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"I know." He kissed her. "That's what I'm really looking forward to." He kissed her again. "And I knew you'd understand."
"I've got a couple of steaks in the icebox, and some good Canadian beer, too." Agnes raised an eyebrow. "After that, who knows what might happen?"
"The wench grows bold." He patted her on the bottom. "Good. I like it."
What happened after di
"You're right," he said. "I'm sorry." He was sorry to disrupt the game. He wasn't sorry, not in the least, about what he was hearing. What everyone had thought would happen was happening: Calvin Coolidge was trouncing Hosea Blackford. Even as he listened, Coolidge's lead in Ohio went up to a quarter of a million votes.
"And Coolidge is also ahead in Indiana, which last went Democratic in the election of 1908," the a
His daughter eventually went to bed. Morrell and Agnes stayed up a while longer, to let her fall asleep and to hear some more returns. Coolidge kept capturing state after state. By the time they went to bed, too, they had a lot to celebrate-and they did.
C inci
His son sent him a jaundiced glance. "And he moved away as fast as he could go, too," Achilles retorted. "He moved as far as he could go, too-all the way out to California. What does that say about this place?"
"I don't know what it says, but I'll tell you what I say," Cinci
Elizabeth nodded. She used her fork to pull a clove out of her slice of beef tongue. "Your father, he right," she said, and took a bite.
At seventeen, Achilles was ready to lock horns with anybody over anything. "What do you two know about it?" he said. "Way you talk, it doesn't sound like you know anything." His own accent was ever more like a white Iowan's these days.
Cinci
"I better know it," Achilles said sullenly. "You go on about it all the time."
"Mebbe I do. But you better pay some attention, son. You go complainin' 'bout Iowa, you don't know when you's well off."
Achilles got up from the table even though he hadn't finished supper. He stormed away. Amanda stared after him. She was still young enough to be convinced her parents had all the answers, not to be dedicated to proving they didn't. "Oh, my," she said softly.
"Mebbe you laid it on too thick," Elizabeth said.
"Mebbe I did," Cinci
His wife smiled. "When you was his age, didn't you reckon you knowed everything, too, jus' like him?"
" 'Course I did," Cinci
"You got his goat, but he got yours, too," Elizabeth said.
He started to deny it, then realized he couldn't. He let out a long sigh. "Yeah, he done did." He raised his voice: "Come on back an' eat your supper, Achilles. I won't talk no more 'bout politics if you don't." That was as far as he was willing to go.
From the long silence that followed, he wondered if it was far enough to satisfy his son. At last, though, Achilles said, "All right, Pa. That's fair enough." He returned to the table.
"Probably ain't even had time yet to get cold," Elizabeth said.
"No, Ma. It's fine." As if to prove as much, Achilles made tongue and potatoes and carrots disappear. "Mighty good," he said. "May I have some more, please?" He had ma
"I'll get it for you," Elizabeth said. She turned to Cinci
"That's true." Cinci
After supper, Achilles went off to do his homework. He'd never lost his liking for school. That pleased Cinci
The next morning, Cinci
They didn't disappear quite fast enough. "Come back here, you sons of bitches!" a railway dick shouted. He had a nightstick and a. 45 on his belt. Feet pounding on gravel, he lumbered after the fleeing freeloaders.
"Gotta be crazy to ride the rails like that," Cinci
"Gotta be desperate, anyway," the conductor answered. "Why the hell anybody who was ridin' would want to get off in Des Moines…" He shrugged. "I don't know about crazy, but you sure gotta be stupid."
As he had with Achilles, Cinci
"Well, sure, if that's what you're comparing it to," the other man said with a laugh. "But you run it up against Los Angeles or San Francisco or Portland or Seattle or Denver or Albuquerque or… You get the idea what I'm saying, buddy? I've seen all them places. I know what I'm talking about."
Cinci
He got back to the business at hand: "I may not know nothin' 'bout them places, Mistuh Gideon, but I knows haulin', and I knows I got to have another dollar to make this here trip worthwhile."
He ended up with another four bits. That was less than he'd hoped for, more than enough to make the journey worth his while. He stacked desks and swivel chairs and oak file cabinets in the back of the Ford till it wouldn't hold any more and the springs wouldn't bear much more. For good measure, he squeezed two more swivel chairs into the cabin with him.