Mr. Bridge_ A Novel - Evan S. Connell [16]
“Good-by, Daddy,” she answered somewhat wistfully.
Mr. Bridge had Julia locate the contest director. Mr. Denny was sympathetic and promised that Jiggs the pony would be waiting for Carolyn next Saturday.
Mr. Bridge could not attend the presentation ceremony because he was again spending Saturday at the office, but everybody else went to the grocery store—Mrs. Bridge, Harriet, and all three children. Mr. Denny himself was there. He looked rather like the leader of an orchestra. He was a slender young man wearing two-tone shoes, loose gray slacks with a sharp crease, and a British blazer with a gold crest on the pocket. Having shaken hands with everybody he asked them to call him Alfred, which nobody did.
After it was over and Carolyn had been photographed sitting tensely in the saddle, Jiggs was led back to his carrier and driven to the Waldo Stables, where Mr. Bridge had rented a stall.
Jiggs remained at the stables for several months. Then Mr. Bridge sold him to a farmer for thirty dollars. Carolyn had gone to visit her pony only twice. Ruth had gone out a number of times and come home nervous and excited, her clothing damp with perspiration, her eyes bright, and her long black hair undone, which displeased her mother. Douglas had not been to the stables at all. So it was that Jiggs did not have much to do and got fat eating oats. Mr. Bridge got tired of buying oats and the farmer wanted a pony for his children. Everything considered, it seemed sensible and perhaps inevitable that Jiggs should be sold. Carolyn was satisfied with her thirty dollars and not much more was said about it.
Once in a while something would remind them of Jiggs. They would wonder how he liked being on the farm, and they spoke of driving to Harrisonville some Sunday afternoon to say hello. But the Sundays slipped away and they never went.
Mr. Bridge often thought about the pony. The lively little creature reminded him of days he had almost forgotten, and it saddened him to realize he would not see Jiggs again—the cottony coat, the tossing head with its large metallic eye, the flecks of foam on the leather bridle—or hear again the imperious stamp of the tiny hooves.
19 Bleak Day
Coming home late from the office one wintry Thursday he noticed the lights on in the dining room, which meant that the family was eating. After parking the Reo he let himself in the back door and stopped at the dining room. Douglas was not there.
Mrs. Bridge said he had been invited to have dinner with Bobby Tipton. Then she added, “I trust you have no objection.”
“No, I have no objection if he wishes to have dinner with one of his friends. How are the rest of you?”
“Just fine, as usual,” she responded, smiling at the girls. “They were simply famished, so we took the liberty of starting.”
Ruth said, “Daddy, what’s wrong?”
He looked down at her curiously. “What makes you think anything is wrong?”
She glanced at his briefcase and he realized that he was swinging it back and forth.
“Oh, dear, is something the matter?” Mrs. Bridge asked.
He walked into the hall, where he took off his gloves and his hat and coat and put them in the closet. Then he returned to the dining room.
“A youthful client of mine was awarded a certain sum of money for personal injuries this afternoon but the judge took it upon himself to reduce the amount.”
“Really?” she exclaimed. “Why, I had no idea they could do such a thing!”
“They can and they do. One thousand dollars is all that boy is going to get. One thousand dollars,” he repeated, and picking up a spoon he began to eat his soup.
“I sure could use a thousand dollars,” Carolyn said.
“It is far from adequate,” he answered shortly. He sighed and pushed the bowl of soup away.
“Was it snowing downtown?” Mrs. Bridge inquired.
“Of course it was snowing downtown. It snowed here, didn’t it? It snowed most of the day and the weather bureau predicts more of the same tomorrow.”
“I suppose getting around was a chore.”
“Getting around was next