64
PARTISAN REVIEW
she was sick and I says to her how when the school trustee
Ed
Greener's wife was adying and he climbed in bed with her and
the doctor swore that made her live
5
years longer, she just
started bawling like a babe, wringing her cut-up hands, crying
when would old fools like me grow up t'see the dick don't drive
away all pain, make bread and-and ..." He raked his old
poll. "Neither did Jesus on a stick help her. Yeh, she thought
if women bossed the world ... but there's this women suffrage,
and the world's still jammed tight like a burdock up the tail of
a horse, and the horse not half broke. Stayhot, the banks bus·
ting like mushrooms, this cutting everything little by little off a
man. . . . When a fellow's alone, no home really his own, he
don't act right, don't work right. That's gospel truth. He
takes to hulling his own fist when maybe his fist should be knock·
ing hell out of them that's run us down to-."
Steve roared he go bull himself to sleep.
"That's what I'm adoing," cackled the old man. He bel·
ched, fussed, tossed, and groaned all night thru. And in the
morning, he was sick as a dog still hanging over the vomit of
his past.
Mule dragged himself out of bed to help the old man.
He couldn't stand bed any longer. Bill Fuellan was tearing
around the farm on the tractor.
Bill was a tall husky lad, full of spit and song, with a nose
sharp as a cornknife and a keen black eye. He had a rattlebox
car. He started taking Elsa out for ice cream, to the dancehaU
over the village drugstore.
The boss cursed Bill in the presence of his men. "Thi!
damned catting around. Mule was right. But she was acting
right, so I let it blow." But the boss didn't say anything to
Elsa, only lowered his head as if to slash into her like an angry
boarhog.
Murf pawed at her shoulder. "I got a fatherly interest in
you, girl. The more you listens the farther I go. We don't want
trouble. Now Bill's a good lad. He wouldn't hurt a girl
By.
Only he likes to jabber, he's half your age, he's-."
"Ready to marry and take care of me," Elsa finished with
a laugh. "But is the boss sore?'
"Better find out. He's a sly feller, don't know what bug's
in him half the time."
The boss shoved away from his desk when she asked
"You're the boss," he said looking up at her two loose breast$
