Having heard of the incident with Jerome Hadley, in the berry field, Lillian and Kate Edgley were irritated and angry and one evening when they were both at the house and May was at work in the kitchen they spoke about it. Lillian was very angry and had decided to give May what she spoke of as “a piece of her mind.” “What’d she want to go in the cheap for?” she asked. “It makes me sick when I think of it—a fellow like that Jerome Hadley! If she was going to cut loose what made her want to go on the cheap?”
In the Edgley family it had always been understood that May was of a different clay and old John Edgley and the boys had always paid her a kind of crude respect. They did not swear at her as they sometimes did at Lillian and Kate, and in secret they thought of her as a link between themselves and the more respectable life of the town. Ma Edgley was respectable enough but she was old and tired and never went out of the house and it was in May the family held up its head. The two brothers were proud of their sister because of her record in the town school. They themselves were working men and never expected to be anything else but, they thought, “that sister of ours has shown the town that an Edgley can beat them at their own game. She is smarter than any of them. See how she has forced the town to pay attention to her.”
As for Lillian—before the incident with Jerome Hadley, she continually talked of her sister. In Norwalk, Fremont, Clyde and the other towns she visited she had many friends. Men liked her because, as they often said, she was a woman to be trusted. One could talk to her, say anything, and she would keep her mouth shut and in her presence one felt comfortably free and easy. Among her secret associates were members of churches, lawyers, owners of prosperous businesses, heads of respectable families. To be sure they saw Lillian in secret but she seemed to understand and respect their desire for secrecy. “You don’t need to make no bones about it with me. I know you got to be careful,” she said.
On a summer evening, in one of the towns she was in the habit of visiting, an arrangement was made. The man with whom she was to spend the evening waited until darkness had come and then, hiring a horse at a livery stable, drove to an appointed place. Side curtains were put on the buggy and the pair set forth into the darkness and loneliness of country roads. As the evening advanced and the more ardent mood of the occasion passed, a sudden sense of freedom swept over the man. “It is better not to fool around with a young girl or with some other man’s wife. With Lillian one does not get found out and get into trouble,” he thought.
The horse went slowly, along out of the way roads—bars were let down and the couple drove into a field. For hours they sat in the buggy and talked. The men talked to Lillian as they could talk to no other woman they had ever known. She was shrewd and in her own way capable and often the men spoke of their affairs, asking her advice. “Now what do you think, Lil’—if you were me would you buy or sell?” one of them asked.
Other and more intimate things crept into the conversations. “Well, Lil’, my wife and I are all right. We get along well enough, but we ain’t what you might speak of as lovers,” Lillian’s temporary intimate said. “She jaws me a lot when I smoke too much or when I don’t want to go to church. And then, you see, we’re worried about the kids. My oldest girl is running around a lot with young Harry Garvner and I keep asking myself, ‘Is he any good?’ I can’t make up my mind. You’ve seen him around, Lil’, what do you think?”
Having taken part in many such conversations Lillian had come to depend on her sister May to furnish her with a topic of conversation. “I know how you feel. I feel that way about May,” she said. More than a hundred times she had explained that May was different from the rest of the Edgleys. “She’s smart,” she explained. “I tell you what, she’s the smartest girl that ever went to the high school in Bidwell.”
Having so often used May as an example of what an Edgley could be Lillian was shocked when she heard of the affair in the berry field. For several weeks she said nothing and then one evening in July when the two were alone in the house together she spoke. She had intended to be motherly, direct and kind—if firm, but when the words came her voice trembled and she grew angry. “I hear, May, you been fooling with a man,” she began as they sat together on the front porch of the house. It was a hot evening and dark and a thunder storm threatened and for a long time after Lillian had spoken there was silence and then May put her head into her hands and leaning forward began to cry softly. Her body rocked back and forth and occasionally a dry broken sob broke the silence. “Well,” Lillian added sharply, being determined to terminate her remarks before she also broke into tears, “well, May, you’ve made a darn fool of yourself. I didn’t think it of you. I didn’t think you’d turn out a fool.”
In the attempt to control her own unhappiness and to conceal it, Lillian became more and more angry. Her voice continued to tremble and to regain control of it she got up and went inside the house. When she came out again May still sat in the chair at the edge of the porch with her head held in her hands. Lillian was moved to pity. “Well, don’t break your heart about it, kid. I’m only an old fool after all. Don’t pay too much attention to me. I guess Kate and I haven’t set you such a good example,” she said softly.