108

which was being heated by an alco-
hol lamp too close to the fluffy cur-
tains around the dressing table.

The fact that I remember the story
and the circumstances surrounding
its telling shows how vividly Father
drove his lesson home.

When I was twelve years old, we
had moved to a house at 2131 R
Street in Washington, and I had joy-
fully acquired a puppy police dog at
a Red Cross raffle in Dutchess Coun-
ty, N.Y., where I took two 25-cent
chances with my own money. The
dog became my closest companion
and lived until after my own second
child was born. Every morning, Fa-
ther and I and Chief, the police dog,
would walk the mile and a half or so
from the house to my school. After
leaving me, Father would walk on
down to his Navy Department office,
taking Chief with him. Those walks
I remember because we talked about
all sorts of things I liked to hear
about—books I was reading, a cruise
we might be going to take down the
Potomac River the following week
end, the historic old Virginia houses
Father planned to show us.

Father was not a disciplinarian by
temperament. Nor was he ever fond
of long, solitary talks with his chil-
dren about troubles they might have.
These parental duties he seemed to
feel lay entirely in the feminine realm
and should rightfully be tackled by
Mother and Granny.

But as we were perfectly normal
children from the standpoint of get-
ting into mischief, there were times

The Woman with Woman’s Digest

June
when we definitely annoyed Father.
And then there was nothing uncer-
tain or gentle about his wrath. He
would often be sarcastic in his chas-
tising remarks and end up by send-
ing us coldly from the room or to
our bed's.

Therefore, it was Mother or Gran-
ny who had the day-in and day-out
job of reminding us to wash behind
our ears, to be on time for meals and
to behave in front of guests. In those
early days of childhood, we were def-
initely supposed to be seen and not
heard!

It was Mother and Granny who
had to punish us for such habitual
stunts as sliding down the roof of
our Campobello house, thereby loos-
ening the shingles; dumping paper
bags full of water from the top floor
window of our Washington house
onto the beflowered hats of govern-
ment wives who were arriving for tea
with Mother; filling guests’ pajama
pockets with crushed onions we
picked up in Virginia fields on one
of our cruises down the Potomac;
and hiding behind furniture during
formal dinner parties, from which
vantage point we lit stink bombs.

Parenthetically, I should explain
that in those days in Washington,
the wives of government officials had
to have special days “at home,” and
make official “tea calls” on one an-
other on other days. Our Potomac
cruises were on a yacht called the
Sylph, which was used by the Secre-
tary of the Navy and the Assistant
Secretary when they were entertain-