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mobiles. His assistant was Bert Smith. Once
we left an automo- bile there for a valve grinding job, and when we got
it back the motor sputtered and spat and backfired so we took it to
Horace for a checkup. He investigated and found a portion of Bert
Smith's shirt in the cylinder head.
Next to Coburn's Block was the Weston Laundry with its
long loading platform running the length of the building.
"Why don't we send our laundry there?" I once asked.
"Because we have a laundress and don't need to" my mother
replied.
"Why doesn't everyone have a laundress?"
"Perhaps they can't afford one."
Whereupon I turned to my father and asked, "How do you
make all your money anyway?"
"By robbing the poor," he replied with the voice of an emo-
tional politician.
This made my mother perfectly furious. She said it was the
worst thing she had ever heard anyone say; how could a man tell such a
wicked lie to his children? Her reaction was so perfect
that we asked the same question at a later date, and got the
same reply and the same verbal blast from my mother.
Dr. Van Nuys lived in the square house where doctors' offices are
today. My earliest recollection of him dates back to 1910 when I
escaped from my nurse who was busy in the laundry,
and went behind the house where Tober, our St. Bernard, was sleeping
comfortably. I got down on my hands and knees and started growling at
him. He woke up and playfully put his paw
on my head which startled me, and as I backed away from him, the
paw dug into my scalp and blood spurted out. Clutching my |
