The Cider House Rules

"On land?"

"Sure," said Mr. Rose. "They can see you anywhere."

A kind of communal sighing made the sitters on the roof resemble a chorus resting between numbers. In Wally's bedroom Homer marveled how the world was simultaneously being invented and destroyed.

Nothing marvelous about that, Dr. Larch would have assured him. At St. Cloud's, except for the irritation about sugar stamps and other aspects of the rationing, very little was changed by the war. (Or by what other people once singled out as the Depression, thought Wilbur Larch.)

We are an orphanage; we provide these services; we stay the same--if we're allowed to stay the same, he thought. When he would almost despair, when the ether was too overpowering, when his own age seemed like the last obstacle and the vulnerability of his illegal enterprise was as apparent to him as the silhouettes of the fir trees against the sharp night skies of autumn, Wilbur Larch would save himself with this one thought: I love Homer Wells, and I have saved him from the war.

Homer Wells did not feel saved. Did anyone who was in love and was unsatisfied with how he was loved in return ever feel saved? On the contrary, Homer Wells felt that he'd been singled out for special persecution. What young man--even an orphan--is patient enough to wait and see about love? And if Wilbur Larch had saved Homer Wells from the war, even Dr. Larch was powerless to interfere with Melony.

During the harvest that year, Wally moved again--to Perrin Field in Sherman, Texas (basic training, Company D)--but Melony moved five times. She had enough money; she didn't need to work. She took a job in one orchard after another, leaving as soon as she discovered that no one working there had ever heard of an Ocean View. She worked in an orchard in Harpswell, and in another in Arrowsic; she worked as far north as Rockport, and as far inland as Appleton and Lisbon. She took a side trip to Wiscasset because someone told her there was an Ocean View there; there was, but it was a rooming house. An ice-cream vendor told her he'd seen an Ocean View in Friendship; it turned out to be the name of a residen

t sailboat. Melony got in a fistfight with a head waiter in a seafood restaurant in South Thomaston because she insisted on asking each of the patrons about Ocean View; she won the fight, but she was fined for creating a disturbance; she was a little low on money when she passed through Boothbay Harbor in early November. The sea was slate gray and whitecapped, the pretty boats of summer were in dry dock, the wind had plenty of the coming winter in it; Melony's own pores, as well as the earth's, were closing as tightly as her disappointed heart.

She did not recognize the sallow-faced, sulky juvenile who served the ice-cream sodas to the candy-counter customers in Rinfret's Pharmacy, but young Roy Rinfret--the former (and deeply disappointed) Curly Day--recognized Melony in an instant.

"I used to be Curly Day! Remember me?" Curly asked Melony excitedly. He thrust a lot of free candy and chewing gum at her and insisted on treating her to an ice-cream soda. "A double scooper, on me," Curly said; his adoptive parents would have disapproved.

"Boy, you didn't turn out so good," Melony told him. She meant nothing insulting by this remark; it was a reference to his color, which was pasty, and to his size--he hadn't grown very much. She meant nothing more, but the remark triggered everything that was morose and waiting to be fired in Curly Day.

"You're not kidding, I didn't turn out so good," he said angrily. "I got ditched. Homer Wells stole the people I was meant for."

Melony's teeth were too weak for chewing gum, but she pocketed it, anyway; it would make a nice gift for Lorna. Melony's cavities howled when she sucked hard candy, but she liked it occasionally in spite of this pain--or perhaps because of it--and she had never had an ice-cream soda before.

To demonstrate his loathing for his environment, Curly Day squirted a runny glob of strawberry syrup on the floor--checking, first, to be sure that only Melony could see. He did this as if he were exercising the nozzle before he squirted the stuff on Melony's soda. "It draws ants," he explained; Melony doubted there were many ants left in November. "That's what they're always telling me," Curly said. " 'Don't spill, it draws ants.' " He squirted the floor a few more times. "I'm tryin' to get the ants to carry this place away."

"You still pissed at Homer Wells?" Melony asked him slyly.

She explained that Curly should simply inquire--of every customer--about Ocean View. Curly had never thought concretely about what he would do or say to Homer Wells if he ever encountered him again; he was resentful, but he was not a vengeful boy and he had a sudden, clear memory of Melony's violence. He became suspicious.

"What do you want to find Homer for?" Curly asked.

"What for?" Melony asked sweetly; it wasn't clear if she had considered it. "Well, what would you like to find him for, Curly?" she asked.

"Well," Curly said, struggling. "I guess I'd just like to see him, and tell him that I was really fucked up by his going off and leaving me there--when I thought I was the one who should be going, instead of him." When Curly thought about it, he realized he'd just like to see Homer Wells--maybe be his friend, maybe do stuff together. He'd always admired Homer. If he felt a little deserted by him, that was all he felt. He started to cry. Melony used the paper napkin that went with her ice-cream soda to wipe Curly's tears for him.

"Hey, I know what you mean," she said nicely. "I know how you feel. I got left, too, you know. Really, I just miss the guy. I just want to see him."

Curly's weeping attracted the attention of one of his adoptive parents, Mr. Rinfret, the pharmacist, who was stationed in that end of the store where the serious drugs were dispensed.

"I'm from Saint Cloud's," Melony explained to Mr. Rinfret. "We were all so close there--whenever we run into each other, it takes a little gettin' used to." She hugged Curly in a motherly, if somewhat burly way, and Mr. Rinfret allowed them their privacy.

"Try to remember, Curly," Melony whispered, rocking the boy in her arms as if she were telling him a bedtime story. "Ocean View, just keep asking about Ocean View." When she calmed him down, she gave him Lorna's address in Bath.

On her way back to Bath, Melony hoped that the shipyards would hire her back and that the so-called war effort would keep the stuff on the assembly line changing--that she might look forward to a task somewhat different from the insertion of those ball bearings into that hamlike sprocket. With that thought she removed Lorna's gift mitten from the pocket of Mrs. Grogan's overcoat; she had not yet needed it as a weapon but many nights its presence had comforted her. And it's not been a thoroughly wasted year, Melony reflected warmly, socking the heavy mitten with a painful smack into the palm of her big hand. Now there are four of us looking for you, Sunshine.

They kept Wally in Texas, yet they moved him once more--to Lubbock Flying School (Barracks 12, D3). He would spend November and most of December there, but the Army Air Corps had promised to send him home for Christmas.

"Soon to be in the bosom of my family!" he wrote to Candy, and Homer, and Olive--and even to Ray, who had contributed to the war effort by joining the force of mechanics at the Navy Yard in Kittery; Ray was building torpedoes. He had hired some local boys who were still in school to help him keep his lobster business from sinking, and he worked on the vehicles at Ocean View on the weekends. He enthusiastically demonstrated the gyroscope on Olive's kitchen table to Olive and Homer Wells.

"Before a fella can fathom the torpedo," Ray liked to say, "he has to understand the gyroscope." Homer was interested, Olive was polite--and what's more, thoroughly dependent on Ray; if he didn't fix all the machinery at Ocean View, Olive was convinced that the apples would stop growing.

Candy was cross much of the time--everyone's war effort seemed to depress her, although she had volunteered to pitch in herself and had worked some very long hours at the Cape Kenneth Hospital as a nurse's aide. She agreed it would be "indulgent" to go to college, and she'd had no trouble convincing Homer that he should pitch in, too--with his background, he could be a more useful nurse's aide than most.

"Right," Homer had said.

But if Homer had returned to a semi-hospital life against his will, he soon found he felt comfortable there; however, it was at times difficult to withhold his expert opinion on certain subjects and to play the beginner in a role he was disquietingly born to. Even the nurses were condescending to the nurse's aides, and Homer was irritated to see that the doctors were condescending to everyone--most of all, to their patients.