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Show 177 It had been a miserable summer of indecision. I was working in Salt Lake City at private duty, twenty-hour day nursing. It was while I was tending the little ivory soap twins that I decided to break my engagement. The Nelsons s a w me crumple half-read letters from my fiance in anger, sometimes tears; they invited him to dinner when he came to town and passed inspection on him. "We don't think he is good enough for our little nurse, " Mr. Nelson said. They were very good to me, bought a ticket and gave me time off to go see Walter Hampdon and Jane Cowl in Romeo and Juliet, and made calls to people they knew to get me into the special class in sculpture at the University of Utah during my hours off. Eventually I quit my job there and went home to break my engagement. It was not because of the other girl, but I found out about her and many other things in time to give me a good excuse. I had been afraid to brave the accusations and eloquence, and so had Mama. "I was not supposed to tell you these things, " she said, before I kept the date. "But I'm afraid you might relent and not quit him. " Papa had labeled him a "damn son-of-a-bitch" the first time he saw him, but Mama wouldn't let me know that for fear my feelings for Papa might plunge me headlong into the marriage. I was more adult than that, and wished they had let me know their true feelings before I got engaged. Papa went to quarterly conference and heard a sermon, came home and gave me a fatherly one about trifling with men's affections. |