The Roswell Legacy by Frances Statham (parable of the sower read online .TXT) 📗

cottage, and Stanley took a great deal of time to unbuckle the leather luggage. As soon as he brought out the elegant yellow hair ribbons, Maryann squealed in delight.

“Tie them in my hair, Stanley. They’re beautiful.”

“Well, then, stand still.”

He took his time, removing the others and patiently braiding the ribbons into the long brown hair, which felt like silk to his trembling fingers.

“You’re clumsy, Stanley. Here, let me finish.”

He watched her walk into the bedroom where the dusty old mirror hung on the wall, opposite the small cot. And then he came to stand behind her.

“You like them?” he had asked.

“Of course. I love them.”

“Well, then, don’t I get a kiss?”

She put her arms around him. But when she’d kissed him, he continued to hold her. “Kiss me, Maryann, like your mama kisses my father.”

“But that’s for married folks.”

“Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be married, Maryann? Beside the kisses?”

“Of course.”

“Would you like for me to show you?”

“I’m not sure. Mama said that’s for my husband to show me when the proper time comes.”

Stanley smiled. “We can pretend that I’m your husband, Maryann. And that this is our cottage. We can stay here until suppertime, just pretending.”

“You don’t think Mama and Papa will be mad if they find out?”

Stanley shook his head. “It will be a secret between us. I can even spend the night here, if you slip some food to me. Then they won’t have to know that I came home early.”

Maryann smiled. “We can have a tea party, the way we used to in the maze when I was little.”

“That’s right.”

“But I’m a little bit afraid, Stanley.”

“You don’t have to be. I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you. Am I not your brother?”

“No, silly. You’re my husband,” she said, getting into the spirit of pretending.

He was almost sorry that she trusted him. For it made it too easy for him, lulling her with his words while finding her small budding breasts and kneading them.

“You’re beautiful, my wife,” he whispered. “I love you.”

“You’re hurting me, Stanley.”

“Do you like the yellow ribbons, Maryann?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to keep them?”

“Yes.”

“Then pretend with me, and I promise to bring you a better present each time I come home.”

She was still while he moved on top of her, searching for entrance …

Stanley took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. He had aroused himself with his memories. And he hurried to reach the house where Maryann waited, before he disgraced himself in public.

CHAPTER

18

“Rad, have you heard the latest bon mot making the rounds?”

“No. What is it, Miles?”

“They say that a certain oil company—you know the one I mean—has done everything to the Pennsylvania legislature except refine it.”

Rad Meadors barely smiled, for he was tired after the final day of committee hearings. But he knew the words spoken had more than a grain of truth in them.

“We’ve been had in Washington, too, Miles. For too many years.”

“As long as there’s extra money lying around, someone is going to claim it, Rad, whether they deserve it or not.”

“But the pension battle seems to have been won. Now if we can only repeal the Silver Purchase Act.”

“Depends on the price of senators these days.”

“Another bon mot making the rounds?”

“I wish it were,” Miles replied. “Well, we’ll know for sure on the fifth of August, won’t we?”

“That we will.”

“I’m going home now, Mr. Chairman,” Miles said, taking his coat from the back of the chair and switching his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “You’d better do the same. It’s been a mighty long day.”

Rad nodded, but he remained at the large curved desk where various papers still had to be gathered up and returned to the files.

Oblivious to the opening and shutting of doors in the corridors, Rad remained where he was, staring down at the reams of paper before him. Carefully, he piled one on top of the other, while his mind filled with old images and residues of problems that never seemed to change with the legislative seasons.

For seventeen years he’d come back and forth to Washington, always with the expectation that that particular session would be different. But after so many years, he’d finally grown cynical and disillusioned, no longer hoping against hope that the abuses could be stamped out completely. It was like a forest fire. As soon as one firebreak was established, the fire popped out somewhere else.

Senators were still bought and traded as commonly as shares on the stock exchange. Power and money still purchased favoritism for the few—railway magnates, bankers, oil and coal companies—causing private fortunes to quadruple, while some of the politicians grew rich, too, and the poor laborers grew poorer.

The stench in Washington that afternoon could just as easily have been coming from the government buildings, Rad thought, as from the trash bins in the alleys behind them.

For two weeks, he’d watched the men and their lawyers walk in, unrepentant for taking the pensions that had never been rightfully theirs. And then they’d barked like a bunch of mongrels when the stolen bone was wrested from them. The animosity had been so thick that it had hung ominously over the hearing room the entire time.

But the committee had persevered. And now the only thing left to do was to write his report for the president, with recommendations for censure.

“Are you ready for me to help you, sir?”

Rad looked up and saw his aide. “Awbrey, I thought you’d gone home long ago.”

“No, sir. I was waiting in your office to lock up the files at the end of the day.”

“Then you might as well carry half the papers.”

As the aide walked around the curved desk, he said, “A courier has just delivered a letter for you.”

“Whatever is in it will have to wait until tomorrow.”

“I thought you might want to take it home with you. It’s marked personal.”

A few minutes later, with the papers relegated to the locked files, Rad picked up