I hear people stirring around in the kitchen. I better get the hell down there and see what’s going on.

The Williamses and Echo O’Brien went for a long drive in the country. They took iced tea with them and hard-boiled eggs, and Ralph had some liquor in his pocket. They drove past places where horses and cows grazed, and past big fields where corn and oats and alfalfa grew. They looked at silos and barns and farmhouses, at country churches and hillside graveyards. They took off their shoes and stopped at a creek to go in wading. They shopped at an open roadside place that sold tomatoes so cheap they wondered how the farmers made any profit. After dark, Echo O’Brien started to sing The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze, and then the Williamses got into it, and they sang all the way home. Before long the Williamses were home in bed with a fine Sunday behind them. And Echo was on her way back to Toledo.

On Monday, there was trouble waiting for Berry-berry at the farmhouse in Apple Mountain. Two of his women complained that the business, which had hardly even got started in the first place, had gone to pot altogether. They were not making any kind of money at all. Berry-berry offered a few feeble promises, but he had no real heart for the enterprise. By the end of the week, these two women left the place altogether, and there remained only the French-Canadian named Dorothy. Dorothy was in no way an ambitious girl. She was content to stay on in the place, sharing Agricola’s bed with him in return for her board and the use of his television set. Berry-berry maintained his quarters in the attic room, making use of them during the weekday nights.

Agricola seemed relieved that these whores had left the place. By the following Monday, he had sobered up and had put Dorothy to work cleaning up the house. Berry-berry had a telephone installed and set out to get some plumbing work for Agricola and himself. He had no experience whatsoever in this trade, but Agricola promised to teach him everything he would need to know. He placed a large advertisment in the Apple Mountain Record:

BACK IN BUSINESS
APPLE MOUNTAIN PLUMBING CO.

• no job too big

• no job too small

• guaranteed satisfaction

• free estimates

BERRY-BERRY WILLIAMS

VINCENT AGRICOLA

DIAL    4140

The next day there were two responses, and the Apple Mountain Plumbing Company repaired a toilet tank in a boardinghouse and installed a sprinkling system in the grounds of a private residence.