The Cider House Rules

So pretty that men craned their necks at her.

One was even so brave

As to take out and wave

The distinguishing mark of his sex at her.

He sent this to Homer Wells:

There was a young lady named Brent

With a cunt of enormous extent

And so deep and so wide,

The acoustics inside

Were so good you could hear when you spent.

Wally sent Ray limericks of a similar kind:

There's an unbroken babe from Toronto

Exceedingly hard to get onto

But when you get there

And have parted the hair,

You can fuck her as much as you want to.

God knows what limericks Wally sent to Olive--where does Wally find ones that are decent enough? wondered Homer, who, in the evenings after Wally had gone and Candy had gone back to school, lay listening to his heart. It would help, he thought, if he knew what to listen for.

Wally was sent to St. Louis--the Jefferson Barracks, Flight 17, 28th School Squadron. It struck Homer Wells that the Army Air Corps might have modeled itself on Gray's Anatomy--manifesting a steadfast belief in categories and in everything having a name. It was reassuring to Homer Wells; in his mind, this endless categorizing made Wally safer, but Homer couldn't convince Candy of this.

"He's safe one minute, and in another minute he's not safe," she said, shrugging.

"Look after Homer, look after his heart," Wally had written her.

"And who's looking after my heart? Yes, I'm still angry," she wrote him, although he hadn't asked.

But if she was angry with Wally, she was also loyal; she was keeping her promise, about the waiting and seeing. She kissed Homer when she saw him, and when they said good-bye, but she wouldn't encourage him.

"We're just good pals," she told her father; Ray hadn't asked.

"I can see that," Ray said.

The work in the orchards was light that winter; pruning was the main job. The men took turns teaching Homer how to prune. "You make your big cuts in the subfreezing weather," Meany Hyde told him.

"A tree don't bleed so much when it's cold," was how Vernon Lynch put it, hacking away.

"There's less chance of an infection when it's cold," said Herb Fowler, who was not so free with the prophylactics in the winter months, perhaps because he would have needed to take his gloves off to get at them; but Homer felt sure that Herb was being wary ever since Homer had asked him about the holes.

"Are there holes?" Herb had replied. "Manufacturer's defect, I suppose."

But later he'd come up to Homer and whispered to him, "Not all of them's got holes."

"You have a system?" Homer asked. "Which ones have holes and which don't?"