The Grass Harp by Truman Capote Page A

I’d got for Christmas, how the dog had had pups and what we’d named them, described a tent-show that had come to town. To be growing up again and have a sweetheart in Alaska—well, it was fun for an old man sitting alone listening to the noise of a clock. Later on she wrote she’d fallen in love with a fellow she knew, and I felt a real pang of jealousy, the way a youngster would; but we have remained friends: two years ago, when I told her I was getting ready for law school, she sent me a gold nugget—it would bring me luck, she said.” He took it from his pocket and held it out for us to see: it made her come so close, Heather Falls, as though the gently bright gift balanced in his palm was part of her heart.
    “And that’s what they think is shameful?” said Dolly, more piqued than indignant. “Because you’ve helped keep company a lonely little child in Alaska? It snows there so much.”
    Judge Cool closed his hand over the nugget. “Not that they’ve mentioned it to me. But I’ve heard them talking at night, my sons and their wives: wanting to know what to do about me. Of course they’d spied out the letters. I don’t believe in locking drawers—seems strange a man can’t live without keys in what was at least once his own house. They think it all a sign of …” He tapped his head.
    “I had a letter once. Collin, sugar, pour me a taste,” said Catherine, indicating the wine. “Sure enough, I had a letter once, still got it somewhere, kept it twenty years wondering who was wrote it. Said Hello Catherine, come on to Miami and marry with me, love Bill.”
    “Catherine. A man asked you to marry him—and you never told one word of it to me?”
    Catherine lifted a shoulder. “Well, Dollyheart, what was theJudge saying? You don’t tell anybody everything. Besides, I’ve known a peck of Bills—wouldn’t study marrying any of them. What worries my mind is, which one of the Bills was it wrote that letter? I’d like to know, seeing as it’s the only letter I ever got. It could be the Bill that put the roof on my house; course, by the time the roof was up—my goodness, I have got old, been a long day since I’ve given it two thoughts. There was Bill that came to plow the garden, spring of 1913 it was; that man sure could plow a straight row. And Bill that built the chicken-coop: went away on a Pullman job; might have been him wrote me that letter. Or Bill—uh uh, his name was Fred—Collin, sugar, this wine is mighty good.”
    “I may have a drop more myself,” said Dolly. “I mean, Catherine has given me such a …”
    “Hmn,” said Catherine.
    “If you spoke more slowly, or chewed less …” The Judge thought Catherine’s cotton was tobacco.
    Riley had withdrawn a little from us; slumped over, he stared stilly into the inhabited dark: I, I, I, a bird cried, “I—you’re wrong, Judge,” he said.
    “How so, son?”
    The caught-up uneasiness that I associated with Riley swamped his face. “I’m not in trouble: I’m nothing—or would you call that my trouble? I lie awake thinking what do I know how to do? hunt, drive a car, fool around; and I get scared when I think maybe that’s all it will ever come to. Another thing, I’ve got no feelings—except for my sisters, which is different. Take for instance, I’ve been going with this girl from Rock City nearly a year, the longest time I’ve stayed with one girl. I guess it was a week ago she flared up and said where’s your heart? said if I didn’t love her she’d as soon die. So I stopped the car on the railroad track; well, I said, let’s just sit here, the Crescent’s duein about twenty minutes. We didn’t take our eyes off each other, and I thought isn’t it mean that I’m looking at you and I don’t feel anything except …”
    “Except vanity?” said the Judge.
    Riley did not deny it. “And if my sisters were old enough to take care of themselves, I’d have been willing to wait for the Crescent to come down