Agnes Limerick: Jumping

Agnes pranced a little minuet down her Spruce Street home’s front steps that first Monday in October 1943. She reveled in the warm glow of Philadelphia’s Indian summer, the satisfaction of Victoria’s breakfast of tea and warm blueberry scones, and the joy of Grace and Harold’s departure for another week of school at Friends. Her light step echoed the weekly routine of delight that a job of her own awaited her, a job she’d held since Norman had gone off to England.

What fun to be going to work, and what a glorious morning to be doing it. She hummed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to herself as she looked at the crystal blue sky and closed her eyes to breathe in the morning’s oaky scents.

Agnes greeted everyone she passed on the street, every businessman attired in a dark suit with a red, white, and blue tie, every doctor on his way to the hospital, every banker heading for a day of savings and loans, and every lawyer going for a day of courtly bickering. The men bowed and tipped their hats as she passed by. She smiled at every woman. If they were not on their way to work themselves, they were taking crabby children to school or they were walking their dogs around the city squares. Agnes herself walked Keaton around Rittenhouse Square every morning while Victoria prepared their breakfast.

She thought about her new project for Dr. Dixon at the War Department. Bored with her job as secretary to a pencil-thin bean counter who never addressed her by name, Agnes jumped at the chance to take the doctor’s examination. She scored third highest and Dr. Dixon plucked her from the secretarial pool. “Her mind works like a mousetrap,” he noted to Dr. Goldberg, his assistant, on her first day, “I can imagine no better mathematician than this red-headed balabusta.”

She had no idea what a balabusta meant, but the smile on his face reassured her. “Dr. Dixon, anything I know about mathematics comes from Sister Mary James. She drilled differentials and integrals into our heads during my last year at St. Patrick’s.”

The doctor told Agnes that a bespectacled Jewish relic like himself wouldn’t know anything about Catholic drills. “As long as you can solve the problems I give you, I don’t care if your education came from nuns, Buddhist monks, or a sacred Hindu cow.”