Reading Question for Wednesday, November 4th, 2015
PROSE FICTION: This passage is adapted from Elizabeth Bishop’s short story "The Housekeeper" (©1984 by Alice Methfessel).
Outside, the rain continued to run down the screened windows of Mrs. Sennett's little Cape Cod cottage. The long weeds and grass that composed the front yard dripped against the blurred background of the bay, where the water was almost the color of the grass. Mrs. Sennett's five charges were vigorously playing house in the dining room. (In the wintertime, Mrs. Sennett was housekeeper for a Mr. Curley, in Boston, and during the summers the Curley children boarded with her on the Cape.)
My expression must have changed. "Are those children making too much noise?" Mrs. Sennett demanded, a sort of wave going over her that might mark the beginning of her getting up out of her chair. I shook my head no, and gave her a little push on the shoulder to keep her seated. Mrs. Sennett was almost stone-deaf and had been for a long time, but she could read lips. You could talk to her without making any sound yourself, if you wanted to, and she more than kept up her side of the conversation in a loud, rusty voice that dropped weirdly every now and then into a whisper. She adored talking.
To look at Mrs. Sennett made me think of eigh-teenth-century England and its literary figures. Her hair must have been sadly thin, because she always wore,indoors and out, either a hat or a sort of turban, and sometimes she wore both. The rims of her eyes were dark; she looked very ill.
Mrs. Sennett and I continued talking. She said she really didn't think she'd stay with the children another winter. Their father wanted her to, but it was too much for her. She wanted to stay right here in the cottage.
The afternoon was getting along, and I finally left because I knew that at four o'clock Mrs. Sennett's "sit down" was over and she started to get supper. At six o'clock, from my nearby cottage, I saw Theresa coming through the rain with a shawl over her head. She was bringing me a six-inch-square piece of spicecake, still hot from the oven and kept warm between two soup plates.
A few days later I learned from the twins, who brought over gifts of firewood and blackberries, that their father was coming the next morning, bringing their aunt and her husband and their cousin. Mrs.Sennett had promised to take them all on a picnic at the pond some pleasant day.
On the fourth day of their visit, Xavier arrived with a note. It was from Mrs. Sennett, written in blue ink, in a large, serene, ornamented hand, on linen-finish paper:
. . . Tomorrow is the last day Mr. Curley has and the Children all wanted the Picnic so much. The Men can walk to the Pond but it is too far for the Children. I see your Friend has a car and I hate to ask this but could you possibly drive us to the Pond tomorrow morning? . . .
Very sincerely yours,
Carmen Sennett
After the picnic, Mrs. Sennett's presents to me were numberless. It was almost time for the children to go back to school in South Boston. Mrs. Sennett insisted that she was not going; their father was coming down again to get them and she was just going to stay.He would have to get another housekeeper. She said this over and over to me, loudly, and her turbans and kerchiefs grew more and more distrait.
One evening, Mary came to call on me and we sat on an old table in the back yard to watch the sunset.
"Papa came today," she said, "and we've got to go back day after tomorrow."
"Is Mrs. Sennett going to stay here?"
"She said at supper she was. She said this time she really was, because she'd said that last year and came back, but now she means it."
I said, "Oh dear," scarcely knowing which side I was on.
"It was awful at supper. I cried and cried."
"Did Theresa cry?"
"Oh, we all cried. Papa cried, too. We always do."
"But don't you think Mrs. Sennett needs a rest?"
"Yes, but I think she'll come, though. Papa told her he'd cry every single night at supper if she didn't, and then we all did."
The next day I heard that Mrs. Sennett was going back with them just to "help settle." She came over the following morning to say goodbye, supported by all five children. She was wearing her traveling hat of black satin and black straw, with sequins. High and somber, above her ravaged face, it had quite a Spanish-grandee air.
"This isn't really goodbye," she said. "I'll be back as soon as I get these bad, noisy children off my hands."
But the children hung on to her skirt and tugged at her sleeves, shaking their heads frantically, silently saying, "No! No! No!" to her with their puckered-up mouths.
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According to the narrator, Mrs. Sennett wears a hat because she:
A. is often outside.
B. wants to look like a literary figure.
C. has thin hair.
D. has unique taste in clothing.
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