door. They were afraid you'd have wild parties and such. But she says you're the quietest things! And she says such nice-looking young men come to see you."

I'm not much for gardening: my shoulder and all that; Bob loves it and can make anything grow. He keeps the lawn in front trimmed and has built a lath house at one end of the patio where he starts seedlings. He spends week-ends, often late afternoons, after daylight-saving time begins, digging and weeding, wearing just a pair of shorts. lie in a deck chair and watch him. I can't help watching him.

Joe and Anna both like gardening too and used to work on weekdays when Bob and I were away. Joe clipped the privet hedges along the sides of the lot and relaid some bricks where a tree root had pushed them up. "Joe loves to putty round," Anna said.

He and Bob would have long talks about what should be sprayed and what taken out. The cord on our circular clothes dryer had rotted away. Bob and I had been tying knots whenever it broke, postponing the day when we'd have to do something serious about it. I was appalled by the thought of weaving a new cord properly through all those holes and I think Bob was too, though he pretended he could do it easily whenever he wanted. But it presented no problem at all to Joe. The first week he was here he made friends with the owner of the hardware store in the shopping center a few blocks away, brought home a cord and several other gadgets for the kitchen and the garden, and the following Sunday he and Bob strung the cord, while Anna and I sat in the shade and watched them.

one

The next day Anna did a big washall the household stuff and our shirts. She said laundries wore things out so.

I got so I looked forward to talking with Anna while we were washing dishes after dinner. She told me about Bob's parents.

"His dad was just no good, I guess. He gave my poor sister a bad time. Drinking and everything.

I know I shouldn't say it but I always felt the accident was his fault. Bob was such a cute little tyke. Only five. We loved him from the minute we laid eyes on him. You see, Joe and I never had any children of our own. Just one of those things, I guess. I don't know what we'd have done without Bob. Some folks said we spoiled him. Maybe we did. He was such a poor lonely little fellow when he came to us. They lived in Topeka and my sister and I'd sort of drifted apart. I'll never forget the first time I saw Bob when we went to get him after the accident. Those big blue eyes! My, I sure did hate to see him go when he joined the Navy. But Joe said it'd do him good. it'd do him good. He said it did him good when he was Bob's age."

"Oh, was Joe in the Navy?" “He sure was. The first world war and everything."

Often on Saturdays and Sundays we'd take long drives around the Bay Area, once as far as the Napa Valley so that Anna and Joe could see the vineyards and visit the winery. We always went in their Lincoln, because Bob's car was getting old and Joe always kidded me about the Volkswagen. "That ain't a car, that's a scooter, he said. "You leave Harry alone," Anna said. "If he likes it, that's