TOWN

Jenny pressed her nose flat against the car window and looked down at the road. The road was a swift stream running under them and the car was standing still.

“Hey, Margaret! When you do this it looks like the road’s moving. You try it.”

“That's nothing,” was Margaret’s response. I’ve seen that lots of times.”

Jenny said,”Oh,” and quit looking because it wasn’t any fun now.

They drove up and down hills, past farm houses and over small bridges, until at last they were in town. Mother turned around to arrange Jenny’s fuzzy green tam because it had slid off her silky fine hair and was way down over one ear. Margaret’s tam was red. They had gotten them last year at Aunt Olivia’s hat shop because they matched their coats.

Daddy parked the car in front of the produce station and carried in the eggs and cream, stopping to chat with some people inside. Mother, Margaret and Jenny got out of the car and walked on up the main street sidewalk, past stores with awnings, past the corner drinking fountain and other wonders. Mother took a tight hold of Jenny’s hand whenever they crossed the street. They saw Aunt Pearl, so Mother stopped to talk with her. Margaret went on by herself, as she was old enough to do this. It seemed to Jenny that Margaret always got to do such exciting things. She thought that Mother would never be finished talking to Aunt Pearl. All she could gather from their conversation were bits of, “I said ----------” and “So she said ---------,” and so forth. She tugged at Mother’s hand and whined, “Let’s go,” but Mother paid no attention.

As they stood there, Jenny watched the parade of people pass by: little girls and big girls, girls with pig tails, girls with straight hair like her own and some with curly hair, rowdy or shy little boys, skinny people, fat people, people with frowns on their faces and people with smiles, women with funny hats, women carrying babies, men dressed in their Sunday best and men in overalls and unionalls. A very fat man walked by with a short curved pipe in his mouth . He had a very big mole growing under one eye. Jenny watched them all, all these aliens.

Mother met other people she knew and they would ask, “How are you Jenny?” and she would say with exaggerated exuberance, “Just fine,” the way Daddy had taught her long ago when she was two. Some of them would say, “My, you’re growing,” and some would ask how old she was. Whenever Mother stopped too long, Jenny would tug at her hand again and whine, “Let’s go,” but it never did any good.

Mother bought a spool of thread at the department store, the one where they sent the change down from the balcony on a wire in little buckets. Jenny looked up and saw a slanting window in the store’s ceiling. She had to look several times to be sure it really was a window. The counters were so high that she couldn’t see what was on them. Mother lifted her up so that she could see some of the things. On the way out of the store, Jenny stopped suddenly and stared at the store’s window display. There were several long necked heads on stands. and the clerk they had seen in the store was putting a different hat on one of them. Jenny clutched Mother’s hand tightly.

“Those aren’t real people,” Mother explained. They are just dummies or mannequins,” but Jenny still thought they might be the heads of dead people. One of the ladies at Mother’s club looked just like one of them. Just then the six o'clock whistle blew with a penetrating eerie sound. Jenny had the idea there might be some connection between the whistle blowing and the window dummies. It was all so strange and a little frightening,

Next they went to the grocery store. The clerk that waited on them wore a bright flowered smock. She had a loud shrill voice and her hands and fingers were long with big blue veins, but she spoke kindly to Jenny. Daddy and Margaret came in and Daddy carried out the groceries.

“How much did the produce bring this week?” Mother asked him.

“Six dollars and a few cents.”

“Isn’t that the limit! We practically have to give it away, when you think of the amount we pay for feed.”

They started home in the car. Daddy had bought a big mixed bag of lemon drops and chocolate stars from the candy cases at the Variety store for a dime. Mother said he just should have bought a nickel’s worth. She said they could all have some after they got home and changed into their everyday clothes.

Margaret stood on her knees and looked through the back car window toward town.

“Look at that big black thing,” she said pointing to the standpipe. Jenny looked too. It stood straight up in the air, higher than anything else in town. Mother said that they blew the six o’clock whistle from the standpipe. Jenny thought it must take a very big thing to make such a big noise. She thought again of the long necked dummies in the store window.

Margaret turned around again and said, “I still see the big black thing.” They made a game out of it, taking turns looking every so often and saying, “I still see the big black thing.” They drove and drove and they could still see he big black thing, though it seemed to be getting smaller.

When they came to top of the hill that went down to their house, and could see the tops of the tall cottonwood trees, they looked back and could still see the big black thing looming up on the horizon like a thin black needle. As they drove down the hill, it disappeared. Jenny decided that maybe town wasn’t as far away as she had thought, if you could see the big black thing and the cottonwood trees at the same time.