Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

"If I'm lucky — a year. If I'm not — " ho shrugged. "But I'll keep on till I get it if it takes all my life . . . Look out, honey, you're tearing the notes. They're the only copy I have." "Oh, pooh — forget the old notes. You've been working all day, and it's Friday night. Peter, you know what let's do? Let's take the train into town tomorrow and spend the weekend with Daddy and go dancing and see some people and have some fun. I'm tired of just cooking and skating and cleaning house." He looked as if I'd suggested flying to the moon. "I can't do that, Ellen. I have to work." "You don't have to work all the time," I pouted. "Please, Peter — I want to go into town." "All the time, Ellen. I told you that before we were married. It's like being in the Army — in fact, that's why I'm not in the Army. I explained that. Besides, a little jaunt like you suggest would cost more than we can afford." "But Daddy would pay for it. He'd like me to have some fun." He threw the notes on the table and stood up. "We've been over that before. Once and for all, I will not accept a penny from your father. I'm no gigolo! You knew I was poor and you agreed to live on my money." "But this is different. You're just being silly — " That started it. It was the nearest to a quarrel we'd ever had. Oh, we made it up — with kisses and promises and selfcondemning apologies. But though I forgot about the quarrel, I didn't forget about being lonely and bored. Especially when the warm weather started. I was sick to death of learning to cook, and the underdone meat and burned vegetables with which I graced our mealtimes were no longer hilarious to either of us. Cleaning house made my hands rough, and there was more hard work than romance in keeping the place neat and shining. And spring — why, spring always meant a new wardrobe and I didn't even have a new hat. Not that that made much difference. We never saw anybody. Looking back on it now, it seems impossible that I, Ellen Morris, could "have held such thoughts. It's like remembering a girl you once knew and didn't like, a silly little person who valued all the wrong things. But that's because I've learned my values the hard way, with suffering, pain and loss — the only way, I suppose, one ever learns them. f DIDN'T have enough to do. At first, I'd sat in the lab and watched Peter work. It amused me — he was so unlike my picture of a chemist who I'd always imagined as absent-minded and stoop-shouldered and smelling of horrid mixtures. Peter's shoulders were straight and powerful. He dashed about the lab like a commuter catching a train, with an intense concentration that locked him away from all except what was in front of him. That was why I got tired staying in there. What was the fun, when he took no more notice of me than of the air he breathed? "Peter — I'm restless." "Why don't you go weed the garden?" The garden! Four rosebushes somebody had planted years ago. At first I'd weeded and watered them furiously. Now I was sick of them. Or he'd say, "Why don't you go over and talk to Mrs. Fisher?" She was our only neighbor, the farmer's wife from whom we bought milk and eggs. She was a good-natured, untutored soul and all she could talk about was canning and babies. So I'd go out and look at the sunset and think about the life I used to have. Stuck way out here, with every day just like the last. When Peter got so impatient he started working even in the evenings, I thought I'd go crazy. Work, work, work. Nothing could be that important, I told him irritably. That was when he suggested I spend a week in town with Daddy, alone. "I know this is hard on you, honey. You're used to people and excitement and all. Why don't you take a little vacation from it?" When Peter started working even in the evenings, I thought I'd go crazy. Work, work, work. Nothing in the world could be that important! DECEMBER, 1942