Hanson Page 4         "It was. But there was some problem, when he got it running. It was too complicated and all the eggs smashed. It was quite a mess. Then the chickens got out, they were running all over, crowing and flapping their wings. Jim and I tried to catch them and everyone laughed. I think Jim was pretty embarrassed."     "I guess so," Glad said. "That's too bad."     I loved her more, for chasing the runaway chickens.     "I always felt tender toward him." Beulah looked up with her hurt, slanted smile. "He had obvious talent but a bad home life."     She shook her head, so her auburn hair waved and caught the gold light. Viv Stone had been right, about Beulah.     "No encouragement. Once I loaned him Moby Dick and he returned it the next day. He stayed up all night to finish it."     "What did he make of it?" I asked.     "He wanted to know if the whale were God or the Devil."     "What'd you tell him?"     "Both and neither. He said, 'That's what I thought.' The next week he read 'Bartleby the Scrivener,' about the man who refuses to live in the world, by its rules, who won't help himself or let himself be helped and starves to death. He was sure the main character was Melville, that the story was autobiographical."     "Did he read the story of the Trojan Horse?" Glad wondered.     "I don't know if we did the Aeneid that year or not," Beulah said. She raised her brows. "I know he was interested in Greek myths. I remember a paper he wrote on Pasiphaë and the Minotaur."    "Who're they?" Glad asked.