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do some “fine thing. There’s no springboard to philanthropy like a bad conscience.”
Adam shivered. “She told me what she would do if she had money. It was closer to

murder than to charity.”
“You don’t think she should have the money then?”
“She said she would destroy many reputable men in Salinas. She can do it too.”
“I see,” said Lee. “I’m glad I can take a detached view of this. The pants of their

reputations must have some thin places. Morally, then, you would be against giving her
the money?”

“Yes.”
“Well, consider this. She has no name, no background. A whore springs full blown
from the earth. She couldn’t very well claim the money, if she knew about it, without
your help.”
“I guess that’s so. Yes, I can see that she might not be able to claim it without my
help.”
Lee took up the pipe and picked out the ash with a little brass pin and filled the bowl
again. While he drew in the four slow puffs his heavy lids raised and he watched Adam.
“It’s a very delicate moral problem,” he said. “With your permission I shall offer it for
the consideration of my honorable relatives—using no names of course. They will go
over it as a boy goes over a dog for ticks. I’m sure they will get some interesting results.”
He laid his pipe on the table. “But you don’t have any choice, do you?”
“What do you mean by that?” Adam demanded. “Well, do you? Do you know yourself
so much less than I do?”
“I don’t know what to do,” said Adam. “I’ll have to give it a lot of thought.”
Lee said angrily, “I guess I’ve been wasting my time. Are you lying to yourself or only
to me?”
“Don’t speak to me like that!” Adam said.
“Why not? I have always disliked deception. Your course is drawn. What you will do
is written—written in every breath you’ve ever taken. I’ll speak any way I want to. I’m
crotchety. I feel sand under my skin. I’m. looking forward to the ugly smell of old books
and the sweet smell of good thinking. Faced with two sets of morals, you’ll follow your
training. What you call thinking won’t change it. The fact that your wife is a whore in
Salinas won’t change a thing.”
Adam got to his feet. His face was angry. “You are insolent now that you’ve decided to
go away,” he cried. “I tell you I haven’t made up my mind what to do about the money.”
Lee sighed deeply. He pushed his small body erect with his hands against his knees. He
walked wearily to the front door and opened it. He turned back and smiled at Adam.
“Bull shit!” he said amiably, and he went out and closed the door behind him.

3

Cal crept quietly down the dark hall and edged into the room where he and his brother
slept. He saw the outline of his brother’s head against the pillow in the double bed, but he
could not see whether Aron slept. Very gently he eased himself in on his side and turned
slowly and laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the myriads of tiny colored dots
that make up darkness. The window shade bellied slowly in and then the night wind fell
and the worn shade flapped quietly against the window.

A gray, quilted melancholy descended on him. He wished with all his heart that Aron
had not walked away from him out of the wagon shed. He wished with all his heart that

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he had not crouched listening at the hall door. He moved his lips in the darkness and
made the words silently in his head and yet he could hear them.

“Dear Lord,” he said, “let me be like Aron. Don’t make me mean. I don’t want to be. If
you will let everybody like me, why, I’ll give you anything in the world, and if I haven’t
got it, why, I’ll go for to get it. I don’t want to be mean. I don’t want to be lonely. For
Jesus’ sake, Amen.” Slow warm tears were running down his cheeks. His muscles were
tight and he fought against making any crying sound or sniffle.

Aron whispered from his pillow in the dark, “You’re cold. You’ve got a chill.” He
stretched out his hand to Cal’s arm and felt the goose bumps there. He asked softly, “Did
Uncle Charles have any money?”

“No,” said Cal.
“Well, you were out there long enough. What did Father want to talk about?”
Cal lay still, trying to control his breathing.
“Don’t you want to tell me?” Aron asked. “I don’t care if you don’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell,” Cal whispered. He turned on his side so that his back was toward his brother.
“Father is going to send a wreath to our mother. A great big goddam wreath of
carnations.”
Aron half sat up in bed and asked excitedly, “He is? How’s he going to get it clear
there?”
“On the train. Don’t talk so loud.”
Aron dropped back to a whisper. “But how’s it going to keep fresh?”
“With ice,” said Cal. “They’re going to pack ice all around it.”
Aron asked, “Won’t it take a lot of ice?”
“A whole hell of a lot of ice,” said Cal. “Go to sleep now.”
Aron was silent, and then he said, “I hope it gets there fresh and nice.”
“It will,” said Cal. And in his mind he cried, “Don’t let me be mean.”

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Chapter 31

1

Adam brooded around the house all morning, and at noon he went to find Lee, who was
spading the dark composted earth of his vegetable garden and planting his spring
vegetables, carrots and beets, turnips, peas, and string beans, rutabaga and kale. The rows
were straight planted under a tight-stretched string, and the pegs at the row ends carried
the seed package to identify the row. On the edge of the garden in a cold frame the
tomato and bell pepper and cabbage sets were nearly ready for transplanting, waiting only
for the passing of the frost danger.

Adam said, “I guess I was stupid.”
Lee leaned on his spading fork and regarded him quietly.
“When are you going?” he asked.
“I thought I would catch the two-forty. Then I can get the eight o’clock back.”
“You could put it in a letter, you know,” said Lee.
“I’ve thought of that. Would you write a letter?”
“No. You’re right. I’m the stupid one there. No letters.”
“I have to go,” said Adam. “I thought in all directions and always a leash snapped me
back.”
Lee said, “You can be unhonest in many ways, but not in that way. Well, good luck.
I’ll be interested to hear what she says and does.”
“I’ll take the rig,” said Adam. “I’ll leave it at the stable in King City. I’m nervous
about driving the Ford alone.”
It was four-fifteen when Adam climbed the rickety steps and knocked on the weather-
beaten door of Kate’s place. A new man opened the door, a square-faced Finn, dressed in
shirt and trousers; red silk armbands held up his full sleeves. He left Adam standing on
the porch and in a moment came back and led him to the dining room.
It was a large undecorated room, the walls and woodwork painted white. A long square
table filled the center of the room, and on the white oilcloth cover the places were set—
plates, cups and saucers, and the cups upside down in the saucers.
Kate sat at the head of the table with an account book open before her. Her dress was
severe. She wore a green eyeshade, and she rolled a yellow pencil restlessly in her
fingers. She looked coldly at Adam as he stood in the doorway.
“What do you want now?” she asked.
The Finn stood behind Adam.
Adam did not reply. He walked to the table and laid the letter in front of her on top of
the account book.
“What’s this?” she asked, and without waiting for a reply she read the letter quickly.
“Go out and close the door,” she told the Finn.
Adam sat at the table beside her. He pushed the dishes aside to make a place for his hat.
When the door was closed Kate said, “Is this a joke? No, you haven’t got a joke in

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you.” She considered. “Your brother might be joking. You sure he’s dead?”
“All I have is the letter,” said Adam.
“What do you want me to do about it?”
Adam shrugged his shoulders.
Kate said, “If you want me to sign anything, you’re wasting your time. What do you

want?”
Adam drew his finger slowly around his black ribbon hatband. “Why don’t you write

down the name of the firm and get in touch with them yourself?”
“What have you told them about me?”
“Nothing,” said Adam. “I wrote to Charles and said you were living in another town,

nothing more. He was dead when the letter got there. The letter went to the lawyers. It
tells about it.”

“The one who wrote the postscript seems to be a friend of yours. What have you
written him?”

“I haven’t answered the letter yet.”
“What do you intend to say when you answer it?”
“The same thing—that you live in another town.”
“You can’t say we’ve been divorced. We haven’t been.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“Do you want to know how much it will take to buy me off? I’ll take forty-five
thousand in cash.”
“No.”
“What do you mean—no? You can’t bargain.”
“I’m not bargaining. You have the letter, you know as much as I do. Do what you
want.”
“What makes you so cocky?”
“I feel safe.”
She peered at him from under the green transparent eyeshade. Little curls of her hair
lay on the bill like vines on a green roof. “Adam, you’re a fool. If you had kept your
mouth shut nobody would ever have known I was alive.”
“I know that.”
“You know it? Did you think I might be afraid to claim the money? You’re a damn
fool if you thought that.”
Adam said patiently, “I don’t care what you do.”
She smiled cynically at him. “You don’t, huh? Suppose I should tell you that there’s a
permanent order in the sheriffs office, left there by the old sheriff, that if I ever use your
name or admit I’m your wife I’ll get a floater out of the county and out of the state. Does
that tempt you?”
“Tempt me to do what?”
“To get me floated and take all the money.”
“I brought you the letter,” Adam said patiently.
“I want to know why.”
Adam said, “I’m not interested in what you think or in what you think of me. Charles
left you the money in his will. He didn’t put any strings on it. I haven’t seen the will, but
he wanted you to have the money.”
“You’re playing a close game with fifty thousand dollars,” she said, “and you’re not

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going to get away with it. I don’t know what the trick is, but I’m going to find out.” And
then she said, “What am I thinking about? You’re not smart. Who’s advising you?”

“No one.”
“How about that Chinaman? He’s smart.”
“He gave me no advice.” Adam was interested in his own complete lack of emotion.
He didn’t really feel that he was here at all. When he glanced at her he surprised an
emotion on her face he had never seen before. Kate was afraid—she was afraid of him.
But why?
She controlled her face and whipped the fear from it. “You’re just doing it because
you’re honest, is that it? You’re just too sugar sweet to live.”
“I hadn’t thought of it,” Adam said. “It’s your money and I’m not a thief. It doesn’t
matter to me what you think about it.”
Kate pushed the eyeshade back on her head. “You want me to think you’re just
dropping this money in my lap. Well, I’ll find out what you’re up to. Don’t think I won’t
take care of myself. Did you think I’d take such a stupid bait?”
“Where do you get your mail?” he asked patiently. “What’s that to you?”
“I’ll write the lawyers where to get in touch with you.”
“Don’t you do it!” she said. She put the letter in the account book and closed the cover.
“I’ll keep this. I’ll get legal advice. Don’t think I won’t. You can drop the innocence
now.”
“You do that,” Adam said. “I want you to have what is yours. Charles willed you the
money. It isn’t mine.”
“I’ll find the trick. I’ll find it.”
Adam said, “I guess you can’t understand it. I don’t much care. There are so many
things I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you could shoot me and desert your
sons. I don’t understand how you or anyone could live like this.” He waved his hand to
indicate the house.
“Who asked you to understand?”
Adam stood up and took his hat from the table. “I guess that’s all,” he said. “Good-by.”
He walked toward the door.
She called after him, “You’re changed, Mr. Mouse. Have you got a woman at last?”
Adam stopped and slowly turned and his eyes were thoughtful. “I hadn’t considered
before,” he said, and he moved toward her until he towered over her and she had to tilt
back her head to look into his face. “I said I didn’t understand about you,” he said slowly.
“Just now it came to me what you don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand, Mr. Mouse?”
“You know about the ugliness in people. You showed me the pictures. You use all the
sad, weak parts of a man, and God knows he has them.”
“Everybody—”
Adam went on, astonished at his own thoughts, “But you—yes, that’s right—you don’t
know about the rest. You don’t believe I brought you the letter because I don’t want your
money. You don’t believe I loved you. And the men who come to you here with their
ugliness, the men in the pictures—you don’t believe those men could have goodness and
beauty in them. You see only one side, and you think—more than that, you’re sure—
that’s all there is.”
She cackled at him derisively. “In sticks and stones. What a sweet dreamer is Mr.

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Mouse! Give me a sermon, Mr. Mouse.”
“No. I won’t because I seem to know that there’s a part of you missing. Some men

can’t see the color green, but they may never know they can’t. I think you are only a part
of a human. I can’t do anything about that. But I wonder whether you ever feel that some-
thing invisible is all around you. It would be horrible if you knew it was there and
couldn’t see it or feel it. That would be horrible.”

Kate pushed back her chair and stood up. Her fists were clenched at her sides and
hiding in the folds of her skirt. She tried to prevent the shrillness that crept into her voice.

“Our Mouse is a philosopher,” she said. “But our Mouse is no better at that than he is
at other things. Did you ever hear of hallucinations? If there are things I can’t see, don’t
you think it’s possible that they are dreams manufactured in your own sick mind?”

“No, I don’t,” said Adam. “No, I don’t. And I don’t think you do either.” He turned and
went out and closed the door behind him.

Kate sat down and stared at the closed door. She was not aware that her fists beat softly
on the White oilcloth. But she did know that the square white door was distorted by tears
and that her body shook with something that felt like rage and also felt like sorrow.

2

When Adam left Kate’s place he had over two hours to wait for the train back to King
City. On an impulse he turned off Main Street and walked up Central Avenue to number
130, the high white house of Ernest Steinbeck. It was an immaculate and friendly house,
grand enough but not pretentious, and it sat inside its white fence, surrounded by its
clipped lawn, and roses and catoneasters lapped against its white walls.

Adam walked up the wide veranda steps and rang the bell. Olive came to the door and
opened it a little, while Mary and John peeked around the edges of her.

Adam took off his hat. “You don’t know me. I’m Adam Trask. Your father was a
friend of mine. I thought I’d like to pay my respects to Mrs. Hamilton. She helped me
with the twins.”

“Why, of course,” Olive said and swung the wide doors open. “We’ve heard about you.
Just a moment. You see, we’ve made a kind of retreat for Mother.”

She knocked on a door off the wide front hall and called, “Mother! There’s a friend to
see you.”

She opened the door and showed Adam into the pleasant room where Liza lived.
“You’ll have to excuse me,” she said to Adam. “Catrina’s frying chicken and I have to
watch her. John! Mary! Come along. Come along.”

Liza seemed smaller than ever. She sat in a wicker rocking chair and she was old and
old. Her dress was a full wide-skirted black alpaca, and at her throat she wore a pin which
spelled “Mother” in golden script.

The pleasant little bed-sitting room was crowded with photographs, bottles of toilet
water, lace pincushions, brushes and combs, and the china and silver bureau-knacks of
many birthdays and Christmases.

On the wall hung a huge tinted photograph of Samuel, which had captured a cold and
aloof dignity, a scrubbed and dressed remoteness, which did not belong to him living.
There was no twinkle in the picture of him, nor any of his inspective joyousness. The
picture hung in a heavy gold frame, and to the consternation of all children its eyes
followed a child about the room.

On a wicker table beside Liza was the cage of Polly parrot. Tom had bought the parrot

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from a sailor. He was an old bird, reputed to be fifty years old, and he had lived a ribald
life and acquired the vigorous speech of a ship’s fo’c’sle. Try as she would, Liza could
not make him substitute psalms for the picturesque vocabulary of his youth.

Polly cocked his head sideways, inspecting Adam, and scratched the feathers at the
base of his beak with a careful foreclaw. “Come off it, you bastard,” said Polly
unemotionally.

Liza frowned at him. “Polly,” she said sternly, “that’s not polite.”
“Bloody bastard!” Polly observed.
Liza ignored the vulgarity. She held out her tiny hand. “Mr. Trask,” she said, “I’m glad
to see you. Sit down, won’t you?”
“I was passing by, and I wanted to offer my condolences.”
“We got your flowers.” And she remembered, too, every bouquet after all this time.
Adam had sent a fine pillow of everlastings.
“It must be hard to rearrange your life.”
Liza’s eyes brimmed over and she snapped her little mouth shut on her weakness.
Adam said, “Maybe I shouldn’t bring up your hurt, but I miss him.”
Liza turned her head away. “How is everything down your way?” she asked.
“Good this year. Lots of rainfall. The feed’s deep already.”
“Tom wrote me,” she said.
“Button up,” said the parrot, and Liza scowled at him as she had at her growing
children when they were mutinous.
“What brings you up to Salinas, Mr. Trask?” she asked.
“Why, some business.” He sat down in a wicker chair and it cricked under his weight.
“I’m thinking of moving up here. Thought it might be better for my boys. They get lonely
on the ranch.”
“We never got lonely on the ranch,” she said harshly.
“I thought maybe the schools would be better here. My twins could have the
advantages.”
“My daughter Olive taught at Peachtree and Pleyto and the Big Sur.” Her tone made it
clear that there were no better schools than those. Adam began to feel a warm admiration
for her iron gallantry.
“Well, I was just thinking about it,” he said.
“Children raised in the country do better.” It was the law, and she could prove it by her
own boys. Then she centered closely on him. “Are you looking for a house in Salinas?”
“Well, yes, I guess I am.”
“Go see my daughter Dessie,” she said. “Dessie wants to move back to the ranch with
Tom. She’s got a nice little house up the street next to Reynaud’s Bakery.”
“I’ll certainly do that,” said Adam. “I’ll go now. I’m glad to see you doing so well.”
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m comfortable.” Adam was moving toward the door when
she said, “Mr. Trask, do you ever see my son Tom?”
“Well, no, I don’t. You see, I haven’t been off the ranch.”
“I wish you would go and see him,” she said quickly. “I think he’s lonely.” She
stopped as though horrified at this breaking over.
“I will. I surely will. Good-by, ma’am.”
As he closed the door he heard the parrot say, “Button up, you bloody bastard!” And
Liza, “Polly, if you don’t watch your language, I’ll thrash you.”

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Adam let himself out of the house and walked up the evening street toward Main. Next
to Reynaud’s French Bakery he saw Dessie’s house set back in its little garden. The yard
was so massed with tall privets that he couldn’t see much of the house. A neatly painted
sign was screwed to the front gate. It read: Dessie Hamilton, Dressmaker.

The San Francisco Chop House was on the corner of Main and Central and its windows
were on both streets. Adam went in to get some dinner. Will Hamilton sat at the corner
table, devouring a rib steak. “Come and sit with me,” he called to Adam. “Up on
business?”

“Yes,” said Adam. “I went to pay a call on your mother.”
Will laid down his fork. “I’m just up here for an hour. I didn’t go to see her because it
gets her excited. And my sister Olive would tear the house down getting a special dinner
for me. I just didn’t want to disturb them. Besides, I have to go right back. Order a rib
steak. They’ve got good ones. How is Mother?”
“She’s got great courage,” said Adam. “I find I admire her more all the time.”
“That she has. How she kept her good sense with all of us and with my father, I don’t
know.”
“Rib steak, medium,” said Adam to the waiter.
“Potatoes?”
“No—yes, french fried. Your mother is worried about Tom. Is he all right?”
Will cut off the edging of fat from his steak and pushed it to the side of his plate.
“She’s got reason to worry,” he said. “Something’s the matter with Tom. He’s moping
around like a monument.”
“I guess he depended on Samuel.”
“Too much,” said Will. “Far too much. He can’t seem to come out of it. In some ways
Tom is a great big baby.”
“I’ll go and see him. Your mother says Dessie is going to move back to the ranch.”
Will laid his knife and fork down on the tablecloth and stared at Adam. “She can’t do
it,” he said. “I won’t let her do it.”
“Why not?”
Will covered up. “Well,” he said, “she’s got a nice business here. Makes a good living.
It would be a shame to throw it away.” He picked up his knife and fork, cut off a piece of
the fat, and put it in his mouth.
“I’m catching the eight o’clock home,” Adam said.
“So am I,” said Will. He didn’t want to talk any more.

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Chapter 32

1

Dessie was the beloved of the family. Mollie the pretty kitten, Olive the strong-headed,
Una with clouds on her head, all were loved, but Dessie was the warm-beloved. Hers was
the twinkle and the laughter infectious as chickenpox, and hers the gaiety that colored a
day and spread to people so that they carried it away with them.

I can put it this way. Mrs. Clarence Morrison of 122 Church Street, Salinas, had three
children and a husband who ran a dry goods store. On certain mornings, at breakfast,
Agnes Morrison would say, “I’m going to Dessie Hamilton’s for a fitting after dinner.”

The children would be glad and would kick their copper toes against the table legs until
cautioned. And Mr. Morrison would rub his palms together and go to his store, hoping
some drummer would come by that day. And any drummer who did come by was likely
to get a good order. Maybe the children and Mr. Morrison would forget why it was a
good day with a promise on its tail.

Mrs. Morrison would go to the house next to Reynaud’s Bakery at two o’clock and she
would stay until four. When she came out her eyes would be wet with tears and her nose
red and streaming. Walking home, she would dab her nose and wipe her eyes and laugh
all over again. Maybe all Dessie had done was to put several black pins in a cushion to
make it look like the Baptist minister, and then had the pincushion deliver a short dry
sermon. Maybe she had recounted a meeting with Old Man Taylor, who bought old
houses and moved them to a big vacant lot he owned until he had so many it looked like a
dry-land Sargasso Sea. Maybe she had read a poem from Chatterbox with gestures. It
didn’t matter. It was warm-funny, it was catching funny.

The Morrison children, coming home from school, would find no aches, no carping, no
headache. Their noise was not a scandal nor their dirty faces a care. And when the giggles
overcame them, why, their mother was giggling too.

Mr. Morrison, coming home, would tell of the day and get listened to, and he would try
to retell the drummer’s stories—some of them at least. The supper would be delicious—
omelets never fell and cakes rose to balloons of lightness, biscuits fluffed up, and no one
could season a stew like Agnes Morrison. After supper, when the children had laughed
themselves to sleep, like as not Mr. Morrison would touch Agnes on the shoulder in their
old, old signal and they would go to bed and make love and be very happy.

The visit to Dessie might carry its charge into two days more before it petered out and
the little headaches came back and business was not so good as last year. That’s how
Dessie was and that’s what she could do. She carried excitement in her arms just as
Samuel had. She was the darling, she was the beloved of the family.

Dessie was not beautiful. Perhaps she wasn’t even pretty, but she had the glow that
makes men follow a woman in the hope of reflecting a little of it. You would have
thought that in time she would have got over her first love affair and found another love,
but she did not. Come to think of it, none of the Hamiltons, with all their versatility, had

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