“Tell you what I’ll do, Captain. I’ll look after her myself. Epsom salt’ll do the trick. That’s the best thing.”

The captain stroked the dog’s head. “You know, I’ve got a pond up by the house that’s so full of frogs I can’t sleep nights. Why don’t you look up there? They bellow all night. I’d be glad to get rid of them.”

“That’s mighty nice of you,” said Mack. “I’ll bet those docs would thank you for that. But I’d like to get a poultice on this dog.” He turned to the others. “You put out this fire,” he said. “Make sure there ain’t a spark left and clean up around. You don’t want to leave no mess. I and the captain will go and take care of Nola here. You fellows follow along when you get cleared up.” Mack and the captain walked away together.

Hazel kicked sand on the fire. “I bet Mack could of been president of the U.S. if he wanted,” he said.

“What could he do with it if he had it?” Jones asked. “There wouldn’t be no fun in that.”

Chapter XIV

Early morning is a time of magic in Cannery Row. In the gray time after the light has come and before the sun has risen, the Row seems to hang suspended out of time in a silvery light. The street lights go out, and the weeds are a brilliant green. The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucence of platinum or old pewter. No automobiles are running then. The street is silent of progress and business. And the rush and drag of the waves can be heard as they splash in among the piles of the canneries. It is a time of great peace, a deserted time, a little era of rest. Cats drip over the fences and slither like syrup over the ground to look for fish heads. Silent early morning dogs parade majestically picking and choosing judiciously whereon to pee. The sea gulls come flapping in to sit on the cannery roofs to await the day of refuse. They sit on the roof peaks shoulder to shoulder. From the rocks near the Hopkins Marine Station comes the barking of sea lions like the baying of hounds. The air is cool and fresh. In the back gardens the gophers push up the morning mounds of fresh damp earth and they creep out and drag flowers into their holes. Very few people are about, just enough to make it seem more deserted than it is. One of Dora’s girls comes home from a call on a patron too wealthy or too sick to visit the Bear Flag. Her makeup is a little sticky and her feet are tired. Lee Chong brings the garbage cans out and stands them on the curb. The old Chinaman comes out of the sea and flapflaps across the street and up past the Palace. The cannery watchmen look out and blink at the morning light. The bouncer at the Bear Flag steps out on the porch in his shirtsleeves and stretches and yawns and scratches his stomach. The snores of Mr. Malloy’s tenants in the pipes have a deep tannelly quality. It is the hour of the pearl — the interval between day and night when time stops and examines itself.

On such a morning and in such a light two soldiers and two girls strolled easily along the street. They had come out of La Ida and they were very tired and very happy. The girls were hefty, big breasted and strong and their blonde hair was in slight disarray. They wore printed rayon party dresses, wrinided now and dinging to their convexities. And each girl wore a soldier’s cap, one far back on her head and the other with the visor down almost on her nose. They were full-lipped, broadnosed, hippy girls and they were very tired.

The soldier’s tunics were unbuttoned and their belts were threaded through their epaulets. The ties were pulled down a little so the shirt collars could be unbuttoned. And the soldiers wore the girls’ hats, one a tiny yellow straw boater with a bunch of daisies on the crown, the other a white knitted halfhat to which medallions of blue cellophane adhered. They walked holding hands, swinging their hands rhythmically. The soldier on the outside had a large brown paper bag filled with cold canned beer. They strolled softly in the pearly light. They had had a hell of a time and they felt good. They smiled delicately like weary children remembering a party. They looked at one another and smiled and they swung their hands. Past the Bear Flag they went and said “Hiya,” to the bouncer who was scratching his stomach. They listened to the snores from the pipes and laughed a little. At Lee Chong’s they stopped and looked into the messy display window where tools and clothes and food crowded for attention. Swinging their hands and scuffing their feet, they came to the end of Cannery Row and turned up to the railroad track. The girls climbed up on the rails and walked along on them and the soldiers put their arms around the plump waists to keep them from falling. Then they went past the boat works and turned down into the park-like property of the Hopkins Marine Station. There is a tiny curved beach in front of the station, a miniature beach between little reefs. The gentle morning waves licked up the beach and whispered softly. The fine smell of seaweed came from the exposed rocks. As the four came to the beach a sliver of the sun broke over Tom Work’s land across the head of the bay and it gilded the water and made the rocks yellow. The girls sat formally down in the sand and straightened their skirts over their knees. One of the soldiers punched holes in four cans of beer and handed them around. And then the men lay down and put their heads in the girls’ laps and looked up into their faces. And they smiled at each other, a tired and peaceful and wonderful secret.

From up near the station came the barking of a dog — the watchman, a dark and surly man, had seen them and his black and surly cocker spaniel had seen them. He shouted at them and when they did not move he came down on the beach and his dog barked monotonously. “Don’t you know you can’t lay around here? You got to get off. This is private property!”

The soldiers did not even seem to hear him. They smiled on and the girls were stroking their hair over the temples. At last in slow motion one of the soldiers turned his head so that his cheek was cradled between the girl’s legs. He smiled benevolently at the caretaker. “Why don’t you take a flying fuggut the moon?” he said kindly and he turned back to look at the girl.

The sun lighted her blonde hair and she scratched him over one ear. They didn’t even see the caretaker go back to his house.

Chapter XV

By the time the boys got up to the farmhouse Mack was in the kitchen. The pointer bitch lay on her side, and Mack held a cloth saturated with epsom salts against her tick bite. Among her legs the big fat wiener pups nuzzled and bumped for milk and the bitch looked patiently up into Mack’s face saying, “You see how it is? I try to tell him but he doesn’t understand.”

The captain held a lamp and looked down on Mack.

“I’m glad to know about that,” he said.

Mack said, “I don’t want to tell you about your business, sir, but these pups ought to be weaned. She ain’t got a hell of a lot of milk left and them pups are chewin’ her to pieces.”

“I know,” said the captain. “I s’pose I should have drowned them all but one. I’ve been so busy trying to keep the place going. People don’t take the interest in bird dogs they used to. It’s all poodles and boxers and Dobermans.”

“I know,” said Mack. “And there ain’t no dog like a pointer for a man. I don’t know what’s come over people. But you wouldn’t of drowned them, would you, sir?”

“Well,” said the captain, “since my wife went into politics, I’m just running crazy. She got elected to the Assembly for this district and when the Legislature isn’t in session, she’s off making speeches. And when she’s home she’s studying all the time and writing bills.”

“Must be lousy in — I mean it must be pretty lonely,” said Mack. “Now if I had a pup like this—” he picked up a squirming puzz-faced pup— “why I bet I’d have a real bird dog in three years. I’d take a bitch every time.”