kiddies in the evening. “Bathroom—that’s when,” Ethan said loudly, and right now, before I open the sluice. Oh! the dusky, musky, smelly-welly, silly-billy time—the slovenly-lovely time. “Now whose feelings can I hurt, sugarfoot?” he said to his wife. “There ain’t nobody nor nobody’s feelings here. Just me and my unimum unimorum until—until I open that goddam front door.”
From a drawer behind the counter by the cash register he took a clean apron and unfolded it and straightened the tapes, put it around his thin middle, brought the tapes around and back again. He reached behind his back with both hands and fumbled a bowknot.
The apron was long, halfway down his shins. He raised his right hand, cupped loosely, palm upward, and he declaimed, “Hear me O ye canned pears, ye pickles and ye piccalilli—‘As soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together and led Him into their council—’ as soon as it was day . The buggers went to work early, didn’t they? They didn’t waste no time nohow. Let’s see now. ‘And it was about the sixth hour’—that’s maybe twelve o’clock—‘and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened.’ Now how do I remember that? Good God, it took Him a long time to die—a dreadful long time.” He dropped his hand and looked wondering at the crowded shelves as though they might answer him. “You don’t speak to me now, Mary, my dumpling. Are you one of the Daughters of Jerusalem? ‘Weep not for me,’ He said. ‘Weep for yourselves and for your children. . . . For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ Still breaks me up. Aunt Deborah wrought better than she knew. It’s not the sixth hour yet—not yet.”
He raised the green shades on the big windows, saying, “Come in, day!” And then he unlocked the front doors. “Enter, world.” He swung the iron-barred doors open and latched them open. And the morning sun lay softly on the pavement as it should, for in April the sun arose right where the High Street ran into the bay. Ethan went back to the toilet for a broom to sweep the sidewalk.
A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cats, dogs, butterflies and people.
Ethan Allen Hawley’s quiet, dim, and inward day was done. The man who swept the morning pavement with metronomic strokes was not the man who could sermonize to canned goods, not a unimum unimorum man, not even a silly-billy man. He gathered cigarette ends and gum wrappers, bud cases from the pollenizing trees, and simple plain dust in the sweep of his broom and moved the windrow of derelict toward the gutter, to await the town men with their silver truck.
Mr. Baker took his measured decent way from his house on Maple Street toward the red brick basilica of a First National Bank. And if his steps were not of equal length, who was to know that out of ancient habit he avoided breaking his mother’s back?
“Good morning, Mr. Baker,” Ethan said and held his stroke to save the banker’s neat serge pants from dust.
“Morning, Ethan. Fine morning.”
“Fine,” said Ethan. “Spring’s in, Mr. Baker. Groundhog was right again.”
“He was, he was.” Mr. Baker paused. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Ethan. That money your wife got by her brother’s will—over five thousand, isn’t it?”
“Sixty-five hundred after taxes,” Ethan said.
“Well, it’s just lying in the bank. Ought to be invested. Like to talk to you about that. Your money should be working.”
“Sixty-five hundred dollars
From a drawer behind the counter by the cash register he took a clean apron and unfolded it and straightened the tapes, put it around his thin middle, brought the tapes around and back again. He reached behind his back with both hands and fumbled a bowknot.
The apron was long, halfway down his shins. He raised his right hand, cupped loosely, palm upward, and he declaimed, “Hear me O ye canned pears, ye pickles and ye piccalilli—‘As soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together and led Him into their council—’ as soon as it was day . The buggers went to work early, didn’t they? They didn’t waste no time nohow. Let’s see now. ‘And it was about the sixth hour’—that’s maybe twelve o’clock—‘and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened.’ Now how do I remember that? Good God, it took Him a long time to die—a dreadful long time.” He dropped his hand and looked wondering at the crowded shelves as though they might answer him. “You don’t speak to me now, Mary, my dumpling. Are you one of the Daughters of Jerusalem? ‘Weep not for me,’ He said. ‘Weep for yourselves and for your children. . . . For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?’ Still breaks me up. Aunt Deborah wrought better than she knew. It’s not the sixth hour yet—not yet.”
He raised the green shades on the big windows, saying, “Come in, day!” And then he unlocked the front doors. “Enter, world.” He swung the iron-barred doors open and latched them open. And the morning sun lay softly on the pavement as it should, for in April the sun arose right where the High Street ran into the bay. Ethan went back to the toilet for a broom to sweep the sidewalk.
A day, a livelong day, is not one thing but many. It changes not only in growing light toward zenith and decline again, but in texture and mood, in tone and meaning, warped by a thousand factors of season, of heat or cold, of still or multi winds, torqued by odors, tastes, and the fabrics of ice or grass, of bud or leaf or black-drawn naked limbs. And as a day changes so do its subjects, bugs and birds, cats, dogs, butterflies and people.
Ethan Allen Hawley’s quiet, dim, and inward day was done. The man who swept the morning pavement with metronomic strokes was not the man who could sermonize to canned goods, not a unimum unimorum man, not even a silly-billy man. He gathered cigarette ends and gum wrappers, bud cases from the pollenizing trees, and simple plain dust in the sweep of his broom and moved the windrow of derelict toward the gutter, to await the town men with their silver truck.
Mr. Baker took his measured decent way from his house on Maple Street toward the red brick basilica of a First National Bank. And if his steps were not of equal length, who was to know that out of ancient habit he avoided breaking his mother’s back?
“Good morning, Mr. Baker,” Ethan said and held his stroke to save the banker’s neat serge pants from dust.
“Morning, Ethan. Fine morning.”
“Fine,” said Ethan. “Spring’s in, Mr. Baker. Groundhog was right again.”
“He was, he was.” Mr. Baker paused. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, Ethan. That money your wife got by her brother’s will—over five thousand, isn’t it?”
“Sixty-five hundred after taxes,” Ethan said.
“Well, it’s just lying in the bank. Ought to be invested. Like to talk to you about that. Your money should be working.”
“Sixty-five hundred dollars
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