A Moment On the Edge : 100 Years of Crime Stories By Women

A garbage man was only necessary for improvident city folk; country people had no garbage.

“I’m glad to see you,” Mrs. Allison told him. “We were getting pretty low.”

The kerosene man, whose name Mrs. Allison had never learned, used a hose attachment to fill the twenty- gallon tank which supplied light and heat and cooking facilities for the Allisons; but today, instead of swinging down from his truck and unhooking the hose from where it coiled affectionately around the cab of the truck, the man stared uncomfortably at Mrs. Allison, his truck motor still going.

“Thought you folks’d be leaving,” he said.

“We’re staying on another month,” Mrs. Allison said brightly.

“The weather was so nice, and it seemed like—”

“That’s what they told me,” the man said. “Can’t give you no oil, though.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Allison raised her eyebrows. “We’re just going to keep on with our regular—”

“After Labor Day,” the man said. “I don’t get so much oil myself after Labor Day.”

Mrs. Allison reminded herself, as she had frequently to do when in disagreement with her neighbors, that city manners were no good with country people; you could not expect to overrule a country employee as you could a city worker, and Mrs. Allison smiled engagingly as she said, “But can’t you get extra oil, at least while we stay?”

“You see,” the man said. He tapped his finger exasperatingly against the car wheel as he spoke. “You see,” he said slowly, “I order this oil. I order it down from maybe fifty, fifty-five miles away. I order back in June, how much I’ll need for the summer. Then I order again…oh, about November. Round about now it’s starting to get pretty short.” As though the subject were closed, he stopped tapping his finger and tightened his hands on the wheel in preparation for departure.

“But can’t you give us some?” Mrs. Allison said. “Isn’t there anyone else?”

“Don’t know as you could get oil anywheres else right now,” the man said consideringly. “I can’t give you none.” Before Mrs. Allison could speak, the truck began to move; then it stopped for a minute and he looked at her through the back window of the cab. “Ice?” he called. “I could let you have some ice.”

Mrs. Allison shook her head; they were not terribly low on ice, and she was angry. She ran a few steps to catch up with the truck, calling, “Will you try to get us some? Next week?”

“Don’t see’s I can,” the man said. “After Labor Day, it’s harder.”

The truck drove away, and Mrs. Allison, only comforted by the thought that she could probably get kerosene from Mr. Babcock or, at worst, the Halls, watched it go with anger. “Next summer,” she told herself, “just let him trying coming around next summer!”

There was no mail again, only the paper, which seemed to be coming doggedly on time, and Mr. Allison was openly cross when he returned. When Mrs. Allison told him about the kerosene man he was not particularly impressed.

“Probably keeping it all for a high price during the winter,” he commented. “What’s happened to Anne and Jerry, do you think?”

Anne and Jerry were their son and daughter, both married, one living in Chicago, one in the far west; their dutiful weekly letters were late; so late, in fact, that Mr. Allison’s annoyance at the lack of mail was able to settle on a legitimate grievance. “Ought to realize how we wait for their letters,” he said. “Thoughtless, selfish children. Ought to know better.”

“Well, dear,” Mrs. Allison said placatingly. Anger at Anne and Jerry would not relieve her emotions toward the kerosene man. After a few minutes she said, “Wishing won’t bring the mail, dear. I’m going to go call Mr. Babcock and tell him to send up some kerosene with my order.”

“At least a postcard,” Mr. Allison said as she left.

As with most of the cottage’s inconveniences, the Allisons no longer noticed the phone particularly, but yielded to its eccentricities without conscious complaint. It was a wall phone, of a type still seen in only few communities; in order to get the operator, Mrs. Allison had first to turn the side-crank and ring once. Usually it took two or three tries to force the operator to answer, and Mrs. Allison, making any kind of telephone call, approached the phone with resignation and a sort of desperate patience. She had to crank the phone three times this morning before the operator answered, and then it was still longer before Mr. Babcock picked up the receiver at his phone in the corner of the grocery behind the meat table. He said

“Store?” with the rising inflection that seemed to indicate suspicion of anyone who tried to communicate with him by means of this unreliable instrument.

“This is Mrs. Allison, Mr. Babcock. I thought I’d give you my order a day early because I wanted to be sure and get some—”

“What say, Mrs. Allison?”

Mrs. Allison raised her voice a little; she saw Mr. Allison, out on the lawn, turn in his chair and regard her sympathetically. “I said, Mr. Babcock, I thought I’d call in my order early so you could send me—”

“Mrs. Allison?” Mr. Babcock said. “You’ll come and pick it up?”

“Pick it up?” In her surprise Mrs. Allison let her voice drop back to its normal tone and Mr. Babcock said loudly, “What’s that, Mrs. Allison?”

“I thought I’d have you send it out as usual,” Mrs. Allison said.

“Well, Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock said, and there was a pause while Mrs. Allison waited, staring past the phone over her husband’s head out into the sky. “Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock went on finally,

“I’ll tell you, my boy’s been working for me went back to school yesterday, and now I got no one to deliver. I only got a boy delivering summers, you see.”

“I thought you always delivered,” Mrs. Allison said.

“Not after Labor Day, Mrs. Allison,” Mr. Babcock said firmly,

“you never been here after Labor Day before, so’s you wouldn’t know, of course.”

“Well,” Mrs. Allison said helplessly. Far inside her mind she was saying, over and over, can’t use city manners on country folk, no use getting mad.

“Are you sure?” she asked finally. “Couldn’t you just send out an order today, Mr. Babcock?”

“Matter of fact,” Mr. Babcock said, “I guess I couldn’t, Mrs. Allison.

It wouldn’t hardly pay, delivering, with no one else out at the lake.”

“What about Mr. Hall?” Mrs. Allison asked suddenly, “the people who live about three miles away from us out here? Mr. Hall could bring it out when he comes.”

“Hall?” Mr. Babcock said. “John Hall? They’ve gone to visit her folks upstate, Mrs. Allison.”

“But they bring all our butter and eggs,” Mrs. Allison said, appalled.

“Left yesterday,” Mr. Babcock said. “Probably didn’t think you folks would stay on up there.”

“But I told Mr. Hall…” Mrs. Allison started to say, and then stopped. “I’ll send Mr. Allison in after some groceries tomorrow,”

she said.

“You got all you need till then,” Mr. Babcock said, satisfied; it was not a question, but a confirmation.

After she hung up, Mrs. Allison went slowly out to sit again in her chair next to her husband. “He won’t deliver,” she said.

“You’ll have to go in tomorrow. We’ve got just enough kerosene to last till you get back.”

“He should have told us sooner,” Mr. Allison said.

It was not possible to remain troubled long in the face of the day; the country had never seemed more inviting, and the lake moved quietly below them, among the trees, with the almost incredible softness of a summer picture. Mrs. Allison sighed deeply, in the pleasure of possessing for themselves that sight of the lake, with the distant green hills beyond, the gentleness of the small wind through the trees.

The weather continued fair; the next morning Mr. Allison, duly armed with a list of groceries, with “kerosene” in large letters at the top, went down the path to the garage, and Mrs. Allison began another pie in her new baking dishes. She had mixed the crust and was starting to pare the apples when Mr. Allison came rapidly up the path and flung open the screen door into the kitchen.

“Damn car won’t start,” he announced, with the end-of-the-tether voice of a man who depends on a car as he depends on his right arm.

“What’s wrong with it?” Mrs. Allison demanded, stopping with the paring knife in one hand and an apple in