The
very day that Winifred Oglethorpe turned sixty-two, she quit
her job at Van Klamp's Bake Shop and went downtown to the
Social Security office to have her pension turned on. Her
next stop was Millie's Madcap Fashions for Mature Ladies,
where she bought an orange and magenta flowered muu-muu, and
from there she went to Union Station, bought a book of crossword
puzzles, and boarded the 3:08 train for Miami. She took with
her only those worldly possessions that would fit in one navy
surplus footlocker and two cardboard boxes. On her lap, so
as not to crush it, she carried the starched Dutch-girl cap
she had worn while selling tea cakes for twenty-five years.
In Miami she found a hotel catering to thrift-minded
people and used it for her temporary headquarters while she
looked for a permanent home. The other senior residents of
the hotel were unanimous in the opinion that a retired lady
of limited means could do no better than to buy a trailer,
as trailer park rentals were cheap if you went out of the
tourist zone. They sent her to North Miami to Helen's Hibiscus
Heaven Trailer Home, which catered to senior citizens.
The Hibiscus Heaven had just the thing, a lovely
little trailer only recently vacated by a lady gone on to
a more idyllic retirement, as the manager put it. There had
been no heirs, and the manager explained that she was willing
to pass her little windfall along to Mrs. Oglethorpe for practically
nothing, which in this case amounted to five hundred dollars.
The trailer was tiny, and its plywood walls were warped and
cracked from too many years' exposure to Florida sun and rain,
but the price was right, and it sat under a magnificent magnolia
tree.
The first thing Winifred Oglethorpe did was to paint
the trailer lavender inside and out, and the second thing
she did was to set about indulging her life-long interest
in birds. She built a birdbath under the magnolia tree and
concealed herself behind some hibiscus with The Bird Lover's
Guide to Tropical Birds.
The days passed pleasantly, and the little birds
that frequented Mrs. Oglethorpe's birdbath grew fat on the
tidbits the benevolent lady put out for them. Only one thing
marred the perfection of Mrs. Oglethorpe's bird Eden--the
catbirds picked on the smaller birds mercilessly, driving
them away from the birdbath and hogging the choicest bits
of bird feed. But lack of resourcefulness had never been one
of Winifred Oglethorpe's failings, and so she fashioned a
slingshot from a forked branch and a strip from an old inner
tube and soon became a remarkably good shot. Mrs. Oglethorpe
killed catbirds with the righteous vengeance of a knight slaying
dragons.
So that is how it happened that Mrs. Oglethorpe was
hiding in a clump of hibiscus when Mr. Pippin moved into Trailer
No. 82. From her vantage point, Mrs. Oglethorpe discreetly
took inventory of Mr. Pippin's belongings as he moved them
in. She noted that he had a good many books and surmised that
he was a man of culture. He had very few clothes, some cooking
utensils, and nine parakeets. In fact, Mr. Pippin rather resembled
a tiny gray bird himself, for he was a small-boned man, thin
and frail-looking. Mrs. Oglethorpe reflected that any man
who owned nine parakeets must have a sensitive nature, and
she determined to know him.
Mrs. Oglethorpe emerged from the hibiscus and went
over to introduce herself. She offered to help get Mr. Pippin
settled and went home for cleaning supplies without giving
him a chance to make a polite refusal. When she returned,
she set about scouring the stove, which was crusted with burnt-on
pizza sauce, and then she cleaned the tiny icebox, which reeked
of sardines, beer, and papaya, all in various stages of decay.
While she worked she filled Mr. Pippin in on the biographies
and characterologies of the residents of the trailer park,
with some editorial comments on who was worth cultivating
and who was not.
Mr. Pippin did not seem to resent the intrusion but
twittered to and fro, fussing with his parakeets and accomplishing
very little. Mrs. Oglethorpe, for one thing, being slightly
plump, completely blocked the passage between the rear of
the trailer and the door, and Mr. Pippin did not want to try
to squeeze past, for fear of being misunderstood. He was confined,
therefore, to putting things away in his sleeping area.
In the course of her cleaning, Mrs. Oglethorpe inquired
where Mr. Pippin intended to keep his parakeets. "I'll
let them have the run of the trailer as soon as they are used
to being here," he replied. "The screened porch
area is almost like being outdoors. That's the reason I rented
this particular trailer. I want my birds to be comfortable
and happy. They should like it here, don't you think?"
Mrs. Oglethorpe agreed.
It was the beginning of a cordial, pleasant relationship.
Mrs. Oglethorpe went every day to cook and clean, although
Mr. Pippin had never asked her to. On the other hand, he never
objected when she did. Once in a while he felt that perhaps
he might enjoy puttering for himself, but then he couldn't
quite bring himself to reject Mrs. Oglethorpe's kindness.
It seemed an ungrateful thing to do. If occasionally he protested
mildly at some extravagant generosity, Mrs. Oglethorpe looked
so injured that he quickly retracted his protest. He had a
vague feeling that to reject her kindness was to risk losing
her friendship, and he was, after all, a lonely man.
Mrs. Oglethorpe, on the other hand, ecstatically
welcomed the opportunity to look after someone. She had survived
three husbands, each of them sickly, and she had dedicatedly
nursed each one of them right up till his dying moment. It
had been a long time now since she had had someone to take
care of.
And so the terms were set. When Mrs. Oglethorpe was
in the trailer, Mr. Pippin sat perched on the edge of his
chair in the porch and watched her with beady bright eyes.
The parakeets soon had their run of the trailer and
they seemed to enjoy the porch, as Mr. Pippin had predicted.
On the eighth day, however, there was an unfortunate accident.
Mrs. Oglethorpe was taking a cup of sassafras tea to Mr. Pippin
in the porch, when one of the parakeets tried to dart through
the screen door that separated the trailer from the porch.
The door, alas, had a strong spring that snapped the door
quickly back into place, and the parakeet was not fast enough.
Mrs. Oglethorpe was most upset, of course, but Mr.
Pippin was philosophical. "He took a gamble and he lost,
my dear. He shouldn't have been so daring. Freddy was always
given to sudden decisions and impulsive actions. You must
not blame yourself."
Mrs. Oglethorpe, who was one of those wonderful people
who are always able to take charge in a tragedy, regained
her composure, and they had a little burial ceremony by the
birdbath that very afternoon. It was marred somewhat, however,
by the fact that Mr. Pippin collapsed right in the middle
of Mrs. Oglethorpe's eulogy. Mrs. Oglethorpe, who was also
very good at emergencies, managed to drag him to his bed and
called the doctor.
Mr. Pippin seemed unable to speak or move, but the
doctor from County Welfare could find nothing wrong with him.
He asked Mrs. Oglethorpe if she knew of any extreme stress
situation in Mr. Pippin's life that could cause great feelings
of anxiety and helplessness. Mrs. Oglethorpe replied, "Why,
no, Mr. Pippin hasn't a care in the world. I spend every day
with him, and he seems happy as a bird."
The doctor said that unless Mr. Pippin could arrange
home nursing care for himself, he would have to be moved to
the county hospital. Mrs. Oglethorpe, who had not left her
friend's side since the collapse except to call the doctor,
of course declared that she herself would care for him.
Seeing a look of distress in her mute friend's eyes,
she assured him, "It's no trouble, Mr. Pippin. I'll move
a cot into the porch so I can hear you in the night. I'm lonely,
you know, and it will give me something to do."
Mr. Pippin's little beak-like nose quivered with
emotion. Mrs. Oglethorpe was happy to have saved her friend
from the county hospital, for he certainly couldn't afford
home nursing on his pension. That very night she began to
sleep--fully clothed, of course--on the porch, and although
she spilled over both sides of the cot, she did not complain.
The next morning she fashioned a perch for the birds over
Mr. Pippin's bed and conscientiously cleaned the bird droppings
from the coverlet as fast as they fell.
Mrs. Oglethorpe lavished attention on her charge,
and he lacked nothing in care or entertainment. In a few days
he had recovered enough to speak, although weakly, and he
suggested that people might be gossiping about her living
in the trailer with him, even though he was partially paralyzed,
and that to satisfy propriety perhaps she should go home at
night.
But Mrs. Oglethorpe declared that if anybody cared
to peek, they could see her sleeping fully clothed on the
porch at night, and that furthermore she wouldn't think of
leaving him alone in his condition, even if she were to lose
her reputation. So the subject was closed.
In the course of her daily cleaning, Mrs. Oglethorpe
noticed that spiders had taken up residence in all the nooks
and corners of the porch, and, horrified by the idea of their
crawling over her at night, she sprayed the porch generously
with her Flit gun. Within an hour five parakeets lay dead
on the grass rug. Mrs. Oglethorpe, hysterical with grief,
slammed the screen door on a sixth as she ran in to tell the
horrible news to Mr. Pippin, and slammed the door again on
a seventh when she returned to the porch to gather up the
bodies.
Mr. Pippin had a new seizure immediately and completely
lost what little mobility and speech he had regained.
There was now only one parakeet left, and this one
showed a distinct reluctance to return to the porch. Mrs.
Oglethorpe was distraught with grief about what happened,
of course, but she realized that her first concern was for
Mr. Pippin and that no matter how bad she felt, she must keep
up a cheerful countenance for his sake.
It seemed to Mr. Pippin that she was decidedly too
cheerful, and he began to repeat in his head, "Go home,
Winifred, go home," until it became a chant that he hoped
would magic her away. But Winifred stuck to her duties, and
Mr. Pippin resigned himself. "I'm ungrateful," he
thought. "After all, she is devoting her life to me."
That evening Mrs. Oglethorpe was boiling a pot of
soup on the stove when she noticed a fly buzzing around the
sink. A fastidious woman, Mrs. Oglethorpe gave chase with
a fly swatter, but the fly was agile and quick-witted, and
Mrs. Oglethorpe's attempts to flatten him grew more and more
energetic. Finally the fly lit on the kitchen table, and at
the exact moment that Mrs. Oglethorpe let go with a stupendous
swat, the one remaining parakeet flew in her path on its way
to a favorite perch on top of the sugar bowl. The bird might
have survived had Mrs. Oglethorpe not batted him straight
into the soup.
This was too much for poor Mrs. Oglethorpe. She couldn't
bring herself to tell Mr. Pippin what had happened. She was
staring numbly at the soup when the idea came to her. Quickly
she turned off the fire under the pot, fished the bird out
with a spoon, and wrapped it in a newspaper. She put on her
hat and took her purse down from a hook by the door.
"Mr. Pippin, I have an errand to do," she
sang. "I'll be back in a very short while."
Mrs. Oglethorpe hummed happily to herself as she
hurried to the bus stop, pausing only long enough to deposit
the last parakeet in the trash barrel (a funeral for every
bird seemed impractical at this point). She was possessed
by inspiration for a surprise that would surely cheer up Mr.
Pippin and make everything all right again.
By the time she got back from Woolworth's, her excitement
was uncontainable. "Mr. Pippin, Mr. Pippin," she
cried as she struggled through the door with her cumbersome
load. "I have a surprise for you!"
She hurried into the trailer and laid her gift on
the coverlet. Mr. Pippin stared at the nine lively parakeets
in the cage, then his eyes began to move from bird to bird,
as if he were counting them. He looked at Winifred's face
with disbelief, then he counted the birds again. His eyes
widened as he understood that the last of his pets must be
gone and that Winifred was starting over. Then his eyes glassed
over and he was very still.
"He is overcome," thought Winifred happily.
"Mr. Pippin, how do you like your new birds?"
Mr. Pippin did not make any sign. He did not even
blink his eyes. He was so still that finally Mrs. Oglethorpe
knew something must be wrong. She put her hand in front of
his mouth and felt no breath, then she looked for a pulse
and found none. She sighed and looked sadly at her friend.
"Ah me," she sighed, remembering her three dead
husbands, "I suppose it was inevitable."
Then she looked at the birds twittering busily in
the cage--her wasted gift. After a moment she smiled and leaned
over so that her nose pressed through the bars of the cage.
"Don't worry, little fellows," she chirped, "you
can come and live with me!"
