The Game Of The Be-Witchments
by
We like our Aunt Esta very much because she doesn’t like us.
That is–she doesn’t like us specially. Toys are what our Aunt Esta likes specially. Our Aunt Esta invents toys. She invents them for a store in New York. Our Aunt Esta is thirty years old with very serious hair. I don’t know how old our other relatives are–except Rosalee! And Carol! And myself!
My sister Rosalee is seventeen years old. And a Betrothess. Her Betrother lives in Cuba. He eats bananas. My brother Carol is eleven. He has no voice in his throat. But he eats anything. I myself am only nine. But with very long legs. Our Father and Mother have no age. They are just tall.
There was a man. He was very rich. He had a little girl with sick bones. She had to sit in a wheel chair all day long and be pushed around by a Black Woman. He asked our Aunt Esta to invent a Game for her. The little girl’s name was Posie.
Our Aunt Esta invented a Game. She called it the Game of the Be-Witchments. It cost two hundred dollars and forty-three cents. The Rich Man didn’t seem to mind the two hundred dollars. But he couldn’t bear the forty-three cents. He’d bear even that, though, he said, if it would only be sure to work!
“Work?” said our Aunt Esta. “Why of course it will work!” So just the first minute she got it invented she jammed it into her trunk and dashed up to our house to see if it would!
It worked very well. Our Aunt Esta never wastes any time. Not even kissing. Either coming or going. We went right up to her room with her. It was a big trunk. The Expressman swore a little. My Father tore his trouser-knee. My Mother began right away to re-varnish the scratches on the bureau.
It took us most all the morning to carry the Game down-stairs. We carried it to the Dining Room. It covered the table. It covered the chairs. It strewed the sideboard. It spilled over on the floor. There was a pair of white muslin angel wings all spangled over with silver and gold! There was a fairy wand! There was a shining crown! There was a blue satin clock! There was a yellow plush suit and swishy-tail all painted sideways in stripes like a tiger! There was a most furious tiger head with whisk-broom whiskers! There was a green frog’s head! And a green frog’s suit! There was a witch’s hat and cape! And a hump on the back! There were bows and arrows! There were boxes and boxes of milliner’s flowers! There were strings of beads! And yards and yards of dungeon chains made out of silver paper! And a real bugle! And red Chinese lanterns! And–and everything!
The Rich Man came in a gold-colored car to see it work. When he saw the Dining Room he sickened. He bit his cigar.
“My daughter Posie is ten years old,” he said. “What I ordered for her was a Game!–not a Trousseau!”
Our Aunt Esta shivered her hands. She shrugged her shoulders.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “This is no paltry Toy to be exhausted and sickened of in a single hour! This is a real Game! Eth-ical! Psycho-psycho–logical! Unendingly diverting! Hour after hour! Day after day!–Once begun, you understand, it’s never over!”
The Rich Man looked at his watch.
“I have to be in Chicago a week from tomorrow!” he said.
Somebody giggled. It couldn’t have been Rosalee, of course. Because Rosalee is seventeen. And, of course, it wasn’t Carol. So it must have been me.
The Rich Man gave an awful glare.
“Who are these children?” he demanded.
Our Aunt Esta swallowed.
“They are my–my Demonstrators,” she said.
“‘Demonstrators?'” sniffed the Rich Man. He glared at Carol. “Why don’t you speak?” he demanded.
My mother made a rustle to the door-way.