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.Theaway in embarrassment.Junius feels guilt for hisdoctor warns Helen that Hilda is getting worse andson s shame.He decides to sell the farm and givethat she needs to be placed in a hospital for theup his blissful existence to return to San Franciscoinsane.Helen refuses the suggestion.Mrs.VanDeventer buys a ranch in the Pastures of Heaven, to look for work. The Pastures of Heaven 163Chapter VII jolly man.His best friend from high school is theMaria and Rosa Lopez inherit a 40-acre farm on a warden of San Quentin prison, and two or threerocky hillside above the Pastures of Heaven.The two times a year he invites Banks to be a witness at ansisters open a restaurant, serving enchiladas, tortillas, execution.Banks never fails to accept the invitation.and tamales to the inhabitants of the valley.Business Bert Munroe becomes fascinated by the idea of exe-is slow and the sisters are desperate to increase their cutions and asks Raymond if it is possible to go withsales.Rosa determines to offer herself to her cus- him.Raymond writes his friend and secures an invi-tomers to encourage their patronage.One evening tation for the two of them to attend the next hang-a customer who is not hungry offers Rosa money for ing.But Bert changes his mind at the last minute.sex.She is insulted at the suggestion that she is a He tells of seeing an old crippled man trying to kill aprostitute.The women of the town begin to suspect rooster and wounding it brutally when he was a boy.the true nature of the Lopez business.One afternoon, He has nightmares about the rooster and he is afraidin a gesture of kindness, Maria Lopez offers a ride in that the hanging will also give him nightmares.Heher buggy to Allen Hueneker, the shyest man in the tells Banks that he has imagined what it must be likevalley.Mr.Munroe sees them together and jokingly to be hanged and that it is horrifying.That eveningtells Mrs.Hueneker, a jealous woman, that her hus- Raymond tries to imagine himself being executed.band has run off with Maria Lopez.She complains to The next day he writes to the warden to tell himthe sheriff, who is forced to shut down the Lopez sis- that he is ill and cannot attend the execution.ters restaurant.Maria and Rosa, ashamed, decide toChapter Xgo to San Francisco and become bad women. When Pat Humbert turns 16, his feeble parentsChapter VIIIretire, leaving him to run their small farm and takeMolly Morgan, a pretty young woman of 19, arrivescare of them in their old age.He works tirelesslyin the Pastures of Heaven to interview for a posi-and is continually bullied by his old father, whotion as the local schoolteacher.She goes to thespends his days in a rocking chair.When Pat is 30house of John Whiteside, the school board clerk.his parents die.After the funeral, he becomesDuring the interview Molly remembers her child-afraid that their ghosts haunt the sitting room.Hehood of extreme poverty.Her father was a travelinglocks the doors to the room and throws away thesalesman and an alcoholic who came home fromkey.Alone and afraid of the spirits locked in hishis long business trips only rarely and eventuallyparlor, he spends his days working on his farm anddisappeared altogether.Molly s mother died, leav-his evenings looking for the company of other mening the little girl an orphan.She worked her wayin meetings or at the movies.For 10 years he con-through teacher s college.Mr.Whiteside offers thetinues his nightly search for company, hanging onnervous young woman the job and she boards inthe fringes of any group he can find.One eveningthe Whiteside house.She is a popular teacher,during dinner at the Munroe house, Pat overhearsadmired and loved by the inhabitants of the valley,Mae Munroe talking about a pretty house that sheand for the first time in her life she is happy.Onesaw in a postcard.Pat determines to decorate hisafternoon Bert Munroe tells about a drunk that hehouse and win Mae s affection.He breaks down thepicked up under a bridge to work on his farm.locked doors to the sitting room and cleans out allHearing his description, Molly becomes terrifiedtraces of his long-dead parents, even burning thethat the man is her father.She spends the nextfurniture in a great pile in the front yard.Exact-weeks in fear of casually meeting him.Unable toingly he goes about constructing a replica of thestand the possibility that the drunk might be herVermont sitting room he has heard Mae speakfather, she quits her job and leaves town.fondly of.After many months of preparation theChapter IX room is ready.He is planning to invite Mae to hisThe Banks farm is the most admired farm in the val- house when he hears that she is to be married toley.His neighbors love Raymond Banks, a strong, Bill Whiteside. 164 The Pastures of HeavenChapter XI wife, Myrtle, and they are the first settlers in theRichard Whiteside arrives in the Pastures of region.He is forced to commit Myrtle to a mentalHeaven determined to build a seat for the large hospital after she suffers an epileptic fit and tries tofamily he hopes to have.To mark his determina- burn down the family home.George lives on thetion, he builds the largest, finest house in the entire farm with his only son, John.He is bitten by a rat-valley, and as a symbol of his permanence, he tops tlesnake while hunting for demons in the bushesaround his house.When George Battle dies, Johnthe house with a fine, expensive slate roof importedbecomes convinced that demons inhabit the farm.from the East
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