Mrs. Steingruby

Or maybe it was Mrs. Steingrubie. Or Steingroovy. I never paid much mind to the spelling of her name growing up; I only know that she grew up in the big house down the block and drove this enormous old car with a back bumper wide enough for three or four kids to ride on.

I'm not sure how she settled on allowing the the kids from our family to carry in her groceries every week. It was likely because she noticed that there seemed to be a lot of us and could count on at least a couple Haislip kids loitering around the yard any time she chose to blast her horn as a sign that she had bags of groceries ready to haul up two flights of stairs. Not a single one of us minded, because we were always paid for our trouble - and fifteen cents was enough to buy a candy bar or bag of barbecue chips from Russells and smugly chow it down in front of the siblings who weren't lucky enough to be at home when Mrs. Steingruby honked. Kids could be pretty mean.

Looking back, it's funny how as a kid I just accepted things as they were and I didn't question much. I didn't ask much, and now I wish I had. I wish I knew more about Mrs. Steingruby and Helen and the mysterious Mrs. Scott who lived downstairs and seemed to be in bed all the time. To us kids, Mrs. Steingruby was the obvious boss of the group, being as she was the one in charge of grocery buying and apparently the only one who could drive.

Helen did not seem to have a wardrobe beyond rumpled housedresses and slippers, and didn't say much, but she smiled a lot, so she seemed nicer than Mrs. Steingruby. Plus we could call her by her first name, and that made her less intimidating to kids. Helen seemed to be in charge of the cats. There were several cats - maybe five or six - enough of them that they had a room of their own, separated by a screen door in the middle of the house. As a kid, I didn't even think this was strange. I do know that those cats sure got excited when we passed by with the groceries. I'm not sure if it was because they saw us as a possible means to freedom from their screened-in prison or because we were carrying in a fresh supply of Tidy Cat. I'm not sure if those cats were ever released to run free about the house or if perhaps Helen and Mrs. Steingruby sometimes sat in the room and played with those cats after all the groceries were put away.

One of those things I wish I had asked.