Free The Wayward Bus by John Steinbeck, Gary Scharnhorst Page A

war. 4 He did not discuss these things with Mildred. She didn’t want to talk it out with him. And he had a strong feeling that if everyone was quiet and controlled she would get over it. A husband and a baby would resolve Mildred’s political uneasiness. She would then, he said, find her true values.
    Mr. Pritchard’s visit to the parlor house he did not remember very well. He had been twenty and drunk, and afterward he had had a withering sense of desecration and sorrow. He did remember the subsequent two weeks when he had waited in terror for symptoms to develop. He had even planned to kill himself if they did; to kill himself and make it look like an accident.
    Now he was nervous. He was on a vacation he didn’t really want to take. He was going to Mexico which, in spite of the posters, he considered a country not only dirty but dangerously radical. They had expropriated the oil; in other words, stolen private property. 5 And how was that different from Russia? Russia, to Mr. Pritchard, took the place of the medieval devil as the source of all cunning and evil and terror. He was nervous this morning because he hadn’t slept either. He liked his own bed. It took him a week to get used to a bed, and here he was in for three weeks of a different bed practically every night, and God knew how some of them would be populated. He was tired and his skin felt grainy. The water was hard here so that when he shaved he knew he would have a ring of ingrown hairs around his neck within three days.
    He took a handkerchief from his breast pocket, removed his glasses and polished them. “I’ll tell my wife and daughter,” he said. “We didn’t know we were discommoding you so.”
    Norma liked that word and she said it over under her breath. “Discommode—I wouldn’t want to discommode you, Mr. Gable, but I think you should know . . .”
    Mr. Pritchard had gone back into the bedroom. His voice was audible, explaining the situation, and women’s voices were questioning.
    The man with the mustache got up from his chair and limped painfully to the counter, groaning under his breath. He brought the sugar bowl back with him and sank, with grimaces, back into his chair.
    â€œI would have got that for you,” Norma said with concern.
    He smiled at her. “I wouldn’t want to trouble you,” he explained bravely.
    â€œIt wouldn’t discommode me none,” said Norma.
    Juan put down his coffee cup.
    Pimples said, “I’d like to have a piece of that coconut cake.”
    Alice absently cut him a piece and slid the saucer down the counter and made a note on a pad.
    â€œI guess there ain’t never one on the house,” said Pimples.
    â€œI figure there’s plenty on the house the house don’t know about,” Alice replied.
    â€œLooks like a bad sprain you’ve got there,” Juan observed to the little man.
    â€œCrushed,” he said, “toes crushed. Here, I’ll show you.”
    Mr. Pritchard came out of the bedroom and took a seat at the remaining table.
    The little man unlaced his oxford and took it off. He slipped his sock off and laid it carefully in the oxford. His foot was bandaged from the instep to the ends of the toes, and the bandage was spotted and soaked with bright red blood.
    â€œYou don’t need to show us,” Alice said quickly. Blood made her faint.
    â€œI ought to change the bandage anyway,” said the little man, and he unwound the gauze and exposed the foot. The big toe and the two next to it were horribly crushed, the nails blackened and the ends of the toes tattered and bloody and raw.
    Juan had arisen. Pimples came close. Even Norma could not stay away.
    â€œMy God, that’s an awful smash,” Juan said. “Let me get some water and wash it. You ought to have some kind of salve. You’ll get an infection. You might lose that foot.”
    Pimples whistled shrilly between his