Mohawk

Florida for a few days, maybe a week, since people had to know where to find him. “Cheer up. Come May, I’ll probably be a Yankee,” he told Randall. “Boyer looks shaky this year.” He was back in New York a week later, though, and on opening day he took Randall to the ballpark. He paid for the tickets. “Later on, when the double headers start to stack up—–” he told the boy, letting the thought trail off.
    Anne took her two-weeks’ vacation in July. They decided on Maine and, en route, Mohawk, for the sake of Randall and his grandparents. Anne prepared Pricefor a cool reception. During the past year she’d written to her parents several times about Price, but when her mother wrote back, she never mentioned him. And when Anne dropped his name on the telephone, Mrs. Grouse said, “Who, dear?” Nevertheless, he fully expected to win the affections of Anne’s parents. He was frequently told he was a charming man, and had good reason to believe it; he could think of no one he’d ever wanted to like him who didn’t. In roughly half an hour after they arrived in Mohawk, he had Mrs. Grouse eating out of his hand. It was the
idea
that she had objected to—this person who was “with” her “married” daughter. Price himself, Mrs. Grouse discovered, was not objectionable in the least. He was neither haughty nor aloof, nor superior nor any of the things she had assumed he must be, given the fact that her daughter had selected and spoken highly of him. A five-pound box of candy, a light kiss on the cheek and she suddenly had a new son-in-law, if that’s where things were going.
    Mather Grouse was another story. Traveling to a different city or two every week, Price had developed a casual forthrightness with strangers, and to make fast friends with a bartender took him all of two minutes and by the end of the evening he was drinking on the house. Unfortunately, Mather Grouse was not a bartender and for every ounce of Price’s easy charm, Mather Grouse had two ounces of New England reserve. Only time—in goodly amount—could change their fundamental relationship as strangers, and the fact that Price came with a warm introduction and recommendation from Mather Grouse’s own daughter did not alter a thing.
    Fortunately, Price had known better than to push, especially since they were visiting for only one afternoon.Anne hadn’t wanted to raise the issue of sleeping arrangements by spending the night in her parents’ house. They would find a hotel in Saratoga that night and drive into New England the next day after a nice breakfast, perhaps on the same white porch where she and Dallas had stopped, in what now seemed a different life. Price was agreeable. He was perhaps the most agreeable man she knew, so agreeable that even Mather Grouse was having a tough time remaining stolid. Her mother squeezed fresh lemonade and they all sat outside on the porch, Mrs. Grouse and Price chatting like long-separated cousins at a family reunion, the others content to listen to their banter. After a while Price and Randall, who’d begun to talk about playing Little League next summer, went down to the front lawn so Price could show him how to put the tag on a sliding runner. Throughout the summer Price had taught him something different each day, and Anne suspected that during the two upcoming weeks the boy would probably miss these lessons more than anything.
    “Here’s the base,” Price said. “You’re the runner.”
    Randall slid several times, and Price demonstrated the footwork around the bag and showed him how to keep from getting hurt. “If he comes in spikes down, like he’s supposed to, fine. If he comes in spikes up, step out of the way and step on him with yours.”
    Anne, watching her father, saw Mather Grouse’s face cloud over, and when Price and Randall returned, leaving behind them a small brown patch on the manicured lawn, her father spoke. “Do you think it’s wise to teach a young man to break the rules?”
    “No, sir, I don’t,” Price replied. “Every player should know how to protect himself, that’s all.”
    “Isn’t it up to the umpire to enforce the rules?”
    “That’s true enough. But sometimes they miss what’s going on. Sometimes they like the guy who’s breaking the rules. The game goes a lot smoother when everybody knows better than to take liberties.”
    “So the end justifies the means.”
    Price shrugged. He was comfortable enough with that philosophy, but clever