“Over there.” She was pointing now to a small house, half hidden in a clump of young pepper trees. “That’s our place. My husband’s in there now, him and his lame back. He’ll be watching you, but don’t let it bother you. He won’t get out to try to run things.” By a certain vindictive tone in her words Eddie judged that she was somewhat put out with her ailing husband.

The morning passed slowly. Eddie took a coffee break about eleven. In the café a couple of Japanese truckers, their load of lettuce outside, were finishing coffee and doughnuts. Karen was washing up in the kitchen. Old Mrs. Mosby was as chipper and cheerful as a sparrow.

Why not? Eddie thought uncomfortably. Hell, the two of us working—she’s got us over a barrel. Or thinks she has. A sudden strong dislike for the old lady came over him.

Close to noon, she took off across lots for the house in the pepper trees, and as soon as she was out of sight Eddie put down the shovel and went into the café. Karen was alone there, polishing the griddle. Eddie went to the cash register, pushed the no-sale button, and inspected the amount of money in the till. About ten dollars, he thought, mostly in quarters, half dollars, and dimes. He slammed the drawer.

“Now, what did you do that for?” Karen demanded, staring at him.

“For nothing.”

“She’s a nice old lady,” Karen said.

“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”

“You don’t like it because I’m helping her, do you?”

“I don’t care.” Eddie was conscious mainly of boredom. The job in the back yard meant nothing to him. He stared out of the window at Skip’s jalopp, the shabby little car, and wished he’d never stopped. At the same time he knew that what he was doing now his mother would call honest work, and she would never understand his dissatisfaction and lack of interest. In order to have understood her son his mother would have had to follow him through his whole life, first as a half-Mexican in a mixed school, belonging to neither faction, and then as a friend of Skip and being molded by Skip’s opinions and desires.