Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

“Sure, kid,” Father said. “I’m all for peace and quiet too.” Then Mother was gone too and then it was bedtime and then Gowan told how he saw Uncle Gavin sitting in the dark parlor with no light except through the hall door, so that he couldn’t read if he tried. Which Gowan said he wasn’t: just sitting there in the half-dark, until Mother came down the stairs in her dressing gown and her hair down and said,

“Why dont you go to bed? Go on now. Go on,” and Gowan said,

“Yessum,” and she went on into the parlor and stood beside Uncle Gavin’s chair and said,

“I’m going to telephone him,” and Uncle Gavin said,

em" align="justify">“Telephone who?” and Mother came back and said,

“Come on now. This minute,” and waited until Gowan went up the stairs in front of her. When he was in bed with the light off she came to the door and said good night and all they would have to do now would be just to wait. Because even if five was an odd number and it would take an even number to make the night whole for Uncle Gavin, it couldn’t possibly be very long because the drugstore closed as soon as the picture show was out, and anybody still sitting in the Holsten House lobby after the drummers had all gone to bed would have to explain it to Jefferson some time or other, no matter how much of a bachelor he was. And Gowan said he thought how at least Uncle Gavin and he had their nice warm comfortable familiar home to wait in, even if Uncle Gavin was having to sit up in the dark parlor by himself, instead of having to use the drugstore or the hotel to put off finally having to go home as long as possible.

And this time Gowan said Mr de Spain opened the cut-out as soon as he left the Square; he could hear it all the way getting louder and louder as it turned the two corners into our street, the ripping loud and jeering but at least not in second gear this time, going fast past the house and the dark parlor where Uncle Gavin was sitting, and on around the other two corners he would have to turn to get back into the street he belonged in, dying away at last until all you could hear was just the night and then Uncle Gavin’s feet coming quiet up the stairs. Then the hall light went out, and that was all.

All for that night, that day I mean. Because even Uncle Gavin didn’t expect it to be completely all. In fact, the rest of them found out pretty quick that Uncle Gavin didn’t aim for it to be all; the next morning at breakfast it was Uncle Gavin himself that raised his head first and said: “There goes Manfred back to our salt-mine,” and then to Gowan: “Mr de Spain has almost as much fun with his automobile as you’re going to have with one as soon as your Cousin Charley buys it, doesn’t he?” Whenever that would be because Father said almost before Uncle Gavin could finish getting the words out:

“Me own one of those stinking noisy things? I wouldn’t dare. Too many of my customers use horses and mules for a living.” But Gowan said that if Father ever did buy one while he was there, he would find something better to do with it besides running back and forth in front of the house with the cut-out open.

And again while he was on the way home at noon to eat dinner, and again while they were sitting at the table. Nor was it just Gowan who found out Uncle Gavin didn’t aim for that to be all because Mother caught Gowan almost before Uncle Gavin turned his back. Gowan didn’t know how she did it. Aleck Sander always said that his mother could see and hear through a wall (when he got bigger he said Guster could smell his breath over the telephone) so maybe all women that were already mothers or just acting like mothers like Mother had to while Gowan lived with us, could do that too and that was how Mother did it: stepping out of the parlor just as Gowan put his hand in his pocket.

“Where is it?” Mother said. “What Gavin just gave you. It was a box of tacks; wasn’t it a box of tacks? To scatter out there in the street where he will run over them? Wasn’t it? Acting just like a highschool sophomore. He should marry Melisandre Backus before he ruins the whole family.”

“I thought you said it’s too late for that,” Gowan said. “That the one that marries Cousin Gavin will have to be a widow with four children.”

“Maybe I meant too early,” Mother said. “Melisandre hasn’t even got the husband yet.” Then she wasn’t seeing Gowan. “Which is exactly what Manfred de Spain is acting like,” she said. “A highschool sophomore.” Gowan said she was looking right at him but she wasn’t seeing him at all, and all of a sudden he said she was pretty, looking just like a girl. “No: exactly what we are all acting like,” and now she was seeing him again. “But dont you dare let me see you doing it, do you hear? Dont you dare!”