That Quail, Robert by Margaret Stanger

Author:Margaret Stanger
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

I tried it. I tried it several times. When out there by herself, she paid no attention to a choice ant, she did not go into the geranium bed—she just stood on the brick step and cried. I tried shutting the inside door so that I could not hear her. But at those times I stood by the kitchen sink looking out the window where I could watch her. There she stood, looking up at the door, and I could tell that she was crying by the regular motion of her throat. I timed my last such attempt, and after twenty minutes she was still standing there on the step looking so pitiful that I went out to her, picked her up and cuddled her, to her intense relief, saying, “I give up. You win.” After all, what is a mere three months?

I had made arrangements with a bird-loving neighbor Helen Lindorff to baby-sit when I had to be away longer than it takes just to do some marketing. This worked out beautifully, to the complete satisfaction of all three of us. On the occasions when Robert was alone for perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour, I wondered where she would choose to wait, since she had rejected the shoes. She solved this the third day. From that day on, she was always to be found on top of an old Bible on the blanket chest in the front bedroom. It had two advantages: she could look out the window and it was near a large table lamp, which I often turned on for her if it was cool in the bedroom. She even went so far as to get up there before I left, when she saw me put a coat on and take my car keys. The only other place I ever found her, which was always when I had to leave her for a few minutes in the evening before she went to bed, was in the living room on a New Testament which was on a little table by a big chair. I know as well as the next person that this was sheer coincidence, but it was an odd coincidence. The odd part of it was that the two volumes were not alike at all as to binding. The Bible was a soft leather; the other book had a carved olive-wood cover. But the indisputable fact remains that the Bible and the Testament were her refuge in times of lonesomeness.

All this did not constitute the inconvenience it might seem to, because I had all my evenings free. She always went to bed between six-thirty and seven; and after her wild rice and V-8 and a few minutes of a sleepy little song, she never stirred until I got up in the morning. My friends were most cooperative. Any invitation to a tea or a party was tendered with the opening question, “Can you get your baby sitter for Thursday afternoon?”

Thus began one of the happiest, and certainly the most instructive ninety-six days of my life.

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