brave enough to say "Good morning."
If I'd ever had any qualms about this venture before we left New York, they had multiplied like rabbits in Santa Fe. Those first people who were brave enough to stay with us were perfectly wonderful. They pitched in cheerfully and helped on the bedmaking, on dusting, on peeling potatoes—on doing all the things they were paying to have done for them. But do you know that while I can remember exactly who they were and where they came from, what they had to eat and where they slept, I can't recall ever having had one minute's conversation with any of them. Instead of the buoyant hostess, I was the household drudge. When the last dish was washed at night I was just able to stagger into the living room, collapse into a chair, and do my level best to keep my black-circled eyes open and muffle huge, convulsive yawns behind hands so rough and red with nails so chipped and broken that they reminded me more of the assembly line in a barbed wire factory than the receiving line at Bergdorf's.
It's awfully hard to write a yawn, but if you'd like some idea of my sparkling postprandial conversation, it went, I think, something like this:
"Do tell me about your nice ride up in the mountains . . . ( Yawn ) . . . Excuse me, the attitude, I mean altitude . . . ( Head bobs slowly down to chest. I snatch it up sharply, thinking that I've been asleep for hours. I shouldn't have matched it up quite so sharply, either. Terrible crick in neck ) . . . Sorry about that lemon snow tonight. Ho-hum. Do forgive me! . . . ( Smother another yawn and nearly dislocate jaw doing so ) . . .Oh, you're just saying that to be polite. I'm afraid it was quite curdled . . . ( Head sinks slowly again and book slides off lap ) . . . Well, as you were saying about your apartment in Dallas . . . Sorry, 1 meant Denver . . . ( Eyes will not focus. Take deep breath, raise head, and stare glassily and inanely at guest, thus giving the impression that I've been on cocaine all day, instead of my hands and knees ) . . . Do go on with . . . ( Racking yawn that contorts my whole body ) . . . Excuse me, interesting story . . . ( Head sinks lower and lower and I am brought to life only by means of falling off my chair and striking my head sharply on the hearth ) . . . Ooops! Sorry. Chintz is so slippery!"
By nine I would have limped off to bed, leaving a houseful of guests to entertain themselves as best they could with listless tables of bridge or canasta. Let me say again, those first people weren't just paying guests, they were patron saints, and the fact that some of them came back again for further torture makes me suspect that they were gluttons for punishment or that they couldn't quite believe what had been happening to them and had to try again to make certain.
And things didn't get better, either. They got worse. New guests kept coming, old guests kept staying. The service—as purveyed by me—kept deteriorating. Bill was working every bit as hard as I was, but his was becoming work. Out of doors all day long, he grew bronzed and slim and muscular. But woman's work, they say, is never done, and I traipsed from bedmaking to dishwashing to cooking to bed for fifteen hours each day, every day without even stopping to frighten myself in the mirror. It was probably just as well, but the big blow fell one evening when some brand-new guests arrived and I was alone to greet them.
"How do you do," I said in what I considered to be my best hostess voice. "I'm Mrs. Hooton. Won't you come in and join us for sherry?"
They did.
Just as they were seated, in came Bill, fresh from the sun and air.
"Hello," Bill said in his most winning and Western fashion. "I'm Bill Hooton. Can I offer you something to drink?"
"Thank you, young man," the new guest said, "but your mother has already offered us sherry."
There was a silence that could be heard from Santa Fe to Little Rock.
"That's not my mother," Bill gasped. "That's my
If I'd ever had any qualms about this venture before we left New York, they had multiplied like rabbits in Santa Fe. Those first people who were brave enough to stay with us were perfectly wonderful. They pitched in cheerfully and helped on the bedmaking, on dusting, on peeling potatoes—on doing all the things they were paying to have done for them. But do you know that while I can remember exactly who they were and where they came from, what they had to eat and where they slept, I can't recall ever having had one minute's conversation with any of them. Instead of the buoyant hostess, I was the household drudge. When the last dish was washed at night I was just able to stagger into the living room, collapse into a chair, and do my level best to keep my black-circled eyes open and muffle huge, convulsive yawns behind hands so rough and red with nails so chipped and broken that they reminded me more of the assembly line in a barbed wire factory than the receiving line at Bergdorf's.
It's awfully hard to write a yawn, but if you'd like some idea of my sparkling postprandial conversation, it went, I think, something like this:
"Do tell me about your nice ride up in the mountains . . . ( Yawn ) . . . Excuse me, the attitude, I mean altitude . . . ( Head bobs slowly down to chest. I snatch it up sharply, thinking that I've been asleep for hours. I shouldn't have matched it up quite so sharply, either. Terrible crick in neck ) . . . Sorry about that lemon snow tonight. Ho-hum. Do forgive me! . . . ( Smother another yawn and nearly dislocate jaw doing so ) . . .Oh, you're just saying that to be polite. I'm afraid it was quite curdled . . . ( Head sinks slowly again and book slides off lap ) . . . Well, as you were saying about your apartment in Dallas . . . Sorry, 1 meant Denver . . . ( Eyes will not focus. Take deep breath, raise head, and stare glassily and inanely at guest, thus giving the impression that I've been on cocaine all day, instead of my hands and knees ) . . . Do go on with . . . ( Racking yawn that contorts my whole body ) . . . Excuse me, interesting story . . . ( Head sinks lower and lower and I am brought to life only by means of falling off my chair and striking my head sharply on the hearth ) . . . Ooops! Sorry. Chintz is so slippery!"
By nine I would have limped off to bed, leaving a houseful of guests to entertain themselves as best they could with listless tables of bridge or canasta. Let me say again, those first people weren't just paying guests, they were patron saints, and the fact that some of them came back again for further torture makes me suspect that they were gluttons for punishment or that they couldn't quite believe what had been happening to them and had to try again to make certain.
And things didn't get better, either. They got worse. New guests kept coming, old guests kept staying. The service—as purveyed by me—kept deteriorating. Bill was working every bit as hard as I was, but his was becoming work. Out of doors all day long, he grew bronzed and slim and muscular. But woman's work, they say, is never done, and I traipsed from bedmaking to dishwashing to cooking to bed for fifteen hours each day, every day without even stopping to frighten myself in the mirror. It was probably just as well, but the big blow fell one evening when some brand-new guests arrived and I was alone to greet them.
"How do you do," I said in what I considered to be my best hostess voice. "I'm Mrs. Hooton. Won't you come in and join us for sherry?"
They did.
Just as they were seated, in came Bill, fresh from the sun and air.
"Hello," Bill said in his most winning and Western fashion. "I'm Bill Hooton. Can I offer you something to drink?"
"Thank you, young man," the new guest said, "but your mother has already offered us sherry."
There was a silence that could be heard from Santa Fe to Little Rock.
"That's not my mother," Bill gasped. "That's my
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