Free Guestward Ho! by Patrick Dennis Page B

to spend the summer in Italy and the ennui of simply pigging it in Maine. "Too bad about her!" I grumbled. Then I turned to a long letter from my sister-in-law who said that she, too, was contemplating Europe— Paris especially—and why didn't Bill and I just pick up stakes and come with her.
    I was about to make a rude noise when I became con scious of the fact that the automatic dishwasher was making a much ruder and noisier noise. "You'd think they'd perfect these contraptions so that they'd run a little more quietly," I grumbled. Then I turned to a letter from my mother, which contained the disquieting news she was planning to visit Bill and me in our "mud hut." (Mother simply cannot understand about adobe.) After that first bombshell there was a lot of absorbing news about my sisters and their babies and my brother in the Army, but I found it increasingly hard to concentrate.
    Then Bill came pounding out to the kitchen and shouted, "Barbara! Do something about that dishwasher! It's shak ing the whole house down!"
    "Oh, good Lord!" I cried, jumping up.
    The machine was so hot that Bill could hardly touch it, but he finally got it disconnected and silenced. When it was cool enough to take the top off the two of us looked in. It was a ghastly sight.
    I can't tell you just exactly what had happened, butI’d done something foolish about the water. It had all drained out and what was left of my Limoges china could, be put through a sieve. If anyone wants any powdered Limoges, just ask me. I've got boxes of it.
    Anyhow, we were gone from the ranch for two days, leaving the Walkers in the unique position of resident-manager-guests. We did it without a qualm, and the Walk ers accepted it in the same way. In fact, we were all the way into Mexico before I realized with a startled little giggle that Bill and I had acted almost like an eccentric comedy team in a light farce who had invited a respectable older couple to dinner and then walked out on them, saying, "You'll find chops in the freezer and all the mak ings of an angel food cake in the pantry. If you want any thing, just ask the maid. There's plenty of coffee at the A & P and if Babikins starts screaming in the nursery, just run up and diaper him. We're off to the Stork Club!"
    Two days later we got back with some of the least hideous possible Mexican earthenware—nothing that said Souvenir de Mejico —and some tin candlesticks. (Please don't worry; it all looks nice in the Southwest, albeit ghastly elsewhere.) All was serene. Polly and Bob greeted us just as though it were the most natural thing in the world for the management to run off and leave the guests in charge. Polly had ordered a marvelous dinner (by this time Evangeline had worked up to undulant fever in her alphabet of imaginary ailments, but she could cook well) and had run the ranch far more efficiently than I ever had. She had even accepted reservations from two women who used to visit when Bess Huntinghouse was running Rancho del Monte and had rooms prepared for their arrival.
    It was. here that we learned something else about the business and that concerns the personality of a guest ranch. I don't know why it came as such a surprise, but it did.
    Bill and I both felt a little apprehensive about enter taining people who had been Bess's guests before, almost like the second wife of a widower about to be inspected by the first wife's bridesmaids. Still, we were running the place pretty much as Bess had, so we didn't feel too upset—until we met the two old-timers. Everything went well, and yet it didn't. There was nothing wrong with them; in fact, they were terribly nice. There was nothing wrong with us. I was a little lady, if I do say so myself. Yet it just didn't go. The women were like cats in a strange house, unable to light anywhere. They obviously preferred the rooms as Bess had arranged them, the meals as Bess had planned them, the other guests who had been there under Bess's managership. We did