Who Do You Think You Are

if she had been peering down the Grand Canyon or seen oranges growing on a tree.
    She meant George, who was getting one of the awards. He turned around, to see if someone was feeding him a comic line. And Flo did look like a comic character, except that her bewilderment, her authenticity, were quite daunting. Did she note the stir she had caused? Possibly. After that one outburst she clammed up, would not speak again except in the most grudging monosyllables, would not eat any food or drink any drink offered her, would not sit down, but stood astonished and unflinching in the middle of that gathering of the bearded and beaded, the unisexual and the unashamedly un-Anglo-Saxon, until it was time for her to be taken to her train and sent home.
    R OSE FOUND THAT WIG under the bed, during the horrifying clean-up that followed Flo’s removal. She took it out to the Home, along with some clothes she had washed or had dry-cleaned, and some stockings, talcum powder, cologne, that she had bought. Sometimes Flo seemed to think Rose was a doctor, and she said, “I don’t want no woman doctor, you can just clear out.” But when she saw Rose carrying the wig she said, “Rose! What is that you got in your hand, is it a dead gray squirrel!?”
    “No,” said Rose, “it’s a wig.”
    “What?”
    “A wig,” said Rose, and Flo began to laugh. Rose laughed too. The wig did look like a dead cat or squirrel, even though she had washed and brushed it; it was a disturbing-looking object.
    “My God, Rose, I thought what is she doing bringing me a dead squirrel! If I put it on somebody’d be sure to take a shot at me.”
    Rose stuck it on her own head, to continue the comedy, and Flo laughed so that she rocked back and forth in her crib.
    When she got her breath Flo said, “What am I doing with these damn sides up on my bed? Are you and Brian behaving yourselves? Don’t fight, it gets on your father’s nerves. Do you know how many gallstones they took out of me? Fifteen! One as big as a pullet’s egg. I got them somewhere. I’m going to take them home.” She pulled at the sheets, searching. “They were in a bottle.”
    “I’ve got them already,” said Rose. “I took them home.”
    “Did you? Did you show your father?”
    “Yes.”
    “Oh, well, that’s where they are then,” said Flo, and she lay down and closed her eyes.

Who Do You Think You Are?
    There were some things Rose and her brother Brian could safely talk about, without running aground on principles or statements of position, and one of them was Milton Homer. They both remembered that when they had measles and there was a quarantine notice put up on the door—this was long ago, before their father died and before Brian went to school—Milton Homer came along the street and read it. They heard him coming over the bridge and as usual he was complaining loudly. His progress through town was not silent unless his mouth was full of candy; otherwise he would be yelling at dogs and bullying the trees and telephone poles, mulling over old grievances.
    “And I did not and I did not and I did not!” he yelled, and hit the bridge railing.
    Rose and Brian pulled back the quilt that was hung over the window to keep the light out, so they would not go blind.
    “Milton Homer,” said Brian appreciatively.
    Milton Homer then saw the notice on the door. He turned and mounted the steps and read it. He could read. He would go along the main street reading all the signs out loud.
    Rose and Brian remembered this and they agreed that it was the side door, where Flo later stuck on the glassed-in porch; before that there was only a slanting wooden platform, and they remembered Milton Homer standing on it. If the quarantine notice was there and not on the front door, which led into Flo’s store, then the store must have been open; that seemed odd, and could only be explained by Flo’s having bullied the Health Officer. Rose couldn’t remember; she could only remember Milton Homer on the platform with his big head on one side and his fist raised to knock.
    “Measles, huh?” said Milton Homer. He didn’t knock, after all; he stuck his head close to the door and shouted, “Can’t scare me!” Then he turned around but did not leave the yard. He walked over to the swing, sat down, took hold of the ropes and began moodily, then with mounting and ferocious glee, to give himself a ride.
    “Milton Homer’s on the swing, Milton Homer’s on the swing!” Rose shouted. She