Nothing That Meets the Eye Read Online Free PDF Page A

the hall. “Oh, yes,” he said, smiling and frank. He had left Freya not half an hour before. “We take walks quite a lot.”
    Mrs. Hopley nodded, and looked at Aaron’s belt buckle, which bore the letter B. “Course there mightn’t be no haam in it, but some folks thinks otherwise.”
    â€œHarm?” The soap leapt from his hand and flew toward the stairs.
    â€œMight be. Yes. Don’t look s’good. A man an’ a young child like that.” She delivered her words quickly.
    Aaron had gone down a few steps to get the soap. It was covered with lint and was disgusting to hold. He blew on it, opened the washrag and put the soap in its center. When he looked up, Mrs. Hopley’s eyes were huge and ugly.
    â€œNot that I see why folks should care much,” she added contemptuously.
    â€œAbout what?”
    Mrs. Hopley eyed him. Then she glanced to the floor as though casting about for a way to speak. Bitterly, as though voicing an opinion to herself, she said, “Not that people should care what happens to trash like the Wolstenholmes!”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYes, trash. Faather killed in a baarroom brawl. Mother just as trashy as him. Worthless people an’ a disgrace to the town.”
    â€œFather killed? Here in Clement?”
    â€œWe ain’t got no baarrooms in this town.”
    Aaron was silent.
    â€œYou thinkin’ o’ gettin’ work here finally, I s’pose.”
    Aaron’s whirling thoughts were checked suddenly and brought to focus upon his own idleness. “Yes, I am.” He wondered if he should explain again, tell her that he had saved his money for just this sort of a vacation.
    â€œI’d set about it, then.” Her eyes moved toward the stairs and seemed to draw her after them.
    Aaron was rigid with shame and guilt. He would look for work without delay.
    VIII
    â€œM orning, Pete!” Pete turned in at his shop, fumbling with his keys.
    Aaron’s lips opened to say “Morning” once more, when a shock went over him. Pete had not spoken to him. Of course he had heard him, must even have seen him. Pete had snubbed him!
    Aaron walked quickly past the barbershop before Pete should have time to turn around and to look out his window. He had contemplated being shaved that morning before he went to look for work. It was more than likely an accident, he thought, as he walked on slowly. Still, he was disturbed because he found he had not the courage to enter the barbershop.
    He wanted to spend the rest of the morning walking over roads he loved, soothing the irritation Mrs. Hopley’s remarks had caused, rationalizing Pete’s behavior, but instead he set out grimly for the leather factory, simply because it was the closest place where he might find work and because it was ugly and nothing to his liking. What Mrs. Hopley had said had not touched his conscience about his idleness so much as it had suggested the town might think him a ne’er-do-well if he did not soon get something to do. Now, suppose Pete, for instance, had not spoken to him because he was beginning to think him a good-for-nothing?
    The foreman, called outside from a job that had left his hands coated with grease, informed Aaron there was no place for anyone in the factory at the moment. “You’d have to know a little about the business before we took you on as anything but a baler anyway.”
    â€œYes, of course.”
    The foreman said something else and pointed somewhere, but Aaron did not follow him. He could only stare at the foreman’s face. The horrible change in their relationship from nodding acquaintances to that of job-seeker and employer fixed Aaron with its torture.
    When the foreman paused, Aaron said, “Thank you very much,” and fled up the slope.
    He entered the covered bridge and went to one of the windows on the side away from the factory. He put his forearms on the sill, bent his head, and began