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Authors: Vin Packer
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that subject.”
“Do you agree with me?”
“I have always … but Mr. Wealdon doesn’t deserve her. It was different with you. There was Edwina to make up for things mother lacked.”
“It was never that your mother lacked something, Virginia. It was just that after I met Edwina, I wanted more. Not from your mother. Just from Edwina — her particular kind of gentleness.”
“I know all that. I didn’t mean to bring it up. It’s just that I feel sorry for Mr. Wealdon. He doesn’t deserve a woman like her.”
“Maybe he does. Maybe he wants to protect a woman, watch out for her. You know how solicitous he is with his plants and everything. Well, he’s got a handful in Gloria Wealdon. I don’t know anyone besides your mother who’s ever felt even lukewarm toward that woman.”
“Mother was sorry for her too.”
“Yes, I think so. She’d deny it, but I think so. Your mother’s always had a soft spot for people like that.” “Poor mother.”
“Yes,” said Fulton. “She’s been very upset.”
Virginia Fulton sighed, kicking the small pile of weeds at her feet. After a moment, she smiled. “Dad, would you like some hot coffee?”
“Yes, Ginny.”
“I can sneak in the back way and get some for us. I’ll bring it out here in the old thermos.”
Freddy watched her run up the lawn. She was so quick and bright and good-natured; so intuitive, too. He found himself thinking for a moment of what her grandfather used to say:
“God gave handicaps only to the highest types. Little minds are subdued and ruined by them; great minds are challenged and made by them.”
He looked after her, and then he experienced the wonderful feeling a parent does, when, for no particular reason, at some random interval, on no especial day, he suddenly has a heart full of pride, when he observes his child in a simple, everyday situation.
Smiling, Freddy Fulton knelt down by the Matrimony Vine and began looking around for the can of herbicide.
Five
His name was Will: Big Will she always called him in her mind, and she always saw him looking at her with a certain cockiness to his expression, a certain snideness, as though he could read her thoughts, and knew what she called him to herself — Big Will.
— FROM
Population 12,360
S TANLEY SECORA sat on the green bench at the bus stop on the corner of Genesee Street and Alden Avenue. A new Buick pulled over, and the owner pointed toward downtown with his finger and beckoned questioningly with his eyes at Stanley. Stanley shook his head. “No thanks!” The Buick’s owner, an attorney, waved and went on.
That made the sixth person who had offered Stanley a ride. Stanley didn’t need a ride. In fifteen or twenty minutes he would get up and walk down Alden Avenue to the Wealdons, for his appointment with Mrs. Wealdon. But meanwhile, Stanley liked sitting on the green bench while people stopped and offered him a lift. There was no doubt about his popularity. Every single summer since the war he had more lawns to cut than he needed, and in the winter he had an assistant help him with the walks he was asked to shovel. Evenings when he came home from his regular job, working as a stock clerk for Freddy Fulton, the “Y” switchboard operator invariably had two or three messages for him. He would get painting jobs, planting jobs. He even did plumbing work once out at the Riford summer camp. All kinds of work would come his way in a never-ending stream. Someone once made the remark that in Cayuta,New York, people never used the expression “let George do it”; people said, “call up Stanley.” Stanley liked to remember that.
Stanley liked the way people counted on him. He always had. When he was a kid, growing up in the Kantogee County Orphans’ Home, on the outskirts of Cayuta, he was the best lawn-raker, ashcan-emptier, bed-maker, floor-mopper, and errand-runner of anyone in the Home. In the army, he never minded K.P. He didn’t even hate latrine duty. Work was
“Do you agree with me?”
“I have always … but Mr. Wealdon doesn’t deserve her. It was different with you. There was Edwina to make up for things mother lacked.”
“It was never that your mother lacked something, Virginia. It was just that after I met Edwina, I wanted more. Not from your mother. Just from Edwina — her particular kind of gentleness.”
“I know all that. I didn’t mean to bring it up. It’s just that I feel sorry for Mr. Wealdon. He doesn’t deserve a woman like her.”
“Maybe he does. Maybe he wants to protect a woman, watch out for her. You know how solicitous he is with his plants and everything. Well, he’s got a handful in Gloria Wealdon. I don’t know anyone besides your mother who’s ever felt even lukewarm toward that woman.”
“Mother was sorry for her too.”
“Yes, I think so. She’d deny it, but I think so. Your mother’s always had a soft spot for people like that.” “Poor mother.”
“Yes,” said Fulton. “She’s been very upset.”
Virginia Fulton sighed, kicking the small pile of weeds at her feet. After a moment, she smiled. “Dad, would you like some hot coffee?”
“Yes, Ginny.”
“I can sneak in the back way and get some for us. I’ll bring it out here in the old thermos.”
Freddy watched her run up the lawn. She was so quick and bright and good-natured; so intuitive, too. He found himself thinking for a moment of what her grandfather used to say:
“God gave handicaps only to the highest types. Little minds are subdued and ruined by them; great minds are challenged and made by them.”
He looked after her, and then he experienced the wonderful feeling a parent does, when, for no particular reason, at some random interval, on no especial day, he suddenly has a heart full of pride, when he observes his child in a simple, everyday situation.
Smiling, Freddy Fulton knelt down by the Matrimony Vine and began looking around for the can of herbicide.
Five
His name was Will: Big Will she always called him in her mind, and she always saw him looking at her with a certain cockiness to his expression, a certain snideness, as though he could read her thoughts, and knew what she called him to herself — Big Will.
— FROM
Population 12,360
S TANLEY SECORA sat on the green bench at the bus stop on the corner of Genesee Street and Alden Avenue. A new Buick pulled over, and the owner pointed toward downtown with his finger and beckoned questioningly with his eyes at Stanley. Stanley shook his head. “No thanks!” The Buick’s owner, an attorney, waved and went on.
That made the sixth person who had offered Stanley a ride. Stanley didn’t need a ride. In fifteen or twenty minutes he would get up and walk down Alden Avenue to the Wealdons, for his appointment with Mrs. Wealdon. But meanwhile, Stanley liked sitting on the green bench while people stopped and offered him a lift. There was no doubt about his popularity. Every single summer since the war he had more lawns to cut than he needed, and in the winter he had an assistant help him with the walks he was asked to shovel. Evenings when he came home from his regular job, working as a stock clerk for Freddy Fulton, the “Y” switchboard operator invariably had two or three messages for him. He would get painting jobs, planting jobs. He even did plumbing work once out at the Riford summer camp. All kinds of work would come his way in a never-ending stream. Someone once made the remark that in Cayuta,New York, people never used the expression “let George do it”; people said, “call up Stanley.” Stanley liked to remember that.
Stanley liked the way people counted on him. He always had. When he was a kid, growing up in the Kantogee County Orphans’ Home, on the outskirts of Cayuta, he was the best lawn-raker, ashcan-emptier, bed-maker, floor-mopper, and errand-runner of anyone in the Home. In the army, he never minded K.P. He didn’t even hate latrine duty. Work was
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