Bishop's Road Read Free Page A

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    â€œEve,” says Mrs. Miflin, “Mr. Abe Hennessy over on Blake Street thinks one of your old hedgehogs could be in his shed. He was cleaning up and it looks like something or other made a nest in a barrel what he had turned over on its side and slept the winter. If you want it back you better go get it because he needs the barrel. It might be a rat he said but it didn’t move nearly so fast as one and it’s more roundish. I don’t know why you don’t just pour salt on them slugs, you know. Kills them quicker than anything and not nearly so costly as buying hedgehogs every year and they taking off soon as they got their bellies full.”
    â€œWell, Mrs. Miflin, I’m not all that fond of killing things. If the Creator wanted me pouring salt on His slugs He would never have come up with hedgehogs in the first place. I think He might have done something about their wandering habits while He was at it but who am I to question His ways?”
    Mrs. Miflin does not much care for arguments she can’t win. “Okay everybody. Enough of this chit-chat. This here young lady goes by the name of Judy and is living with you now thanks to Social Services who couldn’t find anyone else who’d have her being as she’s what you’d call a delinquent. She is in the habit of stealing anything that’s not hammered down so keep that in mind if you catch her in your rooms. She is supposed to keep her nose clean from now on or she’ll be in the jail for the rest of her days. Judy eat them peas. I got no patience for fancy eating diseases in this house. I made a nice trifle for dessert and I’m not bringing it out until them plates is polished.”
    â€œWhich means,” says Ruth, “that our Mrs. Miflin has constructed a sponge cake and flung a can of fruit cocktail at it.You’re welcome to my share, Judy. There’s been more than enough trifle in my life already.”
    â€œRuth. Don’t be testy. Everybody likes trifle. Don’t mind Ruth, Judy my dear. She’s always like this, but nice enough if you can manage to ignore her. And Ruth, don’t you think for one minute I didn’t see you hauling them sheets down to the laundrymat last night. I go through all the trouble of hanging them in the lovely fresh air and you take them there. I don’t know why you can’t be like everyone else and sleep on them nice and outdoorsy smelling.”
    â€œBecause they’re like bloody sandpaper, Mrs. Miflin, and it’s cheaper to take them for a quick tumble in a dryer than to pay good money for the amount of lotion I’d need to keep my skin from falling off if I don’t. Fifty cents and ten minutes makes them at least livable.”
    â€œWell don’t come complaining to me when they go getting holes in them from all that tumbling. I buy my linens once a year and not a minute sooner.”

    In the attic the rattling of small bones muffled by pink soft knit blanket. Soft knit blanket with hope and dreams set in delicate stitches - seven months’ worth of delicate stitches. On a satin pillow. Singing. Low. Ginny Mustard hears it from her place at the table.
Hush little baby don’t say a word. Momma’s gonna buy you a mocking bird.
And she drops peas from her fork, who loves her food and would never waste a mouthful, drops peas from her fork and they roll under the table. Mrs. Miflin frowns and after that everyone is conscious of her feet and there is no movement from below. The little voice is clear above the plate scraping and Mrs. Miflin going on and on about nothing, but no one takes noticeexcept Ginny Mustard.
    Ginny Mustard’s mother left her in the hospital where she was born. There was no talk of adoption or anything else. She just up and went when her time was through and she didn’t take the baby. She was not a young girl in trouble. She had a toddler and a husband and a fine home and she was thirty-two