The Wayward Bus

by John Steinbeck

At last, however, a big and muscular young woman who taught ice hockey and softball and archery at the university gained Mildred’s confidence, her whole confidence, and then tried to go to bed with her. This shock was

You get better treatment everywhere you go if you have a fur coat and nice luggage.

Mr. Pritchard always called his wife “lit tle girl” when he was playful, and automatically she fell into his mood. “When do iddle girls see pretty present?”

Women fights didn’t interest him at all. He got in the tub and pulled the shower curtain about him.

“I’m fat,” she said quietly, “and I’m old. Oh, Jesus, I’m old!” The tears ran into her nose. She snorted them back. She said, “You can get young girls, but what can I get? Nothing. An old slob.” She sniffled quietly behind the screen.

to rain,” Van Brunt said happily. Juan grunted. “I had a brother-in-law kicked to death by a horse,” he observed.

She envied Camille. Camille was a tramp, Mildred thought. And things were so much easier for a tramp. There was no conscience, no sense of loss, nothing but a wonderful, relaxed, stretching-cat selfishness.

“You’ll just have to believe this until you find it out for yourself—everybody’s a tramp some time

or other. Everybody. And the worst tramps of all are the ones that call it something else.”