Nobody yelled neighborly greetings to new arrivals.
Nobody blew a car horn for the hell of it.
Nobody was telling a boisterous joke to a knot of male volunteers.
Everybody was Sunday-solemn. She also saw, as she swung through the gate and started for the gymnasium doors, where the radiation people had their station, that everyone was pale.
So she knew, before anybody told her anything, it was it.
And like them, she turned pale.
9
Minerva Sloan found that morning, and to her vast annoyance, four names on the lost leaf of her Christmas list which could not be ignored. That meant, in spite of the Saturday crowd, which would also be a last-minute crowd, she would have to go into the middle of the melee again and make four purchases. The items would be mailed, and they would probably be delivered late, but the postmark would show her correct intentions.
It was Willis, her venerable chauffeur, who bore the brunt of the hardship, of course, driving in tortuous traffic, finding a place to double-park (no police disturbed Minerva’s car) and waiting in the tedious cold. Minerva decided, since she was obliged to go out, that she would shop in Green Prairie rather than River City. It was farther, but she could stop in at the bank and save herself another trip on the following Tuesday.
Her errands, to her annoyance, took double the time she had generously allowed. The clerks were tired and rude, the gifts in the shops had been mauled, and traffic moved not at all, for long periods. She put off the bank expedition until afternoon and had Willis edge through Front Street (where the big tractor trucks backed up at warehouses made the way a zigzag, but where the very adroitness of their drivers kept some motion in the long lines of vehicles).