The Great Husband Hunt by Laurie Graham Read Free Book Online

bright coats that trailed behind like folded butterfly wings and flashed a lining of shot orange silk.
    Ma said, “Wasting paint again, Poppy? How I should love you to make me a painting of trees and clouds. Just a small one. I'm sure there is no necessity to splash the paint about so.”
    I was allowed to resume my weekly visits to Honey's house, too, once we could be certain fleas were the only bad thing I'd brought home from Stanton Street. I'd go for a whole afternoon, and look through Honey's closets and try on her hats and shawls and bang about until I woke Sherman Ulysses. He always seemed very pleased to see me, and he was quite advanced, for a Glaser.
    “Honey,” I said one time, “you know how I have to stay with Ma now and be her help and comfort? Well, what will I do when Ma is dead?”
    “Gracious, Pops,” she said, “that won't be for years. Thirty years maybe.”
    “No, but still,” I said, “what will I do then?”
    “You'll live with me and Harry,” she said.
    That was the day I decided to write to Cousin Addie in Duluth.
    “Dear Cousin Addie,” I wrote.
    I am your Uncle Abe Minkel's girl. We have never met, but I am an old maid like you. I hope we can be correspondents. What are your dolls' names? I make very good dolls' clothes which I could send you some time. I would certainly be willing to visit Duluth some day.
    I never mailed it. Before I could work out a secret way to discover her address and to receive her replies without interference from Ma, I was distracted by new thrills and skirmishes. A war had begun in Europe.

7
    President Wilson told us that the United States of America must be seen to be impartial in thought, word and deed, but the Prussians cared nothing for that, so we were preparing for invasion. Quantities of canned goods were brought in and a lock, to which only Ma held a key, was fitted to the pantry door. This reawakened Reilly's dormant desire to flounce out and leave us in the lurch again, and threats were exchanged. Only the news, flashed to us from Harry's office, that a German submarine had been sighted in Long Island Sound pulled Reilly back into line.
    “Well?” Ma said, with the confidence of a player who is holding a royal flush. “The Hun is at the door. Are you staying or leaving?”
    Reilly returned below stairs, but as long as Ma kept up the locked pantry regime, Reilly exacted her own small satisfactions.
    “Asparagus tips, if it's not too much trouble.” Her voice would erupt from the speaking tube, like an Upper Bay foghorn, and quite destroy the gentility of Ma's parlor.
    It turned out there had been no submarine. But something else was menacing us, as I should have guessed from conversations between Ma and Honey, which always ended abruptly as I came into the room. Then a meeting was convened, for Sunday afternoon. Honey and Harry were to attend and the Aunt and Uncle Israel Fishes, and tea and seedcake would be served.
    I said, “I'll take Sherman Ulysses for a walk in his bassinet.”
    Seedcake was my least favorite.
    “No, Poppy,” Ma said. “This concerns even you.”
    We were assembled to discuss the question of German connections.
    Harry said, “Weiner, Ittelman, Schwab, they've all stopped speaking German, even behind closed doors.”
    Ma said, “I'm sure I wouldn't know German if I heard it. Abe never used it. Nor his father.”
    I said, “Are we Germans, then?”
    “Of course not, you foolish girl,” Ma and Aunt Fish chorused.
    “It's a question of appearances,” Harry went on. He stood up and stroked his mustaches and rocked on his heels as he spoke. I suppose this helped him to feel less of a nonentity.
    “We all know we're not Germans,” he said. “We certainly don't behave like Germans. But we have to face facts. Every name tells a story and as patriotic Americans we'd be fools not to free ourselves of any taint. A change of name. That's all it takes. We're changing to Grace. A good old American name.”
    “Don't see the