The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page A

he remarked.
    They fell back from him in horror at the vulgarity of the curse. “Our friend is wandering in his mind.”
    “The bone of his head has been broken.”
    “Pour him a little wine, Pablo.”
    Jesus Maria sat morosely by the fire and caressed his fruit jar, while his friends waited patiently for an explanation of the tragedy. But Jesus Maria seemed content to leave his friends in ignorance of the mishap. Although Pilon cleared his throat several times, and although Pablo looked at Jesus Maria with eyes which offered sympathy and understanding, Jesus Maria sat sullenly and glared at the stove and at the wine and at the blessed candle, until at length his discourteous reticence drove Pilon to an equal discourtesy. Afterward he did not see how he could have done it.
    “Those soldiers again?” he asked.
    “Yes,” Jesus Maria growled. “This time they came too soon.”
    “There must have been twenty of them to have used thee so,” Pablo observed, for the good of his friend’s spirit. “Everyone knows thou art a bad man in a fight.”
    And Jesus Maria did look a little happier then.
    “They were four,” he said. “Arabella Gross helped too. She hit me on the head with a rock.”
    Pilon felt a wave of moral resentment rising within him. “I would not remind thee,” he said severely, “how thy friends warned thee against this cannery slob.” He wondered whether he had warned Jesus Maria, and seemed to remember that he had.
    “These cheap white girls are vicious, my friend,” Pablo broke in. “But did you give her that little thing that goes around?”
    Jesus Maria reached into his pocket and brought out a crumpled pink rayon brassiere. “The time had not come,” he said. “I was just getting to that point; and besides, we had not come into the woods yet.”
    Pilon sniffed the air and shook his head, but not without a certain sad tolerance. “Thou hast been drinking whisky.”
    Jesus Maria nodded.
    “Where did this whisky come from?”
    “From those soldiers,” said Jesus Maria. “They had it under a culvert. Arabella knew it was there, and she told me. But those soldiers saw us with the bottle.”
    The story was gradually taking shape. Pilon liked it this way. It ruined a story to have it all come out quickly. The good story lay in half-told things which must be filled in out of the hearer’s own experience. He took the pink brassiere from Jesus Maria’s lap and ran his fingers over it, and his eyes went to musing. But in a moment they shone with a joyous light.
    “I know,” he cried. “We’ll give this thing to Danny as a gift to Mrs. Morales.”
    Everyone except Jesus Maria applauded the idea, and he felt himself hopelessly outnumbered. Pablo, with a delicate understanding of the defeat, filled up Jesus Maria’s fruit jar.
    When a little time had passed, all three men began to smile. Pilon told a very funny story of a thing that had happened to his father. Good spirits returned to the company. They sang. Jesus Maria did a shuffling dance to prove he was not badly hurt. The wine went down and down in the jug, but before it was gone the three friends grew sleepy. Pilon and Pablo staggered off to bed, and Jesus Maria lay comfortably on the floor, beside the stove.
    The fire died down. The house was filled with the deep sounds of slumber. In the front room only one thing moved. The blessed candle darted its little spear-pointed flame up and down with incredible rapidity.
    Later, this little candle gave Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria some ethical things to think about. Simple small rod of wax with a string through it. Such a thing, you would say, is answerable to certain physical laws, and to none other. Its conduct, you would think, was guaranteed by certain principles of heat and combustion. You light the wick; the wax is caught and drawn up the wick; the candle burns a number of hours, goes out, and that is all. The incident is finished. In a little while the candle is forgotten, and