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By Root 460 0

and Mrs. Buntline said what she enjoyed more than anything was picking out a musical program at the start of every day, and loading it into the record changer. This morning there was music coming out of all the loudspeakers, and it didn't sound like any music I had ever heard before. It was very high and fast and twittery, and Mrs. Buntline was humming along with it, rocking her head from side to side to show me how much she loved it. It was driving me crazy. And then her best friend, a woman named Mrs. Rosewater, came over, and she said how much she loved the music, too. She said someday, when her ship came in, she would have beautiful music all the time, too. I finally broke down and asked Mrs. Buntline what on earth it was. "Why, my dear child," she said, "that is none other than the immortal Beethoven." "Beethoven!" I said. "Have you ever heard of him before?" she said. "Yes, mam, I have. Daddy Parrot played Beethoven all the time back at the orphanage, but it didn't sound like that." So she took me in where the phonograph was, and she said, "Very well, I will prove it is Beethoven. I have loaded the changer with nothing but Beethoven. Every so often I just go on a Beethoven binge." "I just adore Beethoven, too," Mrs. Rosewater said. Mrs. Buntline told me to look at what was in the record changer and tell her whether it was Beethoven or not. It was. She had loaded the changer with all nine symphonies, but that poor woman had them playing at 78 revolutions per minute instead of 33, and she couldn't tell the difference. I told her about it, Daddy. I had to tell her, didn't I? I was very polite, but I must have gotten that look in my eyes, because she got very mad, and she made me go out and clean up the chauffeur's lavatory in the back of the garage. Actually, it wasn't a very dirty job. They haven't had a chauffeur for years.

Another time, Daddy, she took me out to watch a sailboat race in Mr. Buntline's big motorboat. I asked to go. I said all anybody ever seemed to talk about in Pisquontuit was sailboat races. I said I would like to see what was so wonderful about them. Her daughter Lila was racing that day. Lila is the best sailer in town. You should see all the cups she has won. They are the main decorations of the house. There aren't any pictures to speak of A neighbor has a Picasso, but I heard him say he would a lot rather have a daughter who could sail like Lila. I don't think it makes much difference one way or another, but I didn't say so. Believe me, Daddy, I don't say half the things I could. Anyway, we went out to see this sailboat race, and I wish you could have heard the way Mrs. Buntline yelled and swore. You remember the things Arthur Gonsalves used to say? Mrs. Buntline used words that would have been news to Arthur. I never saw a woman get so excited and mad. She just forgot I was there. She looked like a witch with the rabies. You would have thought the fate of the universe was being decided by those sunburned children in those pretty little white boats. She finally remembered me, and she realized she had said some things that didn't sound very good. "You've got to understand why we're all so excited right now," she said. "Lila has two legs on the Commodore's Cup." "Oh," I said, "that explains everything." I swear, Daddy, that's all I said, but there must have been that look in my eyes.

What gets me most about these people, Daddy, isn't how ignorant they are, or how much they drink. It's the way they have of thinking that everything nice in the world is a gift to the poor people from them or their ancestors. The first afternoon I was here, Mrs. Buntline made me come out on the back porch and look at the sunset. So I did, and I said I liked it very much, but she kept waiting for me to say something else. I couldn't think of what else I was supposed to say, so I said what seemed liked a dumb thing. "Thank you very much," I said. That was exactly what she was waiting for. "You're entirely welcome," she said. I have since thanked her for the ocean, the moon, the stars in the sky, and the United States