After the ceremony, the little pastor said only, ‘Dearly beloved, I am not wise, and I don’t know much about the rich city you come from, and all I can do is hope and pray you two will be as happy as my wife and I have been in our little house, and help each other the way she helps me every day.’

Annabel wanted to cry, then. She looked at Howard. His mouth was open, his eyes beseeching, and on his nose a tear was absurd and beautiful. But the time when she suddenly did cry, whooping like an indignant baby, was when she looked around to find, standing by the door, unexpected, unexplained, Fred and Hazel Cornplow, holding out to her their plain plump hands.

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Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:57

The Prodigal Parents, by Sinclair Lewis

Chapter 20

The initial salary received by Howard Cornplow, a new apprentice at the Triumph Motor Agency, was twenty-five dollars a week, which was eighteen a week as a worker and seven a week as a son. He started in as a salesman, and he liked it. He pictured himself in a silver-and-scarlet automobile, spurting all over the district, crowing over his former fellow prisoners at Truxon College next autumn, and with lush commissions investing in the stock market and becoming a millionaire. He bought a suit of imported Harris tweed and, for no reason that he could ever explain, a pair of binoculars, which he kept in his demonstrator. Meanwhile, on one day at least, he borrowed lunch money from his shaggy second cousin, Cal Tillery.

But he did not sell any cars, not any cars at all, and Fred noticed this more than he did the Harris tweeds. After a week, Fred summoned him to the office, at close of the day’s work.

Swinging his foot good-naturedly, Howard chuckled ‘Can’t take very long, Dad. Bell and I are going out and shoot some golf.’

‘Son, I don’t want you to think I’m grouchy. But it’s time now . . .’

‘Oh, golly, Dad, Bell is always saying “it’s time now” to do some confounded thing or other!’

‘Dry up till I finish! I said it’s time for you to settle down to work. No employer is going to pay you for looking handsome — not even Hollywood, because you do have to be on time there, I understand, and in the nine days you’ve worked here now, you’ve been on an average of twenty-one minutes late in the morning, and you’ve taken an average of an hour and twenty-two minutes for lunch.’

‘You’ve checked up on me — spied on me — like that?’

‘I have. Any other employer would just have fired you. But your unpunctuality isn’t as bad as the fact that you don’t know a single thing about automobiles.’

‘Now look here, Dad! Fair’s fair! I’ve been driving cars since I was fifteen . . .’