My Brother Louis Measures Worms by Barbara Robinson

delivered to George Colgate’s mother-in-law, who lived in Conneaut.
    â€œThat is the craziest tale I ever heard!” Mother told him. She was, once again, upset with herself; exasperated with a driver who had led her astray; astonished that that driver should be my father; sick and tired of being late to flower shows; and fed up with the whole thing. “I’m supposed to be in Albion this very minute, judging a flower show. But because I followed you, I’m a long way from there.”
    â€œBut why did you follow me?” my father asked.
    â€œI thought you were going to the flower show.”
    â€œWhy would I be going to a flower show, for God’s sake?”
    â€œWell, I didn’t know it was you !”
    And so it all came out—right there in front of the Citizens’ Bank of Conneaut, before what my father called a cast of thousands.
    â€œLet me try to understand this,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me that for weeks you have been following just any old car, hoping it will lead you to where you want to go?”
    â€œNot just any old car!” Mother said. “Do you think I’m crazy?”
    Since that was exactly what he had thought, he said so, in the heat of the moment . . . and so all that came out—the consultation with Dr. Hildebrand; Rhoda’s reason for being underfoot all the time; even the cautions to Louis and me—and it made Mother so furious that she got back in her car, slammed the door and drove away in a screech of tires.
    By evening, though, they had both simmered down. They began to see the humor of the situation and produced appropriate peace offerings: My father brought a pot of the petunias home and set it in the middle of the table, like a flower show exhibit, and Mother presented him with a large baked haddock for dinner. They even became a little slaphappy, recalling to each other significant steps along the way: “You kept saying, I don’t know why I’m here.” “I just forgot about the meat loaf.” Louis and I, encouraged by the convivial atmosphere, picked this time to say that we knew all about the baby, were very happy about it, and wanted to know when it was due.
    My father, recalling his conversation with Dr. Hildebrand, instantly connected “baby” with Aunt Rhoda, assumed that Mother knew all about it and said, “I don’t know. Grace, when is the baby due?”
    Mother said, “Baby? What baby?” and my father said, “Why, Rhoda’s baby”—which was, of course a big surprise to Louis and me.
    Mother, though a little miffed that she was last in line to know this news, was overjoyed at the prospect of a new baby in the family. The very next day she dragged the crib and the buggy and the playpen out of the attic and hauled everything over to Aunt Rhoda, who, though fearful that Mother had finally slipped over the brink, nevertheless declared categorically that she, Rhoda, wasn’t going to have any baby.
    â€œOh, yes, you are too,” Mother said happily, hugging her. “And I should have guessed, because I was that very same way with Louis—nervous and a little blue, not quite myself, wondering whether I was too old . . .”
    â€œWhat very same way?” Rhoda bristled. “I’m not nervous or blue and you’re the one who’s not quite herself!”
    Mother said that was just a little misunderstanding, and she didn’t want to talk about it, she’d rather talk about the baby.
    â€œThere is no baby!” Rhoda insisted.
    â€œThen why did you say there was?” It suddenly occurred to Mother that she had been right all along about Rhoda, and she immediately adjusted her voice and manner to one of solicitous concern, saying things like “Don’t get all excited” and “If you don’t want to talk about it, we won’t talk about it.”
    â€œNow, just stop that,” Rhoda said.