Free The Short Novels of John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck Page A

Pirate one morning, and he had nearly half a cake, just a little bit damp with coffee,” said Pablo.
    The question settled itself. The house resolved itself into a committee, and the committee visited the Pirate.
    It was a crowded place, that chicken house, when they all got inside. The Pirate tried to disguise his happiness with a gruff tone.
    “The weather has been bad,” he said socially. And, “You wouldn’t believe, maybe, that I found a tick as big as a pigeon’s egg on Rudolph’s neck.” And he spoke disparagingly of his home, as a host should. “It is too small,” he said. “It is not a fit place for one’s friends to come. But it is warm and snug, especially for the dogs.”
    Then Pilon spoke. He told the Pirate that worry was killing his friends; but if he would go to live with them, then they could sleep again, with their minds at ease.
    It was a very great shock to the Pirate. He looked at his hands. And he looked to his dogs for comfort, but they would not meet his glance. At last he wiped the happiness from his eyes with the back of his hand, and he wiped his hand on his big black beard.
    “And the dogs?” he asked softly. “You want the dogs too? Are you friends of the dogs?”
    Pilon nodded. “Yes, the dogs too. There will be a whole corner set aside for the dogs.”
    The Pirate had a great deal of pride. He was afraid he might not conduct himself well. “Go away now,” he said pleadingly. “Go home now. Tomorrow I will come.”
    His friends knew how he felt. They crawled out of the door and left him alone.
    “He will be happy with us, that one,” said Jesus Maria.
    “Poor little lonely man,” Danny added. “If I had known, I would have asked him long ago, even if he had no treasure.”
    A flame of joy burned in all of them.
    They settled soon into the new relationship. Danny, with a piece of blue chalk, drew a segment of a circle, enclosing a corner of the living room, and that was where the dogs must stay when they were in the house. The Pirate slept in that corner too, with the dogs.
    The house was beginning to be a little crowded, with five men and five dogs; but from the first Danny and his friends realized that their invitation to the Pirate had been inspired by that weary and anxious angel who guarded their destinies and protected them from evil.
    Every morning, long before his friends were awake, the Pirate arose from his corner, and, followed by his dogs, he made the rounds of the restaurants and the wharves. He was one of those for whom everyone feels a kindliness. His packages grew larger. The paisanos received his bounty and made use of it: fresh fish, half pies, untouched loaves of stale bread, meat that required only a little soda to take the green out. They began really to live.
    And their acceptance of his gifts touched the Pirate more deeply than anything they could have done for him. There was a light of worship in his eyes as he watched them eat the food he brought.
    In the evening, when they sat about the stove and discussed the doings of Tortilla Flat with the lazy voices of fed gods, the Pirate’s eyes darted from mouth to mouth, and his own lips moved, whispering again the words his friends said. The dogs pressed in about him jealously.
    These were his friends, he told himself in the night, when the house was dark, when the dogs snuggled close to him so that all might be warm. These men loved him so much that it worried them to have him live alone. The Pirate had often to repeat this to himself, for it was an astounding thing, an unbelievable thing. His wheelbarrow stood in Danny’s yard now, and every day he cut his pitchwood and sold it. But so afraid was the Pirate that he might miss some word his friends said in the evening, might not be there to absorb some stream of the warm companionship, that he had not visited his hoard for several days to put the new coins there.
    His friends were kind to him. They treated him with a sweet courtesy; but always there was