People Who Knock on the Door Read Free Page A

course) the most flaming case of tonsillitis that Dr. Swithers had seen in his many years of practice, and he had to go to Chalmerston’s United Memorial Hospital. Arthur took his brother extra ice cream, riding to the hospital on his newly acquired secondhand bike. Arthur glanced at Maggie in the school corridors, not wanting his glances to be noticed by her lest she be annoyed, but his eyes seemed to find her in a crowd against his will. Then on Friday afternoon, he met her almost face to face in a corridor, was about to murmur “Hi” and walk on, when Maggie said:
    “I will go out with you, if you want to. I’m sorry I was so—”
    “Never mind. You mean—maybe Saturday? Tomorrow night?”
    She agreed. He would call for her at 7, and they would go out to eat somewhere.
    Arthur’s spirits rose again as high as they had been on that afternoon ten days ago. The memory of Maggie’s pretty room with its blue and beige curtains, its blue-covered bed, took on renewed life.
    “Never saw you so chipper with exams coming up,” his mother remarked on Friday evening.
    Arthur was sure his mother thought he was happy because of a girl. His eyes met his mother’s across the dinner table, but she smiled and looked away.
    Robbie was coming home tomorrow. He had had to stay an extra day so that the doctor could be sure he was out of danger.
    “Robbie reminds me so much of the little Sweeney boy at the Home. You know, Richard?” Lois said.
    “No,” said Richard, jolted from his food as if from a news-paper.
    “Jerry Sweeney. I’ve told you about him. Five years old and always worried about nothing . He’s a dear little fellow, scared of the dark just like Robbie used to be. And Jerry’s parents fuss over him like wet hens. They get therapy sessions with Dr. Blockman and poor little Jerry gets the tranquilizers! Imagine, at his age!” Lois blinked her eyes. “Really, there’s quite a similarity.”
    “Lois, you take those kids too personally,” said Richard, pushing his plate back. “You said you were going to stop that.”
    “No, I—” His mother shrugged. “Arthur, you don’t tease Robbie too much, do you? When I’m not around to hear you?”
    “No, Mom.—Why should I waste my time doing that?”
    “I’m only asking,” said his mother pacifically. “Because Robbie’s nearly fifteen—and insecure enough as it is. I don’t know if that’s the right word for him.”
    “These terms!” Richard said. “Who isn’t insecure? Robbie hasn’t found his set of values yet. Few people can, at fifteen.” By way of hastening the appearance of dessert, he got up and removed his dinner plate and also Lois’s.
    Set of values . Just what did his father mean? Selling insurance to scared-of-the-future clients, putting in an appearance at church a couple of times a month, mainly so that people of the town could see him there? It was still bound up with money, Arthur felt, his father’s set of values. And his father wasn’t the type who would ever make a big pot of money, in Arthur’s opinion, because he hadn’t the flair or the push. His father had had to quit college and go to work, as many a successful man had, but there was something ordinary about his father. Even his not very tall figure looked ordinary, and Arthur hoped that when he became forty-two or forty-three, he would be able to stave off the paunch his father was acquiring.
    His mother worked four or five afternoons a week at the Beverley Home for Children. It was half a hospital, half a clinic and day nursery for out-patients, and a lot of the babies and children were retarded or mentally upset, or they were being parked there because of family uproar. Lois did voluntary work, as she had no degree in pediatrics, but she was given some money for car expenses and she could eat her midday meal there, but Arthur knew she seldom did. As soon as she entered the Beverley Home, her attention was taken by one of the small children who might be walking