“I see,” Pop says.
“You understand,” the man went on, “I’m telling you this in the strictest confidence. Miss Harrington is from a very old and very wealthy New Orleans family. She’s a delicate and very sensitive girl who’s in bad health and has to have absolute rest and quiet for a long time. Her fiancé was killed in an automobile crash this spring, and she suffered a nervous breakdown which finally turned into this rare type of anemia. She’s been given up by specialists all over the United States and Europe, so in desperation I finally turned my New York practice over to my assistants and took on the case myself. In all medical history there’ve been only three cases of it, and it’s supposed to be incurable, but it just happened I’d once read an obscure article by Von Hofbrau, the Austrian anemia specialist—”
The man stopped and shook his head. “But there’s no use bothering you with all this medical stuff. The point is that Miss Harrington has to have perfect seclusion, and lots of fresh leafy vegetables and eggs, and outdoor air, and she can’t be disturbed by her family and reporters all the time. So if you think your farm will fit the bill—”
“Oh, sure,” Pop says. “A farm is just what you want. We got slathers of fresh vegetables and eggs, and absolute quiet. Now as to the price—”
Dr Severance waved a hand. “Anything. Anything within reason.”
Pop looked at his clothes and then at the car and the trailer. “Say fif—I mean sixty dollars a month?”
“Quite all right,” Dr Severance says. He Patted his pocket. “Wait’ll I get another pack of cigarettes out of the car.”
He got up and walked around in front of the trailer.
Pop shook his head kind of sad and looked at me. “That’s the hell of it,” he says. “You get out of touch for even a week and you begin to lose the knack and can’t tell within fifty dollars what a client’ll go for.”
Dr Severance came back opening a package of cigarettes.
“You understand, of course,” Pop says, “that’s per head. Since there’s two of you it’ll be a hundred and twenty.”
Dr Severance looked at Pop’s levis and straw sombrero again and says, “Hmmm.” Then he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, that’s all right. Provided the place is what you say it is.”
Pop started to say something, and then just stopped with his mouth hanging open.
The door of the trailer had opened, and a girl was standing in the doorway looked out at us. She was tall and dark-haired, with bright red lips and blue eyes, and she didn’t have anything on but a sort of romper affair which was just a pair of short white pants and this kind of halter thing around her bosom. The pants didn’t cover hardly any of her long legs.
Her hair was tousled a little, like she’d just got up, and she had a long cigarette in her hand. She sure was pretty.
She had a big bosom, as big as a Welfare lady’s, but she was a lot younger, of course.
Somehow she made you think of a real, real ripe peach, the way she filled up those little pants and that bosom thing and stuck out of ‘em all pink and smooth in every direction.
Pop said, “Ho-ly hell,” real low, like he was talking to hisself.
She looked at all of us, and said to Dr Severance, “What’s all this convention of hay-shakers?”
Dr Severance nodded towards her. “My niece, Miss Harrington,” he says. “I’d like you to meet Mr.-uh—”
Pop kind of shook himself, like he was coming out of a trance. “Oh,” he says, “Noonan, lady. Sam Noonan.”
Miss Harrington waved the cigarette at him. “Hi, dad,” she says. “Reel in your tongue. You’re getting your shirt wet.”
Five
Dr Severance’s eyes was colder than ever. “Pamela,” he says, “I thought I told you to stay inside the trailer. Remember your anemia.” “Relax,” Miss Harrington says. “It’s too damn hot in there.”
She sat down in the doorway and stretched out her legs. She took a puff on her cigarette looked at her legs, and then at Pop. “What’s the matter, Zeke? Am I hurt somewhere?”
“Oh,” Pop says, “Uh—no. I just thought for a minute your face was kind of familiar.”
“How would you know?” Miss Harrington asked.
“I was sure sorry to hear about your anemia,” Pop says.
“That’s sweet of you.”
Dr Severance butted in. “Miss Harrington’s anemia is the very worst kind. It doesn’t show. That’s what makes it so hard to diagnose and cure. Just looking at her you wouldn’t think she had anything, would you?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that,” Pop says.
“Look,” Miss Harrington says to the doctor, “what’s with this Hiram type, anyway? We going to adopt him, or something? Tell him to go fry a hush-puppy and let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Keep your shirt on,” Dr Severance told her. “Mr. Noonan is going to rent us a camping place on his farm.”
Miss Harrington yawned. “Well, goody.”
“You’ll have absolute rest and quiet, and lots of fresh leafy vegetables.”
“Just what I always wanted,” she says.
Pop stood up. “We got to drive in to town buy some groceries,” he told the doctor. “It won’t take long, so you just wait here and when we come back we’ll lead you to the farm.”
Dr Severance came around the trailer with us and when we got in the car he put his arms on the door and leaned in a little. He jerked his head towards the trailer.
“When you’re in town,” he says to Pop, “maybe it would be a good idea if you didn’t say anything about Miss Harrington to anybody. You know how the word gets around, and I wouldn’t want her pestered by a flock of reporters all the time.”
“We won’t say a word,” Pop says. He turned the key to the ignition, and then he asked, “By the way, this anemia’s not catching, is it?”
Dr Severance shook his head. “No. It’s hardly contagious at all. The only way you can catch it is if you actually touch somebody who’s got it.” He stopped, and then took a long look at Pop’s face. “And of course you got better sense than to do a crazy thing like that.”
“Now that you brought it up,” Pop says, “I sure have.”
We drove on around the bend and out onto the highway. It was only five miles from there to town. Pop was sort of quiet, except that every once in a while he would say, “My God,” like he was talking to hisself.
“Miss Harrington’s nice,” I says to him. “You don’t suppose she’s with the Welfare, do you?”
“I doubt it,” Pop says.
“I didn’t think so,” I says. “But she has got kind of a Welfare bosom.”
Pop didn’t act like he even heard me. His hands was gripping the wheel real hard and he was staring straight ahead.
“My God,” he says again. The car swerved across the road and almost went in the ditch on the wrong side. He yanked the wheel and we straightened out again.
“You oughtn’t to talk about Miss Harrington’s bosom,” he says to me like he was mad. “The poor girl’s not well. She’s got the anemia.”
“Is that bad, Pop?” I asked.
“Well,” he says, “I can’t see that it’s done her much harm so far, but I reckon it’s pretty serious if you got to eat vegetables for it.”
* * *
We got into town. It was a pretty little town, with a red brick courthouse in a square and big trees growing all around. We parked the car in the square and went into a grocery store. Pop bought eight pounds of baloney and six loaves of bread, and then he got a couple cases of beer and some cigars. I asked him if I could have candy bar. He said they was bad for my teeth, but finally gave in and bought me one. We went back out and got in the car.
We was just about to drive off when Pop suddenly remembered something. “I almost forgot,” he says. “We’re all out of hawg lard. I got to get some to fry the baloney in.”
He went back in the grocery store. I sat in the car, finishing my candy bar and looking out at the square. It w
as just then that I saw the big car go by with the men in it wearing Panama hats. There was three of them, and they all had on double-breasted flannel suits like Dr Severance’s. The car had Louisiana license plates, like his did, and it was just going along real slow while the men looked around. They kept watching the sidewalks and the other cars.
They went on around the square, and in a few minutes they came by again. There was a parking place ahead of us, and they pulled in and got out and started into the restaurant next to the grocery store. They walked close together, watching the other people all the time, and I noticed they all had that awkward way of carrying their left arm, just like Dr Severance had.
Just then Pop came out of the grocery store carrying the can of hog lard, and he nearly bumped into them. He stopped real quick and stared at them.
The one on that side turned his face a little and said to him out of the corner of his mouth “You looking for somebody, Jack?”
Pop sort of swallowed, and says, “No. Nobody at all.” He hurried across the sidewalk and got into the car, and we shot out of the parking place. The three men went on into the cafe.
As we drove out of town I said to Pop, “They looked a little like Dr Severance, didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” he says. “Maybe there’s a doctor’s convention in town.”
When we got back, Dr Severance was still waiting there around the bend from the highway. I didn’t see Miss Harrington anywhere, so she had probably gone back in the trailer. Pop told the doctor to follow us, and we started off.
It was only about two miles, and the big car didn’t have any trouble pulling the trailer in the sand, so it wasn’t too long till we came to the wire gate and turned off down the hill towards Uncle Sagamore’s farmhouse. About a hundred yards before we got to the house Pop pulled off to the left and stopped among some big trees in a little level place looking out over the lake. He motioned for Dr Severance to stop. We all got out.
“Well, how does this strike you?” Pop asked the doctor.
Dr Severance looked all around and back up the hill towards the wire gate and the road. You couldn’t see them from here because of the trees. “Hmmmm,” he says. “Seems to be all right.” He took some money out of his wallet and gave it to Pop.
“Here’s a month in advance,” he says, “But I was just thinking. Maybe you’d better not mention anything about us being here. Around to the neighbors, I mean. There might be zoning restrictions against trailers.”
“That’s right,” Pop says. “I hadn’t thought of that. We won’t say a word.”
I saw Uncle Sagamore come out of the house and look up the hill towards us and start walking this way to find out what was going on. But just then I heard another car coming down the hill from the gate. From the sound of it, it was really travelling. It shot out of the trees and went bucking down towards the house just the way those two sheriffs had. A big cloud of dust was boiling up behind it.
Then I forgot about it, watching Dr Severance. We was all three standing in front of his car when the other one shot out of the trees, but then he let out an awful cuss word and moved faster than I’d ever seen anybody move before. He whirled around and ducked behind the car so just his head was peering over, and his right hand shot up inside his coat. It all happened so fast I just stared at him.
The car went on past, bucking like crazy over the bumps. It slammed on down the hill and the man that was in it put his brakes on and it slid to a stop right by Uncle Sagamore. Dr Severance watched it, and then he straightened up. He looked around at us, and his eyes was real cold again.
“Who was that?” he barked at Pop.
“Uh—” Pop says. “Just one of the neighbors. Probably wants to borrow something.”
“Oh,” Dr Severance said. He seemed to relax a little. “I was afraid it was those damn reporters.”
Then he noticed he still had his hand inside his coat. He took it out, and shook his head. “Heart twinge,” he said. “Grabs me right there every once in a while.”
“Why, that’s too bad,” Pop says. “What you want to do is take it real easy and not excite yourself.” Then he grinned and scratched his head. “But who am I to be prescribin’ for a doctor?”
We all looked down the hill towards the house. There was only one man in the car. He got out and started talking to Uncle Sagamore, waving his arms like he was worked up about something.
Pop says to Dr Severance, “Well, you go ahead and set up camp. I’ll tell my brother Sagamore about our dicker.”
We drove down and parked under the big tree again, and walked over to where the man was still talking to Uncle Sagamore by his car. Or maybe talking wasn’t just the word. I couldn’t make out whether he was yelling or preaching, the way he was carrying on. He was a short, fat man with a big hat and a white moustache, and his face was as red as a beet. He was throwing his hands around, and every few seconds he would pull an arm across his face to wipe the sweat off.
Just as we walked up he took off his hat and pulled a big red handkerchief out of his pocket to mop his forehead, only he forgot which was which and mopped his face with the hat and got it all wadded up. When he saw what he had done he cussed something awful and threw the handkerchief on the ground and stomped on it with his cowboy boots and clapped the hat back on his head crossways and all smashed in. He was real excitable.
Uncle Sagamore just leaned against the side of the car and listened to him. Every once in a while he would pucker up his mouth and sail out some tobacco juice.
“What I want to know is what you done to them two deputies of mine!” the fat man was shouting. “I can’t get either of ‘em to hold still long enough to tell me what’s wrong with him. The last time they was out here you damn near blowed ‘em up with dynamite, and now they just keep chasin’ each other down the hall to the John all gaunted down to skin an’ bones like a blind muley-cow with the scours, and I can’t get no sense out of ‘em at all except one of ‘em said he thought they’d been drinkin’ croton oil.”
Uncle Sagamore just looked at him, real surprised. “Croton oil?” he says, like he couldn’t believe it. “Why, Shurf, they must of been just hoorawin’ you. They wouldn’t do nothin’ like that. Why, you take a couple of men that’s smart enough to get to be politicians an’ draw a paycheck for settin’ in the shade of the courthouse to watch out for gals gettin’ in and out of cars so they don’t sunburn their legs—why they got more sense than to drink croton oil.”
He stopped to sail out some more tobacco juice. The sheriff was just sputtering, like he couldn’t even think of words any more.
Uncle Sagamore wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Why, hell,” he says, “even old boll weevil like me that ain’t got brains nough to do nothin’ but work nineteen hours a day to pay his taxes is got more sense than to drink croton oil. It’ll give you the scours something awful. But I’ll tell you what, Shurf,” he went on. “I won’t let on to nobody that you even mentioned it. It would be a awful thing to get around, come to think of it, people sayin’ to each other how them goddam fat politicians was gettin’ so bored with high livin’ and doin’ nothing but milkin’ the taxpayers that they’ve took to drinkin’ croton oil just to pass the time. I won’t breathe it to a soul.”
Uncle Sagamore looked around then and saw us. “Shurf,” he says, “I’d like to have you meet my brother Sam.”
The sheriff jerked his head around and stared at us. “Oh, no!” he says, like he hurt somewhere. “Oh, Jesus, no! Not two of you! Not two Noonans in the same county. God wouldn’t do that to anybody. I’ll—I’ll—” He choked all up.
“Sam,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “the shurf here is kind of worried about his men. Seems like they’ve started sneakin’ off to drink croton oil on the sly, like a baby stuffin’ beans up his nose, and he’s afraid the voters’ll get wind of it. But I was just tellin’ him he ain’t got a thing to worry about as far as we’re concerned. We can keep a secret as well as anybody in the county.”
&nb
sp; “We sure can,” Pop says. “Nobody’ll ever find it out from us. But ain’t that kind of a funny thing for ‘em to want to do?”
“Well, sir,” Uncle Sagamore says, “we’re not in no position to judge, Sam. We’re not in politics. Ain’t no way we can rightly tell what kind of a strain a man might be under, settin’ there every day with all that responsibility. Why, a strain like that could get so bad after a while a man might even start to think about gettin’ out of politics and goin’ to work, though offhand I can’t seem to recollect of a case of one ever crackin’ up quite as bad as that.”
The sheriff was getting a little purple around the face now. He kept trying to talk, but it was mainly just sputter, like steam pushing up the lid of a coffee pot. “Sagamore Noonan!” he yells, “I—I—”
Uncle Sagamore didn’t even seem to hear him. He just shifted his tobacco over on the other side and shook his head sort of sad. “Politics is hard on a man, Sam,” he says. “It always puts me in mind of Bessie’s cousin, Peebles. Peebles was a dep’ty shurf for a long time, till he begin to grow this here sort of mildew on his hunkers. Just regular mildew, like you see on a pone of bread that’s gone stale. It was a real puzzling thing, and they couldn’t figure it out at all.
“Well sir, it went on like that for quite a spell, with Peebles goin’ to the doctor every week or so to have this mildew scraped off his butt, but they never could figure out what caused it, till one day the doctor happened to be goin’ by the courthouse durin’ office hours an’ he’d seen what it was. Seems like they’d put in one of them new-fangled sprinklin’ systems on the lawn, and the edge of one of the sprays, by golly, reached over just to the edge of Peebles’s settin’ place on the step. Well, they got to inquirin’ around, and found out that Peebles had been home sick the day they’d put in the sprinkler and tried it out, and they’d forgot to allow for him. So he’d been settin’ there all these months with his tail in that spray of water.”
The sheriff seemed to get hold of hisself at last. His face was still purple, but he got real quiet. He reached down for his handkerchief and mopped his face sort of slow and deliberate; then he took a deep breath and put the handkerchief in his pocket and walked over in front of Uncle Sagamore like a man that was holding onto hisself real hard to keep from blowing up like a stick of dynamite. He began talking.