The Hotel New Hampshire

athletes—Coach Bob let the good ones carry the ball.

Several rougher members of Iowa Bob’s backfield surrounded Poindexter on the path.

They don’t have girls here yet, Poindexter,” said the running back from Boston, “so there’s nobody but you to clean the shit off my shoes.”

Poindexter did as he was told; he was, at least, familiar with the job.

Franny and I went home, past the token cows in the falling-down school barns, past Coach Bob’s back door, where the rusty fenders of the 1937 Indian were inverted on the porch—to scrape your shoes on. The motorcycle fenders were the only outdoor remains of Earl.

“When it’s time for us to go to the Dairy School,” I said to Franny, “I hope we’re living somewhere else.”

“I’m not going to clean the shit off anybody’s shoes,” Franny said. “No way.”

Coach Bob, who ate supper with us, bemoaned his terrible football team. “It’s my last year, I swear,” the old man said, but he was always saying this. “Poindexter actually took a dump on the path today—during practice.”

“I saw Franny and John with their clothes off,” Lilly said.

“You did not,” Franny said.

“On the path,” Lilly said.

“Doing what?” Mother said.

“Doing what Grandpa Bob said,” Lilly told everyone.

Frank snorted his disgust; Father banished Franny and me to our rooms. Upstairs Franny whispered to me, “You see? It’s just you and me. Not Lilly. Not Frank.”

“Not Egg,” I added.

“Egg isn’t anybody yet, dummy,” Franny said. “Egg isn’t a human being yet.” Egg was only three.

“Now there’s two of them following us,” Franny said. “Frank and Lilly.”

“Don’t forget De Meo,” I said.

“I can forget him easy,” Franny said. “I’m going to have lots of De Meos when I grow up.”

This thought alarmed me and I was silent.

“Don’t worry,” Franny whispered, but I said nothing and she crept down the hall and into my room; she got into my bed and we left my door open so we could hear them all talking at the dinner table.

“It’s not fit for my children, this school,” Father said. “I know that.”

“Well,” Mother said, “all your talk about it has certainly convinced them of that. They’ll be afraid to go, when the time comes.”

“When the time comes,” Father said, “we’ll send them away to a good school.”

“I don’t care about a good school,” Frank said, and Franny and I could sympathize with him; although we hated the notion of going to Dairy, we were more disturbed at the thought of going “away.”

“‘Away’ where?” Frank asked.

“Who’s going away?” Lilly asked.

“Hush,” Mother said. “No one is going away to school. We couldn’t afford it. If there’s a benefit to being on the faculty at the Dairy School, it’s at least that there’s someplace free to send our children to.”

“Someplace that’s not any good,” Father said.

“Better than average,” Mother said.

“Listen,” Father said. “We’re going to make money.”

This was news to us; Franny and I kept very still.

Frank must have been nervous at the prospect. “May I be excused?” he asked.

“Of course, dear,” Mother said. “How are we going to make money?” Mother asked Father.

“For God’s sake, tell me,” Coach Bob said. “I’m the one who wants to retire.”

“Listen,” Father said. We listened. “This school may be worthless, but it’s going to grow; it’s going to take on girls, remember? And even if it doesn’t grow, it’s not going to fold. It’s been here too long to fold; its instincts are only to survive, and it will. It won’t ever be a good school; it will go through so many phases that at times we won’t recognize the place, but it’s going to keep going—you can count on that.”

“So what?” said Iowa Bob.

“So there’s going to be a school here,” Father said. “A private school is going to go on being here, in this crummy town,” he said, “and the Thompson Female Seminary isn’t going to go on being here, because now the girls in town will go to Dairy.”

“Everybody knows that,” said Mother.

“May I be excused?” Lilly asked.

“Yes, yes,” Father said. “Listen,” he said to Mother and Bob, “don’t you see?” Franny and I didn’t see anything—only Frank, sneaking by in the upstairs hall. “What’s going to become of that old building, the Thompson Female Seminary?” Father asked. And that’s when Mother suggested burning it. Coach Bob suggested it become the county jail.

“It’s big enough,” he said. Someone else had suggested this at Town Meeting.

“Nobody wants a jail here,” Father said. “Not in the middle of town.”

“It already looks like a jail,” Mother said.

“Just needs more bars,” said Iowa Bob.

“Listen,” Father said, impatiently. Franny and I froze together; Frank was lurking outside my door—Lilly was whistling, somewhere close by. “Listen, listen,” Father said. “What this town needs is a hotel.”

There was silence from the dining room table. A “hotel,” Franny and I knew, lying in my bed, was what did away with old Earl. A hotel was a vast ruined space, smelling of fish, guarded by a gun.

“Why a hotel?” Mother finally said. “You’re always saying it’s a crummy town—who’d want to come here?”

“Maybe not want to,” Father said, “but have to. Those parents of those kids at the Dairy School,” he said. “They visit their kids, don’t they? And you know what? The parents are going to get richer and richer, because the tuition is going to keep going up and up, and there won’t be any more scholarship students—there will only be rich kids coming here. And if you visit your kid at this school now, you can’t stay in town. You have to go to the beach, where all the motels are, or you have to drive even farther, up toward the mountains—but there’s nothing, absolutely nothing to stay in right here.”

That was his plan. Somehow, although the Dairy School could barely afford enough janitors, Father thought it would provide the clientele for one hotel in the town of Dairy—that the town was so motley, and no one else had dreamed of putting up a place to stay in it, didn’t worry my Father, in New Hampshire the summer tourists went to the beaches—they were half an hour away. The mountains were an hour away, where the skiers went, and where there were summer lakes. But Dairy was valley land, inland but not upland: Dairy was close enough to the sea to feel the sea’s dampness but far enough away from the sea to benefit not in the slightest from the sea’s freshness. The brisk air from the ocean and from the moutains did not penetrate the dull haze that hung over the valley of the Squamscott River, and Dairy was a Squamscott Valley town—a penetrating damp cold in winter, a steamy humidity all summer. Not a picture-pretty New England village but a mill town on a polluted river—the mill now as abandoned and as ugly as the Thompson Female Seminary. It was a town with its sole hopes hung on the Dairy School, a place no one wanted to go.

“If there was a hotel here, however,” Father said, “people would stay in it.”

“But the Thompson Female Seminary would make a dreadful hotel,” Mother said. “It could only be what it is: an old school.”

“Do you realize how cheaply one could buy it?” Father said.

“Do you realize how much it would cost to fix it up?” Mother said.

“What a depressing idea!” said Coach Bob.

Franny started to pin my arms down; it was her usual method of attack—she’d get my arms all tied up, then