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Show Chick Sales 8 Herman feels a knuckle planted in the middle of his backbone. He jumps to the side, pokes the bull to satisfy his father, and starts to wish that some miner would dynamite Old Ben into pieces. Then he could wrap those pieces inside of white packages and seal them with brown tape, just as his father did with beef at the meat market. "Are you related to the grasshoppers, son? You have St. Vitas Dance or something? Ah, 'Thanatopsis.' William Cullen Bryant, you know." "Daddy, why do I have to go? Why couldn't Jack go with you? He's the oldest." "Mind your manners, son. Your brother Jack faced i t like a man when he went for the f i r s t time. Why don't you? Are you a ninny or something?" Alf tips his hat again. Another swishing s k i r t . "And how is Miss L i ly today?" "Just fine s i r , I mean, Alf." "She's one of my customers," Alf confides. "You know how my customers like me, don't you son?" Herman answers his father with another poke at the b u l l , remembering the day last July when he had seen that woman at Ely Meat and Company. He had been delivering a box of plucked chickens to the market where his father wrapped parts of animals in neat packages. The wagon squeaked all the way into town, one wheel crooked, as he pulled the poultry. He rubbed the cloth over the single penny in his mother's coin purse and rehearsed his upcoming business transaction. After the chickens were delivered, he'd go to Scanelli's for peppermint. He'd pull the purse out of his pocket, hoping |