Star-Dust | Page 5

Sometimes I could just scream
for wanting to do things we are not in a position to do. Go
housekeeping, for instance, have a little home of my own--"
"Now, now, little woman," at the invariable business of flecking his
neat gray business suit with a whisk broom, "you got up on the wrong
side of bed this morning. Lilly, suppose you shine papa's spectacles for
him."
"There is the supper bell. Quick, Ben and Lilly, before the Kembles."
The dining room, directly over the basement kitchen, jutted in an ell off
the rear of the house so that from the back parlor it was not difficult to
precede the immediate overhead response to that bell. A black-faced
genii of the bowl and weal, in a very dubiously white-duck coat thrust
on hurriedly over clothing reminiscent of the day's window washing
and furnace cinders, held attitude in among the small tables that littered
the room. There were four. A long table seating ten and punctuated by
two sets of cruets, two plates of bread, and two white-china water
pitchers; Mr. Hazzard's tiny square of individual table, a perpetual
bottle of brown medicine beside his place. The Kembles also enjoyed
segregation from the mother table, the family invariably straggling in
one by one. For the Beckers was reserved the slight bulge of bay
window that looked out upon the Suburban street-car tracks and a
battalion of unpainted woodsheds. A red geranium, potted and wrapped

around in green crêpe tissue paper, sprouted center table, a small bottle
of jam and two condiments lending further distinction. A napkin with
self-invented fasteners dangled from Mr. Becker's chair, and beside
Lilly's place a sterling silver and privately owned knife and fork,
monogrammed.
To Mr. Becker, the negro race was largely and genetically christened
Gawge, to be addressed solely in native patois.
"Evenin', Gawge."
"Evenin', Mistah Beckah."
"George, are you going to take good care of my husband to-night? That
piece of steak you served him yesterday wasn't fit to eat."
"Law now, Mis' Beckah, kin I help it if de best de kitchen has ain't none
too good?"
"Don't tell me! I saw the piece you brought Mr. Kemble."
"Now, Carrie ..."
"What have we to-night, George?"
"Fried steak, lamb, or corn'-beef hash."
"Bring us steak, and if it isn't tender, tell Mrs. Schum for me that right
back downstairs it goes! A little piece of lamb on the side in case Miss
Lilly don't like the steak, and bring up a dish of those sweet pickles.
You know, under the tray the way you always do. There's a pair of Mr.
Becker's old shoes, good as new, waiting to be given away."
"Carrie!"
"Miss Lilly loves pickles. George, do as I say."
"Carrie!"

"Law! Mistah Beckah, I knows Mis' Beckah and her ways. Law! I doan
take no offense."
"I wish if you want extras, Carrie, you would buy them. It is a darn
shame to make yourself so small before the other boarders."
"I haven't as much money as you have, Ben Becker. I'm not ashamed to
ask for my money's worth. Lilly, haven't I told you not to talk on your
fingers at meals?"
This form of digital communication between the children of the
boarding house seemed to break out in its most virulent form at dinner.
In spite of a sharp consensus of parental disapproval, there was a
continual flashing of code between Lilly, the Kemble twins, and Lester
Eli at the larger table.
"Ben, will you speak to Lilly? She won't mind me."
"Lilly!"
"Yes, sir," immediately subsiding to a contemplation of the geranium.
Poker played for penny stakes was a favorite after-dinner pastime. A
group including Mrs. Eli, the Kembles, and Mr. Hazzard would gather
in the Becker back parlor, Mrs. Becker, relieved of corsets and in a
dark-blue foulard teagown shotted all over with tiny pink rosebuds,
presiding over a folding table with a glass bowl of the "baby pretzels"
in its center.
The children meanwhile would forgather on the front hall stairs, the
peaked flare of an olive of gaslight that burned through a red glass
globe with warts blown into it, bathing the little group in a sort of
greasy fluid. Roy and Flora Kemble, Snow Horton, Lester Eli, and
Stanley Beinenstock, racked with bronchitis and lending an odor of
creosote, Lilly, and even Harry in his poor outlandish blouse.
"Snow, tell us a story; you're the oldest."

Snow was full of lore; would invoke inspiration with a very wide and
very blue gaze up to the ceiling, her thin hands clasping her thin neck.
"Once upon a time--once upon a time there was the most beautiful girl
in all the world and her name was--"
"Aw, give us one about boys."
LILLY: "You shut up, Roy Kemble. I