Explore "A Gathering of Old Men" by Ernest J. Gaines on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I had Lucy bake me an apple pie, because I knew how much Jack just liked his apple pie. I told Lucy when she came to work that morning if she baked me the best apple pie she ever baked in her life I would give her half the day off. She told me don’t worry. And I’ll be darn if she didn’t bake the best one I had ever seen or tasted. Golden brown and sweet, but not too sweet—just sweet enough. I told her, at twelve o’clock sharp, she could take off because I am a woman of my word. She said, “Don’t I already know that, Miss Merle?” Bless her heart. She said, “Why you think I baked the best apple pie I ever baked in my life? And the next one go’n be twice as good.”
We both left the house at the same time, she going to her place at Medlow, and I on my way to Marshall to see Jack and Bea. The pie was for Jack—and, Lord, I wished he liked me much as he did apple pie. But I had been saying that for years and years now.