Cottage on the Curve

Chapter Thirteen
An Honest Reward

“What is it going to be,” demanded James. “Candy?” Mom continued to write, and answered without raising her eyes. “I don’t know yet what it’s going to be, but I do know that if it’s going to be, there’ll be a clean bathhouse first. My prize goes to the cleanest side.”

“Oh boy,” said Jane. “This is easy. I’ve got the cleanest side to start out with, because Mom and Aunt Claire don’t toss stuff on the floor like you boys do.”

“That’s no fair,” yelled James. “It’s a cheat!”

“It’s not a cheat,” retorted Jane. “I had all sorts of company on my side during the week and they left hairpins and face powder all over the place.”

Mom finished her grocery list and stood up to leave. “Well,” she said. “I’m still offering a prize. If you two would rather argue about it than win it, I’ll give the job to Davey and Bill instead.”

“No, no, Mom. We’ll take it. We’ll go right away,” and they ran in the direction of the bathhouse.

Jane opened the door and got to work. She swept the floor, wiped off the bench and even polished the mirror. While she was hanging fresh towels she called to James.

“Why don’t you hurry? Mom will be back from shopping, and I’ll win.”

“Aw, I could win with both hands tied behind my back. I can clean mine in five minutes and still win.”

He lay flat on the pier, idly kicking the boat back and forth, but all of a sudden he realized that his boasting wouldn’t take him much farther, because Jane had almost finished with her side and he still had everything to do. He sauntered over to the bathhouse, being careful to give the impression of great leisure, just as Jane emerged.

“I’ll win,” she said cockily. “You haven’t got a chance. You started too late.”

“Pooh, pooh,” said the master mind, but the minute her back was turned, he hurried as fast as he could. He was almost finished when Mom returned from shopping. All that was left was a pile of dust in the middle of the floor. Jane had taken the dust pan back to the cottage with her. If he swept it out on the brick steps he would be disqualified. He could pick it up in his hands and stuff it in his pockets, but there were no pockets in this suit. Mom was on her way across the lawn for inspection right this minute.

“Aha,” he thought, in a burst of pure mischief, and as quick as a wink he swept the remaining dust under the partition and over to the girl’s side. Broom in hand and eyes dancing, he stepped outside and bowed to Mom.

“Everything is in order, Mom,” he said. “I get the prize.”

Mom stepped inside the boy’s side and looked around carefully. “Very good,” she said. Then she stepped out and walked around to the girl’s side. She looked around carefully again. James giggled, expecting her to see the joke, but her face was grave as she noticed the dust spread fan-wise from under the partition.

“You have the cleanest bathhouse, James,” she said. “You win the prize,” and she gave him a candy bar.

James gulped. “But Mom....”

She looked at him in a funny sort of way, but she didn’t say any more, and then she walked up toward the house.

Janie was getting ready to go to Deerpath with the Landrys when the prize was announced, so her normal surprise and protest were somewhat muffled in the mild excitement of leaving.

That was the end of it. James felt baffled. He walked around with the candy bar in his hand. What was the matter with Mom? Couldn’t she see a joke?

The rest of the afternoon passed in a dull sort of way. Mom was busy with preparations for Sunday and she didn’t seem to pay any attention to him. Billy and Davey were fishing at the dam and Janie wasn’t home. He walked around with his face squinted up in a frown, kicking at tufts of grass.

“Maybe tonight I can finish my sunset,” he muttered.

Early in the season Aunt Claire gave James a piece of canvas and some tubes of oil paint.

“Paint the sunset,” she encouraged him. “You draw well and we have such beautiful sunsets out here. See what you can do.”

Every evening, as the sun sank, James hauled forth his canvas and brushes. He’d get everything organized for painting. The sun got splashed in the middle of the horizon, an oily red blob surrounded by sausage-like clouds in a glazed blue sky. His nose would wrinkle in a distressed sort of way.

“This isn’t the way Aunt Claire’s sunsets look.”

By the time he had mixed the right shade of purple for the low-banked clouds the sun had disappeared and he’d put everything away until the next evening. The next evening the clouds that had been fat and fluffy were long and wispy, and the rose colored sky of the night before would be changed to gold.

Hurriedly mixing his colors, he’d attempt to change his canvas to match the changed sunset, but again the magic colors eluded him and darkness came before he was finished.

“Creepers, I never can work fast enough. I’ll never finish this thing.”

As the days went by the canvas became more and more covered with paint, but James wasn’t cast down. He was always certain that the next night would see the finished picture.

On this Saturday night there was no sunset, only a solid bank of black storm clouds.

“Make everything fast,” called Dad. “We’re going to have a blow,” and then the sun appeared between a crack in the clouds.

“Hurry, boy, hurry,” called Dad. “Finish your picture.”

James ran for the paints. The many-colored clouds of previous attempts were hastily covered with black and gray. The sun peeped through as always, and a few quick strokes with a clean brush made a golden halo. The trees at the horizon were greenish black, and he finished the broad sweeps of leaden gray that were the lake just as the first rain hit him.

“Hurray,” he exulted. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it,” as he ran for the cottage holding the masterpiece over his head.

“That’s wonderful,” beamed Aunt Claire. “You’ve got real stick-to-it-iveness. You have talent, too, but persistence is more important. Let’s prop your sunset here on the floor against the wall so that everyone can see it.”

All evening James heard nothing but praise and admiration for his black sunset. By bed time he was beginning to feel pretty good, but then he reached his hand in his pocket and felt that old candy bar.

Sunday was always a quiet time at the lake. The grown folks sat around reading and taking naps, and even the children quieted down. Jane drove to church with Daddy and Aunt Claire. She wore her white dress, and her wide-brimmed floppy hat. All the way along there were folks going to church. Cars slid out of side roads and chortled and wheezed down farm lanes. They streamed up hill and down on the road to Deerpath. It would be fun, thought Jane, to watch them from a plane. They would look like a procession of shiny-backed beetles.

The church was crowded with summer people, and Daddy stopped at the door to speak to some folks he knew. Inside, it was dark and cool. The altars were filled with beautiful garden flowers. There were roses during June, and larkspur, then white gladioli and lilies, making the air heavy with their perfume. When the phlox and asters appeared Janie always knew it was time to start thinking about going back to town.

The windows were swung open, and inquisitive sparrows came to the ledge and looked in. Sometimes a fat bee would lumber about in the roses, and then take off, heavily, for the summer world outside. Janie thought of the psalm:

This must be the place, she thought, looking around her, here in a country church, with the doors and windows flung wide, filled with music, and fragrant with the flowers of a country garden.

On the way home they stopped at the drug store to buy a paper. Later breakfast was served on the terrace at the back of the cottage. It was another one of Mom’s romantic ideas. It wasn’t entirely practical. You see, the terrace wasn’t screened. Birds and butterflies entered at their will, also dogs and mosquitos and ordinary flies.

Buick, the neighbor’s dog, always enjoyed having breakfast on the terrace with the Murrays. He strolled over on this particular morning looking around for his old enemy, Butch. Not seeing him, he made straight for Janie’s chair. She absently gave him a piece of her coffee cake, and went on reading the funnies. Aunt Claire was always generous, so Buick looked pathetic and waited. Another piece of coffee cake dropped into his jaws, and he said “Thank-you” in dog fashion, and strolled over to Daddy’s chair.

Now, Daddy didn’t like dogs in general and Buick in particular. Not that he would ever hurt a dog, or even a fly for that matter. He just insulted them by ignoring them, and he was ignoring Buick completely just now. Deep in the sport page, he read with perfect concentration. Buick waited patiently, but no gifts were forthcoming. There was a lovely curled strip of bacon getting cold while Daddy read. It was so close to his moist black nose he could almost touch it. It smelled so good he quivered. Suddenly there was a black streak of flying dog, and a murderous roar out of Daddy. Buick and the bacon were gone.

“Bah!” Daddy fumed, shaking his paper in mock rage. “Butch is right in his instincts about that pup. He’s nothing but a low down bacon snitcher.”

In the afternoon Davey took Butch down to the lake front where they watched “old rubber-back” paddle about in his tub. The boys lay on the pier watching a sailboat race, and Janie took a pillow, an apple, and a book and made for her favorite perch. It was up in the branches of the old willow tree, right at the shore of the lake. The branches were as thick as a man’s arm, and worn smooth with the clambering of the Murray children. Ever since they were little Janie and the boys had played up there. You could see all over the lake. It was cool and quiet, and if you knew just how to prop your pillow, it was comfortable too. She took a big bite of apple and sighed contentedly. This is the kind of a Sunday afternoon I like, she thought.

James walked under her tree perch and glanced up.

“Can I come up, too, if I get a book?”

“You can, but may you?”

“Smarty!”

Jane laughed. “Come ahead. There’s room for the whole family.”

James ran for the cottage to get an apple and a book. The door of his room was closed. It was a pretty nice room, and he was very proud of it. It was always a comfortable place to come back to. As he opened the door he noticed that the radio was turned on and the windows were open. The pillows were plumped up in just the right way for reading. The bedspread was neatly drawn across the bed and the books had been restacked, and ... right in the middle of the room stood an enormous pile of dust!

He turned and ran to the front yard and climbed the tree where Jane was sitting. Much to her astonishment, he handed her a wrinkled, slightly melted candy bar.