Our Next-Door Neighbors. Maniates Belle Kanaris
assured her it would be no vacation without her.
“Do you know, Lucien,” she proposed diffidently, “I think it would be an excellent plan to invite Uncle Issachar to visit us. He knows no more about children than I do–than I did, I mean, and if he should see the Polydores he’d give us five thousand each for the children we didn’t have.”
I wouldn’t consent to this plan. I had met Uncle Issachar once. He was a crusty old bachelor with a morbid suspicion that everyone was working him for his money. I don’t wonder he thought so. He had no other attractions.
Perceiving the strength of my opposition Silvia sweetly and sagaciously refrained from further pressure.
“We should not repine,” she said. “We have health and happiness and love. What are pianos and cars and trips compared to such assets?”
What, indeed! I admitted that things might be worse.
Alas! All too soon was my statement substantiated. That night after we had gone to bed, I heard a taxicab sputtering away at the house next door.
“The Polydores must have unexpected guests,” I remarked.
“I trust they brought no children with them,” murmured Silvia drowsily.
The next morning while we were at breakfast, the odor of June roses wafting in through the open window, the delicious flavor of red-ripe strawberries tickling our palate, and the anticipation of rice griddle-cakes exhilarating us, the millennium came.
For the five young Polydores bore down upon us en masse.
“Father and mother have gone away,” proclaimed Ptolemy, who was always spokesman for the quintette.
This intelligence was of no particular interest to us–not then, at least. We rarely saw father and mother Polydore, and they were apparently of no need to their offspring.
Ptolemy’s next announcement, however, was startling and effective in its dramatic intensity.
“We’ve come over to stay with you while they are away.”
I laughed; jocosely, I thought.
Silvia paid no heed to my forced hilarity, but ejaculated gaspingly:
“Why, what do you mean!”
“They have gone away somewhere,” enlightened our oracle. “They went to the train last night in a taxi. They have gone somewhere to find out something about some kind of aborigines.”
“Which reminds me,” I remarked reminiscently, “of the man who traveled far and vainly in search of a certain plant which, on his return, he found growing beside his own doorstep.”
Silvia paid no heed to my misplaced pleasantry. She was right–as usual. It was no time for levity.
“I don’t see,” spoke my unappreciative wife, addressing Ptolemy, “why their absence should make any difference in your remaining at home. Gladys can cook your meals and put Diogenes to bed as usual.”
“Gladys has gone,” piped Demetrius. “She left yesterday afternoon. She was only staying till she could get her pay.”
“Father forgot to get another girl in her place,” informed Ptolemy, “and he forgot to tell mother he had forgotten until just before they went to the train. She said it didn’t matter–that we could just as well come over here and stay with you.”
“She said,” added Pythagoras, “that you were so crazy over children, that probably you’d be glad to have us stay with you all the time.”
My last strawberry remained poised in mid-air. It was quite apparent to me now that there was nothing funny about this situation.
“Milk, milk!” whimpered Diogenes, pulling at Silvia’s dress and making frantic efforts to reach the cream pitcher.
Huldah had come in with the griddle-cakes during this avalanche of news.
“Here, all you kids!” commanded our field marshal, as she picked up Diogenes, “beat it to the kitchen, and I’ll give you some breakfast. Hustle up!”
The Polydores, whose eyes were bulging with expectancy and semi-starvation, tumbled over each other in their eagerness to “hustle up and beat it to the kitchen.” Our oiler of troubled waters followed, and there was assurance of a brief lull.
“What shall we do!” I exclaimed helplessly when the door had closed on the last Polydore. I felt too limp and impotent to cope with the situation. Not so Silvia.
“Do!” she echoed with an intensity of tone and feeling I had never known her to display. “Do! We’ll do something, I am sure! I will not for a moment submit to such an imposition. Who ever heard of such colossal nerve! That father and mother should be brought back and prosecuted. I shall report them to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But we won’t wait for such procedure. We’ll express each and every Polydore to them at once.”
“I should certainly do that P.D.Q. and C.O.D.,” I acquiesced, “if the Polydore parents could be located, but you know the abodes of aborigines are many and scattered.”
My remarks seemed to fall as flat as the flapjacks I was siruping.
Silvia arose, determination in every lineament and muscle, and crossed the room. She opened the door leading into the kitchen.
“Ptolemy,” she demanded, “where have your father and mother gone?”
He came forward and replied in a voice somewhat smothered by cakes and sirup.
“I don’t know. They didn’t say.”
“We can find out from the ticket-agent,” I optimistically assured her.
“They never bother to buy tickets. Pay on the train,” Ptolemy explained.
My legal habit of counter-argument asserted itself.
“We can easily ascertain to what point their baggage was checked,” I remarked, again essaying to maintain a rôle of good cheer.
But the pessimistic Ptolemy was right there with another of his gloom-casting retaliations.
“They only took suit-cases and they always keep them in the car. Here’s a check father said to give you to pay for our board. He said you could write in any amount you wanted to.”
“He got a lot of dough yesterday,” informed Pythagoras, “and he put half of it in the bank here.”
Ptolemy handed over a check which was blank except for Felix Polydore’s signature.
“I don’t see,” I weakly exclaimed when my wife had closed the kitchen door, “why she put them off on us. Why didn’t she trade her brats off for antiques?”
Silvia eyed the check wistfully. I could read the unspoken thought that here, perhaps, was the opportunity for our much-desired trip.
“No, Silvia,” I answered quickly, “not for any number of blank checks or vacation trips shall you have the care and annoyance of those wild Comanches.”
“I know what I’ll do!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I’ll go right down to the intelligence office and get anything in the shape of a maid and put her in charge of the Polydore caravansary with double wages and every night out and any other privileges she requests.”
This seemed a sane and sensible arrangement, and I wended my way to my office feeling that we were out of the woods.
When I returned home at noon, I found that we had only exchanged the woods for water–and deep water at that.
I beheld a strange sight. Silvia sat by our bedroom window twittering soft, cooing nonsensical nothings to Diogenes, who was clasped in her arms, his flushed little face pressed close to her shoulder.
“He’s been quite ill, Lucien. I was frightened and called the doctor. He said it was only the slight fever that children are subject to. He thought with good care that he’d be all right in a few days.”
“Did