Moons of Jupiter by Alice Munro Read Free Book Online

floor was pine and it was white, gleaming, but soft-looking, like velvet. So were the chairs and the table. We all sat around the kitchen, which was like a small house tacked on to the main house; back and front doors opposite each other, windows on three sides. The cold black stove shone, too, with polishing. Its trim was like mirrors. The room was cleaner and barer than any I have ever been in. There was no sign of frivolity, no indication that the people who lived here ever sought entertainment. No radio; no newspapers or magazines; certainly no books. There must have been a Bible in the house, and there must have been a calendar, but these were not to be seen. It was hard now even to believe in the clothespin dolls, the crayons and the yarn. I wanted to ask which of them had made the dolls; had there really been a wigged lady and a one-legged soldier? But though I was not usually shy, a peculiar paralysis overcame me in this room, as if I understood for the first time how presumptuous any question might be, how hazardous any opinion.
    Work would be what filled their lives, not conversation; work would be what gave their days shape. I know that now. Drawing the milk down through the rough teats, slapping the flatiron back and forth on the scorched-smelling ironing board, swishing the scrub-water in whitening arcs across the pine floor, they would be mute, and maybe content. Work would not be done here as it was in our house, where the idea was to get it over with. It would be something that could, that must, go on forever.
    What was to be said? The aunts, like those who engage in a chat with royalty, would venture no remarks of their own, but could answer questions. They offered no refreshments. It was clear that only a great effort of will kept them all from running away and hiding, like Aunt Susan, who never did reappear while we were there. What was felt in that room was the pain of human contact. I was hypnotized by it. The fascinating pain; the humiliating necessity.
    My father did have some idea of how to proceed. He started out on the weather. The need for rain, the rain in July that spoiled the hay, lastyear’s wet spring, floods long past, the prospects or non-prospects of a rainy fall. This talk steadied them, and he asked about the cows, the driving horse whose name was Nelly and the workhorses Prince and Queen, the garden; did the blight get on their tomatoes?
    â€œNo it didn’t.”
    â€œHow many quarts did you do down?”
    â€œTwenty-seven.”
    â€œDid you make any chili sauce? Did you make some juice?” “Juice and chili sauce. Yes.”
    â€œSo you won’t starve next winter. You’ll be falling into flesh, next.” Giggles broke from a couple of them and my father took heart, continued teasing. He inquired whether they were doing much dancing these days. He shook his head as he pretended to recall their reputation for running around the country to dances, smoking, cutting up. He said they were a bad lot, they wouldn’t get married because they’d rather flirt; why, he couldn’t hold up his head for the shame of them.
    My mother broke in then. She must have meant to rescue them, thinking it cruel to tease them in this way, dwelling on just what they had never had, or been.
    â€œThat is a lovely piece of furniture,” she said. “That sideboard. I always have admired it.”
    Flappers, my father said, that’s what they were, in their prime. My mother went over to look at the kitchen dresser, which was pine, and very heavy and tall. The knobs on all the doors and drawers were not quite round but slightly irregular, either from the making, or from all the hands that had pulled on them.
    â€œYou could have an antique dealer come in here and offer you a hundred dollars for that,” my mother said. “If that ever happens, don’t take it. The table and chairs as well. Don’t let anybody smooth-talk you into selling them before