Mr. Kendall tsk-tsk'ed again. "Wretched! Poor deluded fellow. As if you could help-"
"We couldn't help it," I nodded, "but that didn't make it any better for him. He had to work in the mines, and when a man has to do something he does it. But that doesn't make it any easier. You might even say it was twice as hard that way. You're not brave or noble or unselfish or any of the things a man likes to think he is. You're just a cornered rat, and you start acting like one."
"Mmm. You seem to be an unusually introspective young man, Mr. Bigelow. You say your 'father died of drink?"
"No," I said. "He died in the mines. There was so much rock on top of him that it took a week to dig him out."
Mr. Kendall shoved off for the bakery after a few more tsks and how-terribles, and I went back in the house. Then I sauntered on back to the kitchen.
She was bent over the sink, the crutch gripped under her armpit, washing what looked like about a thousand dishes. Apparently, Mrs. Winroy had saved them up for her while she'd been away-them and every other dirty job.
I hung my coat over a chair and rolled up my sleeves. I picked up a big spoon and began scraping the pans out.
I got them all scraped into one pan, and started for the back door with it.
She hadn't looked at me since I'd come into the room, and she didn't look at me now. But she did manage to speak. The words came out in a rush like a kid who's nerved to recite a poem and has to do it fast or not at all.
"The g-garbage can's at the side of the porch-"
"You mean they don't have any chickens?" I said. "Why, they ought to have some chickens to feed it to."
"Y-yes," she said.
"It's a shame to waste food this way. With all the hungry people there are in the world."
"I-I think so, too," she said, sort of breathless.
That was all she was up to for the moment, She was blushing like a house afire, and her head was ducked so far over the sink! was afraid she would fall in. I took the garbage outside and scraped it out slowly.
I knew how she felt, Why wouldn't! know how it felt to be a kind of joke, to have people tell you off kind of like it was what you were made for? You never get used to it, but you get to where you don't expect anything else.
She was still pretty shocked by the idea of having talked to me when I went back inside. But being shocked didn't keep her from liking it. She said I s-shouldn't be helping her wipe the dishes-then, pointed out a towel to me. She said h-hadn't I better put an apron on; she did it for me, her fingers trembling but lingering.
We stood wiping the dishes together, our arms touching now and then. The first few times it happened, she jerked hers away like she'd brushed against a hot stove. Then, pretty soon, she wasn't jerking away. And, once, when my elbow brushed her breast, it seemed to me that she sort of leaned into it.
Studying her out of the corner of my eyes, I saw that I'd been right about her left hand. The fingers were splayed. She didn't have the full use of it, and she kept trying to hide it from me. Even with that, though, and her leg-whatever was wrong with her leg-she had plenty on the ball.
All that hard work and deep breathing had put breasts on her like daddy-come-to-church. And swinging around on that crutch hadn't done her rear end any harm. If you saw it by itself, you might have thought it belonged to a Shetland pony. But I don't mean it was big. It was the way it was put on her: the way it hinged into the flat stomach and the narrow waist. It was as though she'd been given a break there for all the places she'd been shortchanged.
I got her to talking. I got her to laughing. I draped another dishtowel over my head and started prancing around; and she leaned back against the drainboard, giggling and blushing and protesting.
"S-stop, now, Carl-" Her eyes were shining. The sun had come up behind them, and was shining out at me. "Y-you stop, now-"
"Stop what?" I said, pouring it on all the harder. "What do you want me to stop, Ruth? You mean this or this?"
I kept it up, sizing her up while I did it, and I changed my mind about a couple of things. I decided I wasn't going to give her any tips on dressing. I wasn't going to fix her up with a compact and a permanent. Because any dolling up she did need, she'd do for herself, and she didn't really need any.
Then, suddenly, she wasn't laughing any more, She stopped and stood staring over my shoulder.
I knew what it must be. I'd had a hunch it was coming. I turned slowly around, and I was damned careful to keep my hands away from my sides.
I can't say whether he'd rung the doorbell and we hadn't heard him, or whether he'd just walked in without ringing. But there he was-a tall rawboned guy with sharp but friendly blue eyes, and a graying coffee-stained mustache.
"Havin' quite a time for yourself, hey, kids?" he said. "Well, that's fine. Nothing I like better'n to see young folks enjoying themselves."
Ruth's mouth opened and closed. I waited, smiling.
"Been meaning to get out and see your folks, Miss Dome," he went on. "Hear you got a new baby out there… Don't believe I've ever met you, young fellow. I'm Bill Summers- Sheriff Summers."
"How do you do, sheriff," I said, and I shook hands with him, "I'm Carl Bigelow."
"Hope I didn't startle you folks just now. Dropped over to see a fellow named-Bigelow! You say you're Carl Bigelow?"
"Yes, sir," I said. "Is there something wrong, sheriff?"
He looked me over slowly, frowning, taking in the apron and the dishtowel on my head; looking like he couldn't decide whether to laugh or start cussing.
"I reckon we've got some talking to do, Bigelow… Darn that Jake Winroy's hide, anyway!"
4
We were in my room, Mrs. Winroy had come in a couple of minutes behind him, and she'd blown her lid so high we'd had to come upstairs.
"I just can't understand it," I said, "Mr. Winroy's known I was coming for several weeks. If he didn't want me here, why in the world didn't-"
"Well, o'course, he hadn't seen you then. What with seem' you and connecting you up with a name that sounds kinda like yours-well, I can see where it might give him a little start. A man that's in the fix Jake Winroy's in."
"If anyone's got a right to feel upset, it's me, I can tell you this, sheriff, If I'd known that James C. Winroy was Jake Winroy, I wouldn't be here now."
"Uh-huh, sure." He shook his head sympathetically. "But I was kind of wonderin' about that, son. Why did you come here, anyway? All the way from Arizona to a place like Peardale."
"That was it partly," I shrugged. "Because it was a long way from Arizona. As long as I was making a fresh start, I thought I'd better make a clean break of it. It's not easy to make something out of yourself around people who remember you when you weren't anything."