In many areas of Baltimore at that time, all the houses facing a regular street of a city block were inhabited by white people while the houses on the alley streets, which split the block, were where the black people lived. Directly across Etting from the window where I often sat looking out, lived a very nice black lady, probably middle aged, who would baby-sit us when Mom had to go out for a while sometimes. Dad was at work as a home delivery milkman for Western Maryland Dairy and Mom didn't want to leave us alone.
We had a working electric toy kitchen range. It was about as big around as a child's shoebox and really had electricity to the oven and, I believe, the burners. Once, when the lady was baby-sitting us, Rosalie and I decided to hook up the little electric stove. When the lady had to go into Mom and Dad's bedroom with Kenneth, we put a chair on top of the dining table and both climbed up on the table with the stove. Above the table was a light fixture into which was screwed a pull-chain receptacle which had two outlets besides the place where the light bulb was screwed into. While Rosalie held the stove I climbed onto the chair. Rosalie handed me the electric cord and I was able to reach high enough to plug the cord into one of the outlets.
There were a couple of problems. The cord was too short for the stove to sit on the table so it was dangling from the receptacle with the stove starting to heat up. Secondly, the lady was rushing through the hall to get to us, screaming something like, "Oh My God!" Rosalie was already down from the table looking up at me innocently. I managed to get down from the chair and then down to the floor as the lady reached the table and started struggling to climb up on it to unplug the stove.
This was definately time for quick action. While she was unplugging the stove, I opened the door and raced up the steps and to one of the windows and, as I looked in, the lady was getting back to the floor. She spotted me and called for me to get back into the apartment which I made no move to do. I saw her go to the door to come outside and get me but I moved the window screen aside and crawled back in calling to Rosalie to go lock the door which she did. By the time the lady got to where I was, I had closed the screen and was sitting there ready to jump down and run anywhere. She went to come back into the apartment only to meet with the locked door. She called to us to open the door which we didn't do. Rosalie came over and got up onto one of the other window sills. The lady came close to us and told us that we had been very bad. She instructed us to remain sitting in the windows so she could see us and told us she'd be watching us. She took a seat on her porch where she, Rosalie and I kept watch on each other until Mom came home.
I have no further memories of that incident, but I'm sure Mom listened to the tale of our misdeed and burned our butts appropriately. And, knowing her as I do, I think Mom had a good laugh and was glad nothing serious happened as a result of our miscapade.
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