The Laughing Matter Read Online Free PDF

man looked at his son and shook his head.
    â€œYes, Papa,” the boy said. And then he said, “What
is
a bird?”
    â€œWell,” the man said, “whatever it is, it’s there by accident, like everything else alive.”
    â€œAccident?” the boy said. “Like the accident on the highway we saw that time, two automobiles smashed and turned over, the wheels up instead of down?”
    â€œNo,” he said. “Like the accident of seeing somebody you’ve never seen before and liking her so much that together you make a family. Like the accident of meeting her, and the accident of who your children are when they are born.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    â€œI
do,”
the girl said.
    â€œNo, you don’t,” the boy said. “You just
say
you do.”
    â€œI
do!”
the girl said. “I
do
understand.”
    â€œThen explain it,” the boy said.
    â€œWell,” the girl said.
    â€œWell…”
    The boy laughed.
    â€œShe didn’t say
anything
, Papa.”
    â€œDon’t laugh,” the girl said. “I said
something
. Didn’t I, Papa?”
    The woman came to the room, washed and clean, in a blue cotton dress, her hair combed neatly.
    â€œI’ll get you both a big breakfast,” she said. She was trying hard to go along as if nothing were the matter. “I’ll gather some figs from the tree, peel them, cut them up, pour cream over them. Then you’ll have crisp bacon with boiled eggs, toast, and milk.”
    She glanced at the man as she went off, but he wasn’t looking at her.
    He went to the bathroom for a shower. When he was dressed the kids were in the yard playing, the boy high in the fig tree, the girl standing under it to catch the ripe figs he was finding for her. They were speaking with voices louder than he had ever before heard in them because they were in the country, in another climate, in a place where things were growing and ripening, where the sun was near and hot. The woman was somewhere in the house. He went to the telephone and asked the operator to get him Warren Walz. When the man came on the line he said, “Come to dinner tonight. Bring the girls. Come at six, and we’ll have a drink.”
    He went out on the porch and stood there in the sunlight. A car drove up and Cody Bone got out.
    â€œI met your son last night,” Evan said.
    â€œSo he told me,” Cody said. “I pass here every morning on my way to work. Thought I’d stop in case the boy wants to ride in the locomotive.”
    â€œWhere would you go? I mean, that’s what
he
wanted to know.”
    â€œWe’d work around the yards.”
    They went to the fig tree, and from high up in it the boy saw Cody. At first he wasn’t sure it was Cody because when he had first seen him Cody had been part of the locomotive, but when the man smiled and Red saw the square teeth, he knew who it was.
    â€œThis is my daughter, Eva,” Evan said.
    â€œEva,” Cody said.
    â€œHow do you do,” the girl said.
    The boy was down and out of the tree, to see the man
out
of the locomotive, away from it, a thing he especiallywanted to notice. It was a great difference, but the man was still the man Red liked.
    â€œYou want a fig?” Red said. He offered the one in his hand.
    â€œI certainly do,” Cody said. He ate the fig whole. “I just came by to say hello.”
    â€œNo,” Evan said. “Mr. Bone came by to find out if you’d like to ride in the locomotive. Around the yards.”
    â€œWhen?” Red said.
    â€œNow,” his father said, “if you like.”
    The boy looked from his father to Cody, thinking about it, perhaps a little frightened.
    â€œAll right,” he said. “You want to go watch, Eva?”
    â€œYes,” the girl said.
    They walked around the house to Cody’s car, the woman in the house moving from the kitchen to the parlor to