village and get the
mail first. I had no intention of spending the day with Edith. I was
awfully on edge from the night before, and the crack about my bangs
had made me want to smack her.
As soon as I’d washed up the breakfast things, I went into
town and made the barber cut off the rest of my hair. The barber
was upset; he kept saying he didn’t know how to cut girls’ hair and
I said, Good.
The barbershop was in that tiny white cottage with the flower
box in the window down past the old post office. There’s someone
sells gewgaws from it in the summer now. Then it had a striped pole
out front. As I was going out from my haircut, Conary Crocker was
coming up the street. He was going to go right past me.
When I said hello to him, Conary stopped and looked, and then
8 9
B E T H
G U T C H E O N
he stared. You’ve got to remember that in those days girls didn’t do
things like that to their hair. I was standing there in the street looking
like a convict or a mental patient.
I could see pretty quickly that he liked what I’d done, a lot. In
fact, he looked at me an awfully long time. I think seeing me with
my hair cut off made Conary suddenly feel that I wasn’t an alien,
some party girl from the big city. That I felt like him, whatever that
meant.
That was the beginning of a day I will never forget, a day that
seemed to last about forty hours. It was turning into a beautiful blue
one, with high streaks of cirrus clouds. Conary said, “What are you
up to?”
I shrugged. All I knew was, I didn’t want to go home.
“We could go on over to the hospital and have something else
cut off,” he suggested. I said I thought I’d done enough for the time
being. Then he said, “I was thinking I’d go clamming. Want to
come?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s get us a bucket.”
Conary’s truck was parked across the street at the Esso station.
The guy in the office seemed to leer at us as we walked across the
street together, but Conary ignored him. He came around to open my
door for me. I thought for a minute this was a show of conspicuous
gallantry, but it wasn’t; it was that the door handle was off and you
had to work the latch by reaching inside and doing something with a
screwdriver. In all the times I rode in that truck, I never did figure out
how to do it.
“Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to put your foot through
that floorboard.” That was true. I didn’t. I was used to boys driving
as if they thought everyone might mistake them for daredevil race car
9 0
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
drivers and fall in love. But Conary drove gingerly, as if the truck
were an ailing animal, and if it faltered he would have to carry it. I
found I liked that better than taking curves at high rates of speed on
the wrong side of the road, a pastime that had previously struck me
as mature and romantic. There was something protective about every-
thing Conary did, even teasing. He did a lot of teasing, but it never
hurt.
As we crept onto the Westward road, the bay spread out below
us to the left, a silver gray color in the morning light. It was miles
from here to open sea. I could see the greenish black hump of Beal
Island.
“You ever been out there?” Conary asked, seeing where I was
looking.
“Beal? No.”
“Want to go?”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. I do.”
“All right. They got clams out there as well as here.”
I hadn’t realized he meant right that day, but it was fine with
me. I wasn’t in any hurry to hear what Edith thought of my new
haircut.
We had come to Tenney Hill, and this was where I first expe-
rienced the truck’s peculiar style of coping with a grade. Connie pulled
into a cow path, turned the truck around, and proceeded smoothly up
the hill in reverse. When he got to the top, he pulled around again and
off we went forward.
Seeing my expression, Connie said, “Would you believe,
Hale Bogg was going to sell this
mail first. I had no intention of spending the day with Edith. I was
awfully on edge from the night before, and the crack about my bangs
had made me want to smack her.
As soon as I’d washed up the breakfast things, I went into
town and made the barber cut off the rest of my hair. The barber
was upset; he kept saying he didn’t know how to cut girls’ hair and
I said, Good.
The barbershop was in that tiny white cottage with the flower
box in the window down past the old post office. There’s someone
sells gewgaws from it in the summer now. Then it had a striped pole
out front. As I was going out from my haircut, Conary Crocker was
coming up the street. He was going to go right past me.
When I said hello to him, Conary stopped and looked, and then
8 9
B E T H
G U T C H E O N
he stared. You’ve got to remember that in those days girls didn’t do
things like that to their hair. I was standing there in the street looking
like a convict or a mental patient.
I could see pretty quickly that he liked what I’d done, a lot. In
fact, he looked at me an awfully long time. I think seeing me with
my hair cut off made Conary suddenly feel that I wasn’t an alien,
some party girl from the big city. That I felt like him, whatever that
meant.
That was the beginning of a day I will never forget, a day that
seemed to last about forty hours. It was turning into a beautiful blue
one, with high streaks of cirrus clouds. Conary said, “What are you
up to?”
I shrugged. All I knew was, I didn’t want to go home.
“We could go on over to the hospital and have something else
cut off,” he suggested. I said I thought I’d done enough for the time
being. Then he said, “I was thinking I’d go clamming. Want to
come?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Let’s get us a bucket.”
Conary’s truck was parked across the street at the Esso station.
The guy in the office seemed to leer at us as we walked across the
street together, but Conary ignored him. He came around to open my
door for me. I thought for a minute this was a show of conspicuous
gallantry, but it wasn’t; it was that the door handle was off and you
had to work the latch by reaching inside and doing something with a
screwdriver. In all the times I rode in that truck, I never did figure out
how to do it.
“Careful,” he said. “You don’t want to put your foot through
that floorboard.” That was true. I didn’t. I was used to boys driving
as if they thought everyone might mistake them for daredevil race car
9 0
M O R E
T H A N
Y O U
K N O W
drivers and fall in love. But Conary drove gingerly, as if the truck
were an ailing animal, and if it faltered he would have to carry it. I
found I liked that better than taking curves at high rates of speed on
the wrong side of the road, a pastime that had previously struck me
as mature and romantic. There was something protective about every-
thing Conary did, even teasing. He did a lot of teasing, but it never
hurt.
As we crept onto the Westward road, the bay spread out below
us to the left, a silver gray color in the morning light. It was miles
from here to open sea. I could see the greenish black hump of Beal
Island.
“You ever been out there?” Conary asked, seeing where I was
looking.
“Beal? No.”
“Want to go?”
“With you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes. I do.”
“All right. They got clams out there as well as here.”
I hadn’t realized he meant right that day, but it was fine with
me. I wasn’t in any hurry to hear what Edith thought of my new
haircut.
We had come to Tenney Hill, and this was where I first expe-
rienced the truck’s peculiar style of coping with a grade. Connie pulled
into a cow path, turned the truck around, and proceeded smoothly up
the hill in reverse. When he got to the top, he pulled around again and
off we went forward.
Seeing my expression, Connie said, “Would you believe,
Hale Bogg was going to sell this
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