The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-06-08
CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII
 Joe saw, of course, the obvious lit- tle tricks she used to persuade him to make the second visit after that fourth all the artless wiles she practiced to flatter him and interest him. But who could mind They were so obvious. When any child plies you with artful tricks and phrases, you are tickled and flattered and pretend to know nothing about it and give it 1t what it wants. That was the way it was with Terry.
 Then he got to wondering which might be true: did she innocently suppose she was folding him right up to his face; or did she know as we'll as he that he was not fooled at all, but merely indulgent, and was she still producing her pa thetic little bag of tricks nonethe- less because in deep, subtle wisdom she knew they were irresistible in their very transparence? He did not know the answer, and he watched her and wondered many, many times and could never quite make her out entirely, for all her simple artlessness.
 It was altogether unprecedented and in no way resembling in the least the terms of the bargain Joe thought he had made with Terry, but 1t was there, unanSWerable. She needed him. He had taken a job on himself, assumed a respon- sibility. If it weren't so down. right serious, he'd probably rebel, on principle. And parodxically, if it weren't at the same time so pleasant and beguiling and anus ing, watching her excited and thrilled and rapt and enjoying herself unbelievably over the triflingest pleasures, he'd probably have drifted soon in sheer weariness of responsibility. He did not. He did not want to.
 You crazy kid" he told her in marvel as he beheld her incoherent delight at the rush and roar of the giant roller coaster out of Merlin Park. Weren't you ever on one of those things? Where you been all these years? How's the lunch: set tied? Come on, we'll take ride"
 And they rode and imagine Joe Murray riding on roller coaster, with a child of a woman alongside frightened to ecstasy and hanging on to him, clutching him, trying frenziedly to get into hiS very pocket in the mad jour- neg! Joe did that, and loved it and Joe himself couldn't imagine it for the life of him!
 It was a queer, upsidedown ex- istence. But it was something to do, something with significance and meaning. How it would all come out he had no idea. They were two equally lonely souls who found it convenient to pretend great importance to each other, to combine in partnership against the almost irresistible pressure of life, and the ending was of no conse- quence beside the peace of the moment.
 They went to Merlin Park sev- eral times that spring. They went for Sunday excursions on the river boats. They went to moving pie lures and to chop suey restau- rants and saw the circus and heard band concert in Graham hall. They went to the dances at the political club to which the older Murrays cleaved. They rented little car of nights and went out to Magnolia Gardens, which was a noisy little roadhouse on Fair mount Turnpike where the or chestra played St. Louis Blues at frequent intervals because it so suited their peculiar talents and the prevailing mood.
 You will be curious to know how they did all these things in the face of the grim MalloWS. Joe was curious himself. There had been a tussle at first. They had set their face against him rigidly but he had ignored them, blandly if with fre- quent expressions of temper, and worn them down. When he was out with Terry, he stepped into the par Tor with her before leaving her there, to afford them opportunity to ask questions if they desired-and to give them pleasant smile and a kind of cool, daunting eye If they thought to try.
 They did not try, much. He was not harum scarum boy; there was nothing sinister about him that they could object to; he had a mind of his own, and he was ob- viously playing square with their granddaughter, whatever they thought of her own reliability.
 And then all at once they with drew all opposition, scrutiny, even curiosity. They left the two Of them alone when he came, even so far as to close the door deliber- ately between. They made no comment of any kind in Terry's hearing when he had gone. They were not approving; they were simply holding off, waiting. It was not like them.
 It came suddenly to Joe that they were furthering a marriage they thought they saw in the ar rangement even to the extent of leaving him in undiSturbed privacy for hours at a time with their unreliable and WayWard granddaughter, in hopes . in hopes!
 It was an infuriating thought. The meanness of that! They would