Private Life by Jane Smiley Read Free Book Online Page B

Early in
    the flesh looked younger than Mr. Early in Robert's paper, but she recognized the eyes
    and the brow--not those of a conversationalist. It appeared that she was obliged to walk to
    Mrs. Larimer's with a man who would have to be chatted to, rather than one who was
    happy to do the chatting. Just then, out of what Lavinia would have called her
    "orneriness," she vowed not to do it, no matter how lengthy the silence. As an alternative,
    she reviewed her recent headlong progress on the bicycle, and found it as exhilarating in
    retrospect as it had been while she was enjoying and enduring it. She took a hand off the
    handlebars and touched her cheeks with the tips of her fingers. They were stiff with dried,
    or frozen, tears. She put her hand back on the handlebars. It made her smile to think of
    having gone so fast.

    They walked on, and he said nothing. Undoubtedly, she could return home by this
    route, but she saw that there was the problem of the three dips, which had, as it were,
    poured her northward into town--if she were to turn around, they would present a barrier
    not unlike that of three walls rather than three dips, and then, of course, there would be
    the longer and less steep, but somehow even more disheartening, climb up the hill to
    Gentry Farm. But how tedious to go home the long way, and (she looked about) mostly
    into a westerly wind. She could certainly leave the bicycle at the newspaper office and
    walk home across the fields--there was no snow as yet, and if her grandfather had turned
    the sows out into his upper pasture and woodlot, she could use her hat to wave them off.

    He spoke abruptly: "Do you have other leisure occupations?"

    His ponderous and yet resonant voice scattered her thoughts and made it
    impossible for her to answer the question, or, in some way, even to consider it. Leisure
    occupations? What did that mean? They walked on. He tried again, "Perhaps our mothers
    know one another. My mother is Mrs. Jared Early."

    She recalled thinking that his father was Patrick. Perhaps that was one of the
    brothers. She said, "Certainly, they do. My grandfather is John Gentry."

    "You live at Gentry Farm."
    "I
    do."

    "When I was a boy, we had a pair of mules from Gentry Farm. Napoleon and
    Wellington."

    "Did my grandfather name them?"

    "No doubt he did, as our other mule was called Dick. But those two mules were
    old even then. They would have come to us before the war."

    "I am sure that before the war Papa made use of a whole different set of generals.
    Since then, it's either Northerners or Southerners, but all West Pointers."

    Mr. Early cleared his throat again. Margaret came to understand later that this
    represented a laugh.

    She couldn't keep herself from saying, "Lee and Grant are the oldest, twentyseven and twenty-five. My sister and I sometimes ride Zollicoff. The most stubborn one
    is Halleck, though I have to say he's very handsome for a mule."

    Mr. Early cleared his throat again, which made her think he was going to say
    something. He didn't. After a few moments, she said, "What I like about the bicycle is
    that it has no mind of its own."

    "Mules are very intelligent," Mr. Early declared, putting an end to that
    conversation. They walked along. As the aftereffects of her effort dissipated, she was
    coming to feel chilled. It was now past noon. The breeze had stiffened, and the air was
    colder than it looked in the sunshine. The steel of the handlebars communicated the chill
    into her hands, and her feet were growing numb. She could feel the ground right through
    her thin boots. He said, "Are you visiting anyone in town?"

    "Mrs. Larimer, up here a ways. Though she doesn't realize it yet."

    "Have you ever seen a telephone?"

    "I don't think so." She wasn't sure whether she knew what a telephone was.

    "The patents have been bitterly contested, or else they might already have
    telephones here. But they don't." He snorted disapprovingly. "With a telephone, you
    could let Mrs.