Read Online Clock Without Hands by Carson Mccullers - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Carson Mccullers
Ads: Link
new deck of cards to have a game with the ladies. He had in mind his wife's slender fingers ringed with the diamonds he had given her. But it materialized that Miss Kate had never held a card in her life, and the old aunt added that, to her, cards were the entrance to the devil's playground. The party broke up early and the Judge finished the bottle of brandy before he went to bed. He blamed the fact that the Spinners were Lutherans and not quite expected to be in the same class as those who attended the First Baptist Church. So he consoled himself and soon his natural optimism returned.
However, he did not go so far afield in his broadmindedness about sects and creeds. Miss Missy had been born Episcopalian, changing over to First Baptist when they were married. Miss Hettie Peaver sang in the Episcopal choir and her throat was pulsing and vibrant as she sang. On Christmas the congregation stood up at the Hallelujah passage ... year after year he was fooled by this passage, sitting there like a ninny until he realized that every soul had stood up and then trying to make amends by the loudest singing in the church ... but this Christmas the Hallelujah section came and went unnoticed as the Judge craned his neck at Miss Hettie Peaver. After church he scraped his feet and invited her and her aged mother to Saturday night supper the following week. Again he agonized over preparations. Miss Hettie was a short stout woman of good family; she was no spring chicken as the Judge well knew, but then neither was he, pushing seventy years old. And it was of course not a question of marriage as Miss Hettie was a widow. (The Judge had automatically in this unconscious search for love excluded widows and, of course, grass widows, as he had held it as a principle that second marriages were most unbecoming for a woman.)
That second supper was quite different from the Lutheran one. It turned out Miss Hettie adored oysters and was trying to get up nerve to swallow one whole. The old mother told a story about when she cooked an all-oyster dinner ... raw oysters, scalloped oysters and so forth, which the old lady named in detail ... for the business partner of Percy, "my beloved spouse," and how it turned out that the partner couldn't eat oysters at all. As the old lady drank her wine, her stories grew longer and more tedious and the daughter would try to change the subject with little success. After dinner when the Judge brought cards, the old lady said she was too blind to make out the cards and she would be perfectly satisfied just finishing her port and looking at the fire. The Judge taught Miss Hettie blackjack and found her an able pupil. But he so much missed Miss Missy's slender hands and diamond rings. And another thing, Miss Hettie was a little buxom to his taste and he could not but compare his wife's slender bosom to her somewhat hefty form. His wife had had very delicate breasts, arid indeed, he never forgot that one had been removed.
On Valentine's Day, sick with that hollow feeling, he bought a five-pound box of heart-shaped candy, much to the interest of J. T. Malone, who made the sale. On the way to Miss Hettie's house he reconsidered judiciously and walked slowly home. He ate the candy himself. It took two months. However, after some other little episodes like this that came to nothing, the Judge devoted himself solely to his grandson and his love for him.
The Judge spoiled his grandson beyond reason. It was the joke of the town that once at a church picnic the Judge had carefully picked the grains of pepper out of his small grandson's food, as the child did not like pepper. When the child was four years old he could recite the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm, thanks to his grandfather's patient coaching, and it was the old man's delight when townspeople gathered to hear this prodigy perform. Absorbed in his grandson, his hollowness of grief diminished, as well as his fascination for choir ladies. In spite of
However, he did not go so far afield in his broadmindedness about sects and creeds. Miss Missy had been born Episcopalian, changing over to First Baptist when they were married. Miss Hettie Peaver sang in the Episcopal choir and her throat was pulsing and vibrant as she sang. On Christmas the congregation stood up at the Hallelujah passage ... year after year he was fooled by this passage, sitting there like a ninny until he realized that every soul had stood up and then trying to make amends by the loudest singing in the church ... but this Christmas the Hallelujah section came and went unnoticed as the Judge craned his neck at Miss Hettie Peaver. After church he scraped his feet and invited her and her aged mother to Saturday night supper the following week. Again he agonized over preparations. Miss Hettie was a short stout woman of good family; she was no spring chicken as the Judge well knew, but then neither was he, pushing seventy years old. And it was of course not a question of marriage as Miss Hettie was a widow. (The Judge had automatically in this unconscious search for love excluded widows and, of course, grass widows, as he had held it as a principle that second marriages were most unbecoming for a woman.)
That second supper was quite different from the Lutheran one. It turned out Miss Hettie adored oysters and was trying to get up nerve to swallow one whole. The old mother told a story about when she cooked an all-oyster dinner ... raw oysters, scalloped oysters and so forth, which the old lady named in detail ... for the business partner of Percy, "my beloved spouse," and how it turned out that the partner couldn't eat oysters at all. As the old lady drank her wine, her stories grew longer and more tedious and the daughter would try to change the subject with little success. After dinner when the Judge brought cards, the old lady said she was too blind to make out the cards and she would be perfectly satisfied just finishing her port and looking at the fire. The Judge taught Miss Hettie blackjack and found her an able pupil. But he so much missed Miss Missy's slender hands and diamond rings. And another thing, Miss Hettie was a little buxom to his taste and he could not but compare his wife's slender bosom to her somewhat hefty form. His wife had had very delicate breasts, arid indeed, he never forgot that one had been removed.
On Valentine's Day, sick with that hollow feeling, he bought a five-pound box of heart-shaped candy, much to the interest of J. T. Malone, who made the sale. On the way to Miss Hettie's house he reconsidered judiciously and walked slowly home. He ate the candy himself. It took two months. However, after some other little episodes like this that came to nothing, the Judge devoted himself solely to his grandson and his love for him.
The Judge spoiled his grandson beyond reason. It was the joke of the town that once at a church picnic the Judge had carefully picked the grains of pepper out of his small grandson's food, as the child did not like pepper. When the child was four years old he could recite the Lord's Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm, thanks to his grandfather's patient coaching, and it was the old man's delight when townspeople gathered to hear this prodigy perform. Absorbed in his grandson, his hollowness of grief diminished, as well as his fascination for choir ladies. In spite of
Similar Books
