Raising Demons Read Online Free PDF Page A

Rug, Rug, Rug, Rug, Rug”) it was satisfying to learn that we had tamed one—item 191, Domestic Rug.
    By far the most absorbing sequence turned out to be 133 through 137—Red Parasol, Sword, Sword, Sword, Small Flag. These probably came from the same costume department as 19: Spear and 20: Horsewhip, and we began to think nostalgically of how, as a family, we could have held Mrs. Ferrier at bay, armed with our swords and our spears and our horsewhips and our red parasol, and waving one another on with our Small Flag. At any rate, we were all happy to reflect that the Black Hat Box (204) and the Floor Mop (382) were beyond harm, as was the Pair Auto Tires Worn (158) and, of course, the Odd Drawer from Table (370). Besides, there was nothing so particularly odd about the drawer, it was the
table
that was so odd, appearing and disappearing the way it did.
    Whenever I tried to picture the items on Mr. Cobb’s list, think concretely of, say, the ashtrays and metronomes and bed tables and kitchen chairs, they fell automatically into place, as they had stood for so many years. I think that during the long days of that summer—and after the first month of rain it was hot all the time—I slowly forgot that our house was not waiting for us, and came to believe that we would go home to the familiar place; my only concession to the idea of a new house was to set my mental picture of our old house in the new location on upper Main Street, and sketch in a barn in back, and the gateposts in front. We received a sharp letter from Mrs. Ferrier accusing us, in so many words, of stealing the garage doors. I threw the letter away because of course we had not stolen the garage doors. I had smashed one of them slightly trying to get the car out one day, and we had taken it off the hinges, but it was right there leaning against the side of the house if Mrs. Ferrier had only used her eyes.
    The weather was hot, we went swimming, and the children, even Barry, were brown and lively. Our neighbors were almost all summer folk like ourselves, and agreeable, informal people; the children picked up acquaintances after their own fashions. Because our next-door neighbor, a Mrs. Simpkins, dropped over on our first morning and pointed out most pressingly that it was so nice for her young ones to have what she insisted upon calling “gentle,
refined
kiddies” right next door, I felt that it was incumbent upon me to make immediate overtures of friendship, and I invited the Simpkins children over, sight unseen, for supper. We cooked hamburgers out in the back yard, with Mrs. Simpkins beaming down at us from her kitchen window, but after supper the Simpkins boy settled down to play house with his sister and Jannie. Laurie, refusing ungraciously to be Daddy, spent the evening indoors staring disconsolately out at the lake. “Golly,” he said perhaps thirteen times, “golly, I sure wish there was something to
do
around this joint, boy.”
    When, the next morning, an invitation was delivered to Laurie and Jannie, asking them to take their evening hamburgers in the Simpkins back yard, Laurie refused pointblank, and only the threat of no swimming for one whole week persuaded him to go. He came home immediately after supper, and spent the evening indoors by the front window. “Golly,” he said, “if only there was something to
do
around here.”
    On the third morning Laurie was still at breakfast when the Simpkins boy came down his back steps, his book of pressed flowers under his arm, and made purposefully for our house. Laurie raced out the front door, leaving me to cover his retreat by holding the Simpkins boy at the back door. I asked how Mrs. Simpkins was, and whether the collecting and pressing of wild flowers was not too arduous a hobby for the hot summer days. I said I was sorry, but Laurie had just stepped out and I did not know where he was or when he would be back. I said that when he did come back