Going downstairs with the tray, Winston wished he could have given in to Miss Ada, but he knew better than to do what she said when she had that little-girl look.
There were times it wasn't right to make a person happy, like the times she came in the kitchen and asked know we don't keep peanut "butter for a peanut butter sandwich.
You in this house", he always told her.
"Why, Winston", she'd cry, "I just now saw you eating it out of the jar"!
But he knew how important it was for her to keep her figure.

In the kitchen, Leona, his little young wife, was reading the morning paper.
Her legs hung down long and thin as she sat on the high stool.

"Here", Winston said gently, "what's these dishes doing not washed"?
The enormous plates which had held Mr. Jack's four fried eggs and five strips of bacon were still stacked in the sink.

"Leave me alone", Leona said.
"Can't you see I'm busy"?
She looked at him impudently over the corner of the paper.

"This is moving day", Winston reminded her, "and I bet you left things every which way upstairs, your clothes all over the floor and the bed not made.
Leona"!
His eye had fastened on her leg;
bending, he touched her knee.
"If I catch you one more time down here without stockings" --

She twitched her leg away.
"Fuss, fuss, old man".
She had an alley cat's manners.

Winston stacked Miss Ada's thin pink dishes in the sink.
Then he spread out the last list on the counter.
"To Be Left Behind" was printed at the top in Miss Ada;
fine hand.
Winston took out a pencil, admired the point, and wrote slowly and heavily, "Clothes Stand".

Sighing, Leona dropped the paper and stood up.
"I guess I better get ready to go".

Winston watched her fumbling to untie her apron.
"Here".
Carefully, he undid the bow.
"How come your bows is always cockeyed"?

She turned and put her arms around his neck.
"I don't want to leave here, Winston".

"Now listen to that".
He drew back, embarrassed and pleased.
"I thought you was sick to death of this big house.
Said you wore yourself out, cleaning all these empty rooms".

"At least there is room here", she said.
"What room is there going to be in an apartment for any child"?

"I told you what Miss Ada's doctor said".

"I don't mean Miss Ada!
What you think I care about that?
I mean our children".
She sounded as though they already existed.

In spite of the hundred things he had on his mind, Winston went and put his arm around her waist.
"We've got plenty of time to think about that.
All the time in the world.
We've only been married four years, January".

"Four years"!
She wailed.
"That's a long time, waiting".

"How many times have I told you" -- he began, and was almost glad when she cut him off -- "Too many times"!
-- and flounced to the sink, where she began noisily to wash her hands.

Too many times was the truth of it, Winston thought.
He hardly believed his reason himself any more.
Although it had seemed a good reason, to begin with: no couple could afford to have children.

"How you going to work with a child hanging on you"?
He asked Leona.
"You want to keep this job, don't you"?
He doubted whether she heard him, over the running water.

He sat for a while with his hands on his knees, watching the bend of her back as she gathered up her things -- a comb, a bottle of aspirin -- to take upstairs and pack.
She made him sad some days, and he was never sure why;
it was something to do with her back, the thinness of it, and the quick, jerky way she bent.
She was too young, that was all;
too young and thin and straight.

"Winston"!

It was Mr. Jack, bellowing out in the hall.
Winston hurried through the swinging door.
"I've been bursting my lungs for you", Mr. Jack complained.
He was standing in front of the mirror, tightening his tie.
He had on his gray tweed overcoat and his city hat, and his brief case lay on the bench.
"I don't know what you think you've been doing about my clothes", he said.
"This coat looks like a rag heap".

There were a few blades of lint on the shoulder.
Winston took the clothesbrush out of the closet and went to work.
He gave Mr. Jack a real going-over;
he brushed his shoulders and his back and his collar with long, firm strokes.
"Hey"!
Mr. Jack cried when the brush tipped his hat down over his eyes.

Winston apologized and quickly set the hat right.
Then he stood back to look at Mr. Jack, who was pulling on his pigskin gloves.
Winston enjoyed seeing him start out;
he wore his clothes with style.
When he was going to town, nothing was good enough -- he had cursed at Winston once for leaving a fleck of polish on his shoelace.
At home, he wouldn't even wash his hands for supper, and he wandered around the yard in a pair of sweaty old corduroys.
The velvet smoking jackets, pearl-gray, wine, and blue, which Miss Ada had bought him hung brushed and unworn in the closet.

"Good-by, Winston", Mr. Jack said, giving a final set to his hat.
"Look out for those movers"!
Winston watched him hurry down the drive to his car;
a handsome, fine-looking man it made him proud to see.

After Mr. Jack drove away, Winston went on looking out the window.
He noticed a speck of dirt on the sill and swiped at it with his finger.
Then he looked at his finger, at the wrinkled, heavy knuckle and the thick nail he used like a knife to pry up, slit, and open.
For the first time, he be sad about the move.
That house was ten years off his life let himself.
Each brass handle and hinge shone for his reward, and he knew how to get at the dust in the china flowers and how to take down the long glass drops which hung from the chandelier.
He knew the house like a blind man, through his fingers, and he did not like to think of all the time and rags and polishes he had spent on keeping it up.

Ten years ago, he had come to the house to be interviewed.
The tulips and the big pink peonies had been blooming along the drive, and he had walked up from the bus almost singing.
Miss Ada had been out back, in a straw hat, planting flowers.
She had talked to him right there, with the hot sun in his face, which made him sweat and feel ashamed.
Winston had been surprised at her for that.
Still, he had liked the way she had looked, in a fresh, neat cotton dress -- citron yellow, if he remembered.
She had had a dignity about her, even barefoot and almost too tan.

Since then, the flowers she had planted had spread all over the hill.
Already the jonquils were blooming in a flock by the front gate, and the periwinkles were coming on, blue by the porch steps.
In a week the hyacinths would spike out.
And the dogwood in early May, for Miss Ada's alfresco party;
and after that the Japanese cherries.
Now the yard looked wet and bald, the trees bare under their buds, but in a while Miss Ada's flowers would bloom like a marching parade.
She had dug a hole for each bulb, each tree wore a tag with her writing on it;
where would she go for her gardening now?
Somehow Winston didn't think she'd take to window boxes.

Sighing, he hurried to the living room.
He had a thousand things to see to.
Still, he couldn't help thinking, we're all getting old, getting small;
the snail is pulling in her horns.

In the living room, Miss Ada was standing by the window with a sheaf of lists in her hand.
She was looking out at the garden.

"Winston", she said, "get the basket for the breakables".

Winston had the big straw basket ready in the hall.
He brought it in and put it down beside her.
Miss Ada was looking fine;
she had on her Easter suit, blue, with lavender binding.
Halfway across the house, he could have smelled her morning perfume.
It hung in all her day clothes, sweet and strong;
sometimes when he was pressing, Winston raised her dresses to his face.

Frowning, Miss Ada studied the list.
"Well, let's see.
The china lemon tree.
The alabaster cockatoo".
Winston followed her around the room, collecting the small frail objects (Christmas, birthday, and anniversary) and wrapping them in tissue paper.
Neither of them trusted the movers.

When they came to Mr. Jack's photograph, twenty by twelve inches in a curly silver frame, Miss Ada said, "By rights I ought to leave that, seeing he won't take my clotheshorse".
She smiled at Winston, and he saw the hateful hard glitter in her eyes.
He picked up the photograph and began to wrap it.

"At least you could leave it for the movers", Miss Ada said.
"What possessed you to tell me a clotheshorse would be a good idea"?

Winston folded the tissue paper carefully.
"He's used it every day;
every morning, I lay out his clothes on it".

"Well, that's over now.
And it was his main present!
Leave that fool picture out", she added sharply.

Winston laid it in the basket.
"Mr. Jack sets store by that".

"Really, Winston.
It was meant to be my present".
But she went on down the list.

Winston was relieved;
those presents had been on his mind.
He had only agreed with Miss Ada about getting the valet, but he had actually suggested the photograph to Mr. Jack.
"You know what she likes, Winston", he had said wearily, one evening in November when Winston was pulling off his overshoes.
"Tell me what to get her for Christmas".

"She's been talking about a picture", Winston had told him.

"Picture!
You mean picture of me"?
But Winston had persuaded him.

On Christmas night, they had had a disagreement about it.
Winston had heard because he was setting up the liquor tray in the next room.
Through the door, he had seen Mr. Jack walking around, waiting for Miss Ada.
Finally she had come down;
Winston had heard her shaking out the skirt of her new pink silk hostess gown.

"How do you like it"?
She had asked.

Mr. Jack had said, "You look about fifteen years old".

"Is that a compliment"?

"I don't know".
He had stood at a little distance, studying her, as though he would walk around next and look at the back of her head.

"Lovie, you make me feel naked".
Miss Ada had giggled, and she went sweeping and rustling to the couch and sank down.

"You look like that picture I have at the office", Mr. Jack had started.
"Not a line, not a wrinkle.
I look like an old man, compared", and he had picked up his photograph with the red Christmas bow still on it.
"Look, an old man.
Will you wear pink when you're sixty"?

"Darling, I love that photograph.
I'm going to put it on my dresser".

"I guess it's children make a woman old.
A man gets old anyhow".
After a minute he went on, "People must think the curse is on me, seeing you fresh as an apple and me old and gray".

"I'll give you a medical certificate, framed, if you like", Miss Ada had said.

"No.
All I want is a picture -- with a few lines.
Make the man put them in if he has to".

After that they had sat for five minutes without saying a word.
Then Miss Ada had stood up, rustling and rustling, and gone upstairs.