I think one can learn so much about people when they don’t think it is worth while to be polite, or think they are alone in the bosom of their family.
I remember one time I walked home with Elaine McDonald from the Crystal Emporium where we had had a banana split, and her father, who thought she had come in alone, barked down at her as if she were a member of a section gang and he were the boss.
The thing that made it funny was the fact that he is a purry man, and always wears a swallow-tail coat on Sunday, and passes the plate, and stands around after church bobbing and smirking over people, and saying, “It is a real pleasure to see you here, Mrs. Smith!” (or Mrs. Jones, or whoever it happened to be) He has a Bible class, too, and is the President of the Shakespeare Club, and I was surprised to hear him bawl out—bawl is a crude word, but it does belong here!—“Elaine, you left the fire on under the boiler and there’s enough hot water here to scald a hog! You and your mother don’t care how you run the gas and the bills—”
And then Elaine said, and, oh, so sweetly, “Papa, dear, Jane Jones is with me—”
And he said, “Ahem—how-a—how-a nice,” and then sneaked back into the bathroom and shut the door quietly and finished his shaving in deep silence. Which just shows—or should, because I am using it for the express purpose of illustration—how different people may be in public and while shaving. Of course Leslie and Viola didn’t syrup up in a hurry as Mr. McDonald did, because they didn’t consider me worth while, but I knew that they were capable of slapping on a sugar coating if they’d wanted to.
But, to get on, after dinner I waited around until half past seven, because the best people in our town never start out to make calls before that hour, and I wanted to be correct. Then I went down the hall and tapped on Leslie’s door because I heard a steady buzzing back of that and it intimated that the newcomers were together and inside. After I tapped I waited. Then some one slammed a trunk lid, and I heard an impatient, “What is it?”
“It’s me,” I answered, and realized too late that I shouldn’t have said that. I should have said, “It is I,” but I am always making mistakes. Then I heard, “Vi, open the door—”
And Viola Harris-Clarke let me in.
Leslie, who was leaning over a trunk fishing things out of it, only looked over her shoulder inquiringly for a second, and then turned back after a “Hello,” that had a question mark after it.
“I thought I’d come over and see how you were getting on,” I said.