It wasn't exactly a wreck. A heavy truck, loaded with grapefruit, had been parked on the highway in front of Moe's cafe while the driver went in to eat. The brake had failed to hold, and the truck had slid backward, gaining momentum until it crashed heavily into one of the small cabins across the highway behind Mr. Bertram's grocery store. Fortunately, no one was in the cabin, which was half destroyed.
I knew Mr. Bertram would take time out from his snuff-chewing to get all the details about the incident, the name of the truck driver and everything else that I'd need in order to write up a story for the paper. I didn't have to wade into the mob of curious people that had collected. I'd just go over and talk to Mr. Bertram in an hour or so.
Someone had called the truck driver's attention to what had happened. He came dashing out of Moe's, his eyes wild, a doughnut clutched in one hand. He went galloping across the highway toward his truck.
"And look at the bar across the street!" Miss Nesdeburt cried, her little hands going to her mouth in dismay. "The front of it is smashed in a little bit too!"
"Oh, that happened last week," I said airily. "A man who was going to go in for a drink couldn't stop his car in time. We're so used to accidents like that that we hardly notice them any more."
Grant and David and Mr. Hawkins appeared from the direction of the garages, where they had been arranging for the black cat's living quarters.
Grant went across the highway to see the excitement and, I suspected, to get a few of the crushed or slightly damaged grapefruit that the truck driver would have to discard.
I was right. Miss Nestleburt and Mr. Hawkins had a big sack of slightly crushed grapefruit in the car with them when they left, and as for us--for three weeks we dined on sliced grapefruit, halved grapefruit, peeled grapefruit, grapefruit salad, grapefruit a la mode and grapefruit au gratin.
One morning as I placed grapefruit halves before Grant and David, Grant caught my expression. He said something that sounded like, "Don't feel that way. Grapefruit is good for hales."
"What?" I asked.