The Golden Goose Read Online Free

softly.
    The room was on the dim side, it now being nearly seven o’clock, but Prin saw Uncle Slater immediately—at first glance he appeared to be asleep. But at second glance she noticed a couple of oddities: He was sleeping on his face instead of on his back, and on the floor instead of his bed. Considering the peculiar disposition of his arms and legs, he looked not so much like a man sleeping off a drunk as like a drunk who had had an accident.
    It was disturbing, finding Uncle Slater like that, and for a moment Prin stood still in the doorway with a large hot rock in her throat. Her mind continued to function, however, and it told her coldly that Uncle Slater was (A) drunk, or (B) ill, or (C) dead. She tiptoed over to the bed and knelt beside him. It was at once evident that Uncle Slater was neither (A) drunk nor (B) ill, because he was not breathing. That meant he must be (C) dead.
    Prin kept kneeling beside her uncle. Her position seemed just right for prayer, so she tried to think a little prayer, but it simply wouldn’t come. Then she tried to cry, with equal lack of success. Uncle Slater was dead, and nothing was going to change that, not the saying of prayers nor the shedding of tears, nor anything . All she could do was go away. So Princess O’Shea left the quiet bedroom on tiptoe, leaving part of herself with Uncle Slater, who looked so all used up on the floor.
    The family was still in the living room downstairs, but someone new had been added. Mrs. Dolan was standing there with her club-like forearms jutting out from her prodigious hips. Dinner was getting stony, she was saying, and if anyone thought she was going to wait around half the night to do the dishes they could find themselves another cook, and anyway cooks oughtn’t to have to do dishes. The only thing that kept Mrs. Dolan going was the lure of the TV set in her basement room; everyone knew that the best programs were in the evening, so in Mrs. Dolan’s view any delay was by malice aforethought.
    â€œWell,” sniffed Mrs. Dolan at sight of Prin. “And is himself going to come down for my dinner, or ain’t he?”
    Prin said in a voice that she had difficulty recognizing as her own, “No, himself is definitely not coming down for your dinner, Mrs. Dolan.”
    â€œThen the devil take him,” cried Mrs. Dolan, “and the rest of you, too. You can roust your own dinners!” and off she stamped to her own nether region and the television set.
    â€œWhat did I tell you?” chuckled Cousin Twig. “He’s dead to the world, eh, Prin?”
    â€œThat,” said Prin tremulously, “he is.”
    â€œShut up, Twig,” growled Brother Brady. “Can’t you see something’s wrong? She’s the color of mud. What is it, Prin?”
    â€œUncle Slater’s dead.”
    There was a considerable silence. Everyone seemed to be trying to digest Prin’s statement except Cousin Peet who, while her lips were moistly parted as usual, seemed unable even to swallow it. Cousin Twig swung the short legs hanging from his long shanks around to the room side of the piano bench, and he stared at Prin with a stare that for once had no slaver in it. Brother Brady was frowning preparatory to some powerful action, like striding over to the bar and perhaps drinking a toast to Uncle Slater’s memory. As for little Aunt Lallie, she became so agitated that she actually stopped looking at the wall and gestured at Prin with the smoldering cigarette holder in her big hairy hand.
    â€œNow Prin,” said Aunt Lallie. “It’s in the worst possible taste to make a remark like that. Shame on you!”
    â€œYes,” snarled Cousin Twig, “there are some things that are just not funny. You know perfectly well I’m depending on Uncle Slater to live forever. So stop making with the dirty jokes.”
    â€œI repeat,” said Prin O’Shea wearily. “Uncle Slater is