hand on the lever of that great disposal unit and fully intended to push it. Mr Moran said a great deal more. Mr Moran did more than speak; Mr Moran sermonized. Preacher Colson (or was it Cooder?) at the height of his powers could not have equaled Moran on that day. Ruth waited patiently until he had at least temporarily run dry. Then, speaking in a low and pleasant voice that did not at all suggest that her calf now felt as if it was burning in a furnace, she told Mr Moran that, while the law was not entirely clear on the point, damages had more often been awarded to the caller, even if uninvited, rather than the owner, in cases of animal assault. The real question was whether or not the owner had taken all reasonable care to ensure ...
'What the fuck are you talking about?' Moran screamed.
'I'm trying to tell you that the courts take a dim view of a man leaving his dog untied so it can bite a woman soliciting for a charitable organization like the American Cancer Society. Put another way, I'm trying to make you see that, in court, they make you pay for acting like an asshole.'
Stunned silence from the other end of the line. Mr Moran's muse had fled forever.
Ruth paused briefly and fought off a wave of faintness as Daggett finished the disinfecting process and put a light sterile bandage on the wound. 'If you took me to court, Mr Moran, could my lawyer find someone to testify that your dog had bitten before?'
Silence from the other end of the line.
'Perhaps two someones?'
More silence.
'Perhaps three '
'Fuck you, you highbrow cunt,' Moran said suddenly.
'Well,' Ruth said, 'I can't say it's been pleasant talking with you, but listening to you air your views has certainly been instructive. A person sometimes believes she's seen all the way to the bottom of the well of human stupidity, and a reminder that that well apparently has no bottom is sometimes useful. I'm afraid I'll have to hang up now. I'd hoped to canvass six more houses today, but I'm afraid I'll have to put them off. I have to go up to Derry Home Hospital and get some stitches, I'm afraid.'
'I hope they fucking kill you,' Moran said.
'I understand. But do try to help the Cancer Society if you can. We need all the help we can get if we're going to stop cancer in our lifetime. Even ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, idiotic, misbegotten sons of bitches such as yourself can do their part.'
Mr Moran did not sue her. A week later she received a Cancer Society pledge envelope from him, however. He had not stamped it, on purpose, she suspected, so it would be delivered postage-due. Inside was a note and a one dollar bill with a large brown stain on it. I WIPED MY ASS ON THIS, YOU BITCH! the note cried triumphantly. It was written in the large straggling letters of a first-grader with motor control problems. Ruth held the bill by the corner and put it in with the rest of the morning wash. When it came out (clean; among the many other things Mr Moran did not seem to know was that shit washes off), she ironed it. Then it was not only clean, it was crisp - it might have come from the bank only yesterday. She put it in the canvas bank bag where she kept all her collection money. In her record book she noted B. Moran, Amount Contributed: $1.00.
3
The Haven Town Library. The Cancer Society. The New England Conference of Small Towns. Ruth served Haven in all these organizations. She was also active in the Methodist church; it was a rare church supper at which there wasn't a Ruth McCausland casserole or a bake-sale at which there wasn't a Ruth McCausland pie or loaf of raisin bread. She had served on the school board and on the school textbook committee.
People said they didn't know how she did it all. When asked directly, she would smile and say she believed busy hands were happy hands. With all of this going on in her life, you would have thought she'd have had no time for hobbies ... but she did in fact have two. She loved to read (she particularly enjoyed Bobbi Anderson's westerns; she had all of them, each signed) and she collected dolls.
A psychiatrist would have equated Ruth's doll collection with her unfulfilled wish for children. Ruth, although