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Show -237 edgers and electric trimmers. The sunshine triggered their instincts to cut, hack, chop and generally control all the vegetation they could reach. m the kitchen below, Alice or Morgan clinked pots together; the voice of the repaired portable TV was reduced by its passage up the vent-pipe to a sort of muted pleasant wah-wah, a^soft incomprehensible quacking sound. When we were little kids the room had had two Army surplus iron cots, one for Jacob and the other mine. The old gravity-fed furnace in the basement never quite managed to throw its heat this far up and we piled on all the blankets, quilts and spreads we could find. Pressed down by so much soft weight, we could barely turn over at night, but we were warm. On cold mornings my brother and I fell into long bitter wrangles over who was going to get up and go downstairs to take first turn at the bathroom. Older but milder-tempered, Jacob generally gave in. Poor Jacob! Mildness was a poorly-chosen virtue in that household of eccentrics and egomaniacs; he suffered from Adam's moods and mine, and eventually Carlo's, until Kathleen married him and moved him out to suffer from hers. Morgan stuck her head past the door. "Come in," I said. "Let's fool around. I need cheering up." "Uh-uh. I'm going shopping. You want to come?" "What for?" I said. "There's enough food stacked in |