Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

wore packing. "I really think we'd better go, honey," Wanda said. "It's not a good time to have guests around. . ." "Good!" I cried. "I'll go with you. You can drive me back to town." And I started throwing things in suitcases. I wept all the way back to Detroit. I wept with rage and frustration and self pity. The Kellers tried to be sympathetic, but I didn't even hear what they said. When they dropped me at my house I didn't say goodbye. I rushed past the butler's startled face into the library. "I've come home, Daddy," I cried. "And I'm never going back!" Half-hysterical, I poured out the story. My father sat still until I came to the part when I tore up the notes. Then he got up, slowly and heavily, his face like a mask. "You did that to that boy? You deliberately tore up something that was not only his life to him but of incalculable value to our country? I knew I'd spoiled you, Ellen, but I didn't think you capable of that." "You — you blame me?" I was so surprised I stopped crying. "If you were younger I'd whip you. I'd try to whip some sense, some appreciation into your helpless little mind. I knew you'd have a hard time of it with Peter, but I thought you'd have the courage to see it through. I thought it would make a woman of you, instead of a doll. I see it hasn't. You claim you love Peter, but love means giving, and that's something you don't understand. This is hard for me to admit, but it looks as if you didn't have the courage. I stared at him. Instead of sympathy and understanding, he was taking Peter's side. He was talking to me as he never had in his life. For a moment I couldn't answer. Then the words welled up in a torrent. "So that's what you think. You're just like Peter. You won't see my side of it at all. All right, I'll show you! I'll show you both! I'm going out and get a job and I'm never coming back — never, never!" Grabbing up my bag, I rushed out of the house, my eyes so blinded with tears I could hardly see to run. . . I won't go into that next month of my life, or the pattern of emotions that swept me first one way and then another. I had never known what fear was — until I saw my small store of money vanish like snow in the sunshine while I tried to get a job. Detroit is a war-industry city, and there are countless jobs — but few for people of no experience. And I had never known what real determination was, either, until I resolved I wouldn't go home and wouldn't go to any of my father's friends. I answered ads, I walked the streets, I climbed stairs, until I was too weary to eat at night — which was just as well. Eating, as I found out, costs money. Some granite-like streak inherited from Daddy kept me at it. Every time I weakened, every time I thought I had only to get on a bus, ride a few blocks, and be in luxury again, I was goaded by the memory of scornful words: you didn't have the courage. And I would pull myself together and go on to fill out the next questionnaire until I came to that inevitable question, "Previous experience?" But the loneliness was the worst. 78 I longed for Daddy, for a friendly Eace. and a kind word. But I ached for Peter. Over and over I remembered things about him. His quick movements, the way he looked when he was absorbed in work, his smile, his arms about me. And over and over came the picture of his eyes as I had last seen them — filled with hatred of me. I couldn't go back to him. Peter hated me. When I was down literally to my last seven cents, I got a job. It was in an automobile factory, recently converted to making tanks. Being unskilled and with no money to keep me while I took one of their courses, I was put in the sorting department. All day long, day after day, I sorted different kinds of bolts. It was hard and grimy and noisy and boring, but it paid eighteen dollars a week. A year ago I'd have thought no more of eighteen dollars than five cents. Now it was life itself. ANSWERS TO DOUBLE OR NOTHING'S VICTORY QUIZ I — Ecuador 2 — Halls of Montezuma 3 — A steel submarine chaser 4 — James M. Landis, formerly Dean of Harvard Law School 5 — Coal, air and water 6 — Canteen, knapsack, holster 7 — Mobile artillery 8 — London, Washington, D. C. 9 — The Susquehanna River, Harrisburg is the capital. 10 — (a) For sailing or boating. A sampan is a skiff, used in the river and harbor traffic of China, (b) To make tea. It is a Russian urn used for making tea. To cut expenses, I shared a room with Stella Brominiski, a Polish girl married to a Polish-American now in the Army. She worked in the welding department and she needed, desperately, to save money. I knew now how important money was, but at first I couldn't understand her need to save it when she made so much more than I did. "Joe and me couldn't have gotten married if I didn't send half my wages to his folks. He was about their only support, and Army pay isn't much." "But why did he go in the Army if they're dependent on him? There are other boys to go, and if Joe had a good job — ". She looked surprised. "He never thought about not going," she said simply. "He's young and he's American." "But, Stella, don't you mind? Don't you mind doing without things? Sending a lot of money home to them — " "Sure, but it's the only way we could be together. Now we can be together when he gets leave and after the war we can be together all the time. When you love a guy, that's the only thing that matters." The only thing that matters. Stella was a sturdy, simple girl of immigrant stock, but that's what she taught me. She taught me a lot more, too. That cooking can be interesting, even when you do it over a gas plate in your room and you've got only a little piece of meat and a few vege tables to make a stew. And how to be glad when Saturday and Sunday came because you could get out of teeming streets and look at the sky. How good it is to rest after hard work and how to get along with people different from you. I hadn't told her much about myself. She knew I'd never had a job before, and that I was married and separated from my husband, but that's all. One night after supper we were washing out stockings, and I began to tell her about the cottage where Peter and I had lived. Lately, it had been more real to me than when I'd lived there. "Gee, it sounds swell," she said. "A lake to swim in and a whole house to yourself. Did you have a vegetable garden? I'd have had a garden and canned stuff from it. Did you do that?" "I — I didn't know how." HPHAT farmer's wife would've -* showed you. I'd have had a cow, too," she went on dreamily, "and a flower garden. That's what I'd like Joe and me to do when he gets out — no more of this noisy, dirty, crampedup city life. What did you say your husband did?" I told her. I said how important it was and how hard he worked and how, even though he'd made mistakes, he was determined to stick at it till it came right. "You must've been proud of him. Look, Ellen, it's none of my buisness to stick my neck out, but when you talk about him you get a certain look in your eyes. Whyn't you go back to him?" "I can't," I said miserably. "He hates me." And I told her about the notes. "You tore up his work?" There was horror in her voice. "If I'd been him, I'd of smacked you down where you stood," she said frankly. "Why, a man's work is the biggest thing in his life to him and important work like that — " I began to cry. She put her sturdy arms around me. "I shouldn't have said that. I guess you didn't know any better, and people do all kinds of things when they're mad. But whyn't you go back to him anyway? He's probably all over his mad by now and as lonesome for you as you are for him. If you love each other nothing should keep you apart. Nothing in the world." "No. He hates me. He'd turn me away. I couldn't go crawling back to him and have him turn me away." "Well," she said matter-of-factly, "I'd sure as heck try it. You're eating your heart out for him." That was true enough. But, I thought, if Peter had his own stiffnecked pride about money, I had mine about him. If he wanted me he'd have to come to me. But it was desperately hard to keep on going with my job, to keep trying to build a life for myself without Peter, to keep from giving up and going home. Stella kept me at it with her indomitable strength, her simple faith, and the example she set of love for her Joe. One evening when we came home from the factory, the landlady handed Stella a telegram. Telegrams don't come as a matter of course to people like the Brominiskis, and she was afraid to touch it. Then she snatched Continued on page 80 RADIO MIRROR