I Remember Mama Page #2

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- What did Trina want?

- She want to talk to me.

What about?

Marriage.

- What?

- Trina wants to get married.

Who'd want to marry Trina?

Mr. Thorkelson.

- Peter Thorkelson?

- Yeah.

Timid Peter? She'd be the laughingstock.

Jenny.

Jen...! Sigrid!

Trina is here.

She will come in in a minute.

This is serious for her.

- You will not laugh at her.

- I shall do what I please.

No, Jenny. You will not.

- And why won't I?

- Because I will not let you.

- And how will you stop me?

- Lf you laugh at Trina...

...I will tell of the time

before your wedding...

...when your husband tried to run away.

- What is that?

- Who told you that?

I know.

Erik tried to run away?

- It is not true.

- Then you do not mind if I tell Trina?

Uncle Chris told you.

Tried to run away?

It does not matter, Sigrid.

Jenny will not laugh at Trina, no.

Nor will you.

For if you laugh at her, I will tell

of your wedding night with Ole...

...when you cry all the time,

and he bring you home to mother.

- That I did not know.

- Is no need you should know.

I do not tell these stories for spite...

...only so they do not laugh at Trina.

You go call her now, Lars.

Come have some coffee. Jenny. Sigrid.

- Trina!

- Yeah, I'm coming.

Oh, I beg your pardon. I was not aware...

Oh, Mr. Hyde, these are my sisters.

- Pleased to meet you.

- Madame. Madame.

The three Graces.

- I shall be in my room.

- Yeah, sure, Mr. Hyde.

- Has he paid you his rent yet?

- Well, is hard to ask. Surely he'll pay soon.

Surely he won't. If Martha thinks she'll

get the warm coat she always talks about...

...out of that old broken-down actor...

- Jenny, Mr. Hyde is a gentleman.

He reads to us loud wonderful books.

Longfellow and Charles Dickens

and Fenimore Kipling.

Oh, come. Come in, Trina.

Come. Coffee's getting cold.

- I tell them.

- Why did you come to Martha first?

She think maybe

Martha would understand.

Maybe Mr. Thorkelson thinks

she will have dowry...

...like the girls in the old country.

- Sigrid.

Well, why shouldn't I?

You all had dowries.

We were married in Norway,

and our parents were alive.

Where would your dowry

come from, I'd like to know?

- Uncle Chris. He's head of the family.

- And who will ask him?

He won't need asking

when Mr. Thorkelson...

Uncle Chris will eat him.

Timid Peter and Uncle Chris.

Maybe Uncle Chris will tell

him some family stories.

He knows many, does Uncle Chris.

- Where are the children?

- Yes, aren't we going to see them?

Yeah, sure. I'll call them.

- Children! Your aunts are leaving!

- Coming, Papa.

I help with the coffee things.

Is all right.

Here they come.

Good evening, Aunt Jenny, Aunt Sigrid.

Good evening. Where have you all been

hiding yourselves?

- Good evening, Nels.

- Good evening.

My, my, my, how tall he's getting.

Yeah, he's almost as tall as his Papa.

Looks to me as if he's

outgrowing his strength.

Dagmar is looking pale too.

Oh, my goodness!

What an awful-looking cat!

- She follows Dagmar everywhere.

- Next, she'll have it sleeping with her.

Don't you know a cat draws breath

from a sleeping child?

You wouldn't want to wake up

smothered, would you?

Elizabeth can have all my breath.

- There.

- Elizabeth.

- What a very silly name for a cat.

- It's a very silly name for that cat.

- That cat's a tom...

- Nels, you do not need to say it.

She better think up a new name.

He's Elizabeth, and he's gonna

stay Elizabeth.

Well, maybe you would call him

Uncle Elizabeth.

Uncle Elizabeth?

- Elizabeth, do you hear?

- Goodbye, all.

- Come on, sweetheart.

- You're called Uncle Elizabeth now.

Nels, go tell Mr. Hyde

we're ready for the reading.

You mind what I say, Martha.

It'd be a great pity if a boarder put

something over on a Norwegian woman.

Would be great pity if boarder put

something over on San Francisco woman.

You talk as if San Francisco

were the world.

Yeah, is my world.

Goodbye, Jenny, Sigrid.

- Goodbye, Martha.

- Goodbye, Aunt Martha.

Goodbye, Arne, sweetheart.

Oh, Mr. Hyde, this is my sister Trina.

Enchanted.

Mr. Hyde reads to us tonight

the Tales From Two Cities.

It's a beautiful story, but sad.

I like sad stories.

I should like to finish this tonight.

Is good.

- Are you ready?

- Yes, please, Mr. Hyde.

Yeah, Mr. Hyde.

"In the black prison of the Conciergerie...

...the doomed of the day awaited their fate.

They were in numbers

the weeks of the year.

Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon

on the life-tide of the city...

...to the boundless everlasting sea."

I don't think I shall ever

forget that night.

It was almost midnight

when he came to the end...

...and none of us had noticed.

"It is a far, far better thing I do...

...than I have ever done.

It is a far, far better rest I go to...

...than I have ever known."

The end.

There were many nights

I couldn't sleep...

...for the way Mr. Hyde had

set my imagination dancing.

I wrote in my diary, "What a

wonderful thing is literature...

...transporting us to realms unknown. "

"His voice sank almost

to a whisper as he answered."

"'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints...

...of a gigantic hound."'

To be continued in our next.

- Lf you're interested.

- Oh, yes, Mr. Hyde.

If we were interested? You couldn't

have kept us from it.

It meant a lot to Mama too,

because Nels stopped going nights...

...to the street corner to hang about

with the neighborhood boys.

The night they broke

into Mr. Dillon's store...

...Nels was home with us.

This above all:
to thine own self be true.

And it must follow, as the night the day...

...thou canst not then be false to any man.

The more Mr. Hyde read,

the more I realized...

...that the one thing I really wanted

in all the world was to become a writer.

I did write a piece once

about Mama's Uncle Chris...

...but my schoolteacher said

it wasn't nice to write...

...about a member of one's own family.

Once or twice a year...

...our Uncle Chris, with his great,

loud voice...

...with his fierce black mustache...

...would come down

from his ranch in the north...

...and descend upon San Francisco

in his automobile.

We knew that from the time

he roared off the ferry...

...and charged up Market Street

to get a good run up the hill...

...our quiet way of life

was due for a change.

Uncle Chris.

Uncle Chris.

We children didn't talk much about him...

...but Mama used to say that the reason

Uncle Chris drove so fast...

...was that it gave him a feeling of

freedom denied him when he walked.

For Uncle Chris limped badly because

of an accident back in the old country.

Martha!

Lars! Children, where are you?

Martha! Lars!

Well, hey, there is nobody home?

I say, is nobody home?

So, what is?

You do not answer me?

You do not hear me calling?

I say, you do not hear me calling?

I do not call loud enough?

Christine!

Yes, Uncle Chris.

Katrin!

Nels.

Yes, Uncle Chris.

Which yes? Yes, you do not hear me,

or yes, I do not call loud enough?

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