The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck Read Free Book Online Page A

leaf. The sun had just cleared the bank building and flashed on the silvery gas tower, starting the kelp and salt smell from the old harbor.
    Only one person in early Elm Street, Mr. Baker’s red setter, the banker’s dog, Red Baker, who moved with slow dignity, pausing occasionally to sniff the passenger list on the elm trunks.
    “Good morning, sir. My name is Ethan Allen Hawley. I’ve met you in pissing.”
    Red Baker stopped and acknowledged the greeting, with a slow sway of his plumed tail.
    Ethan said, “I was just looking at my house. They knew how to build in those days.”
    Red cocked his head and reached with a hind foot to kick casually at his ribs.
    “And why not? They had the money. Whale oil from the seven seas, and spermaceti. Do you know what spermaceti is?”
    Red gave a whining sigh.
    “I see you don’t. A light, lovely rose-smelling oil from the head cavity of the sperm whale. Read Moby-Dick , dog. That’s my advice to you.”
    The setter lifted his leg on the cast-iron hitching post at the gutter.
    Turning to walk away, Ethan said over his shoulder, “And make a book report. You might teach my son. He can’t even spell spermaceti, or—or anything.”
    Elm Street runs at an angle into High Street two blocks from the old Ethan Allen Hawley house. Halfway down the first block a delinquent gang of English sparrows were fighting on the new-coming lawn of the Elgar house, not playing but rolling and picking and eye-gouging with such ferocity and so noisily that they didn’t see Ethan approach. He stopped to watch the battle.
    “Birds in their little nests agree,” he said. “So why can’t we? Now there’s a bunch of horse crap for you. You kids can’t get along even on a pretty morning. And you’re the bastards Saint Francis was nice to. Screw!” He ran at them, kicking, and the sparrows rose with a whispered roar of wings, complaining bitterly in door-squeak voices. “Let me tell you this,” Ethan said after them. “At noon the sun will darken and a blackness will fall on the earth and you will be afraid.” He came back to the sidewalk and proceeded on his way.
    The old Phillips house in the second block is a boarding house now. Joey Morphy, teller at the First National, came out of the front door. He picked his teeth and straightened his Tattersall waistcoat and said, “Hi,” to Ethan. “I was just going to call on you, Mr. Hawley,” he said.
    “Why do they call it Good Friday?”
    “It’s from the Latin,” said Joey. “Goodus, goodilius, goodum, meaning lousy.”
    Joey looked like a horse and he smiled like a horse, raising a long upper lip to show big square teeth. Joseph Patrick Morphy, Joey Morphy, Joey-boy—“the Morph”—a real popular guy for one only a few years at New Baytown. A joker who got off his gags veily-eyed like a poker player, but he whinnied at other people’s jokes, whether or not he had heard them. A wise guy, the Morph, had the inside dope on everything—and everybody from Mafia to Mountbatten—but he gave it out with a rising inflection, almost like a question. That took the smartaleck tone out of it, made his listener a party to it so that he could repeat it as his own. Joey was a fascinating monkey—a gambler but no one ever saw him lay down a bet, a good book-keeper and a wonderful bank teller. Mr. Baker, First National president, trusted Joey so completely that he let the teller do most of the work. The Morph knew everyone intimately and never used a first name. Ethan was Mr. Hawley. Margie Young-Hunt was Mrs. Young-Hunt to Joey, even though it was whispered that he was laying her. He had no family, no connections, lived alone in two rooms and private bath in the old Phillips house, ate most of his meals at the Foremaster Grill and Bar. His banking past was known to Mr. Baker and the bonding company and it was immaculate, but Joey-boy had a way of telling things that had happened to someone else in a way that made you suspect they had happened