Clarkton Read Free Page B

snow. Did it snow in New York?”
    â€œNo … no,” he said, thinking of the gift immediately and remarking that he had bought something for her. “Do you want to see it here or at home?”
    â€œHere, of course.” And, laying a restraining hand on his arm, added, “Wait, I’ll guess.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t, I don’t think. I just saw it and I bought it. I saw it and I thought that you would like it.”
    â€œYou have it in your pocket, so it’s fairly small. It’s not a book. Why did you buy Hemingway’s stories to read, when you don’t like them so?”
    He took out the choker and laid it across her knee. With swift, regular glances, she saw it and estimated it, and did not, as some other woman might, protest at either the gift or the price. “Put it on my neck,” she said, and he did that, being careful not to throw her off her stride in the driving.
    â€œIt’s very nice,” she said. “Thank you. Was the trip a success?”
    â€œIf you call those things a success. I saw the man I wanted to see, and I spoke to him.”
    Glancing sidewise, she saw his head bent, the flare of a match, and the quality of him came home, the thought that she was fortunate to be in love at her age. Dusk was falling-over the scrubby New England landscape. She flicked on her headlights, swallowed, and said deliberately:
    â€œI don’t like the word, George. It’s a nasty, dirty word—and it’s what people call us and say about us; but were those men you went to see in town strikebreakers?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhy am I asking you, George? Or why am I thinking that way?”
    â€œI just wondered—”
    â€œI think of things,” she said impatiently. “It wasn’t Elliott, George. Ever since this thing started, you let it get into you. It’s not for us. It’s not our kind of thing.”
    â€œI suppose it’s not my kind of thing.” He made lines with a finger on the windshield. “My father’s kind of thing—is that what you mean? But not mine.”
    â€œGeorge!”
    â€œNot strikebreakers,” he said, a note of weariness creeping into his voice. “Where do you get those things, Lois? I suppose it happened once, but it doesn’t happen that way now. I felt out of my depth, just as you say. We’re not Morgans or Du Ponts or Tom Girdlers, and I don’t particularly care to study any of them. I was out of my depth, that’s all, and I talked to Tom Wilson at the plant about it, and he thought I ought to see these people, if only because of the property—in the way of taking some adequate steps in advance and preventing trouble later.”
    â€œBut what are they, these people you saw?”
    It oppressed him that he didn’t really know, that he had to make shift for an answer. “Industrial consultants, which, I suppose, could cover anything. I suppose it does cover anything. These people specialize in labor problems. They understand the question a strike poses in terms of protection, protecting the strikers as well as the plant. The two go together, you know. I wouldn’t call them strikebreakers, Lois. They’re sending up two men—”
    â€œOnly two men?”
    â€œThat’s all. Not an army.” He turned to her, angry for the moment, realizing that he had wanted all day to be respectably angry at someone. “What am I becoming to you? You know how I feel about this damned plant! You know how I’ve always felt about it!”
    â€œI know, George.”
    â€œWhatever my father did, that was another time, another age. He wasn’t the only one. When they built this country, they didn’t do it delicately.”
    â€œI know, George,” she said. “I’m sorry I raised it at all.”
    He lit another cigarette and retreated into silence. He could be childish enough at a moment like that to tell