"Save me!" she yelled.

"From what?" he yelled.

"From everything! From the lonesomeness and the rats and the no movies and the no fun anywhere and from Rocky!"

Abruptly she plopped to the street and started to cry. Her fat face quivered as she wheezed, and her nose ran. Impassively, he sat on the curb, handing her his handkerchief. From his jacket pocket he took a briar pipe, filled it with dried tobacco, and lit it. The Earth Mother cried. He smoked and waited.

September sun lay bright in the street, with shadows of elms on the lawn across from them. A porch swing creaked in the wind, and something too big to be a rat went past the porch and under the trees that everywhere were closing in on the cities. The Earth Mother's cries faded to sniffles. She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and gave him his handkerchief. "Keep it," he said, coughing.

"Thanks. Oh, it's so good to see somebody else. You don't know how lonesome it's been here with nobody around but that goofy Rocky. I been praying somebody would come. Somebody real cool-looking, like you." She leaned toward him, blinking her eyes.

He leaned away from her. "And who, may I ask, is Rocky?"

"Joe Nowhere, that's who he is. Rides around on his goofy motorcycle all the time. He's mean, and real square. Like a cube, you know?"

He stared at her incredulously. Holding the pipe in his left hand, he put his right hand over his face. "I didn't really expect you to be pretty, but Gad, did you have to be a thoroughgoing idiot?" Eventually he lowered his hand. "If he's that bad, why didn't you run away?"

"Where to? Out there it's all empty and scary. Here it's something like it used to be."

He said, "Nothing is like it used to be."

"That lousy jerk," she said to herself. "The things he did to me! He pushed me around all the time, too."

For this situation too, he had a speech ready. Dramatically, he stood up. "Let me take you away from all this! Come, I offer you the chance to mother the new race!"

She said, "Okay, I'll go," and bounced to her feet, arms spread wide. He managed to catch her wrists, and said, "First, take me to the town library."

"Library? You out of your mind? What for?"

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