All the Days and Nights by William Maxwell Page A

out of her own kitchen. In her mind, Bessie always thought of the Carringtons as “my people,” but until she had taught them to think of themselves as her people her profound capacity for devotion would go unused; would not even be suspected.
    You can say that life is a fountain if you want to, but what it more nearly resembles is a jack-in-the-box.
    • • •
    H ALF awake, he heard the soft whimpering that meant Iris was having a nightmare, and he shook her. “I dreamt you were having a heart attack,” she said.
    “Should you be dreaming that?” he said. But the dream was still too real to be joked about. They were in a public place. And he couldn’t be moved. He didn’t die, and she consulted with doctors. Though the dream did not progress, she could not extricate herself from it but went on and on, feeling the appropriate emotions but in a circular way. Till finally the sounds she made in her sleep brought about her deliverance.
    T HE conversation at the other end of the hall continued steadily — not loud but enough to keep them from sleeping, and he had already spoken to the children once. So he got up and went down the hall. Laurie and Cindy were both in their bathroom, and Cindy was sitting on the toilet. “I have a stomach ache,” she said.
    He started to say, “You need to do bizz,” and then remembered that the time before she had been sitting on the toilet doing just that.
    “And I feel dizzy,” Laurie said.
    “I heard it,” Iris said as he got back into bed.
    “That’s why she was so pale yesterday.”
    And half an hour later, when he got up again, Iris did too. To his surprise. Looking as if she had lost her last friend. So he took her in his arms.
    “I hate everything,” she said.
    O N the top shelf of his clothes closet he keeps all sorts of things — the overflow of phonograph records, and the photograph albums, which are too large for the bookcases in the living room. The snapshots show nothing but joy. Year after year of it.
    O N the stage of the school auditorium, girls from Class Eight, in pastel-colored costumes and holding arches of crepe-paper flowers, made a tunnel from the front of the stage to the rear right-hand corner. The pianist took her hands from the keys, and the headmistress, in sensible navy blue, with her hair cut short like a man’s, announced, “Class B becomes Class One.”
    Twenty very little girls in white dresses marched up on the stage two by two, holding hands.
    George and Iris Carrington turned to each other and smiled, for Cindy was among them, looking proud and happy as she hurried through the tunnel of flowers and out of sight.
    “Class One becomes Class Two.” Another wave of little girls left their place in the audience and went up on the stage and disappeared into the wings.
    “Class Two becomes Class Three.”
    Laurie Carrington, her red hair shining from the hairbrush, rose from her seat with the others and started up on the stage.
    “It’s too much!” George said, under his breath.
    Class Three became Class Four, Class Four became Class Five, Class Five became Class Six, and George Carrington took a handkerchief out of his right hip pocket and wiped his eyes. It was their eagerness that undid him. Their absolute trust in the Arrangements. Class Six became Class Seven, Class Seven became Class Eight. The generations of man, growing up, growing old, dying in order to make room for more.
    “Class Eight becomes Class Nine, and is now in the Upper School,” the headmistress said, triumphantly. The two girls at the front ducked and went under the arches, taking their crepe-paper flowers with them. And then the next two, and the next, and finally the audience was left applauding an empty stage.
    “C OME here and sit on my lap,” he said, by no means sure Laurie would think it worth the trouble. But she came. Folding her onto his lap, he was aware of the length of her legs, and the difference of her body; the babyness had departed forever, and