The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner Page A

a mistake to think that,” Bo said. “If she does.”
    Karl waved his hands helplessly. He didn’t want to get into this. Nels ought to have written to Elsa, or to Bo himself, if he wanted to know so much. He put a man in a bad position. “She’s an awful nice kid,” he said.
    â€œI never denied that.”
    â€œBut she’s just a kid,” Karl said. “That’s the only thing that bothers me. She’s never been anywhere before, she don’t know much. She’s just a nice good-looking kid that some careless guy could take advantage of pretty easy.”
    â€œThanks,” Bo said, eyeing him. “Thanks very much.”
    â€œI never said you were taking advantage of her,” Karl said. “I just said she didn’t have any experience, she’s got no way of judging people because all the people she ever saw were Norske farmers with their feet in a furrow.”
    â€œJust what is it you’ve got against me as her husband?” Bo said.
    â€œI didn’t say I had anything against you!” Karl said. His voice rose complainingly. “Herregud, I’ve been your friend for six years, haven’t I? Only she isn’t nineteen yet. She shouldn’t be rushed.”
    â€œI haven’t been rushing her,” Bo said. “I’ve been making myself stay away from her for a week.” His eyes were still cold, uncomfortably steady on Karl’s face. “Spill it,” he said.
    â€œOh hell,” Karl said. He jingled the change in his pocket and looked toward the door. A wind blew scraps of paper and gray dust past the windows. “How am I going to tell Nels what you do, for one thing?” he said. “I can’t just write and say, ‘Bo’s a good guy that runs a blind pig here in town.’ Nels won’t like it.” He shook his head. “He might even try to stop it,” he said.
    â€œHow would he stop it?”
    â€œHe might make her come home.”
    â€œI bet you any amount of money,” Bo said, “that she wouldn’t go. She ran away from him once, didn’t she? He’s got a hell of a lot of business trying to run her now.”
    â€œDo you want to take her in to live in a room in that hotel?” Karl said. “Can you see her as the wife of a guy that runs a pig? She’s just the wrong kind for you, Bo. She’s cut out to have a nice house and a bunch of kids and make somebody a good wife. Your kind of life would break her heart in a year.”
    â€œSuppose I told you I’m selling the joint.”
    â€œYou are?”
    â€œI might.”
    â€œThen what would you do?”
    â€œI’ve been looking over a hotel in Grand Forks,” Bo said. “If that’s any of your business.”
    Karl wrinkled his forehead. “I don’t want you to get sore at me,” he said. “If I was doing the marrying I’d just as soon marry you. But I don’t know that Elsa should, by God if I do. You’re a rambler. You might both wish you hadn’t.”
    Bo had finished paring his nails. He shut the knife with a snick and put it in his pocket. “You’re an old busybody,” he said. “Why don’t you go back and tend to your store?”
    Karl shrugged and pushed himself away from the bar. “Give me a beer first.”
    While Bo got out a bottle and glass Karl watched him. He was a nice guy. He was a hell of a nice guy. But what kind of a life would it be for that innocent of an Elsa, tagging him around from one thing to another? Bo wasn’t a sticker. He chased rainbows too much. “You really gone on her?” he said. “You going to become a reformed character and settle down and be an alderman?”
    Bo scraped the foam from Karl’s glass with an ivory stick and dropped the bottle in a box under the bar. A man across the room was pulling the handle of the slot machine. “I told him,” somebody