They took him out to sit in the arbor behind the house, a deep-shade place fragrant with grapes but laden with mosquitoes. While Spurgeon slapped, Mr. Williams poured beer he had helped to make himself.

“Quality control. Sample the product as it goes through operations. Run chemical and bacteriological checks on every batch during fermentation.” He had started in the brewery as a sweeper and then had worked six years as a shipper, he confided while his wife and daughter remained silent with the patience of what clearly was long practice. He had had to take a whole battery of tests to win the job. And then the kicker:

“Over three white men!”

“Wonderful,” Spurgeon said.

“Education is what’s wonderful,” Mr. Williams said. “That’s why it pleases me to see Dorothy a teacher, doing what she can for the young people.” He cocked his head. “What might you do, son?”

He and the girl spoke at the same time.

“He’s a musician.”

“I’m a doctor.”

Her parents were clearly puzzled. “I’m a doctor,” he said. “A surgical intern at Suffolk County General Hospital.”

They looked at him, the parents with wonder, the girl with loathing.

“How do you like chicken pie?” Mrs. Williams said, smoothing her apron. He liked it the way it was served, steaming, crumble-crusted and containing more lean chunks of chicken than vegetables, with new summer squash and little potatoes he figured they grew themselves in the large vegetable garden behind the house. Dessert was chilled rhubarb-applesauce followed by lemony iced tea. While the ladies cleared the dishes Mr. Williams played old Caruso records, scratched but interesting.

“He could shiver a glass with just his voice,” Mr. Williams said. “Some years back, before I became a quality control man, I used to pick up a dollar now and again on a weekend, you know? On a Saturday morning I was cleaning out a garage over in Framingham Centre and this uppity lady came out and just laid a big pile of Caruso records on the trash.

“‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘you’re throwing away a piece of your culture.’ She just gave me a mean look, so I moved the records into the back seat of my car.”

They listened to the great dead voice soar, the little girl light as a snowflake on Spurgeon’s knee, while from the kitchen came the sound of dishes being washed by hand. After Caruso, Spurgeon shuffled through the pile of records looking for dixie or progressive, and finding nothing good. There was an old upright piano, battered and repainted, but of true tone when he sounded the scales. “Who plays?”

“Dorothy took some lessons.”

The ladies had just returned. “I took exactly eight lessons. I play three children’s songs all the way through, plus a handful of fragments. Spurgeon plays like a professional,” she told her parents wickedly.

“Oh, play us some hymns,” her mother pleaded.