Read Online Who Won the War? by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor - Free Book Online

on the porch.
    By five o'clock, Mrs. Malloy insisted that the girls come downstairs and be sociable. And if they couldn't be sociable, she said, they could at least ask Mrs. Hatford what they might do to be helpful.
    “Well, you could set the table for dinner,” Mrs.
    Hatford replied. “Your mother and I have been cooking extra meals, because I have to go back to work tomorrow. Hopefully, even if it gets hotter here in Buckman, we'll have enough food prepared that we won't have to use the oven again for several days.”
    “What if it turns out we can't go home for a week, Mother?” Eddie said worriedly.
    “I doubt it will be a week,” Mrs. Malloy told her. “I called your father this afternoon, and he said the power company hopes to have power restored to all of Ohio in four days at the most.”
    Four days! thought Caroline. Four days of lying in a room at the Hatfords' was like a prison sentence. But she took the handful of silverware Mrs. Hatford gave her and dutifully walked around the dining room table, placing the knives and forks beside each plate.
    When Mr. Hatford walked in at six, the shirt of his postal uniform was drenched in perspiration, and he had a small towel draped around his neck. He stopped and stared at the Malloys in surprise.
    “Well,” he said. “Hello.”
    “Tom, we've got a little emergency here,” his wife told him. “George called to say that there's a huge power outage in Ohio due to the heat. No electricity, no traffic lights or refrigeration or air-conditioning. There's no use in Jean and the girls going home to that, and no hotel here for them to go to. So I've invited them to stay with us for a few days until they get their power back.”
    Mr. Hatford blinked. Caroline supposed he wasn'tany happier about it than the boys had been. “Well,” he said. “Any port in a storm, right?”
    “We are so grateful for Ellen's invitation, but we know this is an imposition,” Mrs. Malloy said. “We're going to be as helpful as possible, and I've made a couple of lemon pies. I hope that will make up for it a little.”
    Mr. Hatford laughed. “Well, now, I don't have any objection to that!” he said. “Yes, I heard about that power outage in Ohio. Pretty serious, I understand.” Turning to his wife, he said, “I need to take a shower before dinner.” And then, “I can take a shower?”
    “Yes. We've talked about conserving the hot water,” Mrs. Hatford said, and Mr. Hatford headed for the stairs.

    Dinner helped perk everyone up. It was a cold meal of tuna and macaroni salad, with homemade rolls, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob, and Mrs. Malloy's lemon pies.
    The adults did most of the talking, with Mr. Hatford telling about how crowded it was in town with so many alumni returning for the college's anniversary—how impossible it was to drive around campus delivering mail with cars parked all over the place, mostly where they shouldn't be.
    After the meal was over, the girls did the dishes while the adults sat in the living room watching the evening news.
    “Three-fourths of the state of Ohio has been affectedby the current power failure,” the announcer said. “Crews are working around the clock, but the governor has said there is still no clear idea of when all communities will have power. Generators are being set up in gymnasiums where citizens with health risks may go to cool off, but travelers are urged to stay out of Ohio until the crisis is over.”
    Caroline and her sisters joined the Hatford boys on the porch when the kitchen was clean. The next night it would be the boys' turn to clean up. Mrs. Malloy had talked them into doing the dishes by hand to save the hot water for showers. It almost seemed to Caroline as though her own mother was trying to make things as difficult as possible.
    The boys had taken over the rocking chair and the glider, so Caroline, Beth, and Eddie sprawled on the steps. Caroline thought the boys did look a little smug, having escaped kitchen