Page:The Torrents of Spring - Ernest Hemingway (1987 reprint).pdf/40

 "Well, you won't have no difficulty finding another one," Mr. Shaw said. "You're a likely-looking young feller. But take my advice and take your time. A poor wife ain't much better than no wife at all."

"I wouldn't say that, Henry," Mr. Borrow remarked in his high voice. "Any wife at all's a pretty good wife the way things are going now."

"You take my advice, young feller, and go slow. Get yourself a good one this time."

"Henry knows a thing or two," Mr. Borrow said. "He knows what he's talking about there." He laughed a high, cackling laugh. Mr. Shaw, the old pump-maker, blushed.

"You boys get along and leave us get on with our pump-making," he said. "Henry and me here, we got a sight of work to do."

"I'm very glad to have met you," Scripps said.

"Come on," Yogi said. "I better get you started or the foreman will be on my tail."

He put Scripps to work collaring pistons in the piston-collaring room. There Scripps worked for almost a year. In some ways it was the happiest year of his life. In other ways it was a nightmare. A hideous nightmare. In the end he grew to like it. In other ways he hated it. Before he knew it, a year had passed. He was still collaring pistons. But what strange things had happened in that year. Often he wondered about them. As he wondered, collaring a piston now almost automatically, he listened to the laughter that came up from below, where the little Indian lads were shaping what were to be razor blades. As he listened something rose in his throat and almost choked him.