And presently Cash crawled out
into the warm room filled with the odor of frying onions, and
dressed himself with the detached calm of the chronically sulky
individual. Not once did the manner of either man betray any
consciousness of the other's presence. Unless some detail of the
day's work compelled them to speech, not once for more than three
weeks had either seemed conscious of the other.
Cash washed his face and his hands, took the side of bacon, and
cut three slices with the precision of long practice. Bud sopped
his last hotcake in a pool of syrup and watched him from the
corner of his eyes, without turning his head an inch toward Cash.
His keenest desire, just then, was to see Cash when he tackled
the frying pan.
But Cash disappointed him there. He took a pie tin off the
shelf and laid his strips of bacon on it, and set it in the oven;
which is a very good way of cooking breakfast bacon, as Bud well
knew. Cash then took down the little square baking pan, greased
from the last baking of bread, and in that he fried his hot
cakes. As if that were not sufficiently exasperating, he gave
absolutely no sign of being conscious of the frying pan any more
than he was conscious of Bud. He did not overdo it by whistling,
or even humming a tune--which would have given Bud an excuse
to say something almost as mean as his mood.
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