Free Show Boat by Edna Ferber Page B

flushed, smiling, radiant. “You’re about as good as your pa was, Nola. And that’s no compliment.” He swung her to the floor, a whirl of dolman, short starched skirt and bonnet askew. Then, as Parthy snatched the dolman from her and glared at the bonnet, he saw that he must create again a favourable impression—contrive a new diversion—or his recent gain was lost. A born showman, Andy.
    “Where’d you get that bonnet, Magnolia?”
    “In there.” She pointed to one of a row of doors facing them at the rear of the stage. “In one of those little bedrooms—cabins—what are they, Papa?”
    “Dressing rooms, Nola, and bedrooms, too. Want to see them, Parthy?” He opened a little door leading from the right-hand box to the stage, crossed the stage followed by the reluctant Parthenia, threw open one of the doors at the back. There was revealed a tiny cabin holding a single bed, a diminutive dresser, and wash-stand. Handy rows of shelves were fastened to the wall above the bed. Dimity curtains hung at the window. The window itself framed a view of river and shore. A crudely coloured calendar hung on the wall, and some photographs and newspaper clippings, time-yellowed. There was about the little chamber a cosiness, a snugness, and, paradoxically enough, a sense of space. That was the open window, doubtless, with itsvista of water and sky giving the effect of freedom.
    “Dressing rooms during the performance,” Andy explained, “and bedrooms the rest of the time. That’s the way we work it.”
    Mrs. Hawks, with a single glance, encompassed the tiny room and rejected it. “Expect me to live in a cubby-hole like that!” It was, unconsciously, her first admission.
    Magnolia, behind her mother’s skirts, was peering, wide-eyed, into the room. “Why, I
love
it! Why, I’d love to live in it. Why, look, there’s a little bed, and a dresser, and a——”
    Andy interrupted hastily. “Course I don’t expect you to live in a cubby-hole, Parthy. No, nor the child, neither. Just you step along with me. Now don’t say anything; and stop your grumbling till you see. Put that bonnet back, Nola, where you got it. That’s wardrobe. Which room ’d you get it out of?”
    Across the stage, then, up the aisle to the stairway that led to the balcony, Andy leading, Mrs. Hawks following funereally, Magnolia playing a zigzag game between the rows of seats yet managing mysteriously to arrive at the foot of the stairs just as they did. The balcony reached, Magnolia had to be rescued from the death that in Mrs. Hawks’ opinion inevitably would result from her leaning over the railing to gaze enthralled on the auditorium and stage below. “Hawks, will you look at that child! I declare, if I ever get her off this boat alive I’ll never set foot on it again.”
    But her tone somehow lacked conviction. And when she beheld those two upper bedrooms forward, leadingoff the balcony—those two square roomy bedrooms, as large, actually, as her bedroom in the cottage, she was lost. The kitchen had scored. But the bedrooms won. They were connected by a little washroom. Each had two windows. Each held bed, dresser, rocker, stove. Bedraggled dimity curtains hung at the windows. Matting covered the floors. Parthy did an astonishing —though characteristic—thing. She walked to the dresser, passed a practised forefinger over its surface, examined the finger critically, and uttered that universal tongue-and-tooth sound indicating disapproval. “An inch thick,” she then said. “A sight of cleaning this boat will take, I can tell you. Not a curtain in the place but’ll have to come down and washed and starched and ironed.”
    Instinct or a superhuman wisdom cautioned Andy to say nothing. From the next room came a shout of joy. “Is this my room? It’s got a chair that rocks and a stove with a res’vore and I can see my whole self in the looking glass, it’s so big. Is this my room? Is it? Mama!”
    Parthy passed into the next room.