But I heard him
mention that some woman was at least two axe handles across the beam, many a
time. This is the story of a lady who
shall remain nameless because she measured in excess of an axe handle.
I was preschool
when the folks hired a neighbor girl to help with kids and household
chores. As I recollect, she was on duty
when the youngest sibling was born. She
spent the night at our house at least that once. She was probably a high school girl at the
time.
She indulged us
some. I remember once when she panicked
and jammed us all up the stairs and into bed because headlights turned into and
started down the lane. It had to be the
folks coming home earlier than expected and we were up beyond our assigned bed
time. We hit the beds and held our
peace. She would make trouble for us if
we made trouble for her. She usually let
us stay up later than we were supposed to.
This event
occurred while she was serving as housekeeping help. She was washing the window in the single tiny
bathroom when it happened.
To get to the
window, you either stand in or on the bathtub.
She was standing on the bathtub. It was the same bathtub I stood on
once, well many times, actually. But
once, Mother had cleaned that tub. We
were playing outside and it was damp, muddy maybe. I got thirsty so in I came. No time to remove shoes. I had to climb up on the tub rim to reach the
communal drinking glass, which I did, got my drink, and back outside.
Well, it wasn’t
very long before we all got a summons, the tone of which meant no
dawdling. Each one of us was marched in
one at a time and made to look at the muddy mess on the tub rim that had just
been cleaned that day. I was third in
line. When my turn came, I was gripped
firmly by the back of the neck, led swiftly and surely across the kitchen and
into the bathroom. There my neck was maneuvered
so that I had to look at the tub.
Hmmm. Wonder how that
happened? For some reason, I kept my
mouth shut. Hmmm. Wonder how that happened?
I don’t remember
any other consequences. Perhaps I was a
little more careful about “tracking in” stuff for awhile.
So there the girl stood on the tub washing
the window. The door had to be mostly
shut for her to have room to step up onto the tub. If the door were open, she couldn’t get
between door edge and the lavatory.
I see the scene
from the kitchen in my memory. I
couldn’t have seen much, but I saw her back down. Then a bunch of things happened all at
once. There was a crunch, a shocked
shout, water hitting the floor and a dance as the girl came out of the bathroom
to holler for help.
The part of her
that exceeded an axe handle had caught the front corner of the wall hung lavatory
when she stepped down off the tub. The
force was so great it pulled the lavatory off the wall. One of the two water supply tubes broke and
water was running everywhere.
I don’t remember
a lot of things beyond that. Someone had
to go downstairs and shut the water off.
I don’t remember Dad remounting the sink or replacing water pipes. But it got done. I can only imagine the hired girl’s embarrassment,
she, hired to help out, had caused even more work for her employers.
What I do remember
is that one day in the mail came a long narrow package, probably from
Montgomery Wards, maybe Sears. Soon
there were two chrome legs supporting the front of the lavatory. That thing was not going to get knocked off
the wall again.
I’m happy to
report those legs worked. The lavatory
hasn’t been off the wall since.
I decided to clean
the carpet in the bathroom. Taking the
legs out facilitated things. They had a
little rust on them. They’ve been there
over fifty years. Please don’t tell the
Goodwife. She’ll be thinking we need to
update or remodel or something.
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