Free Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger Page A

youngest of all the Comanches, burst into tears. None of us told
him to shut up. As for me, I remember my knees were shaking.
    A
few minutes later, when I stepped out of the Chief's bus, the first
thing I chanced to see was a piece of red tissue paper flapping in
the wind against the base of a lamppost. It looked like someone's
poppy-petal mask. I arrived home with my teeth chattering
uncontrollably and was told to go right straight to bed.

    Down at the Dinghy

    IT
was a little after four o'clock on an Indian Summer afternoon. Some
fifteen or twenty times since noon, Sandra, the maid, had come away
from the lake-front window in the kitchen with her mouth set tight.
This time as she came away, she absently untied and re-tied her apron
strings, taking up what little slack her enormous waistline allowed.
Then she went back to the enamel table and lowered her freshly
uniformed body into the seat opposite Mrs. Snell. Mrs. Snell having
finished the cleaning and ironing was having her customary cup of tea
before walking down the road to the bus stop. Mrs. Snell had her hat
on. It was the same interesting, black felt headpiece she had worn,
not just all summer, but for the past three summers--through record
heat waves, through change of life, over scores of ironing boards,
over the helms of dozens of vacuum cleaners. The Hattie Carnegie
label was still inside it, faded but (it might be said) unbowed.
    "I'm
not gonna worry about it," Sandra announced, for the fifth or
sixth time, addressing herself as much as Mrs. Snell. "I made up
my mind I'm not gonna worry about it. What for?"
    "That's
right," said Mrs. Snell. "I wouldn't. I really wouldn't.
Reach me my bag, dear."
    A
leather handbag, extremely worn, but with a label inside it as
impressive as the one inside Mrs. Snell's hat, lay on the pantry.
Sandra was able to reach it without standing up. She handed it across
the table to Mrs. Snell, who opened it and took out a pack of
mentholated cigarettes and a folder of Stork Club matches.
    Mrs.
Snell lit a cigarette, then brought her teacup to her lips, but
immediately set it down in its saucer. "If this don't hurry up
and cool off, I'm gonna miss my bus." She looked over at Sandra,
who was staring, oppressedly, in the general direction of the copper
sauce-pans lined against the wall. "Stop worryin' about it,"
Mrs. Snell ordered. "What good's it gonna do to worry about it?
Either he tells her or he don't. That's all. What good's worryin'
gonna do?"
    "I'm
not worryin' about it," Sandra responded. "The last thing
I'm gonna do is worry about it. Only, it drives ya loony, the way
that kid goes pussyfootin' all around the house. Ya can't hear him,
ya know. I mean nobody can hear him, ya know. Just the other day I
was shellin' beans--right at this here table--and I almost stepped on
his hand. He was sittin' right under the table."
    "Well.
I wouldn't worry about it."
    "I
mean ya gotta weigh every word ya say around him," Sandra said.
"It drives ya loony."
    "I
still can't drink this," Mrs. Snell said. ". . . That's
terrible. When ya gotta weigh every word ya say and all."
    "It
drives ya loony! I mean it. Half the time I'm half loony."
Sandra brushed some imaginary crumbs off her lap, and snorted. "A
four-year-old kid!"
    "He's
kind of a good-lookin' kid," said Mrs. Snell. "Them big
brown eyes and all."
    Sandra
snorted again. "He's gonna have a nose just like the father."
She raised her cup and drank from it without any difficulty. "I
don't know what they wanna stay up here all October for," she
said malcontentedly, lowering her cup. "I mean none of 'em even
go anywheres near the water now. She don't go in, he don't go in, the
kid don't go in. Nobody goes in now. They don't even take that crazy
boat out no more. I don't know what they threw good money away on it
for."
    "I
don't know how you can drink yours. I can't even drink mine."
    Sandra
stared rancorously at the opposite wall. "I'll be so gladda get
backa the city. I'm not foolin'. I hate this