Place Called Estherville by Erskine Caldwell

Author:Erskine Caldwell [Caldwell, Erskine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-1713-9
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-11-09T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

IT WAS TWILIGHT when Roy Blount, the general manager of the Estherville cottonseed oil mill, got back to the Pineland Hotel where Ernie Lumpkin and Joe Morningstar, the two oil-and-meal buyers from Atlanta, had been waiting most of the afternoon. When Roy left them at one o’clock, he had promised to be back by the middle of the afternoon to have some more drinks with them. He had purposely not told Ernie and Joe where he was going or what he was going to do, because all along he had been doubtful of being able to get his wife to consent. Nevertheless, he had gone home to try to persuade Elizabeth to let him invite them to Sunday dinner the next day.

Roy had tried for nearly three hours to convince Elizabeth that it was a matter of business expediency, as well as a personal obligation, to entertain Ernie and Joe. After pleading with her and making all sorts of rash promises, she still flatly refused to let Roy bring his out-of-town business acquaintances into the house. It had always been her greatest disappointment in life that she had not been fortunate enough in her youth to marry a distinguished professional man, preferably a lawyer or a doctor, and she had never reconciled herself to her lot. After all those years, even though the husbands of most of her friends were local merchants and commission men, she still steadfastly refused, as a matter of pride, to associate socially with outsiders connected with such common commercial enterprises as the cottonseed oil business. The sun had set when Roy finally gave up and went back downtown. It was the end of August and the days were steadily becoming shorter. He parked his car in front of the hotel and took the elevator to the fourth floor. He was disappointed, but he had expected Elizabeth to be stubborn, and for the past month he had been thinking of other ways, knowing Ernie and Joe to the extent he did, to entertain them when they came to town.

Ernie Lumpkin, with a drink in his hand, flung open the door as soon as Roy knocked the first time. Joe was propped up on one of the twin beds with his shoes off and with the electric fan whirling full on his perspiring, florid face. Both of them had taken off their coats and rolled up their shirtsleeves. It had been oppressively hot in the hotel room all afternoon and they were restless and uncomfortable.

“Where in the south side of hell have you been since Noah fell off the ark?” Ernie shouted at him.

“Ernie, honest, I didn’t think I’d be gone this long. I’m sorry I’m so late getting back.”

“Me and Joe are getting as drunk as peewees on a perch, waiting in this sweat-box for you. Damn if I’m coming back down here again to this god-forsaken rabbit hole on the backside of a pea field to pay you good money for meal-cake if you think you’re too good to drink my whisky.

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