orchard. Hubert would inform them that they were peach trees and the two men would argue. Lillian would settle the argument when they were two miles past the trees by assuring them that she had seen tiny, green peaches. She had never known Hubert to be wrong, so why not squash the argument? Since knowing him Lillian had had many questions indubitably settled. She knew now that appendicitis did come from swallowing grape seeds, that a governor's pardon or refusal to pardon is subject to the prison warden's desire, that the American Revolution was won by the Colonists because Washington and King George were both Masons and made a little friendly agreement between themselves, and that the girl one sees on magazine covers is always the artist's wife.
Sometimes they took Anna with them. She was not good company but they pitied her. She told them often how bravely she had carried herself through a tragic love affair, seeming to forget that Hubert had paid the wages of sin with a hundred-dollar check and that Lillian had wet-nursed Anna's folly.
Once they had invited Theresa and Hymie, but Theresa had brought along a basket of fruit and sandwiches and a thermos bottle full of coffee. She said it was ridiculous to pay the prices of the inns along the road, that she and Hymie couldn't afford it and didn't expect to stick Hubert with the bill; so this was her party. Hubert felt cheated when forced to return to the city with an unbroken fifty-dollar bill and Lillian had hated sitting in the car eating sandwiches. She had laughed a lot while doing it to assure passing motorists
