oh hey, it's finally summer in here
Nov. 16th, 2011 05:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smackenzieThe next week, school lets out for the summer and James feels as if he has been set free. But it turns out that there is a great deal to do during the summer - Miss Ellis now comes to the house twice a week for piano lessons and Mrs Godwin has suggested James learn how to play, Julia and Aimee and William are all signed up for dance lessons, of all things ("It will teach you grace and balance," Mrs Godwin explains to William, when he kicks up a fuss), and there is tennis and horseback riding and football and walks in the park, and Luisa takes them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the paintings and the blue Egyptian hippopotamus, and to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaur bones and the exhibits on ways of life in other parts of the world, and to the Bronx Zoological Gardens to see the wild animals, and they are even allowed to go to the movies on occasion.
(One day Julia and James sneak out on their own and take the streetcar down to the theater where they saw The Millionaire Pirate, this time for a Western called Bare Fists, about a man who has sworn not to shoot anyone, but rather to fight with his bare hands. Julia likes the movie so much she cannot keep it a secret, but when she tells Luisa she makes her swear not to breathe a word to Mrs Godwin, and after Julia explains the plot of the movie, Luisa is impressed enough to mention it to William and Aimee, and so Julia and James get to see it a second time.)
Mrs Godwin gets together with Mrs Campbell and Mrs Fokine and the mother of a boy named Trenton Payne, who was also in James' class at school. The four mothers hatch a plan which involves the boys meeting once or twice a week to play and spend time together and hopefully all become friends. Mrs Campbell hatched the idea at Hollis' birthday party, and Hollis is quite excited about these organized get-togethers. James is reminded a bit of the ladies' luncheons his mother likes to give, only with small boys playing games rather than proper ladies drinking tea and eating finger sandwiches. Alexei has a dog, an awkward long-haired puppy named Ludmila, who barks at the four boys and chases them around the Fokine house, skidding on the polished wooden floors when the boys take a sharp turn to escape her. She is twice as big as Mrs Albrecht's spoiled Pekingese, and still growing, and she will only obey Alexei's older brother. Every time the boys meet at Alexei's house, James comes home with long brown dog hairs on his clothes.
And every Saturday, like clockwork, Mrs O'Donnell brings Sean and Liam with her to the house, and the two of them and James spend the entire day making up stories and pretending to be pirates and explorers and ranchers and cowboys and bandits and cavalry soldiers and Indians and flyboys. They build forts out of the furniture and the pillows off the sofa in the parlor (much to the displeasure of Mrs O'Donnell, Mrs Godwin, and Luisa), they climb the tree in the courtyard, they press-gang Aimee and William into their adventures, they steal snacks from the kitchen, they let Luisa teach them (unsuccessfully) how to speak Italian, and they pretend that Con is not teaching them how to swear. Sean brings a baseball bat and a ball and two mitts that he has borrowed from someone in his neighborhood, but there is nowhere in the house to play and Luisa does not think she can take the O'Donnell boys deep into Central Park where there is room.
Sean and Liam and James all ask Mrs O'Donnell, and perhaps three small boys begging her is more effective than just two, for she relents and reminds Sean that he must bring the ball home and not let it get lost in the park.
"If you lose it," she says, "you will have to replace it. Mrs Meara probably has a lot of work you can do for her to earn the money."
Sean promises that he will not lose it.
words: 712
total words: 25,935
quickie research: metropolitan museum of art, natural history museum, bronx zoo, movies in 1919
(One day Julia and James sneak out on their own and take the streetcar down to the theater where they saw The Millionaire Pirate, this time for a Western called Bare Fists, about a man who has sworn not to shoot anyone, but rather to fight with his bare hands. Julia likes the movie so much she cannot keep it a secret, but when she tells Luisa she makes her swear not to breathe a word to Mrs Godwin, and after Julia explains the plot of the movie, Luisa is impressed enough to mention it to William and Aimee, and so Julia and James get to see it a second time.)
Mrs Godwin gets together with Mrs Campbell and Mrs Fokine and the mother of a boy named Trenton Payne, who was also in James' class at school. The four mothers hatch a plan which involves the boys meeting once or twice a week to play and spend time together and hopefully all become friends. Mrs Campbell hatched the idea at Hollis' birthday party, and Hollis is quite excited about these organized get-togethers. James is reminded a bit of the ladies' luncheons his mother likes to give, only with small boys playing games rather than proper ladies drinking tea and eating finger sandwiches. Alexei has a dog, an awkward long-haired puppy named Ludmila, who barks at the four boys and chases them around the Fokine house, skidding on the polished wooden floors when the boys take a sharp turn to escape her. She is twice as big as Mrs Albrecht's spoiled Pekingese, and still growing, and she will only obey Alexei's older brother. Every time the boys meet at Alexei's house, James comes home with long brown dog hairs on his clothes.
And every Saturday, like clockwork, Mrs O'Donnell brings Sean and Liam with her to the house, and the two of them and James spend the entire day making up stories and pretending to be pirates and explorers and ranchers and cowboys and bandits and cavalry soldiers and Indians and flyboys. They build forts out of the furniture and the pillows off the sofa in the parlor (much to the displeasure of Mrs O'Donnell, Mrs Godwin, and Luisa), they climb the tree in the courtyard, they press-gang Aimee and William into their adventures, they steal snacks from the kitchen, they let Luisa teach them (unsuccessfully) how to speak Italian, and they pretend that Con is not teaching them how to swear. Sean brings a baseball bat and a ball and two mitts that he has borrowed from someone in his neighborhood, but there is nowhere in the house to play and Luisa does not think she can take the O'Donnell boys deep into Central Park where there is room.
Sean and Liam and James all ask Mrs O'Donnell, and perhaps three small boys begging her is more effective than just two, for she relents and reminds Sean that he must bring the ball home and not let it get lost in the park.
"If you lose it," she says, "you will have to replace it. Mrs Meara probably has a lot of work you can do for her to earn the money."
Sean promises that he will not lose it.
words: 712
total words: 25,935
quickie research: metropolitan museum of art, natural history museum, bronx zoo, movies in 1919
