I don’t remember what kind of a brush party it was. At that time we had a Ma and Pa grocery store across the street from us. Returning from it, my mother ordered me to get out the vacumn cleaner and do all the floors. It was 11 a. m. and my mother’s floors had been swept to a crumbless perfection at least two hours earlier.

“But I didn’t know then,” she wailed, “that we were going to have a brush party here this evening.”

“What kind of a brush party?” I asked dragging out the sweeper.

“How should I know?” my mother sounded just a bit peevish. “She just said ‘brush party.'”

I wanted to ask who “she” was, but it didn’t seem the right time. I swept the rugs. It appeared at last that while mother was doing her shopping a woman had approached her.

“She said she’d asked all these people to the brush party and she was afraid there isn’t enough room in her living room for them. So she asked if she could hold it here. When you’ve finished the sweeping you might get that canned ham out of the fridge and whomp up a few sandwiches. You might make a few cheese and egg salad ones, too. Some of her friends may be Jewish or Seventh Day Adventist or something like that and, of course, they wouldn’t want the ham.”

“What’s her name?&uot; I asked.

“I forgot to ask,” confessed my mother. “I was so busy wondering about the coffee. We both thought it would be best to make it over here. Then she would’t have to carry it over. I bought some cream. I thought maybe they wouldn’t like half and half.”

The party, I think was a success, except that the guests weren’t buying any brushes or other products. My mother cornered me in the kitchen and hissed, “Get on the phone and call up some of your friends, call up all of them, especially the buying ones.”

“I can’t ask my friends to come out on a cold night like this,” I protested, “and expect them to buy brushes.”

“Yes, you can,&uot; said my mother with some fierceness. “That poor woman has worked her fingers to the bone to sell those brushes. I’m not going to see her disappointed.”

My friends were wonderful. They came, they tarried, they bought. We bought, too. I don’t remember how many bottles of a pale green foot lotion we bought. It hasn’t been long ago since we used the last bottle. It had a wintergreen odor and made the feet feel wonderfully cool.

The woman who gave the party seemed quite pleased. She was attractive and more than a little likeable. I’m sorry we never found out her name.

This house was condemned at the time we moved in, but my father was right when he said it was the right house for us. It took a great deal of work, most of which we did ourselves. From the time we moved in, though, in the fall of 1941, more interesting things happened than we ever imagined could happen.

Both my parents enjoyed gardening. The yard, once the home for a collection of old and decrepit automobiles, blossomed into gardens with roses and other flowers, not to mention corn and potatoes during the war years.

That was a long time ago. Most of the neigbors are gone, but they were good neighbors. We treasured them and we missed them as their homes were gradually replaced with commercial buildings.

There were those to tell us when we moved in that the place was haunted. I expect that it still is, but the ghosts are friendly ghosts and more than welcome.

It’s a house that has known much laughter. Long may it wave.

(Love Cruikshank is an Albert Lea resident. Her column runs Thursday.)