Mary Emma & Company by Ralph Moody

Author:Ralph Moody [Moody, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Family Life
ISBN: 9780803282117
Publisher: UNP - Bison Books
Published: 2013-08-04T16:00:00+00:00

When I got to the store I found that more than half of our customers had ordered coal. And I was so busy helping Mr. Durant make the deliveries that I forgot all about Grace and Philip until I met them, way up on Washington Street. It was already after dark, the wind was a lot colder than it had been in daylight, and the snowdrifts had been growing deeper all day. The basket they were trying to take home was even bigger than the one that Al and I took. The sled had tipped over, half of the clothes had spilled out of the basket, and Grace was chasing the pieces that had blown away while Philip held the rest of them down and tried to keep from crying with the cold. That was one time when Grace showed that she was really glad to see me. And she didn’t try to boss me a bit. We divided the load between the two sleds, and tied them down with the rope I always carried when I delivered coal through snowdrifts. With Philip walking ahead to tread a path, me next, and Grace behind, we got along pretty well.

Our house sounded like a boiler factory when Grace and I took in the second batch of laundry. I didn’t have time to go down to the cellar, because we still had a lot of orders to be delivered from the store. But I could hear pipes clanging together, and the sound of hammering in the furnace came up through the registers as if they’d been megaphones. Mother was busy at the stove, and stopped only long enough to tell me, “We’re going to feed the men right here, so they won’t have to lose time in going home to supper, and they’re going to stay till the furnace is all mended and the pipes replaced in the cellar room. The furnace men have promised to start our fire for us and show us how to control the drafts, but our load of coal hasn’t been delivered, so you’ll have to bring two bags when you come from work.”

It was nearly eight o’clock before we finished work at the store and I took our coal home. When I got there Mother and Grace and Philip were dodging around between plumbers and furnace men, cleaning the cellar. Hal and Elizabeth had gone to bed, and Muriel was keeping my supper hot. She had a big apron tied way up under her armpits, and was bustling around the kitchen as if she were getting ready to feed harvest hands. If I’d eaten all the supper she dished out for me I’d have burst.

It took Philip and me all the rest of the evening just to lug the junk and ashes out of the cellar and pile it in the back yard, while Mother and Grace scrubbed the walls and ceiling. Between ten and eleven the furnace men finished their job and built the fire.

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