The Cider House Rules by John Irving

Author:John Irving
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2012-07-30T04:00:00+00:00

8

Opportunity Knocks

After the harvest at York Farm, the foreman asked Melony to stay on to help with the mousing. “We have to get the mice before the ground freezes, or else they’ll have the run of the orchards all winter,” the foreman explained. The men used poison oats and poison corn, scattering the poison around the trees and putting it in the pine mice tunnels.

Poor mice, thought Melony, but she tried mousing for a few days. When she saw a pine mouse tunnel, she tried to conceal it; she never put any poison in it. And she only pretended to scatter the oats and corn around the trees; she didn’t like the way the poison smelled. She would dump it into the dirt road and fill her bag with sand and gravel and scatter that instead.

“Have a nice winter, mice,” she whispered to them.

It began to get very cold in the cider house; they gave her a woodburning stove, which Melony vented through a window in the bunkroom; the stove kept the toilet from freezing. The morning the outdoor shower was frozen was the morning Melony decided to move on. She only briefly regretted not being able to stay and save more mice.

“If you’re lookin’ for another orchard,” the foreman warned her, “you won’t find any that’s hirin’ in the winter.”

“I’d like a city job for the winter,” Melony told him.

“What city?” the foreman asked. Melony shrugged. She had securely strapped up her small bundle of things in Charley’s belt; the sleeves of Mrs. Grogan’s coat reached only halfway down her forearms, and the coat was an especially tight fit across the shoulders and the hips—even so, Melony managed to look comfortable in it. “There’s no real cities in Maine,” the foreman told her.

“It won’t take much of a city to be a city for me,” Melony said. He watched her walk to the same part of the road where he’d called good-bye to her before. It was that time of year when the trees are bare and the sky looks like lead, and underfoot the ground feels more unyielding every day—yet it’s too early for snow, or else there’s a freak storm and the snow doesn’t last.

For some reason the foreman felt a strong desire to leave with Melony; he surprised himself by muttering out loud, “I hope it snows soon.”

“What?” one of the apple-mart women said.

“So long!” the foreman called to Melony, but she didn’t answer him.

“Good riddance,” said one of the women in the mart.

“The slut,” another one said.

“What makes her a slut?” the foreman asked sharply. “Who you seen her sleepin’ with?”

“She’s just a tramp,” one of them said.

“At least she’s interesting,” the foreman snapped. The women regarded him for a moment before one of them spoke up.

“Got a crush on her, do you?” she asked.

“I’ll bet you wish you was that boyfriend she’s lookin’ for,” another woman said, which drew a teasing sort of laughter from all the mart women.

“It’s not that!” the foreman snapped. “I hope she never finds that boyfriend—for his sake!” the foreman said.

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