“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.”

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.

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.