Just then the DeSoto pulled off the street, Herman steering with his hands wide apart like the captain at a ship’s wheel, and I craned for the first sight of the radio station. But he had only stopped for gas, and went inside to use what he called the man’s room while the attendant filled the tank and checked the oil and wiped the windshield, whistling all the while as if he had caught the musical spirit from the great Kate beside me. Staring off into the night, she continued to hum to that fitful pitty-pat rhythm on her mound of thigh.
With only the two of us in the car, I couldn’t help feeling this was my chance. It was all I could do not to yank the autograph book out of my coat pocket and ask her to write in it, right then and there, in the greenish-yellow glow of the gas station’s pump lights. And of course I would want her to sign it Kate Smith, not something like Your devoted Aunt Kitty, to elevate the autograph collection toward true Believe It or Not! territory. I bet she knew all kinds of other celebrities who would write their famous names in it for me, too. Talk about a jackpot! Herman had said a mouthful, about my being in luck. The sacred black arrowhead could not have been doing its job better. I cleared my throat to make my request. “Can I ask you for a real big favor?”
She jumped a little at the sound of my voice, nerves again, understandably. Glancing down at me, she composed herself and said, not entirely clearly to me, “That depends on how big is real big, doesn’t it.”
The autograph book was burning a hole in my pocket, but something about her answer stayed my hand. Quick like a bunny, I switched to:
“Can I call you Aunt Kate? Instead of Kitty, I mean.”
“Why, of course you can, adorable.” She nodded into her second chin in relief. “It’s my given name, after all. That sister of mine started the ‘Kitty’ thing when we were girls, and heaven knows why, it stuck.”
I squirmed at anything said against Gram, but maybe that was the way sisters were.
Herman returned and went through the dashboard maneuvers and what else it took to start the DeSoto. “Home to the range,” he sang out, earning a sharp look from Aunt Kate.
As we pulled out of the gas station, I felt dumb as they come. Obviously I had the wrong night about the radio show. Now that I thought about it, back at the Greyhound terminal Aunt Kate most certainly would have said something like “We have a surprise for you tonight, dear,” if I was going to be part of the audience for Kate Smith Sings, wouldn’t she. Sheepish, I fell back to the early bus habit of “Uh-huh” and “Huh-uh” as Herman tried to make conversation on the drive to their house.
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IT WAS DARK by the time the DeSoto rocked into a bumpy driveway. The house, painted that navy gravy-gray shade like in pictures of battleships and with a peaked roof and lit sort of ghostly by the nearest streetlight, appeared big as a ranchin’ mansion to me after the cook shack, although looking back, I realize that only meant it had an upstairs as well as a downstairs.
As we went in, Aunt Kate instructed Herman to leave my suitcase at the foot of the stairs, to be dealt with after dinner. Since it was pitch-black out, I deduced that must mean supper, another Wisconsin mystery like schnitzel and schnapps and going to camp with a bunch of boy hoodlums.
“You can change your shirt in our bedroom,” she told me, definitely more than a hint. “Just drop that and your other one in the laundry chute, I’ll do them with our washing in the morning.” Herman showed me the chute in the hallway. These people knew how to live—when their clothes got dirty, they mailed them to the basement.
I stepped into the indicated bedroom, and too timid to put the light on, swapped shirts as fast as I could. Straining to take in the exact place where Kate Smith slept, even in the dimness I was convinced I could see a telltale sag in the near side of the double bed.
Hurrying so as not to miss anything in this remarkable household, I dispatched my needy shirts into the laundry chute and followed promising sounds into the kitchen. Fussing with cooking pots, Aunt Kate was humming again when I presented myself, fully buttoned and untorn. “Now then. We’re having a Manitowoc specialty.” She beamed at me to emphasize the treat as she put on an apron twice the size of any of Gram’s. “Sauerkraut and franks. I know you like those. Boys do, don’t they.”