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

Chapter 4 - The Worm in the Apple

Father let Daisy amble on quite a piece before he answered.' I suppose it is prostitution, if you want to stretch the definition to cover it. It does involve payment, not for intercourse per se, but for the result of that intercourse, a baby. The Howard Foundation will not pay you to marry a man on their list, nor is he paid for marrying you. In fact you are never paid; he is paid... for every baby you bear, sired by him!

I listened and found myself humiliated by these arrangements. I was never one of those women demanding the vote... but fair is fair! Somebody was going to inseminate me... then, when I groaned and moaned the way Mother does and gave birth to a baby, he gets paid. I fumed to myself.

‘It still sounds like whoring, Father, from where I sit. What's the going rate? How much does my hypocritical, hypothetical husband get paid for each set of my labour pains and one smelly baby?'

‘No set price.'

‘What? Mon papa, that is a hell of a way to run a business. I lie down and spread my legs, by contract. Nine months later my husband is paid... five dollars? Fifty cents? This is not a good bet. I think I would be better off to move to Kansas City and walk the streets.'

‘Maureen. Behave yourself.'

I took a deep breath, and held it. Then I lowered my voice an octave, the way I had been practising lately. (I had promised myself never to let my voice get shrill.) I'm sorry, sir. I guess I'm just another vapourish ex-virgin - I had thought I was more grown up.' I sighed. ‘But it does seem crass.'

‘Yes, perhaps "crass" is le mot juste. But let me tell you how it works. No one will ask you to marry anyone. If you consent, your mother and I will submit your name to the Foundation, along with a questionnaire that I will help you fill out. In return they will send you a list of young men. Each man on that list will be what is called an "eligible bachelor" - eligible quite aside from the Foundation and its money.

‘He will be young, not more than ten years older than you are, but more likely about your age -‘

‘Fifteen?' I was amazed. Shocked.

‘Simmer down, flame top. Your name is not yet on the list. I'm telling you this now because it is not fair not to let you know about the Howard Foundation option once you have graduated to functioning woman. But you're still too young to marry:

‘In this state I can marry at twelve. With your permission.'

‘You have my permission to marry at twelve. If you can manage it.'

‘Father, you're impossible.'

‘No, merely improbable. He'll be young but older than fifteen. He will be of good health and of good reputation. He wilt be of adequate education -‘

‘He had better be able to speak French, or he won't fit into this family.'

The Thebes school system offered French and German; Edward had picked French, then Audrey also, because both Father and Mother had studied French, and made a habit of shifting to French when they wanted to talk privately in front of us. Audrey and Edward established a precedent; we all followed. I started on French before I could take it in school; I did not like having words talked in front of me that I did not understand.

This precedent affected my whole life - but, again, that's another story.

‘You can teach him French - including that French kissing you asked me about. Now this faceless stranger who ruined our Nell - Can he kiss?'

‘Gorgeously!'

‘Good. Was he sweet to you, Maureen?'

‘Quite sweet. A bit timid but he'll get over that, I think. Uh, Father, it wasn't as much fun as I think it could be. And will be, next time.'

‘Or maybe the time after that. What you're saying is that today's trial run was not as satisfying as masturbation. Correct?'

‘Well, yes, that is what I meant. It was over too fast. He Goodness, you know who drove me to Butler. Chuck. Charles Perkins. He's sweet, cher papa, but... he knows less about it than I do.'

So I would expect. I taught you, and you were an apt student.'

‘Did you teach Audrey... before she got married?'

‘Your mother taught her.'

‘So? I suspect that you taught me more. Uh, was Audrey's marriage sponsored by the Howard Foundation? Is that how she met Jerome?'

‘That is a question never asked Maureen. It would be polite not even to speculate.'

‘Well, excuse my bare face!'

‘I won't excuse your naked manners. I never discuss your private affairs with your siblings; you should not ask me about theirs.'

I suddenly felt the curb bit. ‘I'm sorry, sir. This is all new to me.'

‘Yes. This young man these young men - will all be acceptable prospects... or, if I don't approve of one, I'll tell you why and not permit him in my house. But in addition to everything else, each one will have four living grandparents.'

‘What's special about that? I not only have four living grandparents but also eight living great-grandparents. Have I not?'

‘Yes. Although Grandpaw McFee is a waste of space. If he had died at ninety-five he would have been better off. But that is what this is all about, dear daughter; Ira Howard wanted his fortune used to extend human life. The Foundation trustees have chosen to treat it as if it were a stock breeding problem. Do you recall the papers on Loafer, and the reason I paid a high price for him? Or the papers on Clytemnestra?

You have long life in your ancestry, Maureen, all branches. If you marry a young man on the list, your children will have long life in all their branches.'

Father turned in his seat and looked me in the eye. ‘But nobody - nobody! - is asking you to do anything. If you authorise me to submit your name - not today but let's say next year - it simply means that you will have six or eight or ten or more additional suitors to choose from, instead of being effectively limited to the few young men near your age in Lyle County. If you decide to marry Charles Perkins, I won't say a word. He's healthy, he's well behaved. And he's not my cup of tea. But he may be yours.'

(He's not my cup of tea, either, papa. I guess I was just using him. But I've promised him a return match... so I must.)

‘Father, suppose we hold off until next year?'

‘I think that is sound judgement, Maureen. In the meantime, don't get pregnant and try not to get caught. Oh, by the way - if you submit your name and a young man on the list comes along, if you wish, you can try him out on the parlour sofa: He smiled. ‘More convenient and safer than the judges' stand.'

‘Mother would have heart failure!'

‘No, she would not. Because that is exactly the arrangement her mother provided for her... and that is why Edward was officially a premature baby. Because it is stupid to go the Howard route, then find out after you're committed by marriage vows that the mo of you are infertile with each other.'

I had no answer. Mother... my mother who thought ‘breast' was a dirty word and that ‘belly' was outright profanity... Mother with her bloomers off, bouncing her bawdy buttocks on Grandma Pfeiffer's sofa, making a baby, out of wedlock, while Grandma and Grandpa pretended not to know what was going on. It was easier to believe in virgin birth and transubstantiation and resurrection and Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. We are strangers, all of us, family most of all.

Shortly we pulled into the Jackson Igo place, eighty acres, mostly rocks and hills, a shack and a sorry barn. Mr Igo cropped it a bit but it didn't seem possible that the place supported him and his thin, tired wife and his swarm of dirty children. Mostly Jackson Igo cleaned cesspools and built privies.

Some of those children and half a dozen dogs gathered round our buggy; one boy ran shouting into the house. Presently Mr Igo came out.

Father called out, ‘Jackson!'

‘Yeah, Doc.'

‘Get these dogs away from my rig.'

‘They ain't no harm.'

‘Do it. I won't have them jumping up on me.'

‘Jest as you say, Doc. Cleveland! Jefferson! Get them hounds! Take ‘em around back.'

The order was carried out; Father got down with a quiet word over his shoulder, ‘Stay in the buggy.'

Father was inside their shack only a short time, which suited me, as the oldest boy, Caleb, my age or near it, was pestering me to get down and come see a new litter of pigs. I knew him from school, where he had attended fifth grade for some years. He was, in my opinion, a likely candidate for lynching if some father did not kill him first. I had to tell him to get away from Daisy and quit bothering her; he was causing her to toss her head and back away from him. I took the whip out of its socket to point up my words.

I was glad to see Father reappear.

He climbed into the buggy without a word. I clucked to Daisy and we got out of there. Father was frowning like a thunder cloud, so I kept quiet.

A quarter of a mile down the road he said, ‘Please pull over on to the grass,' so I did, and said to Daisy, ‘Whoa, girl,' and waited.

‘Thank you, Maureen. Will you help me wash, please?'

‘Certainly, sir.' This buggy, used for his country calls and specially built by the carriage-wrights who built his racing sulkies, had a larger baggage space in the back, with a rain cover. In it was carried a number of items that Father might need on a call but which did not belong in his black bag. One was a coal-oil can with a spout, filled with water, and a tin basin, and soap and towelling.

This time he wanted me to pour water over his hands. Then he soaped them; I rinsed them by pouring. He shook them dry; then washed them all over again in the basin and dried them after shaking, on clean towelling.

He sighed. ‘That's better. I did not sit down in there, I did not touch anything I could avoid touching. Maureen, remember that bathtub we used in Chicago?'

‘I certainly do!' The World's Fair had been an endless wonder and I'll never forget my first view of the Lake and my first ride on a railroad train up high in the air... but I dreamed about that tub, all white enamel, and hot water up to my chin. I could be seduced for a hot bath. They say every woman has her price. That's mine.

‘Mrs Malloy charged us two bits for each bath. This minute I would happily pay her two dollars. Maureen, I need glycerine and rose water. In my bag. Please.'

Father compounded this lotion himself and it was intended primarily for chapped hands. Right now he needed it to soothe his hands against the strong lye soap he had just used.

Once back on the road he said, ‘Maureen, that baby was dead long before Jackson Igo sent for me. Since last night, I estimate.'

I tried to feel sorry about that baby. But growing up in that household was no fate to wish on anyone. ‘Then why did he send for you?'

‘To bless the death. To get me to write a death certificate, to keep him from trouble with the law when he buries it... which he is probably doing this very minute. Primarily to cause me - and you - to make a six-mile round trip to save himself the trouble of harnessing his mule and coming into town.' Father laughed without mirth. ‘He kept pointing out that I couldn't charge him for a call since I didn't get there before the baby died. I finally said, "Shut up, Jackson. You haven't paid me a cent since Cleveland beat Harrison." He said something about hard times and how this administration never does anything for the farmer.'

Father sighed. I didn't argue with him; he had a point.

Maureen, you've been keeping my books this past year, would you say these were hard times?'

That brought me up sharp. I had been thinking about the Howard Foundation and Chuck's pretty penis. ‘I don't know, Father. But I know that you have far more on the books than you ever get paid. He noticed something else, too: the worst of the deadbeats would rather owe you a dollar for a house call than fifty cents for an office visit. Like Jackson Igo.'

‘Yes. He could have fetched that little cadaver in - never saw a child so dehydrated! - but I'm relieved that he did not; I don't want him in my clean clinic... or Adele's clean house. You've seen the books; do you estimate that collections are enough to support our family? Food, clothing, shelter, oats and hay, and a nickel for Sunday School?'

I thought about it. I knew my multiplication tables through twenty times twenty, same as everybody, and in high school I had been learning the delights of more advanced ciphering. But I had never applied any of it to our household affairs. Now I drew a blackboard in my mind and did some hard calculating.

‘Father... if they all paid you what they owe you, we would be quite comfortable. But they don't pay you, not enough of them.' I thought. ‘Nevertheless we are comfortable.'

‘Maureen, if you don't want the Howard option, better marry a rich man. Not a country doctor.'

Presently he shrugged and smiled. ‘Don't worry about it. We'll keep food on the table even if I have to slide over into Kansas and rustle cattle. Shall we sing? "Pop Goes the Weasel" would be appropriate today. How is your weasel by now, dear? Sore?'

‘Father, you are a dirty old man and you will come to a bad end.'

‘I've always hoped so, but I've been too busy raising Kinder to raise Cain. Meant to tell you: someone else is interested in your welfare. Old lady Altschuler.'

‘So I know.' I told him about her remark. ‘She thinks I'm Audrey.'

‘That unspeakable old cow. But she may not really think you are Audrey. She asked me what you were doing na the grandstand at the fairgrounds.'

‘Well! What did you tell her?'

‘I told her nit. Silence is all a snoopy question deserves... just fail to hear it. But the insult direct is still better. Which I handed that snapping turtle by ignoring her question and telling her next time to bathe before she comes to see me, as I found her personal hygiene to be less than adequate. She was not pleased.' He smiled. ‘She may be so angry that she will switch to Dr Chadwick. One may hope.'

‘One may. So somebody saw us go up. Well, sir, they did not actually see us doing it' I told Father about the box heavy with weights. ‘Spectators would have to have been in a balloon.'

‘I would say so. Safe enough if not very comfortable. I wish I could extend to you the courtesy of the sofa... but I can't, until you take up the Howard option. If you do. In the meantime let's think about it. Safe places.'

‘Yes, sir. Thank you. What I can't figure out is this: we trimmed the trip to Butler short, in order to conceal the time used up in unscheduled activity. I've been figuring times and differences in my head. Cher papa, unless my arithmetic is wrong -‘

‘It never is.'

‘Whoever spotted us climbing up into my hideaway must then have proceeded at a fast trot to the Altschuler place, reported my sins, then the Ugly Duchess must have been already dressed, with her buggy hitched and ready, to hurry over to sec you. When did she show up?'

‘Let me see. When she arrived, three patients were waiting. I made her wait her turn... so she carne in already angry. I sent her out boiling mad. Hmm... she must have arrived at least an hour before you showed up and bumped into her coming out.'

‘Father, it won't work. Physically impossible. Unless she herself was at the fairgrounds, then drove straight to our house on the pretence of needing to see you.'

‘That's possible. Quite unlikely. But, Maureen, you Nave just encountered a phenomenon that you will see again and again all your life after this red-letter day: the only thing known to science faster than the speed of light is Mrs Grundy's gossip.'

‘I guess so.'

‘I know so. When yon next encounter it, how will you handle it? Do you have that in your commandments?'

‘Uh, no.'

‘Think about it. How will you defend yourself?'

I thought about it for the next half-mile. ‘I won't'

‘Won't what?'

‘I won't defend myself against gossip; I will ignore it. At most I will look her - or him - in the eye and state loudly, "You are a filthy-minded liar." But it's usually best to ignore it entirely. I think.'

‘I think so, too. People of that sort want to be noticed. The cruellest thing you can do to them is to behave as if they did not exist.'

During the remaining half of 1897 I ignored Mrs Grundy while trying to avoid being noticed by her. My public persona was straight out of Louisa M. Alcott while in private I tried to learn more about this amazing new art I don't mean to imply that I spent much time on my back, sweating away for the mutual pleasure of Maureen and His Name Is Legion. Not in Lyle County, not in 1897. Too hard to find a place to do it!

‘Conscience is that little voice that tells you that someone may be watching.' (Anon and op. cit.)

And there was the problem of a satisfactory partner. Charles was a nice boy and I did offer him that encore, and even a third try at it for good measure. The second and third attempts were more comfortable but even less exciting - cold mush without sorghum and cream.

So after the third one I told Charles that someone had seen us on top of Marston Hill and had told one of my sisters... and a good thing that it hadn't been one of my brothers, because I had been able to cool things down with my sister. But he and I had better act as if we had quarrelled... or next time the word might get all the way to my mother, who would tell my father, and then there was just no telling. So you had better leave me alone until school starts, huh? You see, don't you. dear?

I learned that the hardest problem of all in dealing with a man is how to stop dealing with him when he does not want to stop. A century and a half of quite varied experience has not given me any answer that is totally satisfactory.

One partly satisfactory answer that I did not learn until much later than 1897 requires considerable skill, great self control, and some sophistication: the intentional ‘dead arse'. Lie there like a dead woman and, above all, let your inner muscles be utterly relaxed. If you combine that with garlic on your breath, it is likely - although not certain - that he will save you the trouble of thinking of a reason to break off. Then, when he initiates a break, you can be brave about it. A ‘good sport'.

I am not suggesting that lively hips and tight muscles constitute ‘sex appeal'. Such qualities, while useful, are merely equivalent to sharp-tools for a carpenter. My sister wife Tamara, mother of our sister wife Ishtar and at one time the most celebrated whore in ali Secundus, is the epitome of sex appeal... yet she is not especially pretty and no one who has slept with her talks about her technique. But their faces light up when they sec her and their voices throb when they speak of her.

I asked Jubal Harshaw about Tammy because Jubal is the most analytical of my husbands. He said, ‘Mama Maureen, quit pulling my leg. You of all people know the answer.'

I denied it.

‘Ali right,' he said, ‘but I still think you are fishing. Sex appeal is the outer evidence of deep interest in your partner's pleasure. Tammy's got it. So have you and just as strongly. It is not your red hair, wench, or even the way you smell, which is yummy. It is the way you give... when you give.'

Jubal got me so stirred up that I tripped him, then and there.

But in Lyle County in 1897 one cannot simply trip a darling man and have at it; Mrs Grundy is sitting up in every tree, eager to catch you and publish it. So the preliminaries must be more complex. There are plenty of eager males (about twelve in every dozen) but it is necessary to pick the one you want - age, health, cleanliness, personal charm, discretion (if he gossips to you, he will gossip about you), and other factor, that vary with each candidate. Having selected him for the slaughter you must cause him to decide that he wants you while letting him know silently that it is possible. That is easy to phrase but to put it into practice... You'll be honing your skills for a lifetime.

So you reach an agreement... but you still haven't found a place.

After picking a place to shed my virginity I resigned that aspect of the problem. If a boy/man wanted my immoral carcass, he would get his grey matter churning and solve it. Or he could go chase flies.

But I did risk chiggers and (once) poison ivy. He caught it; I seem to be immune.

From June to January three boys ranging from sixteen to twenty had me, and one married man of thirty-one. I added him in on the assumption (false) that a married man would be so skilled that he could set off those fireworks without fail.

Total copulations: nine. Orgasms: three - and one was wonderful. Time actually spent copulated: an average of five minutes per go, which is not nearly enough. I learned that life can be beautiful indeed... but that the males of my circle ranged from clumsy to awkward.

Mrs Grundy apparently did not notice me.

By New Year's Eve I had decided to ask Father to submit my name to the Howard Foundation... not for the money (I still did not know that the payments could amount to enough to matter) but because I would welcome a chance to meet more eligible males; the hunting in Lyle County was too poor to suit Maureen. I had firmly made up my mind that, while sex might not be the be-all and end-all, I did want to marry and it had to be a man who would make me eager to go to bed early.

In the meantime, I kept on trying to make Maureen as desirable a female animal as I could manage and I listened most carefully to my father's advice. (I knew that what I really wanted was a man just like my father, but twenty-five years younger. Or twenty. Make that fifteen. But I was prepared to settle for the best imitation I could find.)

There were two hundred days left in 1897 from that day Chuck and I climbed up into the judges' stand; that makes 200 x 24 x 60 - 288,000 minutes. Circa 45 of those minutes I spent copulated; that leaves 199 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes. It is obvious that I had time for other things.

That summer was one of the best of my life. While I did not get laid very often or very effectively, the idea was on my mind awake and asleep. It brightened my eyes and my days; I shed female pheromones like a female moth and I never stopped smiling - picnics, swimming parties in the Osage (you wouldn't believe what we wore), country dances (frowned on by the Methodist and Baptist churches but sponsored by jack Mormons who welcomed gentiles who might be converted - Father overruled Mother; I went and learned to swing on the corners and dosey-doh), watermelon contests, any excuse to get together.

I stopped thinking about the University of Missouri at Columbia. From Father's books I could see that there just wasn't money to put me through four years of college. I was not anxious to be a nurse or a schoolteacher, so there seemed to be little point in my aspiring to formal (and expensive) higher education. I would always be a bookworm but that does not require a college degree.

So I decided to be the best housewife I could manage - starting with cooking.

I had always taken my turn in the kitchen along with my sisters. I had been assistant cook for the day in rotation since my twelfth birthday. By fifteen I was a good plain cook.

I decided to become a good fancy cook.

Mother remarked on my increased interest. I told her the truth, or some of it. ‘Chére mama, I expect to be married someday. I think the best wedding present I can bring my future husband is good cooking. I may not have the talent to become a gourmet chef. But I can try.'

‘Maureen, you can be anything you want to be. Never forget that'

She helped me, and she taught me, and she sent away to New Orleans for French cookbooks, and we pored over them together. Then she sent me for three weeks to Aunt Carole's house, who taught me Cajun skills. Aunt Carole was a Johnny Reb, married after the War to - Heavens - a damn Yankee, Father's eldest brother, Uncle Ewing, now deceased. Uncle Ewing had been in the Union occupation of New Orleans, and had poked a sergeant in the nose over a distressed Southern girl. It got him a reduction from corporal to private and a wife.

In Aunt Carole's house we never discussed the War.

The War was not often discussed in our own house as the Johnsons were not native to Missouri, but to Minnesota. Being newcomers, by Father's policy we avoided subjects that might upset our neighbours. In Missouri sympathies were mixed - a border state and a clave state, it had veterans from both sides. But that part of Missouri had been ‘local option' - some towns had never had any claves and now permitted no coloured people; Thebes was one such. But Thebes itself was so small and unimportant that the Union troops had ignored it when they came through there in'65, burning and looting. They burned Butler to the ground and it never fully recovered. But Thebes was untouched.

Even though the Johnsons had come down from the North, we were not carpet baggers as Missouri never seceded; Reconstruction did not touch it. Uncle Jules, Father's cousin in Kansas City, explained our migration this way:

‘After fighting four years in Dixie, we went back home to Minnesota... and stayed just long enough to pack up again and git. Mizzourah ain't as hot as Dixie but it ain't so cold, that the shadows freeze to the sidewalks and the cows give ice-cream.'

Aunt Carole put a polish on my cooking and I was in and out of ha kitchen quite a lot until I married. It was during that three weeks that the matter of the lemon pie took place - I think I mentioned it earlier.

I baked that pie. It was not my best work; I had burned the crust. But it was one of four, and the other three were all right. Getting the temperature just right on a wood range is tricky.

But how did my Cousin Nelson get that pie into church without anyone seeing it? How did he slide it under me without my noticing it?

He made me so furious that I went straight home (to Aunt Carole's house), then, when Nelson showed up to apologise, I burst into tears and took him straight to bed... and had one of those three fireworks occasions.

Sudden impulse and quite reckless and we got away with it cold.

Thereafter I let Nelson have me from time to time when we could figure out a safe way right up to my wedding. Which did not quite finish it, as years later he moved to Kansas City.

I should have behaved myself with Nelson; he was only fourteen.

But a smart fourteen. He knew that we didn't dare get caught; he knew that I couldn't marry him no matter what and he realised that he could get me pregnant and that a baby would be disaster for each of us.

That Sunday morning he held still while I put a French purse on him, grinned and said, ‘Maureen, you're smart.' Then he tackled me with unworried enthusiasm and brought me to orgasm in record time.

For the next mo years I kept Nelson supplied with Merry Widows. Not for me; I carried my own. For his harem. I started him off; he took up the sport with zeal and native genius, and never got into trouble. Smart.

Besides cooking, I endeavoured to straighten out Father's accounts receivable, with less success. After consulting with Father 1 sent out some polite and friendly dunning letters. Have you ever written over one hundred letters, one after another, by hand? I found out why Mr Clemens had grabbed the first opportunity to shift from pen to typewriter - first author to do so.

Dear Mr Deadbeat,

In going over Dr Johnson's books I find that your account stands at umpteen dollars and that you have made no payment on it since March 1896. Perhaps this is an oversight. May we expect payment by the first of the month?

If it is not possible for you to pay the full amount at once, will you please call at the Clinic this Friday the tenth so that we can work out arrangements mutually satisfactory?

The Doctor sends his good wishes to you and to Mrs Deadbeat, and also to Junior and the twins and little Knothead.

I remain,

Faithfully yours,

Maureen Johnson

(On behalf of Ira Johnson, MD)

I showed Father sample letters ranging from gentle to firm to tough; the sample above shows what we used on most of them. With some he said, ‘Don't dun them. They would if they could, but they can't.' Nevertheless I sent out more than a hundred letters.

For each letter postage was two cents, stationery about three. Can we reckon my time as worth five cents per letter? If so, each letter comes to a dime, and the whole mailing cost slightly over ten dollars.

Those hundred letters did not bring in as much as ten dollars in cash.

About thirty patients came in to talk to us about it. Perhaps half of those fetched some payment in kind - fresh eggs, a ham, side meat, garden truck, fresh bread, and so forth. Six or seven arranged schedules of payment; some of those actually met their promises.

But over seventy totally ignored the letters.

I was upset and disappointed. These were not shiftless peckerwoods like Jackson Igo; these were respectable farmers and townspeople. These were people for whom my father had got up in the middle of the night, dressed, then driven or ridden horseback through snow or rain, dust or mud or frozen ruts, to attend them or their children. And when he asks to be paid, they ignore it.

I couldn't believe it.

I asked, ‘Father, what do I do now?' I expected him to tell me to forget it, as he had been dubious as to the usefulness of these letters. I awaited his response with anticipated relief.

‘Send each of them the tough one and mark it "Second Notice":

‘You think that will do it, sir?'

‘No. But it will do some good. You'll see.'

Father was right. That second mailing brought in no money. It fetched a number of highly indignant replies; some of them scurrilous. Father had me file each with its appropriate case record, but make no reply.

Most of those seventy patients never showed up again. This was the good result Father expected. He was cheerful about it.

‘Maureen, it's a standoff; they don't pay me and I don't do them much good. Iodine, calomel, and Aspirin - that's about all we have today that isn't a sugar pill. The only times I'm certain of results are when I deliver a baby or set a bone or cut off a leg.

‘But, damn it all, I'm doing the best I know how. I do try. If a man gets angry at me simply because I ask him to pay for my services... well, I see no reason why I should get out of a warm bed to physic him.'

1897 was the year that the Katy ran a line not a mile from our town square, so the council extended the city limits and that put Thebes on the railroad. That brought the telegraph to Thebes, too, which enabled the Lyte County Leader to bring the news to us direct from Chicago. But still only once a week; the Kansas City Star by mail was usually quicker. The Bell telephone reached us, too, although at first only from nine to nine and never on Sunday mornings, because the switchboard was in the Widow Loomis's parlour and service stopped when she was not there.

The Leader published a glowing editorial: ‘Modern Times.'

Father frowned. ‘They point out that it will soon be possible, as more people subscribe, to call for a doctor in the middle of the night. Yes, yes, surely. Today I make night calls because somebody is in such trouble that some member of the patient's family has hitched up in the middle of the night and driven here to ask me to come.

‘But what happens when he can rout me out of bed just by cranking a little crank? Will it be for a dying child? No, Maureen, it will be for a hangnail. Mark my words; the telephone signals the end of the house call. Not today, not

tomorrow, but soon. They will ride a willing horse to death... and you will see the day when medical doctors will refuse to make house calls.'

At New Year, I told Father that I had made up my mind: put my name in to the Howard Foundation.

Before the end of January I received the first of the young men on my list.

By the end of March I had received all seven of them. In three cases I did go so far as to avail myself of the privilege of the sofa... although I used the couch in Father's office, and locked the door.

Wet firecrackers.

Decent enough young male, those three, but... to marry? No.

Maureen felt glum about the whole matter.

But on Saturday the second of April Father received a letter from Rolla, Missouri:

My dear Doctor,

Permit me to introduce myself. I am a son of Mr and Mrs John Adams Smith of Cincinnati, Ohio, where my father is a tool and die maker. I am a senior at the School of Mines of the University of Missouri at Rolla, Missouri. I was given your name and address by judge Orville Sperling, of Toledo, Ohio, Executive Secretary of the Howard Foundation. Judge Sperling tells me that he has written to you about me.

If I may do so, I will call on you and Mrs Johnson on Sunday afternoon the seventeenth of April. Then, if you permit, I ask to be presented to your daughter Miss Maureen Johnson for the purpose of offering myself as a possible suitor for her hand in marriage.

I welcome any investigation you tare to make of me and I will answer fully and frankly any questions you put to me.

I look forward to your reply. I remain, sir,

Faithfully your servant,

Brian Smith

Father said, ‘See, my dear daughter? Your knight comes riding.'

‘Probably has two heads. Father, it's no good. I shall die an old maid, at the age of ninety-seven.'

‘Not a fussy old maid, I trust. What shall I tell Mr Smith?'

‘Oh, tell him Yes. Tell him I'm drooling with eagerness.'

‘Maureen.'

‘Yes, Father. I'm too young to be cynical, I know. Quel dommage. I will straighten up and give Mr Brian Smith my best smile and approach the meeting with cheerful optimism. But I have grown a bit jaundiced. That last orang-utang -‘

(That ape had tried to rape me, right on Mother's sofa, just as soon as Mother and Father went upstairs. He then left abruptly, clutching bis crotch. My study of anatomy had paid off.)

‘I'll tell him that we will welcome him. Sunday the seventeenth. That's two weeks from tomorrow.'

I greeted Sunday the seventeenth with little enthusiasm. But I did stay home from church and prepared a picnic lunch, and grabbed the chance for an extra bath. Mr Smith turned out to be presentable and well spoken, if not especially inspiring. Father grilled him a bit and Mother offered him coffee; about two we got away - Daisy and a family buggy, with his livery stable nag left in our barn.

Three hours later I was certain that I was in love.

Brian made a date to come back on the first of May. He had final examinations to get out of the way in the meantime.

One week later, Sunday 24 April 1898, Spain declared war on the United States.