To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 13 - ‘Over There!'

My father, having been refused a return to active duty in the Army Medical Corps, was then turned down again when he tried to enlist as an infantry private (he made the mistake of showing his separation papers... which showed his 1852 date of birth), and then tried to enlist in St Louis with a claimed date of birth of 1872 but was tripped up somehow - and finally did manage to enlist in the Seventh Missouri, an infantry militia regiment formed to replace Kansas City's Third Missouri, which was now the 110^th Combat Engineers training at Camp Funston and about to go ‘Over There'.

This new home guard, made up of the too young, too old, too many dependents, too halt, or too lame, was not fussy about Father's age (sixty-five) in view of his willingness to accept a dull job as supply sergeant and the fact that he needed no training.

I greatly appreciated Father's decision to live with us for the duration. For the first time in my life I had to be the head of the family, and it's really not Maureen's style. I like to work hard and do my best while the key decisions are left up to someone bigger, stronger, and older than I, and with a warm male odour to him. Oh, I'll be a pioneer mother if I must. My great-great-grandmother Kitchin killed three hostiles with her husband's musket after he was wounded -and Father did teach me to shoot.

But I would rather be a womanly woman to a manly one.

Brian was emphatic that I must not let Father dominate me, that I must make the decisions - that I was head of the family. ‘Use Ira to back you up - fine! But you are boss.

Don't let him forget it, don't let our children forget it, and don't you forget it ‘

I sighed internally and said, ‘Yes, sir.'

Brian junior did nobly when he suddenly found himself in his father's shoes - but twelve is young for that job; it was well that his grandfather had agreed to stay with us. Brian junior and his brother George kept on with their jobs, delivering the Journal and lighting street lamps, and still brought home straight A's. When the summer ended and the weather turned cold, I started getting up at 4.30 a.m. as they did, and served them hot cocoa before they started out. They enjoyed it and it made me feel better as I watched them start off to work before daylight. 1917-18 was a bitter winter; they had to bundle up like Eskimos.

I wrote to Betty Lou every week, and also to Nelson. My beastly, lovable cousin Nelson came home on the Monday following the declaration of War and told Betty Lou, ‘Hon, I've found a wonderful way to avoid going into the Army.'

‘How? Castration? Isn't that rather drastic?'

‘Somewhat At least I think so. Guess again:

‘I know! You're going to jail:

‘Even better than jaill. I've joined the Marines.'

So Betty Lou was managing our mine. I had no doubt that she could do it; she had been in on every detail from the day we acquired majority ownership. She was not a mining engineer but neither was Nelson. The minority owner was our mining superintendent - not a graduate engineer either but with over twenty-five years of white metals experience.

It seemed to me that it would work. It would have to work. It was ‘Root, hog, or die.'

During those war years people all over our beloved country were doing things they had never done before - doing them well or doing them badly, but trying. Women who had never driven even a team of horses were driving tractors, because their husbands had gone to ‘Hang the Kaiser!' Student nurses were supervising whole wards because graduate nurses were in uniform. Ten-year-old boys such as my George were knitting squares for blankets for British Tommies and buying Baby Bonds with money earned from newspaper routes. There were dollar-a-year men, and four-minute speakers, and Salvation Army lassies (loved by every serviceman), and volunteers for every sort of special war work, from rolling bandages to collecting walnut shells and peach pits for gas masks.

Meanwhile, what did Maureen do? Nothing much, I suppose. I cooked and kept house for a family of ten, with much help from my four oldest and even some from my eight year-old, Marie. I never missed a Red Cross bandage rolling. I saw to it that my family observed all meatless, wheatless, sweetless day and other economies of scarce foods decreed by Mr Herbert Hoover... while learning how to make candies and cookies and cakes with sorghum and com syrup and honey (all unrationed) in place of sugar (rationed) as Corporal Bronson's buddies appeared to be capable of eating a whole bakeshop of such things.

Shortly Carol took over this attempt to fill hollow legs; she considered Corporal Bronson ‘her soldier'. We all wrote to him, in rotation - and he wrote back, to all of us but especially to Father.

There arose a church-sponsored movement for families to ‘adopt' lonely service men. Carol wanted us to adopt Corporal Bronson... so we did, subject to Brian's approval, which came by return mail.

I wrote to my husband every day - and would tear up a letter and start again if, on rereading, I found in it bad news or a flavour of self-pity... which meant that I tore up letters again and again and again until I learned how to write a proper Lucasta letter, one to lift a warrior's morale, not drag him down.

That early in the War Brian was not far away, at Camp Funston, adjacent to Manhattan, Kansas, about a hundred miles west of Kansas City. After three months of not coming home at all Briney started coming home about once a month for short weekends - Saturday afternoons to Sunday evenings - when and if he could arrange to ride with another officer. It was a practical distance for a 44 hour pass (noon Saturday to 8.= a.m. Monday) by automobile, but not for travel by train. In those days trains were ordinarily much faster than automobiles, as there were so few paved roads - none in Kansas that I can remember. There was a direct rail line, the Union Pacific. But on all railroads troop trains had first priority, freight trains heading east had second priority, other freight trains had third priority - and passenger trains could use the rails only when nobody else wanted them. Wartime precedence - Mr McAdoo was strict about it. So Brian's trips home were infrequent as they depended on duty schedules of brother officers with automobiles.

I sometimes wondered whether or not Brian regretted having sold El Reo Grande. But I did not say anything and neither did he. Count your blessings, Maureen! This is wartime and your husband is a soldier. Be glad he is able to come home occasionally and that he is not (yet) being shot at.

The carnage in Europe got worse and worse. In March 1917 the Tsar was overthrown. In November 1917 the Communist Bolsheviki displaced President Kerensky's government, and the Communists immediately surrendered to the Germans.

From then on we were in for it. The German veterans from the Eastern Front were moving by whole divisions to the Western Front at a time when we had landed only a few of our troops in France. The Allies were in bad trouble.

I did not know it. Certainly my children did not. I suspect that they reckoned their father was equal to at least to German divisions.

In May 1918 I was able to tell my husband that we had ‘rung the cash register' on his last weekend at home; I was two weeks overdue. Yes, I know that with many women this is not a sure sign - but it is with Maureen. I felt so euphoric about it that I avoided reading the newspapers and just enjoyed being me.

Brian went into Manhattan and telephoned me from there, for privacy. ‘Is this Myrtle, the Fertile Turtle?'

I answered, not so loud, Claude; you'll wake my husband. No, I won't be fertile again for another eight months.'

‘Congratulations! I'll plan on coming home for Christmas; you won't need me sooner than that'

‘Now you listen to me, Roscoe; I'm not taking the veil, I'm merely having a baby. And I do have other offers.'

‘From Sergeant Bronson, perhaps?'

I caught my breath and did not answer. Presently Brian said, ‘What's the matter, love? Children where they can overhear you?'

‘No, sir. I've taken the phone into our bedroom and there is no one else upstairs. Beloved, that man is as stubborn as my father. I have invited him here, Father has invited him here, and Carol invites him at least once a week. He thanks us... and then says that he doesn't know when he'll be granted any leave. He's admitted that he is off duty alternate weekends but he says that the actual time on pass is not enough to go that far from camp.'

‘That's almost true. Since he doesn't have a car. Since he left his car with Ira. Or with Brian Junior.'

‘Pish and tosh. The Weston boy is home every other weekend and he's only a private. I think I'm a woman scorned.

‘Nick Weston picks up his son in Junction City and you know why. But don't fret, Mabel; the money's on the table. I saw Carol's favourite soldier just today.'

I reswallowed my heart. ‘Yes, Briney?'

‘I find that I agree with Carol. And with mon beau-père. I already knew that Bronson is as fine a sergeant instructor as we have; I've checked his efficiency marks each week. As for Sergeant Bronson himself, he puts me in mind of Ira. As Ira must have looked at that age.'

‘Sergeant Bronson and I look like twins.'

‘So you do but on you it looks better.'

‘Oh, fiddle! You have always said that I look my best with a pillow over my face.'

‘I say that to keep you from becoming too conceited, beautiful. You are gorgeous and everybody knows it, and you look like Sergeant Bronson in spite of it. But he is most like Ira in his personality and in his gung-ho attitude. I fully understand your wish to trip him and beat him to the rug. If you still feel that way. Do you?'

I took a deep breath and sighed it out. ‘I do, sir. If our daughter Carol doesn't crowd me out and beat me to it.'

‘No, no! By seniority, please; this is wartime. Make her wait her rum.'

‘Don't tell Carol it's okay unless you mean it, dear man because she means it.'

‘Well, somebody's going to do it to Carol... and I think a lot better of Bronson than I do of that pimply young snot who broke in our Nancy. Don't you?'

‘Oh, heavens, yes! But the matter is academic; I have given up all hope of getting Sergeant Bronson to enter this house. Until the War is over, at least.'

‘I told you not to fret. A little bird whispered in my ear that Bronson will soon receive a midweek pass.'

‘Oh, Brian!' (I knew what a midweek pass meant: orders overseas.)

‘Ira was right; Bronson is eager to go Over There, so I put him on the list, a special requisition from Pershing's staff for sergeant instructors. Another little bird let me know that my own request was being acted on favourably. So I expect to be home about the same time. But - Listen closely. I think I can arrange it so that you will have a twenty-four-hour clear shot at him. Can you bring him down in that length of time'?'

‘Oh, goodness, Briney!'

‘Can-you, or can't you? I've known you to manage it in an hour with just a horse and buggy to work with; today you have at your disposal a guest bedroom with its own bath. What does it take? Cleopatra's barge?'

‘Brian, Father supplied that horse and buggy knowing what was up and actively co-operating. But this time he considers it his bounden duty to stand over me with a shotgun. Except that it is a loaded thirty-eight and he would not hesitate to use it.'

‘Can't have that; General Pershing wouldn't like it good sergeant instructors are scarce. So I had better brief Ira on the operation plan before I hang up which I must soon; I am running out of nickels and dimes. Is Ira there?'

‘I'll get him.'

Sergeant Theodore did get that midweek pass, from just after Retreat on Monday to eight o'clock muster Thursday morning - and at last he did come to Kansas City. At that time the picture shows always included a comedy - John Bunty, Fatty Arbuckle, Charlie Chaplin, or the Keystone Kops. That week I managed to outdo both Fatty Arbuckle and the Keystone Kops in always stepping into a bucket or falling over my feet.

To begin with, that difficult man, Sergeant Theodore, did not show up at our house until late Tuesday afternoon... when Brian had told me that Sergeant Theodore's pass should cause him to arrive at our house by mid-morning at the latest.

‘Where have you been? What took you so long?' No, I did not say anything of the sort. I may have felt like saying it... but I had learned the relative merits of honey and vinegar back when I was still a virgin - a long time ago indeed. Instead I took his hand, kissed his cheek, and said in my warmest voice, ‘Sergeant Theodore... it is so good to have you home.'

I played Cornelia and her jewels before and during dinner - held my peace and smiled while all my children vied for his attention... including Father who wanted to talk soldier talk with him. At the end of dinner Father suggested (by prearrangement with me) that Staff Sergeant Bronson take me for a spin, and then squelched attempts by the younger children to come along especially Woodrow who wanted both to play chess and to be taken to Electric Park.

So at last Sergeant Theodore and I headed south just at sundown. In 1918 there was very little south ff 39^th Street on the east side of Kansas City even though the city line had been pushed clear south to 77^th Street in order to include Swope Park. Swope Park had many popular lovers' lanes but I wanted a place much more private - and knew some, as Briney and I searched all the back roads one time and another, looking for what Briney called ‘poontang pastures', grassy places private enough to evade the buzzard eye of Mrs Grundy.

All along the east side of Kansas City runs the Blue River.

In 1918 it held many delightful spots - as well as thick bushes, deep mud, chiggers, mosquitoes, and poison ivy; one had to know where to go. If you went south but not too far south, and knew where to cross the tracks of the St Looie and Frisco, you could work your way into a wooded, grassy dell as nice as anything in Swope Park but utterly private, as it was surrounded by river and railroad embankment save for one narrow lane leading into it.

I wanted that particular spot; I was sentimental about it. When in 1912 we had become footloose through Briney's having purchased El Reo Grande, that was the first place Briney had taken me for outdoor loving. That delightful picnic (I had fetched along a lunch) was the occasion on which I became pregnant with Woodrow.

I wanted to receive my new love into me first on that very spot - and then tell my husband about it in every detail, giggling with him over it while we made love. Briney did so enjoy my trips over the fence and always wanted to hear about them before, during, or after our own lovemaking, or all three, as a sauce to encourage us in more and heartier lovemaking.

Brian always told me about his own adventures, but what he liked best was to hear about mine.

So I took Sergeant Theodore to the spot marked X.

Time was short; I had promised Father that I would stay out, at most, only long enough to tumble him, then wait another half or three-quarters of an hour for that wonderful, relaxed second go at it - cal it ten-thirty or eleven. So I should be home about the time you get back from the Armoury, Father.'

Father agreed that my plans were reasonable... including our need for a second engagement if the first one went well.

‘Very well, Daughter. lf you have to be later, please telephone so that we won't worry. And... Maureen.'

‘Yes, Father?'

‘Enjoy it, darling.'

‘Oh, mon cher papa, tu es aimable! Je t'adore!'

‘Go out there and adore Sergeant Ted. You will probably be his last piece for a long time... so make it a good one! Love you, best of daughters.'

My usual method of letting myself be seduced is to decide ahead of time, create or help create the opportunity, then cooperate with whatever advances the nominal seducer makes. (Contrariwise, if I have decided against it, I simply see to it that no opportunity arises.) That night I did not have time for the ladylike pianissimo protocol. i had just this one chance and only two hours to make it work - and no second chance; Theodore was going overseas. A warrior's farewell had to be now.

So Maureen was not ladylike. As soon as we turned off Benton Boulevard and the gathering dusk had given us some privacy, I asked him to put his arm around me. When he did so, I reached up, took his hand and placed it on my right breast. Most men understand that.

Theodore understood it. He caught his breath. I said, ‘We haven't time to be shy, dear Theodore. Don't be afraid to touch me.'

He cupped my breast. ‘I love you, Maureen!'

I answered soberly, ‘We have loved each other since the night we met. We simply could not say so.' I raised his hand, then slid it down the full neck of my dress, felt scalding excitement as his hand touched my breast.

He answered huskily, ‘Yes. I didn't dare tell you.'

‘You would never have told me, Theodore. So I had to be bold and let you know that I feel just as you do. Our turn is just ahead.'

‘I think I remember it from bringing your children out here. I'll need both hands to drive that lane'

So I'll let you have your hand back - temporarily. As soon as we are in there and you have stopped the car, I want both your hands on me and all your attention.'

‘Yes!'

He drove in, turned his car around and headed out, turned off his lights and stopped his engine, set his hand brake and turned to me. He took me in his arms and we kissed, a fully shared kiss, with our tongues exploring and caressing and talking wordlessly. I was in Heaven. I still think that a totally unrestrained kiss is more intimate than coupling; a woman should never kiss that way unless she intends to couple at once in whatever way be wants her.

Without words I said this to Theodore. As soon as our tongues met I pulled up my skirt, took his hand and put it between my thighs. He still hesitated, so I moved his hand further up.

No more hesitation - All Theodore needed was to be certain that I knew what I wanted and that his best attentions were welcome. He explored me gently, then slipped a finger inside. I let it enter, then squeezed it as hard as I could - and congratulated myself on never having skipped my exercises even a day since Ethel was born, two years earlier. I love to surprise a man with the strength of my vaginal sphincter. My passage is so baby-stretched that, if I did not work endlessly to overcome it, I would be ‘big as a barn door and loose as a goose' - so says my father, whose advice got me started on this routine years ago.

We were now past all shyness, any turning back. But I had something I had to tell him. I got my tongue back and took my mouth a half-inch from his, chuckled against his mouth.

‘Surprised to find that I am not wearing bloomers? I took them off when I went upstairs... for I can't tell my gallant warrior a proper farewell with drawers in the way. Do hold back, beloved soldier mine; you can't harm me, I'm expecting.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Must I always be the bold one? I am pregnant, Theodore; no possible doubt, I am seven weeks gone. So don't use a rubber on me -‘

‘I can't, I don't have one.'

‘So? Then isn't it nice that you don't need one? But didn't you expect to have me?'

‘No. I did not. Not at all.'

‘But you're going to have me. You can hardly get out of it now. You'll have me bare, darling, no rubber. Would you like me to be bare all over? I will be if you ask me to. I'm not afraid.'

He stopped to kiss me fiercely. ‘Maureen, I don't think you are ever afraid of anything.'

‘Oh, yes, I am. I would not dare be alone on 12^th Street at night. But afraid of sex and loving? No, not anything I can think of. So help yourself, my darling. If I know how, I'll do it. If I don't, show me and I'll try.' (Theodore, stop talking and take me!)

‘This seat is narrow.'

‘I hear that the young people take out the back seat and put it on the ground. There is a robe in the back seat, too.'

‘Um, yes.'

We got out of his car - and ran into the most confounded Keystone Kops contretemps I have ever experienced.

Woodrow.

My favourite, Woodrow, whom I could happily have throttled at that, moment, was in the back seat, and woke up as I opened the door. Well, I think be woke up; he may have been awake and listening the whole time - memorising any words he did not know, for later investigation - and blackmail.

Oh, that boy! Would the world let him grow up? I wondered.

But what I said, in my happiest voice, was: ‘Woodrow, you're a scamp! Sergeant Theodore! See who was sleeping in the back seat' I reached behind me and tried to button Tbeodore's breeches.

‘Sergeant Ted promised to take me to Electric Park!'

So we went to Electric Park, thoroughly chaperoned.

I wonder if other women have as much trouble getting themselves ‘ruined' as I do?

About twenty hours later I was in my own bed, my husband Captain Brian Smith on my right, my lover Captain Lazarus Long on my left. Each had an arm under my neck, each was using his free hand to caress me.

I was saying, ‘Brian beloved, when Lazarus completed the ritual by answering, "But not ‘While the Evil Days Come Not'," I almost fainted. When he said that he was descended from me - from us, you and me - from all three of us, you and me and Woodrow - I was convinced that I was losing my mind. Or had lost it.'

Briney tickled my right nipple. ‘Don't worry about it, Swivel Hips; on a woman it hardly shows. As long as she can still cook. Hey! Stop that.'

I eased up on him. ‘Sissy. I didn't do that very hard.'

‘I'm in a weakened condition. Captain Long, as I understand it, you decided to reveal yourself - against your own best interests I believe - in order to tell me that I won't get hurt in this war.'

‘No, Captain, not that at all.'

Briney sounded puzzled. ‘I must confess that I don't understand.'

‘I revealed that I am a Howard from the future in order to reassure Mrs Smith. She's been worrying herself sick that you might not come back. So I told her that I was certain that you did come back. Since you are one of my direct ancestors, I studied your biographical résumé before I left Boondock. So I knew.'

‘Well... I appreciate your motives; Maureen is my treasure. But it is reassuring to me, too.'

‘Excuse me, Captain Smith. I did not say that you won't get hurt in this war.'

‘Eh? But you just did. So I thought.'

‘No, sir. I said that you will come back. You will. But I did not say that you won't get hurt. The Archives in Boondock are silent on that point. You may lose an arm. Or a leg. Or your eyes. Or even become a basket case; I don't know. I'm sure of just this much: you will live through it and won't lose your testicles and penis, because the Archives show that you two have several more children. Ones you will sire after you come back from France. You see, Captain, the Howard Family Archives are mostly genealogies, with few details otherwise.'

‘Captain Long -‘

‘Better call me "Bronson", sir. Here I'm a staff sergeant; my ship is light-years away and far in the future.'

‘Then knock off calling me "Captain" for Pete's sake. I'm Brian; you're Lazarus.'

‘Or Ted. Your children call me Uncle Ted or Sergeant Ted. Calling me Lazarus could involve all sorts of explanations.'

I said, ‘Theodore, Father knows you are Lazarus and so do Nancy and Jonathan. And so will Carol when you take her to bed. You let me tell Nancy when you took her to bed; my big girls are too close to each other to keep such secrets from each other. So it seems to me.'

‘Maureen, I said that you could tell anyone because you would not be believed. Nevertheless each case involves long explanations. But why are you assuming that I am going to take Carol to bed? I did not say that I would. And I have not asked for that privilege.'

I turned my face to the right. ‘Briney, do you hear this man? Do you see now why it has taken me more than a year to trip him? He didn't offer the slightest objection to screwing Nancy -‘

Tm not surprised; neither did I.' My husband leered and licked his lips. ‘Nancy is special. I told you.'

‘You're an old goat, my beloved. I don't believe you've turned down anything female since you were nine -‘

‘Eight.'

‘You're boasting. And untruthful. And Theodore is just as bad. He let me think that he was willing to satisfy Carols greatest ambition once I cleared it with headquarters, meaning you... and I did, and then I told Carol not to despair, that Mama was working on it and it looked hopeful; quite hopeful. And now he acts as if he had never heard of the idea.'

‘But, Maureen, I expected Brian to object. And he has:

‘Now wait a moment, Lazarus. I did not object. Carol is physically a grown woman and - I have today learned - no longer a virgin... and not surprising; she's a year older than her mother was -‘

‘More nearly two,' I put in.

‘Shut up, you; I'm pimping for our daughter. All I did was lay down some reasonable rules for Carol's protection. Lazarus, you did agree that they were reasonable?'

‘Oh, certainly, Captain. I simply refused to accept them. My privilege. Just as it is your privilege to make them. I have accepted that you do not want me to copulate with your daughter Carol other than by your rules. That settles it; I won't touch her.'

‘Very well, sir!'

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen!' I almost let my voice rise. ‘You both sound like Woodrow. What are these rules?'

Theodore said nothing.

Brian answered in a pained voice, ‘First, I asked him to use a rubber. Didn't matter with you or Nancy; both of you broads are knocked up. He refused. I then -‘

‘Are you surprised, my darling? I've often heard you refer to it as "washing your feet with your socks on".'

‘Yes, but Carol does not need a baby this season. Certainly not a little bastard before she's considered her Howard options. But, Mo, I did concede that Ted is himself a Howard. I simply said that, all right, if Carol got pregnant from giving him a soldier's farewell, I wanted him to promise that he would come back when the war is over and marry Carol and take her and her baby to - What's that you call your planet, Captain? Boondock?'

‘Boondock is a city; my home is in its suburbs. The planet is Tellus Tertius, Earth Number Three.'

I sighed. ‘Theodore, why wouldn't you agree to that? You tell us that you have four wives and three co-husbands. Why wouldn't you be willing to marry our Carol? She is a good cook, and she doesn't eat all that much. And she's very sweet tempered and loving.' I was thinking how dearly I would like to go to Boondock... and marry Tamara. Not that I ever would; I had Briney and our babies to take care of. But even an old woman can dream.

Theodore said slowly, ‘I abide by my own roles, for my own reasons. If Captain Smith does not trust me with respect to my behaviour toward other people -‘

‘Not "other people", Captain! A particular sixteen-yearold girl named Carol. I am responsible for her welfare.'

‘So you are. I repeat, "other people", be they sixteen-yearold girls or whosoever. You don't trust me without promises; I don't give promises. That ends it and I am sorry the matter ever came up. I did not bring it up. Captain, I did not come here to bed your ladies; I came to say goodbye and thank you to a whole family all of whom had been most generous and hospitable to me. I have not intended to disturb your household. I'm sorry, sir.'

‘Ted, don't be so damned stiff-necked. You sound just like my father-in-law when he gets his back up. You have not disturbed my household. You have pleased my wife enormously and for that I thank you. And I know that you were trapped by her; she told me months ago what she intended to do to you if she ever got you alone. This discussion is just over Carol, who has no claim on you. If you don't want her under what I see as minimum protection for her welfare, then let her stick to boys her own age. As she should.'

‘Agreed, sir.'

‘Damn it; knock off the sirs; you're in bed with my wife. And me.'

‘Oh, dear!'

‘Mo, it's the only sensible solution.'

‘Men! Always doing what you call "sensible" and always so wrong-headed and stubborn! Briney, don't you realise that Carol doesn't give a hoot about promises? She just wants to spread her legs and close her eyes and pope that she catches. If she doesn't catch, a month from now she's going to cry her eyes out. If she does catch, well, I trust Theodore and so does Carol.'

Briney said, ‘Oh, for God's sake, Mo! Ted, ordinarily she is quite easy to live with.'

Theodore said, ‘Maureen, you said, "A month from now she's going to cry her eyes out." Do you know her calendar?'

‘Why, yes. Well, maybe. Let me think.' My girls kept their own calendars... but old snoopy Mama kept her eyes open, just in case. ‘Today is Wednesday. If I recall correctly, Carol is doe again three weeks from tomorrow. Why?'

‘Do you remember the thumb rule I gave you to ensure, uh, "ringing the cash register" you called it.'

‘Yes, indeed. You said to count fourteen days from onset of menses, then hit that day. And the day before and the day after, if possible.'

‘Yes, that is how to get pregnant, a thumb role. But it works the other way, too. How not to get pregnant. If a woman is regular. If she is not abnormal in some way. Is Carol regular?'

‘Like a pendulum. Twenty-eight days.'

‘Brian, stipulating that Maureen's recollection of Carol's calendar is accurate -‘

‘I would bet on it. Mo hasn't made a mistake in arithmetic since she found out about mo and two.'

‘ - if so, Carol can't get pregnant this week... and I'll be on the high seas the next time she is fertile. But this week a whole platoon of Marines could not knock her up.'

Briney looked thoughtful. ‘I want to talk to Ira. If he agrees with you, I'll drop all objections.'

‘No.'

‘What do you mean "No"? No rules. Relax.'

‘No, sir. You don't trust and I don't promise. The situation is unchanged.'

I was ready to burst into tears from sheer exasperation. Men's minds do not work the way ours do and we will never understand them. Yet we can't get along without them.

I was saved from making a spectacle of myself by a knock on the door. Nancy.

‘May I come in?'

‘Come in, Nance!' Briney called out.

‘Come in, dear,' I echoed.

She came in and I thought how lovely she looked. She was freshly shaved that morning, in preparation for a swap that Nancy and Jonathan had asked for - Jonathan into my bed, Nancy into, Theodore's. Theodore had hesitated - afraid of hurting my feelings - but I had insisted, knowing what a treat our Nancy would be for Theodore (and Theodore for Nancy!)

(And Jonathan for Maureen; I was flattered enormously that Jonathan had suggested it.)

Father had taken the rest of my zoo to the Al G. Barnes Circus, playing in Independence - all but Ethel, too young for the circus, too young to notice; I had her crib in my bathroom, safe and in earshot.

That playful swap had gore beautifully and made me think even more highly of my prospective son-in-law. About three o'clock we four, Nancy and Theodore, Jonathan and I, had gathered in ‘Smith Field', my big bed, mostly to chat. As Briney often said, ‘You can't do it all the time, but there is no limit to how much you can talk about it.'

We four were still lounging in Smith Field, talking and necking, when Brian telephoned - he had just arrived in town, on leave. I told him to hurry home and cued him in family code as to what he could expect. Nancy understood the coded message and looked wide-eyed but said nothing.

Thirty-odd minutes later she closed her eyes and opened her thighs and for the first time received her father - then opened her eyes and looked at Jonathan and me, and grinned. I grinned back at her; Jonathan was too busy to look.

What this world needs is more loving, sweaty and friendly and unashamed.

Then the children had gore downstairs; Nancy had sensed that I wanted time alone with my two men. She took the telephone with her, long cord and all. Now she stood by the bed and smiled at us.

‘Did you hear the phone ring? It was Grandpa. He said to tell you that the zoo wagon will arrive - that's your car, Ted-Lazarus darling - will arrive at exactly six-oh-five p...o Jonathan is bathing and I warned him not to use all the hot water. He left.his clothes up here; I'll take them down to him, then I'll bathe and dress up here. Ted-Lazarus dear, where are your clothes?'

‘In the sewing-room. I'll be right down.'

‘Cancel that,' Brian said. ‘Nance, fetch Ted's clothes when you come up, that's my sweet girl. Ted, in this family we spit in their eyes and tell'em to go to hell. You don't need to dress until we do, after the doorbell rings: A husband is all the chaperone a wife needs, and I don't explain to my children why we choose to have a guest upstairs. As for mon beau père, he knows the score and is our shut-eye sentry. If Carol guesses, she won't talk. Thanks, Nancy.'

‘Pas de quoi, mon cher père. Papa! Is it true that Ted doesn't have to go back tonight?'

‘Ted goes back with me, Sunday night. Special duty, assigned to me - and I sold him, body and soul, to your mother, who may kill him by then -‘

‘Oh, no!' Both my daughter and I said it.

‘Or not, but shell try. Now get along, darling, and ser that door to latch as you close it.'

Nancy did so; my husband turned to me. ‘Flame Top, it is now five-forty. Can you figure out a way to entertain Ted and me for the next twenty-five minutes?'

I took a deep breath. I'll try.'