Father of the Bride by Edward Streeter Page B

back on, but she had built up a clientele of her own over the years. From her point of view at the moment quality or desirability did not matter. It was quantity that counted.
    •  •  •
    True to the American tradition, the receiving of gifts, which had been started so simply and spontaneously, soon developed into an organized industry in which each person became a specialist.
    Mr. Banks’ field was the disposal of empty cartons, wrapping paper and excelsior. No one appointed him to this important work. It merely seemed to fall to his lot by a process of natural selection.
    Being a thrifty man, when left to his own devices, he foresaw a vague future use for all this material. He cleaned out a corner of the cellar by consolidating other objects for which he also had a vague future use.
    Each day the debris was piled waist-high in the back hall. One by one he bumped the cartons down the cellar stairs, sorted out the wrapping paper, jammed the excelsior into a special box and nested the empties neatly.
    The corner filled rapidly and, as the boxes began to cover the entire cellar floor, his system broke down. Now he merely stuffed the loose debris into the cartons, carried them to the foot of the stairs and kicked them toward the nearest available space. The restoration of order was clearly something to be deferred for a rainy Saturday afternoon. Ultimately his chief problem was to keep a passageway open to the oil burner.
    His task would have been dull, but relatively simple, had it not been for gross inefficiency in the higher echelons.
    “Mother, what in the world did you do with that box from Rose Wood?”
    “You mean the one with the tumblers?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why, I don’t know, dear. I suppose I put it in the back hall.”
    “But, Mother , I hadn’t finished unpacking it. I was called away. I do wish, Mother—”

The place began to remind him of the hold of a badly packed cargo ship.

“Your father will know, dear,” said Mrs. Banks soothingly, going to the head of the stairs.
    “Stanley.”
    “Yes?”
    “Did you notice that one of those boxes you took down to the cellar wasn’t quite unpacked?”
    Mr. Banks put down his newspaper. “Now listen, Ellie—”
    “Well, won’t you just run down in the cellar and have a look, dear. It’s a box from Scranton. Just bring it up and we’ll go through it up here.”
    Or again: “Darling, I’m afraid we’ve left a card somewhere in one of the boxes. A set of beautiful salad plates came and we don’t know who sent them. Are you sure there wasn’t a card in one of those cartons you brought down?”
    Mr. Banks admitted that it was barely possible that he had carried a card down to the cellar without noticing it.
    “Well, won’t you try and find that box, dear, and just run through it. It was from the Tucker Gift Shop, so it ought to be easy.”
    Mr. Banks returned to the cellar. The place began to remind him of the hold of a badly packed cargo ship. Which boxes had come today, which yesterday or which a week ago was any man’s guess. And half of them were from the Tucker Gift Shop.
    He plunged his hands into the nearest carton, came up with an armful of paper shavings and tossed them moodily onto the concrete floor. Half an hour later he reappeared dragging streamers of packing from either ankle.
    Mrs. Banks called to him from the living room. “Oh, Stanley. Thanks, dear. Kay found the card. It was stuck between two plates. Mrs. Morley sent them. Wasn’t that sweet of her?”
    “I’m going to take a bath,” said Mr. Banks.
    The present-gazers began to arrive now in substantial numbers. Although their words were floated on milk and honey, they were obviously there for one, or all, of four purposes:
1. to see how their present stacked up with those of their competitors;
2. to find out if it was being given a favorable display position;
3. to judge if Kay was faring better in either quality or quantity than their recently married daughter;
4. to