Sometimes I shared a room with one sister, sometimes with more. Sometimes we lived in a spacious house and I got a room all to myself. No matter what, I counted myself fortunate that I never had to live like the Henry family lived. They were in one of my father's parishes, a large family with 13 children who lived in a small house. The girls were friends of ours and one time they invited me to their house.
Their Mom was ironing clothes in the living room, so we decided to go to their bedroom to play. Up the narrow stairs and down a short hall to the bedroom at the front of the house we clattered. They swung the door open and I could scarcely believe my eyes. The room was one big wall to wall bed. Well, actually several beds crunched so tightly together that there was no room in between them. All the girls slept in this one room. The dressers resided in the hallway, and each girl had 2 drawers for their things. The small closet had the door removed and everyone crammed their few dresses into the tiny opening.
Their father scared me. He was military and ran his household like a barracks. If anyone stepped out of line, they found themselves scrubbing the kitchen floor with a toothbrush for hours. It made my situation seem like a slice of heaven.
In our house, we always got a snack before bedtime. Often Mom would read us a bedtime story. We curled up on the couch in the living room, all snuggled together, huddling around Mom to see the pictures. It was probably the only time during the day we were all quiet. Mom would read to us as long as someone would comb her hair or scratch her back. She read all our favorite books - Mr Moggs Dogs, Baby Bunny, The Ten Little Firemen - all the golden book series.
When we were older, she read us the Sugar Creek Gang books. She always stopped at a cliff hanger part of the book (turns out every chapter was a cliff hanger) and we would beg and plead for just one more chapter. She always gave in the first time. Having read this set to my own children, I am amazed she was able to do that!
Then she would skedaddle us upstairs to brush our teeth and get our last drinks. We jumped into our beds, and Mom would come round and say prayers with each of us. Usually it was the typical "Now I lay me down to sleep" prayer, but this moment in our day was sometimes a chance to ask her some question that was pestering us or talk over some event we had witnessed. I can't say as Mom had answers for our concerns, but somehow knowing we could ask the questions meant as much as getting the answer.
Problem with kids is, we never stayed put. After Mom prayed, chatted, tucked the blankets in around our chins, turned out the light and went back downstairs, we kids would creep out of bed and play around. It would start innocently enough. Jan would tiptoe in my room to ask me something, and we would sit on the bed whispering. The whispers grew louder until we were talking and laughing and horsing around and before you knew it, Peter and Jimmy joined us and we sure didn't stay on the bed.
Pretty soon we were playing tag or hide and seek or something, and suddenly the sound of Dad stomping up the stairs would send us all scurrying to our rooms and diving under the covers to pretend to be sleeping. Dad was never fooled by our trickery. He had the voice of authority, and we were told in no uncertain terms that getting out of bed again meant a spanking, and we knew his spankings hurt.
We would be quiet and stay put until long minutes after Dad descended to the living room. Before long though, someone would tiptoe to someone else's room, and the whole thing began again. I can't recall how long it must have taken us to finally fall asleep, but there were plenty of nights that we felt the sting of disobedience on our backsides. That always ended it.
I am sure this sort of cavorting never went on at the Henry's home. Besides the fact that everyone was so tightly packed in that no one would be able to tiptoe anywhere, they lived with the toothbrush threat. Much worse than our quick justice. Besides, we had the stories Mom had read to drift off to sleep with. We were lucky.
And I still read myself to sleep on nights when the wind howls and there is no one to tiptoe into my bedroom but Sugar.
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