Eddie passed up several rather nice-looking cafés after studying them briefly. Finally he swung in beside a somewhat shabbier café, small, sitting by itself a little distance from the highway. There was a graveled lot growing up with weeds. The signs all needed repainting. On the roof of the café a metal vent had fallen over and lay at the rim of the rain gutter. Eddie cut the motor, set the brake, got out of the car. “Wait here,” he said. He bunched his jacket over his chest against the chill air, went to the door of the café and entered.

The only person inside was a woman of about sixty. She wore a clean cotton housedress and a blue calico apron, a blue cap over her thin gray hair. She had coffee going in an old-fashioned pot, grease on a griddle, bowls set out with little boxes of cereal in them. Eddie spraddled a stool. “Cup of coffee,” he said.

She looked out the window at the car, then back at Eddie. “Cold this morning, ain’t it?”

“It sure is.”

“Along the coast here, some days you’d never know what time of year it is. Just always foggy and cloudy and cold. Yessir.” She poured coffee into a thick mug and put it down for Eddie.

Eddie said, “I’d like breakfast, a real breakfast, but I’m too broke to buy it.”

“Well, that’s too bad.” Her tone didn’t betray any interest or sympathy. She started to turn away, then looked back. “Who’s that out in the car?”

“My wife,” Eddie said.

“If she’s cold and wants a cup of coffee, I’ll give her one,” the old lady said. “Free.”

“Well . . . I do appreciate it.” Eddie stood up. “What we need is pancakes and bacon and eggs. I sure wouldn’t mind working for it if you’d let me. I could do dishes.”

“Dishes are done,” she snapped back. Then, as if relenting a little, “Say, you are kind of husky. How are you with a pick and shovel?”

Inwardly Eddie instantly shied off; he hadn’t had any intention of involving himself in anything more laborious than an hour or so of pearl diving. But under the old lady’s alert, somewhat cynical glance he found himself saying, “Well, maybe I’m no expert, but I’m willing.”

She put both knuckly hands on the counter. “I’ll tell you what happened. My husband—he and I run this place—he’s been digging a ditch for the new septic tank out back. County said we had to have one, gave us sixty days to do it. Well, he’s been digging every day for a week and yesterday he ain’t feeling so good and today he can’t hardly move a muscle. He’s almost seventy. Shouldn’t a done it at all, of course.”