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for all of us!”

Chapter 5
     
    A BOUT FIVE O’CLOCK Sunday afternoon Miss Tinkham stuck her head out of her bunk and quickly pulled it back in again.
    “Tooner’s out there with that damn guitar!” Mrs. Feeley stuck her head in a pail of water and swished her white curls around in it.
    “Old-Timer and the jug!” Miss Tinkham moaned.
    “They got beer out there,” Mrs. Feeley said. “An’ it ain’t their neighbors that needs it!”
    “I haven’t heard ‘The Chandler’s Wife’ since I was in college,” Miss Tinkham said. “The longer he sings the more colorful the verses get.” She followed Mrs. Feeley out of the trailer to join the group sitting in the shade on empty boxes. Mrs. Rasmussen and Velma listened respectfully as Captain Dowdy sang to his own accompaniment and Old-Timer provided the bass by hooping into an empty clay jug.
    “Anybody remember where we buried the body?” Mrs. Feeley said.
    “It was worth it,” Velma said.
    “Somethin’ cookin’ over at Darleen’s,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Ain’t that Oscar’s car?”
    “Who’s Darleen?” the captain said.
    “She’s a gal we fixed up. Oscar boarded with us durin’ the war, him an’ five other guys. Good spud,” Mrs. Feeley said. “B’lieve I’ll live after all. Open up some Nervine for Miss Tinkham.”
    “We gotta build a decent kitchen,” Mrs. Rasmussen said. “Ain’t enough room in the trailer to cuss a cat. Hey, look…”
    Oscar and Red, his companion, cruised up.
    “This a private fight,” Oscar said, “or can anybody mix in that wants to?”
    “This here’s Velma an’ that there’s Captain Dowdy,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Where’s Jasper?”
    “That’s what we come about.” Oscar dusted off a hard bit of earth and sat down. “How’s it goin’, Gabby?” He shook hands with Old-Timer.
    “Jasper got married,” Red said.
    “Incredible!” Miss Tinkham said.
    “And divorced,” Oscar said.
    “Some streel, I’ll be bound,” Mrs. Feeley said.
    “You know how them women are: all they wanna do is get married,” Oscar said. “These days they don’t even ask you your name.”
    Mrs. Rasmussen changed the subject to less painful territory. “We’re workin’ aboard the captain’s charter boat.”
    “That’s a hot one,” Oscar said. “Jasper an’ me got a proposition for you.”
    “We will not consider anything less than a proposal,” Miss Tinkham laughed.
    “Nothin’ in this town is right without the Ark,” Oscar said.
    “That’s no crock,” Mrs. Feeley agreed.
    “Bein’ your home, so personal an’ all,” Oscar said, “we know we couldn’t mix in on nothin’ like that.”
    “You know how it is, Oscar.” Mrs. Feeley handed him a fresh beer.
    “Yeah; I wouldn’t want to suggest anythin’ you’d be objectionable to. We chipped in an’ got ’em for you.”
    “You can talk plainer than that,” Mrs. Feeley said.
    “Seven buses,” Oscar said, “nice ones.”
    “Oscar dear, you’ve flipped your lid.”
    “They was gonna haul ’em to the dump. Make you a motel out of ’em. We’ll do the work. You got three of ’em rented already: Jasper an’ Red an’ me. You ladies need one. Old-Timer could hold kinda Liberty Hall in another of ’em.”
    Mrs. Feeley’s eyes squinched up and she went into a trance of structural imagination that would give an architect the shuddering horrors.
    “Take the wheels off? Mount the buses on cinder block foundation? Paint each one of ’em a different color?”
    “That’s my girl!” Oscar banged her on the back. “I got two weeks’ vacation, Jasper’s due back from Reno, and a guy promised me the loan of a scoop-scraper for diggin’. Let’s celebrate.”
    “Be nice,” Mrs. Rasmussen said, “but we promised him.”
    “I wouldn’t stand in your way,” the captain said.
    “I know you wouldn’t, love,” Mrs. Feeley said. “Miss Tinkham an’ Mrs. Rasmussen will work for you. I wasn’t really doin’ nothin’ but gettin’ in the