John Irving - The Cider House Rules

One of the marvels of Maine? thought Wilbur Larch, struggling to get control of himself. A stray puff of wind blew in the open window in Nurse Angela's office, carrying some of the black smoke from the incinerator with it; the smoke brought Larch nearer to his senses. I'd better stop, he thought. I don't want to get carried away.

He rested in the dispensary after his historical effort. Nurse Edna looked in on him once; Wilbur Larch was one of the marvels of Maine to her, and she was worried about him.

Larch was a little worried himself, when he woke. Where had the time gone? The problem is that I have to last, he thought. He could rewrite history but he couldn't touch time; dates were fixed; time marched at its own pace. Even if he could convince Homer Wells to go to a real medical school, it would take time. It would take a few years for Fuzzy Stone to complete his training, I have to last until Fuzzy is qualified to replace me, thought Wilbur Larch.

He felt like hearing Mrs. Grogan's prayer again, and so he went to the girls' division a little early for his usual delivery of Jane Eyre. He eavesdropped in the hall on Mrs. Grogan's prayer; I must ask her if she'd mind saying it to the boys, he thought, then wondered if it would confuse the boys, coming so quickly on the heels: of, or just before, the Princes of Maine, Kings of New England benediction. I get confused myself sometimes, Dr. Larch knew.

'Grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest,' Mrs. Grogan was saying, 'and peace at the last.'

Amen, thought Wilbur Larch, the saint of St. Cloud's, who was seventy-something, and an ether addict, and who felt that he'd come a long way and still had a long way to go. {386}

When Homer Wells read the questionnaire sent him by the St. Cloud's board of trustees, he did not know exactly what made him anxious. Of course Dr. Larch and the others were getting older, but they were always 'older' to him. It did occur to him to wonder what might happen to St. Cloud's when Dr. Larch was too old, but this thought was so troubling that he tucked the questionnaire and the return envelope to the board into his copy of Practical Anatomy of the Rabbit. Besides, it was the day the migrants arrived; it was harvest time at Ocean View, and Homer Wells was busy.

He and Mrs. Worthington met the picking crew at the apple mart, and led them to their quarters in the cider house-more than half the crew had picked at Ocean View before and knew the way, and the crew boss was what Mrs. Worthington called 'an old hand.' He looked very young to Homer. It was the first year that Mrs. Worthington dealt directly with the picking crew and their boss; the hiring relationship, by mail, had been one of Senior Worthington's responsibilities, and Senior had always maintained that if you kept a good crew boss, year after year, all the hiring-and the necessary takingcharge of the crew during the harvest-would be conducted by the boss.

His name was Arthur Rose, and he looked about Wally's age-just barely older than Homer-although he must have been older; he'd been the crew boss for five or six years. One year Senior Worthington had written to the old man who'd been his crew boss for as long as Olive could remember and Arthur Rose had written back to Senior saying he was going to be the crew boss now-'the old boss,' Arthur Rose had written, 'he's dead tired of traveling.' As it turned out, the old boss was just dead, but Arthur Rose had done a good job. He brought the right number of pickers, and very few of them ever quit, or ran off, or lost more than a day or two of good work because of too much drinking. There seemed to be a firm control over the degree of fighting among them-even {387} when they were accompanied by a woman or two. And when there was an occasional child among them, the child behaved. There were always pickers who fell off ladders, but there'd been no serious injuries. There were always small accidents around the cider press-but that was fast, often late-night work, when the men were tired or drinking a little. And there was the predictable clumsiness or drinking that led to the infrequent accidents involved in the almost ritualistic use of the cider house roof.

Running a farm had given Olive Worthington a warm feeling for the daylight hours and a grave suspicion of the night; the most trouble that people got into, in Olive's opinion, was trouble that they encountered because they stayed up too late.

Olive had written Arthur Rose of Senior's death, and told hirn that the picking-crew responsibility of Ocean View had now fallen to her. She wrote him at the usual address-a P.O. box in a town called Green, South Carolina-and Arthur Rose responded promptly, both with his condolences and with his assurance that the crew would arrive as always, on time and in correct numbers.

He was true to his word. Except when writing his first name on an envelope, or when she annually noted it in his Christmas card ('Happy Holidays, Arthur!'), Olive Worthington never called him Arthur; no one else called him Arthur, either. For reasons that were never explained to Homer Wells but perhaps for a presence of authority that was necessary for a good crew boss to maintain, he was Mister Rose to everybody.

When Olive introduced him to Homer Wells, that measure of respect was made clear. 'Homer,' Olive said, 'this is Mister Rose. And this is Homer Wells,' Olive added.

'Glad, to know you, Homer,' said Mr. Rose.

'Homer has become my good right hand,' Olive said afffectionately. {388}

'Glad to hear that, Homer!' said Mr. Rose. He shook Homer's hand strongly, although he let go of the hand with unusual quickness. He was no better dressed than the rest of thepickingcrew, and he was slender, like most of them; yet he managed a certain style with shabbiness. If his jacket was dirty and torn, it was a pinstriped suit jacket, a doubled-breasted model that had, in its history, given someone a degree of sharpness, and Mr. Rose wore a real silk necktie for a belt. His shoes were also good, and good shoes were vital for farm work; they were old, but well oiled, resoled, comfortable-looking and in good condition. His socks matched. His suit jacket had a watch pocket, and in it was a gold watch that worked; he regarded the watch naturally and often, as if time were very important to him. He was so clean-shaven helooked as if he might never have needed a shave; his face was a smooth brick of the darkest, unsweetened, bitter chocolate, and in his mouth he expertly moved around a small, bright-white mint, which always surrounded him with a fresh and alert fragrance.

He spoke and moved slowly-modestly, yet deliberately; in both speech and gesture he gave the impression of being humble and contained. Yet, when one observed him standing still and not speaking, he looked extraordinarily fast and sure of himself.

It was a hot, Indian-summer day, and the apple mart was inland enough to miss what little sea breeze there was. Mr. Rose and Mrs. Worthington stood talking among the parked and movingf arm vehicles in the apple-mart lot; the rest of the picking crew waited in their cars-the windows rolled down, an orchestra of black fingers strumming the sides of the cars. There were seventeen pickers and a cook-no women or children this year, to Olive's relief.

'Very nice,'Mr. Rose said, about the flowers in the cider house.

Mrs. Worthington touched the rules she'd tacked to the wall by the kitchen light switch as she was leaving. 'And {389} you'll point out these to everyone, won't you, please?' Olive asked.

'Oh yes, I'm good at rules,' said Mr. Rose, smiling. 'You all come back and watch the first press, Homer,' Mr. Rose said, as Homer held open the van door for Olive. 'I'm sure you got better things to watch-movies and stuff-but if you ever got some time on your hands, you come watch us make a little cider. About a thousand gallons,' he added shyly; he scuffed his feet, as if he were ashamed that he might be bragging. 'All we need is eight hours, and about three hundred bushels of apples,' said Mr. Rose. 'A thousand gallons,' he repeated proudly. On the way back to the apple mart, Olive Worthington said to Homer, 'Mister Rose is a real worker. If the rest of them were like him, they could improve themselves.' Homer didn't understand her tone. Certainly he had heard in her voice admiration, sympathy-and even affection-but there was also in her voice the ice that encases a long-ago and immovable point of view.