Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene Read Online Free Page A

Fister tinkering with his motorcycle in his driveway. Miss Withers was fond of Aloysius, although she disapproved of him and invariably gave him, when the opportunity arose, sagacious advice which he good-naturedly ignored. Aloysius was a college drop-out. He had been doing quite well at UCLA, Miss Withers understood, and then without warning he had simply withdrawn and come home. The only reason he gave was that he had reached the conclusion, after implied soul-searching, that college might not be the answer to a lot of things, at least for him, and he was deferring any further academic endeavor until he could decide where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do after he got there. Meanwhile, insofar as Miss Withers could see, he did nothing at all, unless you counted going to the beach and forever tinkering, as now, with his motorcycle.
    What he needs , she thought, is to make himself useful . And seconds after the thought, her purpose hardly formed in her mind, she found herself approaching him resolutely.
    “Good morning, Aloysius,” she said.
    The young man flinched and grinned wryly, brushing straw-colored hair out of his eyes with the back of a greasy paw. “Please, Miss Withers! I’ll tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll call me Al, I’ll call you Hildegarde.”
    “You’ll do nothing of the sort, young man. If you prefer to be called Al, I’ll be glad to comply without any concession on your part.”
    “Fair enough.”
    “However, I deplore your attitude. Aloysius is a fine old Irish name. I’m quite partial to the Irish.”
    Al Fister grinned again, and the grin did pleasant things to his homely, sun-tanned face. In spite of certain early fore-warnings of a dissolute character, Miss Withers thought he was really quite a charming boy. His straw-colored thatch, with a kind of obstreperous will of its own, was not amenable to the discipline of comb or brush. His eyes, which crinkled at the corners when he grinned, reflected the amiability of his temper, which was pacific by nature and conviction. He was dressed in a soiled white T-shirt, a pair of faded blue Levis, and filthy sneakers.
    “I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “If you’re looking for my mother, she isn’t home.”
    “I’m not looking for your mother,” Miss Withers said. “You’re the one I want to speak with.”
    “Another lecture, Miss Withers? What have I done now?”
    “It isn’t what you’ve done. Quite the contrary. It’s what you haven’t done. So far as I’ve been able to observe, you haven’t done anything whatever.”
    “Maybe you haven’t observed enough.” Al’s grin was ready, his amiability undisturbed. “You might be surprised at what I’ve been doing when I was out of your sight.”
    “That may be. I doubt that I should be favorably impressed.” Miss Withers sniffed audibly and somehow severely. “I’ve decided, young man, that you need something constructive to do. You need to contribute .”
    “It’s nice of you to think of me, Miss Withers, but I wouldn’t want you to worry.”
    “I’m sure you wouldn’t, and so I won’t. To begin with, Al, I’d like you to tell me what you know about the peculiar breed of human beings referred to as hippies.”
    “Hippies?”
    “Yes. Surely you’re familiar with them?”
    “Who isn’t? They’re all over the place. What do you want to know about them?”
    “Primarily, their major places of congregation and habitation. Also, how one might go about making oneself familiar with them.”
    “Well, you can find them on the Strip, in Griffith Park, at Laguna Beach. There happens to be some right over in Venice. They spill over, of course. Like I said, you can find them all over the place. After all, the Establishment hasn’t reached the point yet of keeping them on reservations.”
    “The Establishment?”
    “Sure. The established order. The squares and their fuzz.”
    “Fuzz, I believe, is a rather derogatory term applied to the police?”
    “That’s