8 • WHO CAN FIND THE CASPIAN SEA?
As time went on it became evident that Douglas was the most introspective of the three children, but aside from this—to his father’s disappointment—he appeared to be totally unremarkable. Mr. Bridge had hoped for a brilliant son, and though he had not yet given up that hope he was reluctantly adapting himself to the idea that his son was no prodigy. If Douglas amounted to anything in later life, he concluded, it would be less the result of brilliance than of conscientious effort.
Ruth, even more obviously, had no intention of relying on her brains; but Carolyn, as soon as she entered kindergarten, began to make a name for herself, and very shortly was known as the brightest child in the class. Furthermore she appeared to understand her own superiority and when, through some mischance, another child equaled or exceeded her for a moment, Carolyn would grow furiously vindictive, and was not above lying or cheating in order to regain her position at the head of the class, so that by the time she was in the third grade she was beginning to be envied and disliked by her classmates and carefully observed by her teachers. It was no surprise to anyone when she was allowed to skip the second half of the third grade.
The teacher of Carolyn’s fourth-grade class was a young lame woman named Bloch, who wore eye shadow and mascara and had one rather strange habit: every day she would call one of the children to her desk, give the child a comb, and then, bowing her head and shutting her eyes, she would instruct the child to take the pins out of her hair. Her hair was thick and greasy and hung down to her waist.
“Who can find the Caspian Sea?” she would murmur, and the child behind her would begin combing.
“Who knows where to find the Caspian Sea?” she would ask again, and without opening her eyes she would say, “Albert Crawford knows.”
Then the boy she had named would walk to the great green and blue map pulled down over the blackboard, and with the pointer he would locate the sea.
“Carefully, dear,” she would whisper if the comb snarled, but even then she seemed not displeased.
Although the children did not like this curious task they seldom thought of it once they were out of class. Carolyn, however, happened to mention at home that she had been chosen that morning. Mrs. Bridge was aghast; she had never heard of Miss Bloch’s habit. After questioning Carolyn and becoming convinced it was the truth, she resolved to telephone the school and report the incident to the principal, and yet, for some reason, she could not do it. Several times she picked up the telephone, shivering with disgust, but each time she put down the receiver with an expression of doubt and anxiety; she decided it would be better to visit the principal’s office, and yet this, too, was beyond her. She did not know why. In the end she told Carolyn that if she was ever again called upon to comb the teacher’s hair she was to refuse. Having done this, Mrs. Bridge told herself the teacher was no longer a threat and the entire affair, therefore, was closed. And so it was. Carolyn was not called upon for the remainder of the term, and the following September she had a different teacher. There were times later on when Mrs. Bridge wondered if she had done the right thing; she wondered if Miss Bloch was still calling children to comb her hair, and when Douglas entered fourth grade she waited anxiously to learn who his teacher would be. It was not Miss Bloch; if it had been she would have gone to the principal and demanded that something be done. But it was not, and Mrs. Bridge, who disliked making trouble for anyone, was greatly relieved, and found that she was no longer obliged to think about the matter.
9 • OF LADIES AND WOMEN
For semi-annual housecleaning Mrs. Bridge hired additional help. Carolyn answered the back door and reported to her mother, “The cleaning lady is here.”
“Oh, fine,” Mrs. Bridge said, and put away her sewing basket and went to the back door, smiling and saying genially, “How do you do? Come right in, won’t you?”
That evening she instructed Carolyn. “You should say the cleaning ‘woman.’ A lady is someone like Mrs. Arlen or Mrs. Montgomery.”
10 • TABLE MANNERS
Mrs. Bridge said that she judged people by their shoes and by their manners at the table. If someone wore shoes with runover heels, or shoes that had not been shined for a long time, or shoes with broken laces, you could be pretty sure this person would be slovenly in other things as well. And there was no better way to judge a person’s background than by watching him or her at the table.
The children learned it was impolite to talk while eating, or to chew with the mouth open, and as they grew older they learned the more subtle manners—not to butter an entire slice of bread, not to take more than one biscuit at a time, unless, of course, the hostess should insist. They were taught to keep their elbows close to their sides while cutting meat, and to hold the utensils in the tips of their fingers. They resisted the temptation to sop up the gravy with a piece of bread, and they made sure to leave a little of everything—not enough to be called wasteful, but just a little to indicate the meal had been sufficient. And, naturally, they learned that a lady or a gentleman does not fold up a napkin after having eaten in a public place.
The girls absorbed these matters with greater facility than Douglas, who tended to ask the reason for everything, sometimes observing that he thought it was all pretty silly. He seemed particularly unable to eat with his left hand lying in his lap; he wanted to leave it on the table, to prop himself up, as it were, and claimed he got a backache with one arm in his lap. Mrs. Bridge told him this was absurd, and when he wanted to know why he could not put his elbow on the table she replied, “Do you want to be different from everyone else?”
Douglas was doubtful, but after a long silence, and under the weight of his mother’s tranquil gaze, he at last concluded he didn’t.
The American habit of switching implements, however, continued to give him trouble and to make him rebellious. With elaborate care he would put down the knife, reach high across his plate and descend on the left side to pick up the fork, raising it high over the plate again as he returned to the starting position.
“Now stop acting ridiculous,” she told him one day at lunch.
“Well, I sure bet the Egyptians don’t have to eat this way,” he muttered, giving “Egyptians” a vengeful emphasis.
“I doubt if they do,” she replied calmly, expertly cutting a triangle of pineapple from her salad, “but you’re not an Egyptian. So you eat the way Americans eat, and that’s final.”
11 • ALICE JONES AGAIN
It seemed to Mrs. Bridge that Saturday came around quite often. She was selecting some sugar buns from the bakery man when Alice dashed up the driveway with a long piece of clothesline in her hand, and the first thing that came to Mrs. Bridge’s mind was that the girl had stolen it.
“Good morning, Alice,” she said. Alice dropped the clothesline on the back steps and ran directly into the house to find Carolyn. A few minutes later the gardener appeared and asked, as he always did, whether she was being a nuisance. Mrs. Bridge smiled briefly and shook her head, not knowing how to be truthful without hurting his feelings.
The children were in Carolyn’s room playing jacks. Mrs. Bridge looked in on them after a while and asked why they didn’t play out of doors, the day being so nice, and she thought—but could not be sure—that as she suggested this the little Negro girl gave her a rather strange