Momma said. Daddy was hardly ever a very big hit with Momma.
We had never had a monkey in Neely before Miss Pettigrew got hers and the only one we had after was a fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand monkey that Jimmy Roach and two of his brothers ordered out of the back of a comic book, and it wasn’t but two days and about four dozen palms later when that one gave up the ghost and had to be buried in a legal envelope in the Roaches’ backyard. Miss Pettigrew’s was a legitimate monkey-sized monkey right from the start and Daddy said it arrived in the front seat of a station wagon, uncaged and diapered. The mayor had a flagpole erected on his front lawn for it to climb on and hard by the sidewalk he staked a tether that would allow that creature to wander most anywhere inside the iron fence. Daddy said at first they called it Junious after a cousin of theirs, but later on, when they’d bought it a blazer and a plaid sportcoat and a porkpie hat and had discovered it had no love for trousers, they called it, Mr. Britches since they were the only things it was without.
Daddy said most folks in Neely had never seen a monkey before, so anytime the mayor or Miss Pettigrew turned it out of the house, an audience would collect against the fence. Of course, Daddy said, you always got the mayor along with the monkey, and the one of them would squat on the knob atop the flagpole and pick at himself while the other paced the lawn and talked issues. That was just the price of curiosity, Daddy said.
Politically, Miss Pettigrew’s monkey turned out to be quite an asset for the mayor. He was no longer very engaging on his own, but Mr. Britches made him a human interest story and he got his picture in scores of newspapers and a couple of national magazines, which Daddy said was somewhat unfortunate for Neely since the mayor always looked a little foolish with his troubled expression and his arms full of chimpanzee. But Daddy said all it took was that monkey, and the mayor became what Daddy called a figure. He got his notoriety on the coattails of an ape, Daddy would say, and Momma said where we used to see pictures of the mayor with just Miss Pettigrew or just Mr. Britches, it got so that he’d show up in a crowd of senators, or with one arm around the lieutenant governor, or in the general company of the governor himself.
Then Mr. Nance came into the picture, and I mean actually into the picture right between Miss Pettigrew and the mayor and usually with one hand on the back of Miss Pettigrew’s neck and the other latched onto the mayor’s shoulder. But it wasn’t that way right off, Momma said. She said her and Daddy first picked out Mr. Nance in the Daily News. He was off to one side of the governor along with Mayor Pettigrew and the caption made him out to be a “Notable Democrat.” Then he showed up in the Chronicle, just him and the mayor, and Momma said they were eating sociables and smirking at each other; the Chronicle called this “having a confab.” Momma said after that Miss Pettigrew got in on the act and her and Mr. Nance would get caught having confabs of their own or taking a turn on the dance floor or posing with congressmen’s wives or congressmen themselves, and then it was the mayor on one side, Miss Myra Angelique on the other, and Mr. Nance in between attached to Miss Pettigrew’s neck and to the mayor’s shoulder.
He had been named Alton after his father and Daniel after his father’s brother, and Daddy said what people didn’t call him Mister knew him as A.D. or Addie Nance. He was what Daddy called a cookie magnate, or anyway his daddy had been a cookie magnate and he had inherited the rewards of his daddy’s ambition and perseverance, though he personally had no more of a hand in the manufacture of cookies than did the mayor in the construction of buildings. Daddy said he used his money to buy influence and used his influence to tinker with politicians, not dishonestly, Daddy said, since there was no
We had never had a monkey in Neely before Miss Pettigrew got hers and the only one we had after was a fit-in-the-palm-of-your-hand monkey that Jimmy Roach and two of his brothers ordered out of the back of a comic book, and it wasn’t but two days and about four dozen palms later when that one gave up the ghost and had to be buried in a legal envelope in the Roaches’ backyard. Miss Pettigrew’s was a legitimate monkey-sized monkey right from the start and Daddy said it arrived in the front seat of a station wagon, uncaged and diapered. The mayor had a flagpole erected on his front lawn for it to climb on and hard by the sidewalk he staked a tether that would allow that creature to wander most anywhere inside the iron fence. Daddy said at first they called it Junious after a cousin of theirs, but later on, when they’d bought it a blazer and a plaid sportcoat and a porkpie hat and had discovered it had no love for trousers, they called it, Mr. Britches since they were the only things it was without.
Daddy said most folks in Neely had never seen a monkey before, so anytime the mayor or Miss Pettigrew turned it out of the house, an audience would collect against the fence. Of course, Daddy said, you always got the mayor along with the monkey, and the one of them would squat on the knob atop the flagpole and pick at himself while the other paced the lawn and talked issues. That was just the price of curiosity, Daddy said.
Politically, Miss Pettigrew’s monkey turned out to be quite an asset for the mayor. He was no longer very engaging on his own, but Mr. Britches made him a human interest story and he got his picture in scores of newspapers and a couple of national magazines, which Daddy said was somewhat unfortunate for Neely since the mayor always looked a little foolish with his troubled expression and his arms full of chimpanzee. But Daddy said all it took was that monkey, and the mayor became what Daddy called a figure. He got his notoriety on the coattails of an ape, Daddy would say, and Momma said where we used to see pictures of the mayor with just Miss Pettigrew or just Mr. Britches, it got so that he’d show up in a crowd of senators, or with one arm around the lieutenant governor, or in the general company of the governor himself.
Then Mr. Nance came into the picture, and I mean actually into the picture right between Miss Pettigrew and the mayor and usually with one hand on the back of Miss Pettigrew’s neck and the other latched onto the mayor’s shoulder. But it wasn’t that way right off, Momma said. She said her and Daddy first picked out Mr. Nance in the Daily News. He was off to one side of the governor along with Mayor Pettigrew and the caption made him out to be a “Notable Democrat.” Then he showed up in the Chronicle, just him and the mayor, and Momma said they were eating sociables and smirking at each other; the Chronicle called this “having a confab.” Momma said after that Miss Pettigrew got in on the act and her and Mr. Nance would get caught having confabs of their own or taking a turn on the dance floor or posing with congressmen’s wives or congressmen themselves, and then it was the mayor on one side, Miss Myra Angelique on the other, and Mr. Nance in between attached to Miss Pettigrew’s neck and to the mayor’s shoulder.
He had been named Alton after his father and Daniel after his father’s brother, and Daddy said what people didn’t call him Mister knew him as A.D. or Addie Nance. He was what Daddy called a cookie magnate, or anyway his daddy had been a cookie magnate and he had inherited the rewards of his daddy’s ambition and perseverance, though he personally had no more of a hand in the manufacture of cookies than did the mayor in the construction of buildings. Daddy said he used his money to buy influence and used his influence to tinker with politicians, not dishonestly, Daddy said, since there was no
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