The Saturdays by Elizabeth Enright Read Free Book Online Page A

shoes.
    â€œHave you ever been to an opera, Willy? A first-class one, I mean.”
    â€œEyetalian opry,” replied Willy with dignity. “That fella Caruso I heard. Paid my money and got me a seat right up under the ceiling. From where I was settin’ Caruso looked about’s big as a minna, awful little fella he was, but he sure had a big voice! Whole place vibrated with it, even up where I was. And could he hold a note! Had me breathing for him double strength, he did. I thought sure he’d burst his bronickal tubes. Hand me the pliers, please.”
    â€œGee, you were lucky,” said Rush enviously. “Caruso, gee, that must have been neat.”
    â€œWell, I never forgot it,” agreed Willy, sitting up red-faced and with grease on his chin. “But the resta the show was pretty trashy stuff. I’d heard mosta the tunes on the hurdy-gurdy, and the heroine, the girl he was meant to be in love with—why, for a long time I thought she was supposed to be his mother; woulda made two of him and awful homely.”
    Carrying the tool kit, Rush followed Willy downstairs to the next job: putty for the cracks around the pantry baseboard.
    â€œThe opera I’m going to is German,” he told Willy. “ Siegfried, the name of it is.”
    â€œI ain’t no authority on German opry,” Willy said. “The language don’t appeal to me. What’s this Seegfreed about?”
    â€œWell, it’s about a guy in a forest who lives in a cave with another guy who’s a gnome.”
    â€œA what?” said Willy.
    â€œA gnome. Kind of a dwarf like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Kind of a little magic guy. You know.”
    â€œOkay. Skip it,” said Willy. “So what happens? Or wait a minute, Rush. You might just take a look around and see if there’s any cookies first.”
    â€œThat’s what I like about pantry jobs,” Rush said, obeying with alacrity, and being rewarded by finding the cookie jar half-full of brownies.
    â€œWell,” continued Rush between bites. “So this Siegfried makes a sword out of his father’s old busted one and then he goes and kills this dragon, Fafner, and takes a magic helmet and the ring everyone’s fighting for.”
    â€œWho’s fighting for it?”
    â€œEverybody. Gods and goddesses and this dwarf of Siegfried’s and another one named Alberich, and giants and everybody.”
    â€œOh,” said Willy, still bewildered.
    â€œThen he tastes some of the dragon’s blood he has on his finger, and all of a sudden he can understand everything the animals and birds in the forest are saying.”
    â€œSounds kind of loony to me,” remarked Willy. “But go on.”
    â€œSo this one bird tells him a lot of things, and it says that there’s a goddess named Brünnhilde sleeping on top of a mountain. There’s a big ring of fire all around her, and only a hero can get through it and wake her up. So Siegfried knows he’s pretty good and he climbs the mountain and gets through the fire and wakes up Brünnhilde. And then they sing back and forth about love for a little while and then it’s the end.”
    Willy shook his head and opened the tool kit.
    â€œWhat you see in stuff like that is more than I can understand.”
    â€œWell, the music’s swell.”
    â€œGive me a good picture show every time,” Willy said. “And there’s always plenty music on the radio. Get to work, Rush. Over there in the corner.”
    When Cuffy came down to the kitchen to get lunch she was outraged to find Willy and Rush conversing pleasantly over cold boiled potatoes. Willy also had a banana in one hand, and the icebox door was wide open.
    â€œShame on you!” cried Cuffy indignantly. “Both of you! Spoiling your lunches, and stealing the cold boiled potatoes I was saving to make hash with! Out of my kitchen!” And she brandished a ladle like