Four and Twenty Beds. Nancy Casteel Vogel

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СКАЧАТЬ even hold a bobby pin or a ribbon. It grows straight forward on her head, and usually hangs down over her face. We call her "Little Chief Hair-in-the-Face." I have consistently refused to have her hair cut into bangs, in spite of the arguments of Grant and Grandma. "It'll grow long enough to curl or braid one of these days," I always tell them.

      "Well," Grant said, "it's five o'clock--about time we were getting our first customer."

      He is tall and slenderly built, and so wonderfully competent--even if he isn't very systematic--that I always feel awkward by contrast. But I never in my life felt so helpless as when, just as he finished speaking, we heard the scrunch of tires on the graveled driveway outside.

      "Oh, someone's coming," I said nervously. "You go see who it is. You go."

      I sat in a corner of the living room where I could hear and not be seen from the office. I alternately twisted my hands and bit my nails as Grant opened the office door and stepped out to meet the driver of the car. This was a momentous occasion. I strained to hear as the men began to speak.

      "This motel's just changed hands, hasn't it?"

      "Yep, that's right."

      "Well, I've got something here that I know will interest you, as the new owner. A revolutionary kind of vacuum cleaner ... cuts your work and your cleaning bill in half ... no motel owner should be without one."

      I sighed and relaxed.

      If the rule is true that women are the worst gossips, Grant must be the exception that proves that rule. He can outtalk any woman; he has more endurance, more lung power, and far more enthusiasm, when it comes to a prolonged conversation on any subject, than any avid old lady, or any young girl draped about a telephone. This habit of his annoys me, partly because he usually indulges it just when I have some work for him to do, and partly because I am jealous of his ability to get along well with everyone. I have such a shy nature that I am seldom able to get past the polite amenities with anyone whom I have known less than three years ... a great disadvantage for anyone as extremely inquisitive and curious as I.

      Being so talkative, and so unable to end a conversation, Grant is easy prey for salesmen. That is, although he seldom buys what they are trying to sell, he lets them waste hours of his time.

      When Grant finally got rid of the vacuum cleaner salesman, I went in to get the baby. The conversation about vacuum cleaners had awakened her. It wasn't, I realized, the last time that noises from the office, so close to her bed, would awaken her.

      I fixed dinner, clumsy in a new, differently arranged kitchen. While I washed dishes, Grant dried them, and there followed an uneasy evening during which we both pretended to read, but actually sat straining to hear above the children's voices the sound of a car driving into our driveway.

      The sun was sinking, and the mountains were clothed in soft shadows. I stood looking out the kitchen window, which faced the darkened east, and I saw the neon sign of the second motel from us turned on. It was a big, impressive sign, with the name of the motel--the Peacock--in bright red letters, and a green "vacancy" sign above it. There was the likeness of a huge, stately, graceful peacock above the name of the motel, blazoned in bright blue and red neon.

      "Our sign!" I exclaimed suddenly. "It's time to turn it on!"

      Grant had thought of it the same instant I had, and, like greedy children with a new toy, we rushed to the dark office. The light switches--five of them--were side by side in a neat and very confusing little row on the wall behind the desk.

      I yanked Grant's outstretched hand aside. "I want to do it!"

      He offered a compromise. "We'll take turns once."

      "All right. Me first!"

      I hovered over the switches with loving indecision. Finally I pushed up the one on the extreme right.

      The office light beamed suddenly on us from the ceiling. "Oh, that isn't fair!" I cried. "I didn't know that was the office light--I didn't--"

      "You had your turn," Grant said firmly. He reached out one thin brown finger and flipped up the switch that was second from the left. I looked out the window woefully. Sure enough, he had lit up the "Moonrise Motel" part of the sign.

      "You've been experimenting," I accused him. "You knew that was the right switch."

      I should have realized he'd know all about the switches. He always investigates everything, and if there is something he doesn't know how to do, he learns how. He's a jack of all trades--and a master of all of them, too! Usually that makes me very proud of him, but right now I was just exasperated. "Now I'm going to turn on the 'vacancy' sign," I said, jabbing grimly at another switch.

      Grant laughed. "You turned on the porch light outside the office door." He put his finger on a switch. "Now look out the window."

      I looked out, and saw the green "vacancy" spring into brilliant being.

      Furiously I flipped up the other switch. That, it developed, lit up the red "office" sign outside and above the office door.

      It was a beautiful evening. After the hot day the breeze was cooling and refreshing. The branches of the slender little Chinese elms waved gently.

      When I had put the children to bed Grant said, "It's too nice to be inside. Let's go outside once." We sat on the curb of the front island of grass and watched our sign proudly. The island in which the sign stood was planted in myrtle and bright Martha Washington geraniums, and now, with the reflection of the soft neon light on them, they were a mass of color.

      Cars were thick in front of the cocktail lounge across the street. Every once in a while a car, leaving, would make a turn in the highway preparatory to going back to the business district, and we'd catch our breaths.

      "I thought sure that one was coming in," Grant remarked, at intervals, about five times while we sat there. And then suddenly the neon lights flickered and went out, leaving a complete and utter blackness.

      We sat there, horrified. Without a neon sign, there wasn't the slightest possibility that any of the cars on the highway would stop at our motel . . . indeed, their drivers couldn't possibly realize that there was a motel here at all.

      By the light of a match. Grant called up the electricity company. No doubt twenty other people were calling them, too, but he wanted to be sure they'd have the lines repaired at once. I happened to remember that I had put some candles on one of the shelves under the kitchen sink. We lighted two candles, setting one in a saucer on the desk in the office, and the other in the living room.

      The electricity was off until after eleven-thirty. It wasn't the whole city of Banning that was affected; just an area of about two blocks, starting with us and extending west, toward the business district. The Peacock's sign was blazing twice as brightly beside all that darkness, and every once in a while a car left the surge of traffic and slipped into the Peacock's driveway.

      And then, at nearly midnight, our sign flashed on again. Of course all the other signs did too, but ours was the only one we saw, even though its modest, steady colors were put to shame by the flashing red, white and blue eye of the Winking Eye, the second motel to the west of us. The lights hadn't been on ten minutes when a sleek black sedan nosed into our driveway.

      "A customer!" Grant exclaimed.

      "You go, you go," I СКАЧАТЬ