A reply was pending to a letter from Spain. A disturbed sleep was the first curse that the lazy recipient of the letter had to undergo. The second price to pay was that the waking hours too were becoming nightmarish, as the hours were running into days, and the days into weeks, and weeks shamefully into months. Yet no reply was being attempted.
When would that wonderful day dawn, which would be devoid of all earthly cares, and peace would reign to enable the letter to be drafted?
A promising day dawned at last, and the lucky housewife sat with pen and writing pad.
How did it come about? She had awakened early, consumed her breakfast rapidly, sent the children to school promptly, her consort to work punctually, and the cook to market hastily. Sitting at the table, she took a deep breath and plunged into the whirlpool of letter writing.
Alas! Did she reckon with the milkman, the electrician, or for that matter the vendor of powdered spices? No, she did not.
She was just removing the cap from the pen when the first bell rang. Was it the telephone or the doorbell? Ah yes! The doorbell. "Would madam buy the prettiest bed covers or the cutest pillowcases just delivered from...?" "No, thank you." The door was duly shut, and the trip made back to her desk. The address was halfway to its end when the shrill sound of the bell drew the mistress of the house to her door once more.
The egg vendor stood with his basket of eggs in one hand and the notebook and pencil in the other. There was no question of getting the same amount of eggs for the standard rate as the supply was affected owing to an unprecedented flood. "All right, all right." She took what was given and beat a hasty retreat to her letter.
The address was completed and the opening paragraph started when the jangling of the bell, magnetic-like, attracted her to her door. It was the laundryman with the month-old washing weighing heavily on his hunched shoulders. Goodbye to letter writing for at least fifteen minutes. It was the incessant rains and the erratic sunshine that were to blame. "Yes, yes!" she took him at his word and saw him off with the dirty bundle.
There, the opening paragraph had closed; now for the next. But the infernal bell rang once more. This time it was the milkman. She rushed to the kitchen for the pots, rushed back, and put the milk on the oven to boil. She succeeded in writing three lines before the milk took its final boiling.
Back to the letter. Who was it that invented the doorbell? May the wrath of letter-writers not fall on him! It was the electrician who came to check the new wiring. "But thanks, it is really not bad and would last three years at least." With this assurance to her, he leaves, shaking his head doubtfully.
On his heels came the hawker of powdered spices with excellent pickles in his bag. They were too tempting to be refused. So the bottled pickles went into the larder and solid money into the vendor's purse.
Next, the bell announced and admitted the part-timer to wash up the soiled plates of the breakfast table, broom the rooms, and grind the spices. The letter-writer heaved a sigh of relief and, with instructions to her to answer the future calls of the bell, came back to her letter.
What! The bell ringing again? Yes. Ah! The maid will answer it. But, oh no, it was the newspaper man who wanted immediate payment of the bill, if possible. Sure, why not? That done, she takes up the letter where she had left off.
This time it was the telephone bell. Who was at the other end? A friend inviting the harassed housewife and her spouse to dinner that evening. "Righto!" Invitation accepted with thanks.
The letter was nearing completion when the cook turned up and turned his nose at his mistress's attempt at letter-writing, as she was refusing to take accounts, which, to his experienced mind, already appeared piling up.
With her in the kitchen and orders to answer the bell, the mistress settled down to concluding her letter. The hands of the clock were pointing precariously to the hour when the children would be back from their morning school. There! The familiar sound of pattering shoes across the gravel, and the next instant, the dear little mites burst into the room like miniature hurricanes.
Well, well, the conclusion would have to wait till she had helped them change and be seen to their lunch. When done, they were commanded to their afternoon nap. A Herculean task indeed!
The eternal letter was duly signed, sealed, and awaiting postage. But alack and alas! That auspicious hour never came, as the letter performed a marvelous disappearing trick. To this day, the writer cannot say whether the earth swallowed it up or whether the sky devoured it, but the fact remains that the letter, like 'Belinda's lock of hair,' vanished into thin air!
