‘Well, you let this be my treat. Here’s five dollars, Enos.’

Enos took the bill not at all reluctantly; the only reluctance was in his yearning venture, ‘But wouldn’t it maybe be cheaper to feed us here, Freddie? Not but what I could take the five bucks too, if you insist!’

Enos laughed. His wife laughed. His young . . .

Reduced already to the state of a pitiful liar, and not a very good liar, Fred implored, ‘We’ve got some folks coming in for dinner . . .’

‘That’s all right with me, if it is with you. I could run down to the store and get couple cans of beans . . .’

Desperately, ‘No, guess we better have it this way.’

‘Well, look, Freddie, I don’t want to be a nuisance. No man living can say I’ve ever been a bother to nobody. I’ve often said, “I may not have much of this world’s goods, but I’ve worked and worked hard for what I’ve got, and one thing I always been proud of is, I’ve been independent.” Neither a borrower be nor a lender, like the fellow says. But I was wondering if you happened to have any spare rooms we could stay in, just for to-night — maybe a couple of nights, so the children could look over the town. Educate ’em. We wouldn’t be a bit of trouble. The younger kids could just well sleep here in the sitting-room.’

‘Uh — uh — afraid our guests will be staying . . .’

Fred’s brow was sopping; he wished that he could again try Sara’s clinical thermometer.

‘Enos!’ said his wife.

‘Huh?’

‘Beat it!’ said his wife.

‘Me?’

‘All of us. Scram!’ said his wife.

‘All right . . . Now there’s just one other thing, Freddie. Happen to know about any jobs for Mac and Cal here? Course I want to grab me that Gov’ment farm, but the boys are real good at fixing cars. Both worked in filling stations, and of course with your big agency . . .’

‘What have they done?’

‘Cal, he was in the CCC for a while, but he didn’t care so much for it, and then he hitched up with the WPA, but say, those WPA bosses are fierce, they expect you to work like it was a real paid job, and then he was kind of a sweeper in a factory and afterwards, he had a couple of days cooking in a lunch wagon when the fellow was sick, but Cal didn’t seem to take to that so much, and here lately he hasn’t hardly been doing anything, you might say, just travelling with us — we had a real interesting time — most of the winter we was in Florida, but we had kind of a run-in with the authorities. Oh yes, Cal’s a good worker, providin’ he has a boss that understands he’s high-strung and nobody that you can cuss and knock around. But Mac . . . Well, he reads a lot, but he hasn’t had Cal’s experience. But what the dickens! No use worrying. Gov’ment owes everybody a living, don’t it?’