The Moffats

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The Moffats

   Author:  Eleanor Estes
Copyright Date:  1941
Publisher:  Harcourt, Brace and Co.
Pagination:  290 p.

     The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! Jane could not take her eyes from her mother’s hands. They had a way of doing things, peeling apples, sprinkling salt, counting pennies, that fascinated her. Jane sighed. Her mother’s peelings fell off in lovely long curls, while, for the life of her, Jane couldn’t do any better than these thick little chunks which she popped into her mouth. Moreover it took her as long to peel one apple as for Mama to do five or six. Would she ever get so she could do as well?
     “There,” said Mama, “that’s finished.” She set the blue and white kettle of apples on the stove. She sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the apples with the same deft fingers. Jane sat with her elbows on the kitchen table and her chin cupped in her hands, watching her mother and considering vaguely what to do next. Upstairs she could her Sylvie saying her lines and saying her lines. She was going to be Cinderella in the play at the Town Hall. Joey had gone bicycling up Shingle Hill with Chet Pudge, and Rufus was probably playing marbles down there at the end of New Dollar Street, waiting for him to come home.
     There wasn’t anyone to play with, so Jane picked up her doll, Hildegarde, and stuck her in her knitting bag, and went out the back door.
     All the fruit trees in the yard looked inviting to Jane. She had half a mind to climb the old apple tree, sit in one of its forks and do some knitting. But first she would go and see if Rufus or Joey were in sight. She skipped round the house, out the gate, and climbed onto the fat old hitching post in front. She looked up New Dollar Street and down New Dollar Street for a sign of Joey or Rufus. But neither was in sight.
     New Dollar Street was shaped like a bow. That is, it was not a straight street put out by a measuring rod. It had a gentle curve in it like one half of a parenthesis, the first half. Exactly halfway down New Dollar Street was the yellow house where the Moffats, of whom Jane was the next to the youngest, lived. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The way Mama could peel apples! A few turns of the knife and there the apple was, all skinned! Jane could not take her eyes from her mother’s hands. They had a way of doing things, peeling apples, sprinkling salt, counting pennies, that fascinated her. Jane sighed. Her mother’s peelings fell off in lovely long curls, while, for the life of her, Jane couldn’t do any better than these thick little chunks which she popped into her mouth. Moreover it took her as long to peel one apple as for Mama to do five or six. Would she ever get so she could do as well? “There,” said Mama, “that’s finished.” She set the blue and white kettle of apples on the stove. She sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the apples with the same deft fingers. Jane sat with her elbows on the kitchen table and her chin cupped in her hands, watching her mother and considering vaguely what to do next. Upstairs she could her Sylvie saying her lines and saying her lines. She was going to be Cinderella in the play at the Town Hall. Joey had gone bicycling up Shingle Hill with Chet Pudge, and Rufus was probably playing marbles down there at the end of New Dollar Street, waiting for him to come home. There wasn’t anyone to play with, so Jane picked up her doll, Hildegarde, and stuck her in her knitting bag, and went out the back door. All the fruit trees in the yard looked inviting to Jane. She had half a mind to climb the old apple tree, sit in one of its forks and do some knitting. But first she would go and see if Rufus or Joey were in sight. She skipped round the house, out the gate, and climbed onto the fat old hitching post in front. She looked up New Dollar Street and down New Dollar Street for a sign of Joey or Rufus. But neither was in sight. New Dollar Street was shaped like a bow. That is, it was not a straight street put out by a measuring rod. It had a gentle curve in it like one half of a parenthesis, the first half. Exactly halfway down New Dollar Street was the yellow house where the Moffats, of whom Jane was the next to the youngest, lived. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .