And so they go, all the way out into the street and the cab and home, millions of them. It’s terrible.
And when they get home things are just about as bad, except there aren’t so many people to see them. At the sight of eight Sunday and sixty-two daily papers strewn over the front porch and lawn, there are loud screams of imprecation at Daddy for having forgotten to order them stopped. Daddy insists that he did order them stopped and that it is that damn fool boy.
“I guess you weren’t home much during July,” says Mamma bitterly, “or you would have noticed that something was wrong.” (Daddy didn’t join the family until August.)
“There were no papers delivered during July,” says Daddy very firmly and quietly, “at least, I didn’t see any.” (Stepping on one dated July 19.)
The inside of the house resembles some place you might bet a man a hundred dollars he daren’t spend the night in. Dead men’s feet seem to be protruding from behind sofas and there is a damp smell as if the rooms had been closed pending the arrival of the coroner.
Junior runs upstairs to see if his switching engine is where he left it and comes falling down stairs panting with terror announcing that there is Something in the guest-room. At that moment there is a sound of someone leaving the house by the back door. Daddy is elected by popular vote to go upstairs and see what has happened, although he insists that he has to wait down stairs as the man with the trunks will be there at any minute. After five minutes of cagey manoeuvering around in the hall outside the guest-room door, he returns looking for Junior, saying that it was simply a pile of things left on the bed covered with a sheet. “Aha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
Then comes the unpacking. It has been estimated that in the trunks of returning vacationists, taking this section of the country as a whole, the following articles will be pulled out during the next few weeks:
Sneakers, full of sand.
Bathing suits, still damp from the “one last swim.”
Dead tennis balls.
Last month’s magazines, bought for reading in the grove.
Shells and pretty stones picked up on the beach for decoration purposes, for which there has suddenly become no use at all.
Horse-shoe crabs, salvaged by children who refused to leave them behind.
