And for dinner there was always something extra-special.
She kept my socks mended, my buttons sewed on, my shirts ironed, my shoes polished, and at bed-timeWell, in Neosho that's the time we pull down the shades. She was everything her face and figure promisedthat's enough for any man.
On Saturday she washed the car. Maybe other places it's different, but in Neosho that's all we ask in a wife.
The women talked. Women always do.
They said, "Where are they all coming from, that's what I want to know.Well, she's flashy, but she's not a speck prettier than my Jane, and I'll bet she can't bake like Jane.If they're such prizes, why did they have to come to Neosho to get a man.There's something wrong with all of them, mark my words.
You'll see some pretty unhappy men one of these days."
But the unhappy men were the ones who were already married before Candy came in on the bus from Kansas City.
The others turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself. Take me.
I got me a job at the bank, worked hard, and now I'm first vice-president.
Next year, when old Mr. Bailey retires, I'll be president.
Jess Hall, who married Choo-Choo, worked his way through law school, and now he's Neosho's top attorney.
Lije Simpson, who married Kim, is a U.S. senator.
And Byron George, who married Dallas, he owns a string of super-markets.
I could go on.
The girls kept coming after April and kept getting married.
All their husbands did well.
The ones who died, their wives married again and made something of those men, too. There was something about those husbands that made them succeed. They had the ambition and the energy to work harder than other men. Maybe it was because they knew what they had at home, and they never worried about it. That was the way it was with me.
Who I felt sorry for was the Neosho girls.
There was nothing wrong with them.
They just couldn't stand up to the competition. None of them got married. Who'd marry a Neosho girl when he could get a girl like Candyor April?
The only thing was - well, it happened like this.
Saturday night was poker night.
We got together down at the hotel, Marv and Doc and me and Jess and By George and Lije when he was in town.
This Saturday, Congress being in recess, he was.
April made no fuss when I left.
She never does.
But I felt a kind of premonition at the door, and I turned and said,
"You sure you don't mind me leaving you alone?"
She straightened my shirt collar with her gentle hands and kissed me, looking no older than she had twenty years before and even prettier.
"Why should I?" she asked, not nasty like some women might, but simple and direct.
"Six nights a week you're home with me.
You deserve a night out with the boys."
And she pushed me through the doorway.
It was during the hand I filled a third ace to my two pair, naturally, that Doc said,
"It's a funny thingsix of us here, happily married men, and not a chick nor child among us."
Lije chuckled.
"Maybe that's why we're happily married.
Folks I know with kids, they're jumpy and snappy.
Things get on their nerves. Little things."
"What I mean," Doc said, "not a single one of the girls has any kids."
"That can't be so," said By, but we couldn't think of a single one of the girls who had any children.
Doc went on slowly. "There aren't hardly any little ones around any more. For awhile I thought they were going to young Fisher or Johnson, but there aren't any hardly."
"Why?" Jess asked bluntly.
"In my own case," Doc said. "Tracy is sterile." He looked sober.
"I wanted kids, so after awhile I checked up.
When I found out" He shrugged. "I figured a man can't have everything."
"I thought it was me," said By.
"So did I," said Mary.
"It seemed impossible that Candy"
We all nodded. It did seem impossible.