Ernest Hemingway - Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“She’s not.”

“He goes to see her every day.”

“I don’t.” Nick, sitting between the two boys in the dark, felt hollow and happy inside himself to be teased about Prudence Mitchell. “She ain’t my girl,” he said.

“Listen to him,” said Carl. “I see them together every day.”

“Carl can’t get a girl,” his mother said, “not even a squaw.”

Carl was quiet.

“Carl ain’t no good with girls,” Frank said.

“You shut up.”

“You’re all right, Carl,” Joe Garner said. “Girls never got a man anywhere. Look at your pa.”

“Yes, that’s what you would say,” Mrs. Garner moved close to Joe as the wagon jolted. “Well, you had plenty of girls in your time.”

“I’ll bet Pa wouldn’t ever have had a squaw for a girl.”

“Don’t you think it,” Joe said. “You better watch out to keep Prudie, Nick.”

His wife whispered to him and Joe laughed.

“What you laughing at?” asked Frank.

“Don’t you say it. Garner,” his wife warned. Joe laughed again.

“Nickie can have Prudence,” Joe Garner said. “I got a good girl.”

“That’s the way to talk,” Mrs. Garner said.

The horses were pulling heavily in the sand. Joe reached out in the dark with the whip.

“Come on, pull into it. You’ll have to pull harder than this tomorrow.”

They trotted down the long hill, the wagon jolting. At the farmhouse everybody got down. Mrs. Garner unlocked the door, went inside, and came out with a lamp in her hand. Carl and Nick unloaded the things from the back of the wagon. Frank sat on the front seat to drive to the barn and put up the horses. Nick went up the steps and opened the kitchen door. Mrs. Garner was building a fire in the stove. She turned from pouring kerosene on the wood.

“Good-by, Mrs. Garner,” Nick said. “Thanks for taking me.”

“Oh shucks, Nickie.”

“I had a wonderful time.”

“We like to have you. Won’t you stay and eat some supper?”

“I better go. I think Dad probably waited for me.”

“Well, get along then. Send Carl up to the house, will you?”

“All right.”

“Good-night, Nickie.”

“Good-night, Mrs. Garner.”

Nick went out the farmyard and down to the barn. Joe and Frank were milking.

“Good-night,” Nick said. “I had a swell time.”

“Good-night, Nick,” Joe Garner called. “Aren’t you going to stay and eat?”

“No, I can’t. Will you tell Carl his mother wants him?”

“All right. Good-night, Nickie.”

Nick walked barefoot along the path through the meadow below the barn. The path was smooth and the dew was cool on his bare feet. He climbed a fence at the end of the meadow, went down through a ravine, his feet wet in the swamp mud, and then climbed up through the dry beech woods until he saw the lights of the cottage. He climbed over the fence and walked around to the front porch. Through the window he saw his father sitting by the table, reading in the light from the big lamp. Nick opened the door and went in.

“Well, Nickie,” his father said, “was it a good day?”

“I had a swell time. Dad. It was a swell Fourth of July.”

“Are you hungry?”

“You bet.”

“What did you do with your shoes?”

“I left them in the wagon at Garner’s.”

“Come on out to the kitchen.”

Nick’s father went ahead with the lamp. He stopped and lifted the lid of the ice-box. Nick went on into the kitchen. His father brought in a piece of cold chicken on a plate and a pitcher of milk and put them on the table before Nick. He put down the lamp.

“There’s some pie too,” he said. “Will that hold you?”

“It’s grand.”

His father sat down in a chair beside the oil-cloth-covered table. He made a big shadow on the kitchen wall.

“Who won the ball game?”

“Petoskey. Five to three.”

His father sat watching him eat and filled his glass from the milk-pitcher. Nick drank and wiped his mouth on his napkin. His father reached over to the shelf for the pie. He cut Nick a big piece. It was huckleberry pie.

“What did you do, Dad?”

“I went out fishing in the morning.”

“What did you get?”

“Only perch.”

His father sat watching Nick eat the pie.

“What did you do this afternoon?” Nick asked.

“I went for a walk up by the Indian camp.”

“Did you see anybody?”

“The Indians were all in town getting drunk.”

“Didn’t you see anybody at all?”

“I saw your friend, Prudie.”

“Where was she?”

“She was in the woods with Frank Washburn. I ran onto them. They were having quite a time.”

His father was not looking at him.

“What were they doing?”

“I didn’t stay to find out.”

“Tell me what they were doing.”

“I don’t know,” his father said. “I just heard them threshing around.”

“How did you know it was them?”

“I saw them.”

“I thought you said you didn’t see them.”

“Oh, yes, I saw them.”

“Who was it with her?” Nick asked.

“Frank Washbum.”

“Were they—were they—”

“Were they what?”

“Were they happy?”

“I guess so.”

His father got up from the table and went out the kitchen screen door. When he came back Nick was looking at his plate. He had been crying.

“Have some more?” His father picked up the knife to cut the pie.

“No.” said Nick.

“You better have another piece”

“No, I don’t want any.”

His father cleared off the table.

“Where were they in the woods?” Nick asked.

“Up back of the camp.” Nick looked at his plate. His father said, “You better go to bed, Nick.”

“All right.”

Nick went into his room, undressed, and got into bed. He heard his father moving around in the living room. Nick lay in the bed with his face in the pillow.

“My heart’s broken,” he thought. “If I feel this way my heart must be broken.”

After a while he heard his father blow out the lamp and go into his own room. He heard a wind come up in the trees outside and felt it come in cool through the screen. He lay for a long time with his face in the pillow, and after a while he forgot to think about Prudence and finally he went to sleep. When he awoke in the night he heard the wind in the hemlock trees outside the cottage and the waves of the lake coming in on the shore, and he went back to sleep. In the morning there was a big wind blowing and the waves were running high up on the beach and he was awake a long time before he remembered that his heart was broken.

A Canary for One

THE TRAIN PASSED VERY QUICKLY A LONG, red stone house with a garden and four thick palm-trees with tables under them in the shade. On the other side was the sea. Then there was a cutting through red stone and clay, and the sea was only occasionally and far below against rocks.

“I bought him in Palermo,” the American lady said. “We only had an hour ashore and it was Sunday morning. The man wanted to be paid in dollars and I gave him a dollar and a half. He really sings very beautifully.”

It was very hot in the train and it was very hot in the lit salon compartment. There was no breeze came through the open window. The American lady pulled the window-blind down and there was no more sea, even occasionally. On the other side there was glass, then the corridor, then an open window, and outside the window were dusty trees and an oiled road and flat fields of grapes, with gray-stone hills behind them.

There was smoke from many tall chimneys—coming into Marseilles, and the train slowed down and followed one track through many others into the station. The train stayed twenty-five minutes in the station at Marseilles and the American lady bought a copy of The Daily Mail and a half-bottle of Evian water. She walked a little way along the station platform, but she stayed near the steps of the car because at Cannes, where it stopped for twelve minutes, the train had left with no signal of departure and she had gotten on only just in time. The American lady was a little deaf and she was afraid that perhaps signals of departure were given and that she did not hear them.