To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 2 - The Garden of Eden

I remember Earth.

I knew her when she was clean and green, mankind's beautiful bride, sweet and lush and lovable.

I speak of my own time time, of course, numbered ‘two' and coded ‘Leslie LeCroix.' But the best known time lines, those policed by the Time Corps for the Circle of Ouroboros, are all one at the time I was born, 1882 Gregorian, only nine years after the death of Ira Howard. In z88z the population of Earth was a mere billion and a half.

When I left Earth just a century later it had increased to over four billion and that swarming mass was doubling every thirty years.

Remember that ancient Persian parable about doubling grains of rice on a chessboard? Four billion people are a smidgen larger than a grain of rice; you quickly run out of chessboard. On one time line Earth's population swelled to over thirty billion before reaching final disaster; on other time lines the end came at less than ten billion. But on all time lines Dr Malthus had the last laugh.

It is futile to mourn over the corpse of Earth, as silly as it would be to cry over an empty chrysalis when its butterfly has flown. But I am incurably sentimental and forever sad at how Man's Old Home has changed.

I had a marvellously happy girlhood.

I not only lived on Earth when she was young and beautiful but I also had the good fortune to be born in one of her loveliest garden spots, southern Missouri before people and bulldozers ravaged its green hills.

Besides the happy accident of birthplace, I had the special good fortune to be my father's daughter.

When I was still quite young my father said to me, ‘My beloved daughter, you are an amoral little wretch. I know this, because you take after me; your mind works just the way mine does. If you are not to be destroyed by your lack, you must work out a practical code of your own and live by it.'

I thought about his words and felt warm and good inside. ‘Amoral little wretch -‘Father knew me so well.

‘What code should I follow, Father?'

‘You have to pick your own.'

‘The Ten Commandments?'

‘You know better than that. The Ten Commandments are for lame brains. The first five are solely for the benefit of the priests and the powers that be; the second five are half-truths, neither complete nor adequate.'

‘All right, teach me about the second five. How should they read?'

‘Not on your tintype, lazy bones; you've got to do it yourself.' He stood up suddenly, dumping me off his lap and almost landing me on my bottom. This was a running game with us. If I moved fast, I could land on my feet. If not, it was one point to him.

‘Analyse the Ten Commandments,' he ordered. ‘Tell me how they should read. In the meantime, if I hear just once more that you have lost your temper, then when your mother sends you to discuss the matter with me, you had better have your McGuffey's Reader tucked inside your bloomers.'

‘Father, you wouldn't.'

‘Just try me, carrot top, just try me. I will enjoy spanking you.'

An empty threat - He never spanked me once I was old enough to understand why I was being scolded. But even before then he had never spanked me hard enough to hurt my bottom. Just my feelings.

Mother's punishments were another matter. The high justice was Father's bailiwick; Mother handled the low and middle - with a peach switch. Ouch!

Father spoiled me rotten.

I had four brothers and four sisters - Edward, born in I876; Audrey in'78; Agnes in i88o; Tom,'8i; in'8z I carne along; Frank was born in I884, then Beth in'92; Lucille,'94; George in I897 - and I took up more of Father's time than any three of my siblings. Maybe four. Looking back on it, I can't sec that he made himself more available to me than he did to any of my brothers and sisters. But it certainly worked out that I spent more time with my father.

Two ground-floor rooms in our house were Father's clinic and surgery; I spent a lot of my free time there as I was fascinated by his books. Mother did not think I should read them, medical books being filled with things that ladies simply should not delve into. Unladylike. Immodest.

Father said to her, ‘Mrs Johnson, the few errors in those books I will point out to Maureen. As for the far more numerous and much more important truths, I am pleased that Maureen wants to learn them. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John, eight, verse thirty two.'

Mother set her mouth in a grim line and did not answer. For her the Bible was the final word... whereas Father was a freethinker, a fact he did not admit even to me at that time. But Father knew the Bible more thoroughly than Mother did and could always quote a verse to refute her - a most unfair way to argue, it seems to me, but an advantage he needed in dealing with her. Mother was strong-willed.

They disagreed on many things But they had rules that let them live together without bloodshed. Not only live together but share a bed and have baby after baby together. A miracle.

I think Father set most of the rules. At that time and place it was taken for granted that a husband was head of his household and must be obeyed. You may not believe this but the wedding ceremony in those days required the bride to promise to obey her husband - in everything and forever.

If I know my mother (I don't, really), she didn't keep that promise more than thirty minutes.

But they worked out practical compromises.

Mother bossed the household. Father's domain was his clinic and surgery, and the barn and outbuildings and matters pertaining thereto. Father controlled all money matters. Each month he gave Mother a household allowance that she spent as she saw fit. But he required her to keep a record of how she spent it, bookkeeping that Father examined each month.

Breakfast was at seven, dinner at noon, supper at six; if Father's medical practice caused him to need to eat at other times, he notified mother - ahead of time if possible. But the family sat down on time.

If Father was present, he held Mother's chair for her; she thanked him, he then sat down and the rest of us followed. He said grace, morning, noon, and night. In Father's absence my brother Edward seated Mother and she said grace. Or she might direct one of us to return thanks, for practice. Then we ate, and misbehaviour at the table was only one notch below high treason. But a child did not have to sit and squirm and wait for the grown-ups after he was through eating; he could ask to be excused, then leave the table. He could not return even if he discovered that he had made a horrible mistake such as forgetting that it was a dessert night. (But Mother would relent and allow that child to eat dessert in the kitchen... if he had not teased or whined.)

The day my eldest sister Audrey entered high school Father added to the protocol: he held Mother's chair as usual. Once she was seated Mother said, ‘Thank you, Doctor.' Then Edward, two years older than Audrey, held her chair for her and seated her just after Mother was seated: Mother said, ‘What do you say, Audrey?'

‘I did say it, Mama:

‘Yes, she did, Mother.'

‘I did not hear it.'

‘Thank you, Eddie.'

‘You're welcome, Aud.'

Then the rest of us sat down.

Thereafter, as each girl entered high school, the senior available boy was conscripted into the ceremony.

On Sundays, dinner was at one because everyone but Father went to Sunday School and everyone including Father went to morning church.

Father stayed out of the kitchen. Mother never entered the clinic and surgery even to clean. That cleaning was done by a hired girl, or by one of my sisters, or (once I was old enough) by me.

By unwritten rules, never broken, my parents lived in peace. I think their friends thought of them as an ideal couple and of their offspring as ‘those nice Johnson children'.

Indeed I think we were a happy family, all nine of us children and our parents. Don't think for a minute that we lived under such strict discipline that we did not Nave fun. We had loads of fun, both at home and away.

But we made our own fun, mostly. I recall a time, many years later, when American children seemed to be unable to amuse themselves without a fortune in electrical and electronic equipment. We had no fancy equipment and did not miss it. By then, i89o more or less, Mr Edison had invented the electric light and Professor Bell had invented the telephone but these modern miracles had not reached Thebes, in Lyle County, Missouri. As for electronic toys the word ‘electron' had yet to be coined. But my brothers had sleds and wagons and we girls had dolls and toy sewing machines and we had many indoor games in joint tenancy-dominoes and draughts and chess and jackstraws and lotto and pigs-in-clover and anagrams...

We played outdoor games that required no equipment, or not much. We had a variation of baseball called ‘scrub' which could be played by three to eighteen players plus the volunteer efforts of dogs, cats, and one goat.

We had other livestock: from one to four horses, depending on the year; a Guernsey cow named Clytemnestra; chickens (usually Rhode Island Reds); guinea fowl, ducks (white domestic), rabbits from time to time, and (one season only) a sow named Gumdrop. Father sold Gumdrop when it developed that we were unwilling to eat pigs we had helped raise. Not that we needed to raise pigs; Father was more likely to receive fees in smoked ham or a side of bacon than he was to be paid in money.

We all fished and the boys hunted. As soon as each boy was old enough (ten, as I recall') to handle a rifle, Father taught him to shoot, a .22 at first. He taught them to hunt, too, but I did not see it; girls were not included. I did not mind that (I refused to have anything to do with skinning and gutting bunny rabbits, that being their usual game) but I did want to learn to shoot... and made the mistake of saying so in Mother's hearing. She exploded.

Father told me quietly, ‘We'll discuss it later.'

And we did. About a year later, when it was established that I sometimes drove Father on country calls, unbeknownst to Mother he started taking along in the back of his buggy under gunny sacks a little single-shot .22... and Maureen was taught to shoot... and especially how not to get shot, all the rules of firearm safety. Father was a patient teacher who demanded perfection.

Weeks later he said, ‘Maureen, if you will remember what we taught you, it may cause you to live longer. I hope so. We won't tackle pistol this year; your hands aren't yet big enough.'

We young folks owned the whole outdoors as our playground. We picked wild blackberries and went nutting for black walnuts and searched for pawpaws and persimmons. We went on hikes and picnics. Eventually, as each of us grew taller and began to feel new and wonderful yearnings, we used the outdoors for courting - ‘sparking', we called it.

Our family was forever celebrating special days - eleven birthdays, our parents' wedding anniversary, Christmas, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, Washington's birthday, Easter, Valentine's Day, the Fourth of July (a double celebration, it being my birthday), and Admission Day on the tenth of August. Best of all was the county fair - ‘best' because Father drove in the harness races (and warned his patients not to get sick that week - or see Dr Chadwick, his exchange). We sat in the stands and cheered ourselves hoarse... although Father seldom finished in the money. Then came Halloween and Thanksgiving, which brings us up to Christmas again.

That's a full month of special days, every one of them celebrated with noisy enthusiasm.

And there were non-special days when we sat around the dining table and picked the meats from walnuts as fast as Father and Edward could crack them, while Mother or Audrey read aloud from the Leatherstocking Tales or Ivanhoe or Dickens - or we made popcorn, or popcorn balls (sticky all over everything!), or fudge, or we gathered around the piano and sang while Mother played, and that was best of all.

There were winters when we had a spell-down every night because Audrey was going for it seriously. She walked around with McGuffey's speller under one arm and Webster's American Spelling Book under the other, her lips moving and her eyes blank. She always won the family drills; we expected that; family competition was usually between Edward and me for second place.

Audrey made it: first place in Thebes Consolidated Grammar and High School when she was in Sixth Grade, then the following year she went all the way to Joplin for the regional - only to lose to a nasty little boy from Rich Hill. But in her freshman year in high school she won the regional and went on to Jefferson City and won the gold medal for top speller in Missouri. Mother and Audrey went together to the state capital for the finals and the presentation - by stage coach to Butler, by railroad train to Kansas City, then again by train to Jefferson City. I could have been jealous - of Audrey's travel, not of her gold medal - had it not been that by then I was about to go to Chicago (but that's another story).

Audrey was welcomed back with a brass band, the one that played at the county fair, specially activated off-season to honour ‘Thebes' Favourite Daughter' (so it said on a big banner), ‘Audrey Adele Johnson', Audrey cried. So did I.

I remember especially one hot July afternoon - ‘Cyclone weather,' Father decided, and, sure enough, three twisters did touch down that day, one quite close to our house.

We were safe; Father had ordered us into the storm cellar as soon as the sky darkened, and bad helped Mother down the steps most carefully - she was carrying again... my little sister Beth it must have been. We sat down there for three hours, by the light of a barn lantern, and drank lemonade and ate Mother's sugar cookies, thick and floury and filling.

Father stood at the top of the steps with the slant door open, until a piece of the Ritters barn came by.

At which point, Mother was shrill with him (for the only time that I know of in the presence of children). ‘Doctor! You come inside at once! I will not be widowed just to let you prove to yourself that you can stand up to anything!'

Father came down promptly, fastening the slant door behind him. ‘Madam,' he stated, ‘as always your logic is irrefutable.'

There were hayrides with young people of our own age, usually with fairly tolerant chaperonage; there were skating parties on the Marais des Cygnes; there were Sunday School picnics, and church ice-cream socials, and more and more. Happy times do not come from fancy gadgets; they come from ‘male and female created He them,' and from being healthy and filled with zest for life.

The firm discipline we lived under was neither onerous nor unreasonable; none of it was simply for the sterile purpose of having rules. Outside the scope of those necessary rules we were as free as birds.

Older children helped with younger children, with defined responsibilities. AI] of us had assigned chores, from about age six, on up. The assignments were written down and checked off-and in later years I handled my own brood (larger than my mother's) by her rules. Hers were sensible rules; they had worked for her; they would work for me.

Oh, my rules were not exactly like my mother's rules because our circumstances were not exactly alike. For example, a major chore for my brothers was sawing and chopped wood; my sons did not chop wood because our home in Kansas City was heated by a coal furnace. But they did tend the furnace, fill the coal bin (coal was delivered to the kerb, followed by the backbreaking chore of carrying ir a bucket at a time to a chute that led to the coal bin), and clean out the ashes and haul them up the basement stairs and out.

There were other differences. My boys did not have to carry water for baths; in Kansas City we had running water. And so forth... My sons worked as hard as my brothers had, but differently. A city house with electricity and gas and a coal furnace does not create anything like the heavy chores that a country house in the Gay Nineties did. The house I was brought up in had no running water, no plumbing of any sort, no central heating. It was lit by coal-oil lamps and by candles, both homemade and store-bought, and it was heated by wood stoves: a big baseburner in the parlour, a drum stove in the clinic, monkey stoves elsewhere. No stoves upstairs... but grilles ser in the ceilings allowed heated air to reach the upper floor.

Ours was one of the larger houses in town, and possibly the most modern, as Father was quick to adopt any truly useful new invention as soon as it was available. In this he consciously imitated Mr Samuel Clemens.

Father judged Mr Clemens to be one of the smartest and possibly the smartest man in America. Mr Clemens was seventeen years older than Father; he first became aware of ‘Mark Twain' with the Jumping Frog story. From that time on Father read everything by Mr Clemens he could lay hands on.

The year I was born Father wrote to Mr Clemens, complimenting him on A Tramp Abroad. Mr Clemens sent a courteous and dryly humorous answer; Father framed it and hung it on the wall of his clinic. Thereafter Father wrote to Mr Clemens as each new book by ‘Mark Twain' appeared. As a direct result, young Maureen read all of Mr Clemens' published works, curled up in a corner of her father's clinic. These were not books that Mother read; she considered them vulgar and destructive of good morals. By her values Mother was correct; Mr Clemens was clearly subversive by the standards of all ‘right-thinking' people.

I am forced to assume that Mother could spot an immoral book by its odour, as she never, never actually read anything by Mr Clemens.

So those books stayed in the clinic and I devoured them there, along with other books never seen in the parlour-not just medical books, but such outright subversion as the lectures of Colonel Robert Ingersoll and (best of all) the essays of Thomas Henry Huxley.

I'll never forget the afternoon I read Professor Huxley's essay on ‘The Gaderene Swine'.

‘Father,' I said in deep excitement, ‘they've lied to us all along!'

‘Probably,' he agreed. ‘What are you reading?'

I told him. ‘Well, you've read enough of it for today; Professor Huxley is strong medicine. Let's talk for a while.

How are you doing with the Ten Commandments? Got your final version?'

‘Maybe,' I answered.

‘How many are there now?'

‘Sixteen, I think.'

‘Too many.'

‘If you would just let me chuck the first five -‘

‘Not while you're under my roof and eating at my table. You see me attending church and singing hymns, do you not? I don't even sleep during the sermon. Maureen, rubbing blue mud in your belly button is an indispensable survival skill... everywhere, anywhere. Let's hear your latest version of the first five.'

‘Father, you are a horrid man and you will come to a bad end.'

‘Not as long as I can keep dodging them. Quit stalling.'

‘Yes, sir. First Commandment: Thou shalt pay public homage to the god favoured by the majority without giggling or even smiling behind your hand.'

‘Go on.'

‘Thou shalt not make any graven image of a sort that could annoy the powers that be, especially Mrs Grundy - and, exempli gratia, this is why your anatomy book doesn't show the clitoris. Mrs Grundy wouldn't like it because she doesn't have one.'

‘Or possibly has one the size of a banana,' my father answered, ‘but doesn't want anyone to find out. Censorship is never logical but, like cancer, it is dangerous to ignore it when it shows up. Darling daughter, the purpose of the second commandment is simply to reinforce the first. A "graven image" is any idol that could rival the official god; it has nothing to do with sculpture or etchings. Go on.'

‘Thou shalt not take the name of thy Lord God in vain... which means don't swear, not even Jiminy or Golly or darn, or use any of those four-letter words, or anything that Mother might consider vulgar. Father, there is something here that doesn't make sense. Why is "vagina" a good word while "cunt" is a bad word? Riddle me that.'

‘Both are bad words out of your mouth, youngster, unless you are talking to me... in which case you will use the medical Latin out of respect for my vocation and my grey hair. You are permitted to say the Anglo-Saxon synonym under your breath if it pleasures you.'

‘Somehow it does, and I haven't been able to analyse why. Number four -‘

‘Just a moment. Add to number three: Thou shalt not split infinitives, or dangle participles. Thou shalt shun solecisms. Thou shalt honour the noble English language, speech of Shakespeare, Milton and Poe, and it will serve thee all the days of thy life. In particular, Maureen, if 1 ever again hear you say "different than" I will beat you about the head and shoulders with an unbated ablative absolute.'

‘Father, that was an accident! I meant to -‘

‘Excuses. Let's hear number four.'

‘Commandment number four. Go to church on Sundays. Smile and be pleasant but don't be too smarmily a hypocrite. Don't let my children, if and when I have any, play out in front on Sunday or make too much noise out the back. Support the church by deeds and money but not too conspicuously.'

‘Maureen, that's well put. You'll be a preacher's wife yet.'

‘Oh, God, Father, I'd rather be a whore!'

‘The two are not incompatible. Continuez, ma chère enfante.'

‘Mais oui, mon cher papa. Honour thy father and thy mother where anyone can see you. But once you leave home, live your own life. Don't let them lead you around by the nose. Mon papa, you phrased that one yourself... and I don't like it much. I do honour you, because I want to. And I don't have anything against Mother; we just don't sing in the same key. But I'm grateful to her.'

‘Avoid gratitude, my dear; it can sour your stomach. After you marry and I'm dead, are you going to invite Adele to move in with you?'

‘Uh -‘ I stopped, unable to answer.

‘Think about it. Think it through carefully, in advance... because any answer you make in a hurry while my grave is still fresh is certain to be a wrong answer. Next item:

‘Thou shalt not commit murder. "Murder" means killing somebody wrongfully. Other sorts of killing come in several flavours and each sort must be analysed. I'm still working on this one, Father.'

So am I. Just bear in mind that a person who eats meat is on the same moral level as the butcher.'

‘Yes, sir. Thou shalt not get caught committing adultery... and that means don't get pregnant, don't catch a social disease, don't let Mrs Grundy even suspect you, and above all don't let your spouse find out; it would make him most unhappy... and he could divorce you. Father, I don't think I would ever be tempted by adultery. If God had intended a woman to have more than one man he would have supplied more men... instead of just enough to go around.'

‘Who intended? I didn't catch the name.'

‘I said "God" but you know what I mean!'

‘I do indeed. You are indulging in theology; I would rather see you take laudanum. Maureen, when anyone talks about God's will or God's intentions or Nature's intentions if he is afraid to say "God", I know at once that he is selling a gold brick. To himself, in some cases, as you were just doing. To read a moral law into the fact that about as many males are born as females is to make too much stew from one oyster; it's as slippery as Post hoc, propter hoc.

‘As for your belief that you will never be tempted, here you are, barely dry behind the ears and only a year past first onset of menses... and you think you know all there is to know about the perils of sex... just as every girl your age throughout history has thought. So go right ahead. Jump the fence with your eyes closed. Break your husband's heart and ruin his pride. Shame your children. Be a scandal in the public square. Get your tubes filed with pus, then let some butcher cut them out in some dirty back room with no ether. Go right ahead, Maureen. Count the world well lost for love. For that's what sloppy adultery can get you: the world lost all right and an early grave and children who will never speak your name.'

‘But, Father, I was saying that I must shun adultery; it's too dangerous. I think I can manage it.' I smiled at him and recited:

‘"There was a young lady named Wilde - "'

Father picked it up:

‘ "Who kept herself quite undefiled

By thinking of Jesus,

Contagious diseases,

And the dangers of having a child."

‘Yes, I know; I taught you that limerick. Maureen, you failed to mention the safest route to prudent adultery. Yet I know that you've heard of it; I mentioned it the day I tried to give you an estimate of the amount of fence jumping going on in this county.'

‘I must have missed it, Father.'

‘I know I mentioned it. If you've just gotta - and the day might come - tell your husband what is biting you, ask his permission, ask for his help, ask him to stand jigger for you.'

‘Oh! Yes, you did tell me about two couples like that here in our county... but I could never figure out who they are.'

‘I didn't intend you to. So I threw in a few false clues.'

‘I discounted for that, sir, knowing you. But I still couldn't guess. Father, that seems so undignified. And wouldn't, uh, my husband be terribly angry?'

‘He might give you a fat lip; he won't divorce you for asking. Then he might help you anyhow, on the sound theory that you would get into worse trouble if he says No. And -‘ Father gave a most evil grin,‘ - he might discover he enjoys the role.'

‘Father, I find that I'm shocked.'

‘Then, get over it. Complacent husbands are common throughout history; there is a lot of voyeur in everyone... especially in males but females weren't left out. He might jump at the chance to help you... because you helped him just that way, six weeks earlier. Stood lookout for him and that young schoolteacher, then you lied like a diploma to cover up for them. Next commandment.'

‘Wait a minute, please! I want to talk about this one some more. Adultery.'

‘And that is just what I'm not going to let you do. You think about it but not a word out of you on this subject for at least two weeks. Next.'

‘Thou shalt not steal. I couldn't improve that one, Father.'

‘Would you steal to feed a baby?'

‘Uh, yes.'

‘Think about other exceptions; we'll discuss it in a year or two. But it is a good general rule. But why won't you steal? You're smart; you can probably get away with stealing all your life. Why won't you do it?'

‘Don't grunt.'

‘Father, you're infuriating! I don't steal because I'm too stinking' proud!'

‘Exactly! Perfect. For the same reason you don't cheat in school, or cheat in games. Pride. Your own concept of yourself. "To thine own self be true, and then it follows as the night from day -" ‘

‘"- thou canst not then be false to any man." Yes, sir.'

‘But you dropped the "g" from the participle. Repeat it and this time pronounce it correctly: You don't steal because -‘

‘I am too... stinking... proud!'

‘Good. A proud self-image is the strongest incentive you can have towards correct behaviour. Too proud to steal, too proud to cheat, too proud to take candy from babies or to push little ducks into water. Maureen, a moral code for the tribe must be based on survival for the tribe... but for the individual correct behaviour in the tightest pinch is based on pride, nor on personal survival. This is why a captain goes down with his ship; this is why "The Guard dies but does not surrender". A person who has nothing to die for has nothing to live for. Next commandment.'

Simon Legree. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Until you corrupted me -‘

‘Who corrupted whom? I am the epitome of moral rectitude... because I know exactly why I behave as I do. When I started in on you, you had no morals of any sort and your behaviour was as naively shameless as that of a kitten trying to cover up on a bare floor.'

‘Yes, sir. As I was saying, until you corrupted me, I thought the ninth commandment meant: Don't tell lies. But all it says is, if you have to go into court and be a witness, then you have to tell the truth.'

‘It says more than that.'

‘Yes. You pointed out that it was a special case of a general theorem. I think the general case ought to read: Don't tell lies that can hurt other people -‘

‘Close enough.'

‘Father, you didn't let me finish.'

‘Oh. Maureen, I beg your pardon. Please go on:

‘I said, "Don't tell lies that can hurt other people" but I intended to add, "- but since you can't guess ahead of time what harm your lies may do, the only safe rule is not to tell any lies at all." ‘

Father said nothing for quite a long time. At last he said, ‘Maureen, this one we will not dispose of in an afternoon. A liar is worse to have around than a thief... yet I would rather cope with a liar than with a person who takes self-righteous pride in telling the truth, all of the truth and all of the time, let the chips fall where they may - meaning "No matter who is hurt by it, no matter what innocent life is ruined." Maureen, a person who takes smug pride in telling the blunt truth is a sadist not a saint. There are many sorts of lies, untruths, fibs, nonfactual statements, et cetera. As an exercise to stretch the muscles of your mind -‘

‘The mind has no muscles.'

‘Smarty. Don't teach Grandma how to steal sheep. Your mind has no muscles and that's what I'm trying to correct. Try to categorise logically the varieties of not-true statements. Having done so, try to decide when and where each sort may be used morally, if at all... and if not, why not. That should keep you out of mischief for the next fourteen, fifteen months.'

‘Oh, Father, you´re so good to me!'

‘Stop the sarcasm or I'll paddle your pants. Bring me a preliminary report in a month or six weeks.'

‘Thy will be done. Papa, I do have one special case. "Don't tell fibs to Mother lest thy mouth be washed out with lye soap." ‘

‘Correction: "Don't tell any fibs to your mother that she can catch you in." If you ever told her the ungarnished truth about our private talks, I would have to leave home. If you catch Audrey spooning with that unlikely young cub who's been calling on her, what are you going to tell your mother?'

Father took me by surprise on that one. I had indeed caught Audrey spooning... and I had an uneasy suspicion that there had been something more than spooning - and it worried me. ‘I won't tell Mother anything!'

‘That's a good answer. But what are you going to tell me? You know that I don't have your mother's moralistic and puritanical attitudes about sex, and you know - I hope you do - that I won't use anything you tell me to punish Audrey but to help her. So what do you-tell your father?'

I felt walls closing in on me, caught between loyalty to Father and my love for my oldest sister, who had always helped me and been good to me. ‘I... I will... I won't tell you a durn thing!'

‘Hooraw! You took the hurdle without even ticking the top rail. Dead right, dear one; we don't tell tales out of school, we don't confess on behalf of someone else. But don't say "durn". If you need it, say "damn".'

‘Yes, sir. I won't tell you a damn thing about Audrey and her young man.' (And, dear Lord if there is one, don't let my sister get pregnant; Mother would have fits and pray over her and all would be terrible. Thy will be done... but not too much of it. Maureen Johnson. Amen.)

‘Let's deal with number ten quickly, then move on to the ones Moses neglected to bring down the mountain. Ten doesn't seem to be a problem to you. Coveted anything lately?'

‘I don't think I have. Why is there a rule against coveting your neighbour's wife but not a word about not coveting your neighbour's husband? Was it an oversight on Jehovah's part? Or was it truly open-season on husbands in those days?'

‘I don't know, Maureen. T suspect that it was simply conceit on the part of some ancient Hebrews who could not imagine their wives wanting to jump the fence when they had such virile heroes at home. The Old Testament doesn't place women very high; it starts right out with Adam putting all the blame on Mother Eve... then it gets worse. But here in Lyle County, Missouri, we do have a rule against it... and if any wife catches you making eyes at her husband here, she is likely to scratch out your pretty green eyes.'

‘I don't intend to let her catch me. But suppose it's the other way. Suppose he covets me, or seems to. Suppose he pinches my bottom?'

‘Well, well! Who was he, Maureen? Who is he?'

‘Hypothetical case, mon cher père.'

‘Very well. If he hypothetically does it again, you may hypothetically respond in several hypothetical fashions. You may hypothetically ignore him, pretend to a hypothetical lack of sensation in your gluteus maximus sinister - or is he left-handed?'

‘I don't know:'

‘Or you can hypothetically whisper, "Don't do that here. Meet me after church." ‘

‘Father!'

‘You brought it up. Or, if it suits you, you may hypothetically warn him that one more hypothetical pinch will be reported to your hypothetical father who owns both a hypothetical horsewhip and a hypothetical shot-gun. You may say this most privately-or shout it loudly enough for the congregation and his hypothetical wife to hear it. Lady's choice. Wait one moment. You did say "husband", did you not?'

‘I did not say. But that was assumed in the hypothesis, I suppose.'

‘Maureen, a pinch on the bottom is an expression of direct intent. Encouraged, it leads in three short steps to copulation. You are young but you are physically a mature woman capable of pregnancy. Is it your intention to assume full womanhood in the immediate future?'