She turned away and vomited again, wretched until nothing more would come. Alf stood back, waiting with his eyes averted, trying to rub off what she had vomited on his shoes by swishing his boots around in the tall grass so as not to embarrass the lady. At last she wiped her mouth on the hem of her dress and he helped her get a foot on the running board and climb up into the cab of the old truck.

“I don’t know where you was headed, but expect I better get you to the hospital, little lady. Don’t look like nothin’s busted, but we’d best get a doc to check you up. It’s a lucky thing this old truck won’t go no faster than she will. Speedometer’s busted, so I can’t say exactly, but it can’t have been more’n ten miles a hour. Fifteen the most. I was goin real slow, and then you was just there. Migawd, Miss Emaline. You of all people. You who was always so sweet to me when I come in with two nickels for breakfast and it cost fifteen cents. You would always get me something, you felt sorry for me, I know.”

She put a hand on his arm. “It’s all right, Alf. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been in the road.”

“What on earth was you doin out there this time a night? Shoot, most folks is in bed by now. That’s why I wasn’t watchin for nobody this late. What was you doin out there?”

“I had a little trouble at home, is all.”

“With Jake? Jake McCloskey? That man dotes on you. I seen him at the feed store last month, he was just goin on and on, how this Emaline is the most wonderful woman on the face of God’s green earth. He said the two of you was goin to have a baby and that child would be heavyweight champion of the world. Kept talkin about how lucky he was to marry a fine woman like you. Jake, he’s plumb crazy about you.”

“Well, maybe he isn’t crazy enough. Or maybe it’s just that I’m not the only one he’s crazy about.”