Free Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson Page B

tricycles, which the children offered with pleasure to ride out to the barn. I stood on the front porch with Barry in his carriage, to tell the men where to put things, and my husband stayed inside, to do as much arranging as he could, and to see that nothing went through the floor. They unloaded our glass-topped coffee table, and I checked to make sure that Mr. Cobb had not smashed the glass top, and then told them to take it into the living room downstairs front, and then they unpacked the old music box, which has always gone in the dining room, and inside, my husband, already arranging, moved the music box to the corner where the buffet was going to go, because the music box has always been on top of the buffet.
    Things were going so smoothly that I decided to drive down to the grocery and get some beer, because it was an almighty hot day, and while I was gone the men unloaded the ping-pong table, which went in the barn, and Laurie’s desk, which went into the upstairs back, and the cushions from the living room couch, which my husband arranged where the couch was going to be. The movers and my husband and I drank beer, and the children drank grape soda, and Barry had a bottle of orange juice, and then the movers unloaded the hall table and two bridge tables and my husband’s desk and Jannie’s puppet theater and our two laundry hampers. After the laundry hampers, which I recalled were full of clothes, came four barrels of dishes, and the guest room bed tables, and the odd dressing table mirror, which my husband arranged temporarily in the upstairs hall. The number of things in the moving truck seemed endless. I checked the piano bench, and the carton which held the waffle iron and the electric broiler and the dog’s dish. There was a carton of piano music, and a barrel of toys, and then Sally’s toy box and Jannie’s toy box and Barry’s bathinette. Sally and Jannie retired to Sally’s new room to unpack the barrel of toys, the rugs arrived, were stacked in the front hall, and my husband put our big silver fruit dish in the middle of the dining room floor where the dining room table was going to be. Finally, from the very back of the truck, came the picnic table and benches, and the outdoor barbecue. The men then brought in an odd leg from something, had another can of beer, thanked us, were thanked, and departed with the truck, cutting across the front lawn.
    In our new living room, then, we had perhaps sixty cartons of books, the piano bench, the coffee table, and the carton of piano music. In the dining room were the music box, another forty cartons of books, and the silver fruit dish. In the kitchen were four barrels of dishes, and a carton with the waffle iron, the electric broiler, and the dog’s dish. Upstairs in Sally’s room were her toy box and a barrel of toys, unpacked. The guest room had two bed tables. In what was going to be the new study was the odd leg off something and my husband’s coin collection, which he had brought in out of the car, and another fifty cartons of books. In the front room where we planned to put the television set were another fifty cartons of books and the picnic hamper. In my husband’s and my bedroom was a carton, sent by me from our summer home, which held half a dozen wet bathing suits wrapped in aluminum foil, three plastic sandpails, Sally’s blue sunbonnet, and Laurie’s collection of shells. It was half-past six.
    I heated Barry’s baby food and his bottle in the hot water from the kitchen sink, fed him sitting on the piano bench with a carton labeled Miscellaneous Non-Fiction for a tray, cleaned him as well as I could, and changed him into his pajamas. I opened a can of dog food and fed Toby on a newspaper on the kitchen floor, and Ninki in the top of an old mayonnaise jar I found in the pantry. Then we shut all the animals inside the new house, got the rest of us, including Barry’s carriage, back into the car,