Which meant that Cash would be the first to cook
and eat his breakfast, and that the warped ethics of
their dumb quarrel would demand that Bud pretend
to be asleep until Cash had fried his bacon and his
hotcakes and had carried them to his end of the oil-
cloth-covered table.

When, by certain well-known sounds, Bud was
sure that Cash was eating, he could, without loss of
dignity or without suspicion of making any over-
tures toward friendliness, get up and dress and cook
his own breakfast, and eat it at his own end of the
table. Bud wondered how long Cash, the old fool,
would sulk like that. Not that he gave a darn --
he just wondered, is all. For all he cared, Cash
could go on forever cooking his own meals and liv-
ing on his own side of the shack. Bud certainly
would not interrupt him in acting the fool, and if
Cash wanted to keep it up till spring, Cash was per-
fectly welcome to do so. It just showed how ornery
a man could be when he was let to go. So far as
he was concerned, he would just as soon as not have
that deadline painted down the middle of the cabin
floor.

-172-