the shell of the egg had been softened a little but
not enough for his purpose. He worked and worked
and a spirit of desperate determination took possession
of him. When he thought that at last the trick
was about to be consummated the delayed train came
in at the station and Joe Kane started to go nonchalantly
out at the door. Father made a last desperate
effort to conquer the egg and make it do the thing
that would establish his reputation as one who knew
how to entertain guests who came into his restaurant.
He worried the egg. He attempted to be somewhat
rough with it. He swore and the sweat stood out
on his forehead. The egg broke under his hand.
When the contents spurted over his clothes, Joe Kane,
who had stopped at the door, turned and laughed.
A roar of anger rose from my father’s throat.
He danced and shouted a string of inarticulate words.
Grabbing another egg from the basket on the counter,
he threw it, just missing the head of the young man
as he dodged through the door and escaped.
Father came upstairs to mother and me with an egg
in his hand. I do not know what he intended to
do. I imagine he had some idea of destroying
it, of destroying all eggs, and that he intended to
let mother and me see him begin. When, however,
he got into the presence of mother something happened
to him. He laid the egg gently on the table and
dropped on his knees by the bed as I have already explained.
He later decided to close the restaurant for the night
and to come upstairs and get into bed. When he
did so he blew out the light and after much muttered
conversation both he and mother went to sleep.
I suppose I went to sleep also, but my sleep was troubled.
I awoke at dawn and for a long time looked at the
egg that lay on the table. I wondered why eggs
had to be and why from the egg came the hen who again
laid the egg. The question got into my blood.
It has stayed there, I imagine, because I am the son
of my father. At any rate, the problem remains
unsolved in my mind. And that, I conclude, is
but another evidence of the complete and final triumph
of the egg—at least as far as my family
is concerned.
Mary Cochran went out of the rooms where she lived
with her father, Doctor Lester Cochran, at seven o’clock
on a Sunday evening. It was June of the year
nineteen hundred and eight and Mary was eighteen years
old. She walked along Tremont to Main Street and
across the railroad tracks to Upper Main, lined with
small shops and shoddy houses, a rather quiet cheerless
place on Sundays when there were few people about.
She had told her father she was going to church but
did not intend doing anything of the kind. She
did not know what she wanted to do. “I’ll
get off by myself and think,” she told herself
as she walked slowly along. The night she thought
promised to be too fine to be spent sitting in a stuffy
church and hearing a man talk of things that had apparently
nothing to do with her own problem. Her own affairs
were approaching a crisis and it was time for her
to begin thinking seriously of her future.
