“But,” she said, taking his arm, “it’ll only make you unhappy. You’ve done things like this so many times before and...”

He wasn’t listening. Why do I never get these ideas by day? he thought. Why do I always get them after the sun goes down?

In the morning, first thing, he thought, I’ll mail this pumpernickel off, by God, to Tom and the others. And when it comes back I’ll have the loaf just as it was when it got thrown out and burned! Why not?

“Let’s see,” he said, as his wife opened the screen door and let him into the stuffy-smelling house to be greeted by silence and warm emptiness. “Let’s see. We also sang ‘Row Row Row Your Boat’, didn’t we?”

IN THE morning, he came down the hall stairs and paused a moment in the strong full sunlight, his face shaved, his teeth freshly brushed. Sunlight brightened every room. He looked in at the breakfast table.

His wife was busy there. Slowly, calmly, she was slicing the pumpernickel.

He sat down at the table in the warm sunlight and reached for the newspaper.

She picked up a slice of the newly cut bread, and kissed him on the cheek. He patted her arm.

“One or two pieces of toast, dear?” she asked gently.

“Two, I think,” he replied.

THE SCREAMING WOMAN

MY NAME IS Margaret Leary and I’m ten years old and in the fifth grade at Central School. I haven’t any brothers or sisters, but I’ve got a nice father and mother except they don’t pay much attention to me. And anyway, we never thought we’d have anything to do with a murdered woman. Or almost, anyway.

When you’re just living on a street like we live on, you don’t think awful things are going to happen, like shooting or stabbing or burying people under the ground, practically in your back yard. And when it does happen you don’t believe it. You just go on buttering your toast or baking a cake.

I got to tell you how it happened. It was a noon in the middle of July. It was hot and Mama said to me, “Margaret, you go to the store and buy some ice cream. It’s Saturday, Dad’s home for lunch, so we’ll have a treat.”

I ran out across the empty lot behind our house. It was a big lot, where kids had played baseball, and broken glass and stuff. And on my way back from the store with the ice cream I was just walking along, minding my own business, when all of a sudden it happened.

I heard the Screaming Woman.

I stopped and listened.

It was coming up out of the ground.

A woman was buried under the rocks and dirt and glass, and she was screaming, all wild and horrible, for someone to dig her out.

I just stood there, afraid. She kept screaming, muffled.

Then I started to run. I fell down, got up, and ran some more. I got in the screen door of my house and there was Mama, calm as you please, not knowing what I knew, that there was a real live woman buried out in back of our house, just a hundred yards away, screaming bloody murder.

“Mama,” I said.

“Don’t stand there with the ice cream,” said Mama.

“But, Mama,” I said.

“Put it in the icebox,” she said.

“Listen, Mama, there’s a Screaming Woman in the empty lot.”

“And wash your hands,” said Mama.

“She was screamin’ and screamin’...”

“Let’s see now, salt and pepper,” said Mama, far away.

“Listen to me,” I said, loud. “We got to dig her out. She’s buried under tons and tons of dirt and if we don’t dig her out, she’ll choke up and die.”

“I’m certain she can wait until after lunch,” said Mama.

“Mama, don’t you believe me?”

“Of course, dear. Now wash your hands and take this plate of meat in to your father.”

“I don’t even know who she is or how she got there,” I said. “But we got to help her before it’s too late.”

“Good gosh,” said Mama. “Look at this ice cream. What did you do, just stand in the sun and let it melt?”

“Well, the empty lot...”

“Go on, now, scoot.”

I went into the dining room.

“Hi, Dad, there’s a Screaming Woman in the empty lot.”

“I never knew a woman who didn’t,” said Dad.

“I’m serious,” I said.

“You look very grave,” said Father.

“We’ve got to get picks and shovels and excavate, like for an Egyptian mummy,” I said.

“I don’t feel like an archaeologist, Margaret,” said Father. “Now, some nice cool October day, I’ll take you up on that.”

“But we can’t wait that long,” I almost screamed. My heart was bursting in me. I was excited and scared and afraid and here was Dad, putting meat on his plate, cutting and chewing and paying me no attention.

“Dad?” I said.

“Mmmm?” he said, chewing.

“Dad, you just gotta come out after lunch and help me,” I said. “Dad, Dad, I’ll give you all the money in my piggy bank!”

“Well,” said Dad, “so it’s a business proposition, is it? It must be important for you to offer your perfectly good money. How much money will you pay, by the hour?”

“I got five whole dollars it took me a year to save, and it’s all yours.”

Dad touched my arm. “I’m touched. I’m really touched. You want me to play with you and you’re willing to pay for my time. Honest, Margaret, you make your old Dad feel like a piker. I don’t give you enough time. Tell you what, after lunch, I’ll come out and listen to your screaming woman, free of charge.”

“Will you, oh, will you, really?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s what I’ll do,” said Dad. “But you must promise me one thing?”

“What?”

“If I come out, you must eat all of your lunch first.”

“I promise,” I said.

“Okay.”

Mother came in and sat down and we started to eat.

“Not so fast,” said Mama.

I slowed down. Then I started eating fast again.

“You heard your mother,” said Dad.

“The Screaming Woman,” I said. “We got to hurry.”

“I,” said Father, “intend sitting here quietly and judiciously giving my attention first to my steak, then to my potatoes, and my salad, of course, and then to my ice cream, and after that to a long drink of iced coffee, if you don’t mind. I may be a good hour at it. And another thing, young lady, if you mention her name, this Screaming What-sis, once more at this table during lunch, I won’t go out with you to hear her recital.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

Lunch was a million years long. Everybody moved in slow motion, like those films you see at the movies. Mama got up slow and got down slow and forks and knives and spoons moved slow. Even the flies in the room were slow. And Dad’s cheek muscles moved slow. It was so slow. I wanted to scream, “Hurry! Oh, please, rush, get up, run around, come on out, run!”

But no, I had to sit, and all the while we sat there slowly, slowly eating our lunch, out there in the empty lot (I could hear her screaming in my mind. Scream!) was the Screaming Woman, all alone, while the world ate its lunch and the sun was hot and the lot was empty as the sky.

“There we are,” said Dad, finished at last.

“Now will you come out to see the Screaming Woman?” I said.

“First a little more iced coffee,” said Dad.

“Speaking of Screaming Women,” said Mother, “Charlie Nesbitt and his wife Helen had another fight last night.”

“That’s nothing new,” said Father. “They’re always fighting.”

“If you ask me, Charlie’s no good,” said Mother. “Or her, either.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Dad. “I think she’s pretty nice.”

“You’re prejudiced. After all, you almost married her.”

“You going to bring that up again?” he said. “After all, I was only engaged to her six weeks.”

“You showed some sense when you broke it off.”

“Oh, you know Helen. Always stagestruck. Wanted to travel in a trunk. I just couldn’t see it. That broke it up. She was sweet, though. Sweet and kind.”

“What did it get her? A terrible brute of a husband like Charlie.”