Hi, Margie. C\u27mon over and play jacks with me..

Mattice, Anna M

English

Hi, Margie. C'mon over and play jacks with me...</p

Mattice, Anna

Digital Repository @ Iowa State University (ISU)

May, 1946 33 The jury would suddenly become the pallbearers and then—oh, God!—they'd have a funeral. And as if that weren't enough, he'd bribe the Germans for flowers and every day each coffin had a fresh flower!" Ray's laughter drowned the rest of his words. The gray strands in his dark hair seemed curiously out of place. "It's good he was young," I thought, "that he tried to see no more deeply. He doesn't know that, in a way, Daum was— lucky." "Yes, sir," Ray was saying, "some of us were crazy when we went in. The rest . . ." Grandma Anna Mae Mattice I, MARGIE. C'mon over and play jacks with me. Mom said we had to play outside this morning. You can be first. Gee, Margie, you should'a heard the fuss at our house last night. I guess it really all started day before yesterday when Gram came to visit. From California. Gee, is she funny! Well, I don't care if she is my own Grand-ma. You know what? She's got a thing she calls a tambourine-it looks like a little drum, and it's got things that jingle all around the edge. She keeps shaking it, and singing, like it was music, only it doesn't sound so good to me. And I never heard any of the songs before. I asked her what one was, and she said it's a song of salvation. And then she said she'd pray for the salvation of my wicked soul, and asked me if I wasn't scared I wouldn't get to go to Heaven. Are you scared, Margie? I don't feel very wicked. Do you? And another thing—she always wears a black dress. I looked in her suitcase, but she doesn't have any other color dress with her. I'd get awfully tired of black, wouldn't you? But she says, "Vanity is sin." Do you think so, Margie? That's what the fight was about, sort of. A dress, anyway. No, it wasn't that kind of a fight, but gee! Everybody was mad at everybody else. Except me, I wasn't mad at anybody. H 34 Sketch Well, it all started last night at supper, when my big sister Allie asked Mamma to be excused early. "Don't you think we'd better return thanks before we leave the feast?" Grandma said. No, it wasn't a real feast, that's just the way Grandma talks. Boy, I thought she never would get done praying then, and Allie started to get fidgety—she had a date with Bob Page. No, sir, they weren't going to a movie—they were going to a dance! At the Tucker, Margie, just imagine! Gee, wouldn't you like to be eighteen and go to a dance at the Tucker? Mamma made Allie a dress just specially for it—it's pink and long, clear down to the floor, and it's yards and yards around the bottom—it's just frothy. I wanted to try it on, but Allie said I'm too short and would probably step on the hem. But I'm pretty tall, and I'm going to try it on—some day when Allie's gone—with her new high-heeled sandals. They're silver, Margie-gee, they're pretty. I'll show 'em to you this afternoon, if it's safe to play inside. Well, you can see why Allie got so fidgety when Grandma prayed so long—it takes her an awful long time to get ready for a date anyway, and this was special. Well, when Grandma finally got done, Allie jumped up and said "Amen!" And she looked right at Grandma, too, Margie, and then she ran upstairs. Mamma's face got red, and Grandma got purple. And then she remembered she shouldn't be mad. "Oh, that poor heathen child! The poor lost soul! Oh, save her!" And then she got up and went over to the windowsill and picked up the tambourine thing and started to sing that song of salvation, and all the time the little jinglers kept making noise. I'd like to have a tambourine, Margie—I'd make a lot of noise with it at Hallowe'en. I don't think Grandma would let me use hers, though. Well, I don't think Grandma knew Allie was going to a dance in a formal with a man. 'Cause pretty soon Allie came down stairs and she said, "I'm sorry, Grandma, I didn't mean to be rude, but I'm in such a hurry tonight." She had the dress on a hanger, and she asked Mom if she'd have time to press the hem a little bit. "What's that—a night-gown?" Grandma said. "You're not go-ing out in that?" Grandma could see how low the neck was cut, and she gasped and held her hand over her mouth like she was pushing her teeth back in. "Why, yes, Mother, she is," Mamma said. "It's not indecent, May, 1946 35 you know—all the girls will be wearing dresses like this tonight. And it's very becoming to Allie." "What's this younger generation coming to?" Grandma wailed and twisted her hands together. "To think I should live to see my grandchildren so depraved!" I don't know exactly what that means, but that's what she said. And then, Margie, she said, "Oh, Lord, snatch us all from the gaping jaws of sin!" Mamma says I'm not to say the word, but you know what place she meant, Margie. And then she flung her arms up in the air and looked sorta wild. Gee, I was scared. And then Mamma said, trying to be right in between Grandma and Allie, "Now, Mother, that's the sort of dresses all young girls wear at dances these days." "At dances? Ballroom dancing, I suppose? Young girls in the arms of young men, I suppose? Ah, the ways of the world are corrupting! Sinful! There'll come a day of reckoning!" I don't see what's so wrong, do you? I'd like to go to a dance with a boy. Like Bob Page—he's nice and polite. He'll talk to me too, and that's more than some of Allie's fellas will do. He showed me how to skip stones on the water, too. Well, anyway, Allie went upstairs again to put her dress on, and Grandma sat in the big chair in the living room, singing and shaking that tambourine, and I had to help Mom do dishes. Pretty soon Bob came, and Allie was still upstairs. I let him in, and he started trying to talk to Grandma. "Nice weather," he'd say. "Cooled off some. Looks like it might rain." See, he was trying to be nice and polite. And Grandma just sat there, with that tambourine in one hand, and looked over her glasses at him. She didn't even answer him, and then finally she said, "Young man, are you saved?" Gee, I'll bet Bob jumped a foot. "Beg your pardon?" he said. "Ah, if you were, your happy soul would know it, and you would have the joybells—" About then Allie came down—gee, she looked swell—and Bob stood up and whistled, you know how. But polite and like he liked how Allie looked. And Grandma shouted "Mercy on us!" and she shook her tambourine again. Allie and Bob went out as quick as they could, and Gram sat there singing the song of salvation. But, gee, it was quite a show for awhile. 

Grandma

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Grandma

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