inheriting a fortune. "When will it be ready?" "Well — " Nick said, and looked down at the floor. "Not for another six months, anyway." "Oh." Wanda sank back, all the animation fading out of her face. "That long." The next day Wanda told me what the trouble was. Nick thought she ought to, she explained, and she agreed with him. But she didn't find it easy to put into words. "We've been married three years, Nick and I," said she, "and we've never had a place of our own, Aunt Jenny." Like everyone in Littleton, she and Nick were calling me that the day after they'd moved in. "I don't want you to think we aren't happy here with you — we are, and so very grateful, but — First I lived in a furnished room near the training camp where Nick was — then he went overseas and I stayed with his parents. I haven't any of my own. After he came back, we went on living there while Nick finished school. I thought when he got a job we'd have our own house or apartment." "And you will, Wanda," I assured her. "If you'll be patient — " She struck her knee, sharply, with her clenched fist. "That's just it, Aunt Jenny," she said. "I can't be patient — there isn't time! Oh, I know it's foolish, at least I keep telling myself it's foolish, but I simply have a feeling that when I bring my baby home from the hospital, if I don't bring him into a place that is ours — if I can't do that, something terrible will happen! I try to remember that it shouldn't make any difference, the baby will be too little to know what kind of a home he's brought to — but you can't argue with a feeling like that. It's — it's in here." She put her hand on her breast, over her heart. Tears glistened in her eyes. As she said, you can't argue with a feeling like that. The longing for a home is something that's planted deep in every woman — and if that longing is denied for too long, as it had been denied in Wanda's case, it's going to get all twisted and changed around and warped, until it's a danger to her and to everybody that loves her. Wanda just looked at me hopelessly. I really couldn't blame her — I knew, better than she did even, how little chance there was of such a house or apartment turning up. But then I thought of Armina and Hester Marsh, and Wanda, watching my face, said in sudden hope, "What is it, Aunt Jenny? You look as if you'd had an idea." "Maybe I have," I said slowly. Armina and Hester were sisters, daughters of old Judge Marsh who died in 1927. Mrs. Marsh had died long before that. For years Armina and Hester went on living in the old brick house on Forrest Avenue. Neither of them ever had a beau, and the general impression around town was that neither wanted one. Folks said the Marsh sisters were "so devoted" to each other, and as far as anybody could tell, they were. Then, in 1940 I think it was or maybe 1941, Hester — she was the younger one — suddenly moved out of the house on Forrest Avenue. She took her share of the Judge's estate and bought a smaller house for herself on the opposite side of town, in Prince's Addition. Neither she nor Armina ever told anyone what had happened, or why they'd quarrelled — but it was plain enough that they had quarrelled. If they met on the street they looked straight through each other, and Hester gave up her church membership and joined another church so she wouldn't run into Armina. ONCE, soon after they'd separated, I remembered saying something to Armina about having seen Hester the day before, and Armina stiffened up and glared and snapped, "Jenny Wheeler, please be kind enough never to mention my sister's name to me again." And her tone was enough to make me wish I hadn't mentioned it then. In six or seven years, though, people change. They get older — and the things that seemed important once don't seem so vital any longer. If I could persuade those two to make up their old quarrel, I thought, and move back into the same house again, so they could be some comfort and company to one another — why, then there would be an empty house on the market, and I'd be the first one to know about it! Calvin and I talked it over, and decided that Armina was the one to talk to first.1 Being the older, she was more set in her ways than Hester, more stubborn. So I went to Armina first, the next day. We sat there in the dark, walnut paneled living room where Judge Marsh used to entertain politicians and their wives, and we talked for awhile about church affairs and the latest news around town. Armina's hair, touched with grey, was piled up on top of her head in a pompadour, and she had a watch on a chain around her neck. As she talked, her long thin fingers twisted the chain. Looking at her, I almost (Continued on page 74) % Jfcep Ifoshl Feel Smooth! .... ~y. j L ::: *-. &y.*::"'s^ Stay Dainty! jy ... with this truly luxurious talcum powder KEEP FRESH! Bathe! Then shake Cashmere Bouquet Talc over yourself. All over. It leaves every inch of you excitingly fresh. FEEL SMOOTH: For ultra comfort treat the little trouble spots to extra Cashmere Bouquet Talc. It protects chafable places with a silken-smooth sheath. STAY DAINTY: Keep your daintiness on high by showering your person, often, with Cashmere Bouquet Talc. It leaves on your skin — the fragrance men love. 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