Institute Read Free Page B

you’ve read them?”
    “Well, that’s what I buy them for. I think I’ve read most of them. A lot of them, like Bancroft’s Chronicles of the Builders, nobody’s really read. But I have them. If I want to find out who Kit Carson was, it’s in there.”
    “I’ll bite. Who was Kit Carson?”
    “A scout.”
    “Never heard of him ... Oh! There’s one I have read— R.E. Lee. ”
    “Nice job Freeman did on it.”
    “I bought it when I was a girl. Paid my girlish money for it. I fell for the beautiful binding. I just love scarlet. And that, reminds me to look at your jacket.” She started for the door but stopped by the cocktail table to look at an enlarged portrait photograph that was over the fireplace. She asked: “Is that who I think it is?”
    “My mother, yes.”
    “Damned good-looking.”
    “Beautiful, I’d call her.”
    “I wouldn’t. Beauty, let’s face it, is slightly dumb. She wasn’t. That face is smart. It can’t be fooled.”
    “With money, it couldn’t be.”
    “The hair, gray, almost white, is beautiful. That I admit. The face—those soft, round features, a bit like yours—is beautiful, too. But the eyes see more than beauty cares about. You say she was good with money?”
    “Better than my father.” I waved at his picture which was on a shelf off by itself. “He was a politician and real estate man. In Prince Georges County they’re practically the same thing. He was very proud of my mother—for all the wrong reasons. He died when I was ten years old without finding out how smart she was. What he doted on was her family which came in the Ark.”
    “Well? Didn’t he? Didn’t we all?”
    “Oh, not that Ark. Noah’s if that what you mean. The other one, more important here in Maryland. The first settlers came in the Ark and the Dove and landed in St. Mary’s County—the next one down the line. He was always talking about how high-born she was.
    “Then you were high-born, too?”
    “I don’t do much about it. And neither did she.”
    “Wait till Richard hears about this.”
    “But when my father died, she went to town with what he left her, and doubled it and tripled it and quadrupled it—”
    “And quintupled it, I’ll bet.”
    “At least. But she wasn’t tight with it. She would help anyone out.”
    “Rich people are often like that. So is you-know-who.”
    “Just the same, when money saw her come in the door, it would come over for a pat on the head before snuggling into her handbag.”
    “The more you talk, the more I like her.”
    “She left me very well off. I don’t have to work.”
    “I’m so glad to hear it.”
    Her eyes half closed on that, and suddenly I felt foolish. I had forgotten, just for that long, how rich she was. Suddenly she said: “The coat, where is it?”
    “My bedroom, I’ll show you.”
    “I’ll find it.”
    She was gone a few minutes. I heard drawers being opened and shut. Then she was back, saying: “The coat’s fine and the dark-blue trousers are just right. But those light-blue puff-bosomed shirts are an inspiration. Lloyd, they’ll love you. You’ll look like just what you are, a high-born Maryland gentleman being gracious to his nouveau riche friends. I’ll be proud to present you. I can hardly wait.”
    “You’re putting me on.”
    “No, I’m not. Do you have a red tie?”
    “Yes. Of course I have a red tie.”
    “Just wanted to know. I forgot to look.”
    She began making the rounds of the pictures, stopping at one of a little girl beside two oxen yoked to a cart. “Who is she?”
    “My mother, when she was little. At that time, in St. Mary’s County, they used oxen all the time.”
    “As I said, the more I know about her, the more I like her.”
    In front of a picture of me with a pony, she let out a string of yelps. “Oh! Oh! Oh! I always wanted a pony and never had one! What was his name?”
    “Brownie.”
    “And look at his fuzzy forelock.”
    “He didn’t like for it to be pulled. Try it, and