Chapter 2

Sunday was, of course, a day of rest, but nobody had told the cows about the Biblical injunction. Sammy was up with the chickens, the crows and the sun. He took care of both the milk cows and the nanny goats before he came in for breakfast with his pail of goat milk for his mother's constant cheese making. His brother was there at the kitchen table before him, his cheeks red from shaving, hair nearly pomaded, mustache trimmed.

"Where are you going?" Sammy asked between mouthfuls of flapjacks and Karo syrup since it was also obvious that his brother had been brushing his sparse hair over his ears. His mother fixed good breakfasts all week, but Sunday was special. Sunday was pancakes and sausage or scrapple.

"I'm taking the rig over to fetch the Fergusons after a while," his brother said. "Have to clean it up first."

"I thought they had an automobile, a flivver or something."

"It's being worked on; magneto I think he said. Electrical nohow."

Sammy cocked his head and studied his older brother. "You're looking very smug about it."

"Well Gloria and me, we had a long talk last night." Robert rolled up his sleeves. "Down on her front porch."

"That all you did, talk?

Robert kicked at his brother's shins, but Sammy ducked his feet away. "We've been talking about it off and on for more than a year, you know." Robert chased down the last bit of egg white with his fork.

"Oh, and what do you mean by it?"

"Getting married of course. You know that." He looked as if he was running out of patience, and he lifted his chin and snorted.

Sammy smiled, enjoying his brother's discomfort and exasperation, and forked another golden pancake onto his corn syrup-covered plate. "Oh yes. You did mention something about that. I remember. Have you lovebirds set a date?"

"Not exactly. She wants to have it down in that Bethesda church, the Episcopal one with the fancy windows, rather than going up to Rockville or using the old meeting house."

"Uh huh," Sammy said, his cheek bulging, "the way I understand it, it's pretty much up to her and her folks since they'll pay the bills."

Robert nodded. "They want her to wait another year, at least her father does. They're even talking about taking her to Europe in the fall." He rearranged his fork and knife on his plate.

Sammy sucked his teeth and stirred his heavily creamed coffee. "Sounds like they think she could do better."

"Well, darn it, I suppose she could," Robert admitted, tossing down his napkin. "That's the whole thing. But she says she loves me. I've been asking her for going on a year now, to get married I mean."

"Doesn't she have some other beaux?"

Robert nodded again, looking unhappy. "Lots of 'em, at least she did, scads, legions, regiments."

"So how do you judge the competition? It's sort of like the County fair isn't it. Are you the prize bull? Who gets the blue ribbon and the fair maiden?"

"I suppose I'm not," said Robert. "Did the Sunday papers come?"

"They're probably still out in the box. I didn't look. Who's your chief competitor for the hand of the fair Miss Ferguson?"

Robert stood and wiped his lips with his fingers, flicking at his mustache. "That lawyer, you know him, Nottingham, R. Morris Nottingham, how about that for a la-dee-dah moniker? I'd say he's the prime candidate as well as her father's favorite, big house in Chevy Chase, all that. He's about thirty-five I suppose, a widower, three or four young ones, lots of servants. Drives a Pierce-Arrow."

"Have you talked to Maw?" Sammy asked, taking the last spoonful of overcooked sausage from the iron frying pan on the stove and then refilling his coffee cup.

Robert sighed. "I explained Civil Service to Gloria and to her father. This is a good job I've got down at Commerce, and I think I can move up after I get my business degree." He sighed. "Maw knows all about it."

"Three more years of night school, whew," said Sammy, pushing himself away from the table.

"I still won't be thirty when I'm finished." Robert scowled and went to fetch in the newspapers from out on the old turnpike.

At supper that Sunday the big table held ten people since the Williams boys' sister, Lucinda, and her apple-cheeked husband were in attendance as well as the Ferguson clan with Gloria in a white eyelet dress sporting huge puffy sleeves and her little brother wriggling in a sailor suit complete with a wooden whistle on a knotted cord. Nancy had stayed at home, "indisposed" her mother said, and Sammy was hiding his disappointment as best he could. The conversation rolled back and forth from TR and the Panama Canal to the Cuban problem and finally settled on the question of names for Lucinda's soon-to-be-born baby.

"What's wrong with Samuel?" asked Sammy with a smile, "wasn't he one of the first Williamses that settled here?"

"I like Rufus," said Gloria's brother John who was sitting on a dictionary. "My dog's Rufus."

"But it might be a girl, you know," young Miss Ferguson said, smiling across the table at Lucinda.

"I have an Aunt Esmerelda," said Lucy's balding husband.

Robert made a face and quickly covered his mouth with his napkin, coughing and trying not to choke.

"We haven't had a Mary in the family for some time," said Caroline Williams, happy that the diners were making the pot roast and carrots disappear so rapidly and the youngster was keeping his elbows off the table after only two frowns in his direction.

Mr. Ferguson shook his head and pushed out his lower lip. "Sounds a bit Romish to me."

"Romish?" said Sammy, puzzled, knife and fork poised, forehead creased.

"Catholic, Roman Catholic, all those greasy foreigners," Mr. Ferguson said gruffly, "ought to be outlawed."

"Just a minute," Robert said, "that's going a bit far." He put down his fork. "We have a lot of Catholic friends and our Uncle Luke's boys were raised as Catholics."

"Simmer down," said Seth Williams from the head of the table. "We try to avoid religion and politics at the dinner table." He smiled at the elder Ferguson. "Same rules as the barber shop."

"Well if you had read about those priests and nuns, you might not, well," and he stopped as his wife elbowed him none too gently.

"If not Mary, perhaps Marie," said the young mother-to-be. "I rather like the sound of that, Marie Birch."

"Maybe you'll have twins," said Johnny Ferguson. "Then you can use Mutt and Jeff for names."

"Or Hans and Fritz," said Sammy, chuckling at his sister's flustered condition.

"Let's change the subject," said Bill Birch, "and pass the potatoes if you will. Sammy, I hear you've been looking for work."