Shorty McCabe

The town looked it. There was an aggregation of three men, two boys and a yellow dog in sight on Main Street when we landed. We'd wired ahead, so the old lady was ready for us. Leonidas called her "Mother" Bickell. She was short, about as thick through as a sugar barrel, and wore two kinds of hair, the front frizzes bein' a lovely chestnut. But she was a nice-spoken old girl, and when she found out that we'd brought along a genuine invalid with a leak in his blood pump, she almost fell on our necks. In about two shakes she'd hustled Homer into a rocking-chair, wedged him in place with pillows, wrapped a blanket around his feet, and shoved him up to a table where there was a hungry man's layout of clam fritters, canned corn, boiled potatoes and hot mince pie.

There wasn't any use for Homer to register a kick on the bill-of-fare. She was too busy tellin' him how much good the things would do him, and how he must eat a lot or she'