Mama blushes red right to the roots of her ashy brown hair. Then at that very moment, Lady comes down the stairs with her long satin bathrobe trailing Jean Harlow–style. He sees Mama with the fluttering piece of yellow paper and says, “Who died?” And Mama says, “Yee gads.” That’s Mama’s favorite expression - yee gads. “But this is perplexing.” Papa comes in with the newspaper. The only thing that moves is a fluttering piece of yellow paper in her hands. I came downstairs this morning and there is Mama in the kitchen in her fur coat and muffler with her hat on as it was so cold and she is standing over the hot air vent as still as a statue. Almost time to listen to Tarzan of the Apes. Not the same kind of Christmas as others in the past, but maybe one to remember all the same. I just know that somehow, someway, this shall be a Christmas. But in my heart I know we Swifts are tough - hardened off like seedlings. Everything is diminishing: our money, the light of day, and even the hours that Papa works. Instead of sugar plums and stockings stuffed with goodies and stacks of presents under the tree - a Time of Bounty - I am thinking of this as The Time of the Dwindling. This is going to be an odd Christmas, no doubt about it. His eyes just seem dimmer every evening when he returns from work, and he seems to return a little earlier every evening. Papa never talks about dollars or pennies or money. They used to be the biggest supplier of scrap iron and metal for the manufacture of automobiles in Indianapolis, but now so many places have closed. Papa still has a job at Greenhandle Scrap Iron. This is going to save us almost six dollars a month on coal and as Mama says, “We need every penny.” That’s because of the Depression. Clem and Gwen’s room is too hard to heat as well. That’s why we have to move into Ozzie’s room, which is not a bit glamorous, and he swears that if we change a thing he’ll murder us. It might be glamorous, but it’s too expensive to heat. So our bedroom has pink satin bedspreads and this fluffy skirt around a dressing table and pictures of Lady’s favorite movie stars on the wall. She has made the old bedroom that she and I share like a “boudoir.” That’s a French word for fancy dressing room. It has all of Ozzie’s favorite comic strips taped to the walls. Ozzie will sleep in what he calls his “lab,” which is really a closet. We are moving the dining table into the living room. You see, Mama and Papa are closing off the dining room and the big library and four bedrooms. But now we’re going to be hardened off for the rest of the year in the rest of the house. That’s where we sleep with no heat and just screens, and not just in summer but all through the fall and beginning again in early spring. You see, Mama and Papa have toughened us up on the sleeping porch. That’s why I tell Lady we have nothing to fear.
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