The Baby in the Icebox
The Baby in the Icebox is a short story from 1932 about a married couple, Duke and Lura, who run a small roadside business in rural Southern California during the Depression. An unnamed hired man works for them and serves as the story’s narrator, watching what happens while he quietly admires Lura, a strong and independent woman. Duke is boastful and less capable than his wife.
To attract customers, Duke tries a new gimmick: a display with wild animals. He buys several bobcats, but he is clumsy with them and kills one. After Duke asks the narrator to remove the dead animal among the others, Lura arrives, calms the remaining cats with ease, and retrieves the body. The narrator and Lura keep Duke’s blunder a secret. She shows quiet competence that Duke cannot match.
Duke’s next idea is a mountain lion. A male lion follows from the surrounding area and ends up in the cat enclosure as well. Duke, surprised but credulous, believes the cats have somehow mated and names the male “Romeo.” Lura clearly disapproves of Duke’s dangerous antics, but she does not stop him. He puts on dangerous public shows, entering the cages with a whip and pistol to entertain customers, while Lura grows angrier at his foolishness. Business declines.
Duke then buys a Bengal tiger named Rajah and ignores warnings about the danger. He enters the tiger’s cage again and barely escapes with his life. Lura learns of his humiliating retreat and reacts with strong disgust at his self-importance. Realizing his wife’s disapproval, Duke goes off into the backcountry on a supposed trapping expedition for weeks.
While he’s away, a smooth-talking salesman named Wild Bill Smith stops by and flirts with Lura. She rebuffs him, but he returns and gains some influence over her. Lura and Bill begin a brief affair, and she even considers leaving Duke with the child she’s carrying. When Duke finally comes home, he is told that Lura is pregnant and with another man’s child. The news shakes him, and he suspects there may be more to the situation.
As Lura grows closer to the tiger’s still-uncertain fate, she becomes more protective of Rajah. Duke, already embittered, decides to take revenge by starving the tiger and releasing it inside the house, hoping the animal will kill Lura and the baby. The tiger behaves aggressively, and Lura fights back with a firebrand, eventually grabbing the baby and moving him to safety. She also uses the home’s icebox to hide the infant, turning off the electricity so the baby stays cool.
Duke returns, guns drawn, and the couple pretend they know nothing about the intruder. Lura physically overpowers Duke, disarms him, and throws the loaded gun away. Duke shoots, and Lura collapses. He tries to stage the scene as a suicide, but the burning tiger and the spreading fire tell a different story. The house burns, the tiger mauls Duke, and the two are consumed by flames.
Police and an ambulance arrive to find Lura seriously wounded but alive. The baby is found alive in the icebox, sleeping and fed, safe from the fire. Lura is cleared of blame and recovers. The narrator leaves with the realization that Wild Bill’s services are no longer needed.
James M. Cain drew on his visits to a lion farm near Thousand Oaks, California, in 1932 for this story. The American Mercury published it in January 1933 after editor H. L. Mencken encouraged Cain to write in the first-person voice, a choice that helped build his later career. The tale helped Cain move toward his famous novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, which appeared in 1934. A film adaptation, She Made Her Bed, was released by Paramount in 1934, but critics panned it, taking pride in blaming Cain’s writing for the film’s failure.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:36 (CET).