The Cider House Rules

The picker named Peaches was almost as fast as Mr. Rose. He was emptying his canvas bag into a bushel crate, and he interrupted Rose Rose and Angel.

"You countin' me, Angel?" Peaches asked.

"I got you," Angel said. Sometimes Angel examined the fruit if he didn't know the picker very well--to make sure they weren't bruising it; if they were bruising it, or if there were other signs that they were picking too fast, Angel wouldn't give them the top price for a bushel. But Angel knew Peaches was a good picker, so he just put a number on the list without getting off the tractor to look at the apples.

"Ain't you a checker?" Peaches asked Angel, then.

"Sure, I got you!" Angel said to him.

"Don't you wanna check me, then? Better make sure I ain't pickin' pears, or somethin'," Peaches said, grinning. Angel went to look over the apples, and that was when Peaches said to him: "You don't wanna go into the knife business with Mistuh Rose." Then he walked away, with his bag and his ladder, before Angel could say anything about his apples--which were, of course, perfect.

Back on the tractor, Angel got up his nerve. "Are you still married to the baby's father?" he asked Rose Rose.

"Wasn't ever married," she said.

"Are you still together, you and the father?" Angel asked.

"Baby got no father," Rose Rose said. "I wasn't ever together."

"I like Hazel and Heather," Angel said, after a while. "They're both names of plants, so they sort of go with Rose."

"I don't have no plant, I got a little girl," Rose Rose said, smiling.

"I also like the name Hope," Angel said.

"Hope ain't no name," Rose Rose said.

"Iris is nice," Angel said. "But it's sort of cute, because it's another flower. Then there's Isadora."

"Whew!" said Rose Rose. "No name is better than some."

"Well, how about plain old Jane?" asked Angel Wells, who was getting frustrated. "Jennifer? Jessica? Jewel? Jill? Joyce? Julia? Justine?"

She touched him. She just put her hand on his hip, which nearly caused him to jackknife the trailer and spill the load. "Don't never stop," she told him. "I never knew there was so many names. Go on," she said, her hand urging him--it was just a little shove, before she returned her hand to her lap, where Baby Rose sat mesmerized by the tractor's motion and the tractor's sound.

"Katherine? Kathleen? Kirsten? Kitty?" Angel Wells began.

"Go on," Rose Rose said, her hand grazing his hip again.

"Laura? Laurie? Laverne? Lavinia? Leah? That means 'weary,' " he told her. "Leslie? Libby? Loretta? Lucy? Mabel? That means 'lovable,' " he told her. "Malvina? That means 'smooth snow,' " he explained.

"I never livin' where they got snow," Rose Rose said.

"Maria?" Angel said. "Marigold? That's another flower. Mavis? That means a 'thrush,' it's a kind of bird," he said.

"Don't tell me what they mean," Rose Rose instructed him.

"Melissa? Mercedes?" Angel said.

"Ain't that a car?" Rose Rose asked him.

"It's a good car," Angel said. "A German car. Very expensive."

"I seen one, I think," Rose Rose said. "They got a funny bull's-eye on the hood."

"Their insignia," said Angel Wells.

"Their what?" she asked.