I’m going to have a Baby Aren’t you Delighted
October 23
Big weekend ahead. Bob and Mary Hutton are coming out. She and I don’t get along too well and I really want to pour it on. Hope I can make Lucretia cooperate and wear her shoes.
October 24
This is a fine thing! Some dopey Joe called up when Peggy and I were out riding and this morning Lucretia told me to the accompaniment of her giggling cackle: “Pretty funny! Guess what Mrs. Irwin said over the ‘phone-wanted to know how soon you was expectin’. I told her you and I didn’t know nothin’ ’bout it! Heh-heh!”
I thought it was so uproariously funny I dropped an entire tray of night-before cocktail glasses I was carrying. “While I’m breaking things, Lucretia,” I said, hiding my face among the pieces, “I might as well break the news. I’m going to have a baby. Aren’t you delighted?”
She was so delighted you’d think someone had just dropped a caterpillar down her neck. “No babies for me! Reg’lar family work is all right, but no babies. Besides, I don’t like this big house nohow. I’m givin’ notice.”
So I kept Jake on the agenda and scratched Lucretia off. In stony silence I drove her to town, boxes and packages and paper bags and “Cleopatra’s Love Dream”. Then I headed for the nearest employment agency.
No sign of life. Only the janitor, who informed me: “The lady says to me, she says, why stay open? Everybody has gone to work in Bridgeport where they make good money. I’m going in the Army myself next week.”
At the other agency a little man peeped out of “Western Stories” to chirp, “Maybe in a month or so- Corne back in a month.”
Sacrificing next week’s gas I drove to Norwalk, where a flustered female was busy with three ‘phones. “Hello,” she said: “Hello-no, not today… Sure, I can get you- Hello! …Yes, we’ve plenty of girls- Hello! …Yes, I can get you a cook …Right away- Hello! …Yes- You’ll have to meet the prices they’re paying in the defense plants…”
Anyway, I don’t have to worry about Lucretia leaving her shoes off when we have guests.
October 26
I’m my own maid now and the only time I took off was a few minutes to be ill in. Couldn’t miss that. The guests arrived before the breakfast dishes were done or the beds made, but I just closed the doors and off we tore for New Haven and football.
Dinner wasn’t so bad. We had steak, my one culinary accomplishment, with canned Frenchfried onions, canned string beans, canned Frenchfried potatoes, and canned corn, plus salad and Lucretia’s apple pie left over from Thursday. And Pat-Pat who shuns dish towels like vipers (Oh, welll ) was actually shamed into helping with the astonishing stack of dishes my cooking seems to accumulate. But this morning’s breakfast! Whipping up scrambled eggs does no good to my morning stomach.
The guests went home after dinner. I had never tried southern fried chicken before and my peach dumplings are not the kind Lucretia used to make.