They reached timidly, each took a stick, and they held them down at their sides and did not look at them. But they looked at each other, and their mouth corners smiled rigidly with embarrassment.
“Thank you, ma’am.” The man picked up the bread and went out the door, and the little boys marched stiffly behind him, the red-striped sticks held tightly against their legs. They leaped like chipmunks over the front seat and onto the top of the load, and they burrowed back out of sight like chipmunks.
The man got in and started his car, and with a roaring motor and a cloud of blue oily smoke the ancient Nash climbed up on the highway and went on its way to the west.
From inside the restaurant the truck drivers and Mae and Al stared after them.
Big Bill wheeled back. “Them wasn’t two-for-a-cent candy,” he said.
“What’s that to you?” Mae said fiercely.
“Them was nickel apiece candy,” said Bill.
“We got to get goin’,” said the other man. “We’re droppin’ time.”
They reached in their pockets. Bill put a coin on the counter and the other man looked at it and reached again and put down a coin. They swung around and walked to the door.
“So long,” said Bill.