Spelling
In the store, in the old days, Flo used to say she could tell when some woman was going off thetrack. Special headgear or footwear were often the first giveaways. Galoshes flopping¹ open on asummer day. Rubber boots they slopped around in, or men’s workboots. They might say it was onaccount of corns, but Flo knew better. It was deliberate, it was meant to tell. Next might come theold felt hat, the torn raincoat worn in all weathers, the trousers held up at the waist with twine², thedim shredded³ scarves, the layers of ravelling sweaters.
Mothers and daughters often the same way. It was always in them. Waves of craziness, alwaysrising, irresistible⁴ as giggles⁵, from some place deep inside, gradually getting the better of them.
They used to come telling Flo their stories. Flo would string them along. “Is that so?” she wouldsay. “Isn’t that a shame?”
My vegetable grater is gone and I know who took it.
There is a man comes and looks at me when I take my clothes off at night. I put the blind downand he looks through the crack.
Two hills of new potatoes stolen. A jar of whole peaches. Some nice ducks’ eggs.
One of those women they took to the County Home at last. The first thing they did, Flo said,was give her a bath. The next thing they did was cut off her hair, which had grown out like ahaystack. They expected to find anything in it, a dead bird or maybe a nest of baby mouseskeletons. They did find burrs and leaves and a bee that must have got caught and buzzed itself todeath. When they had cut down far enough they found a cloth hat. It had rotted on her head andthe hair had just pushed up through it, like grass through wire.
FLO HAD GOT into the habit of keeping the table set for the next meal, to save trouble. Theplastic cloth was gummy, the outline of the plate and saucer plain on it as the outline of pictures ona greasy⁶ wall. The refrigerator was full of sulfurous scraps⁷, dark crusts,

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