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A well-grown gopher took up residence in a thicket
of mallow weeds in the vacant lot on Cannery Row. It was a perfect
place. The deep green luscious mallows towered up crisp and rich,
and as they matured their little cheeses hung down provocatively.
The earth was perfect for a gopher-hole too, black and soft and
yet with a little clay in it so that it didn't crumble and the
tunnels didn't cave in. The gopher was fat and sleek and he had
always plenty of food in his cheek pouches. His little ears were
clean and well set and his eyes were as black as old-fashioned
pin-heads and just about the same size. His digging hands were
strong and the fur on his back was glossy brown and the fawn-coloured
fur on his chest was incredibly soft and rich. He had long curving
yellow teeth and a little short tail. Altogether he was a beautiful
gopher and in the prime of his life.
He came to the place over-land and found it good
and he began his burrow on a little eminence where he could look
out among the mallow weeds and see the trucks go by on Cannery
Row. He could watch the feet of Mack and the boys as they crossed
the lot to the Palace Flophouse. As he dug down into the coal-black
earth he found it even more perfect, for there were great rocks
under the soil. When he made his great chamber for the storing
of food it was under a rock so that it could never cave in, no
matter how hard it rained. It was a place where he could settle
down and raise any number of families and the burrow could increase
in all directions.
It was beautiful in the early morning when he first
poked his head out of the burrow. The mallows filtered green
light down on him and the first rays of the rising sun shone
into his hole and warmed it so that he lay there content and
very comfortable.
When he had dug his great chamber and his four emergency
exits and his waterproof deluge room, the gopher began to store
food. He cut down only the perfect mallow stems and trimmed them
to the exact length he needed and he took them down the hole
and stacked them neatly in his great chamber, and arranged them
so they wouldn't ferment or get sour. He had found the perfect
place to live. There were no gardens about, so no one would think
of setting a trap for him. Cats there were, many of them, but
they were so bloated with fishheads and guts from the canneries
that they had long ago given up hunting. The soil was sandy enough,
so that water never stood about or filled a hole for long. The
gopher worked and worked until he had his great chamber crammed
with food. Then he made little side chambers for the babies who
would inhabit them. In a few years there might be thousands of
his progeny spreading out from this original hearthstone.
But as time went on the gopher began to be a little
impatient, for no female appeared. He sat in the entrance of
his hole in the morning and made penetrating squeaks that are
inaudible to the human ear but can be heard deep in the earth
by other gophers. And still no female appeared. Finally in a
sweat of impatience he went up across the track until he found
another gopher-hole. He squeaked provocatively in the entrance.
lie heard a rustling and smelled female, and then out of the
hole came an old battle-torn bull gopher who mauled and bit him
so badly that he crept home and lay in his great chamber for
three days recovering and he lost two toes from one front paw
from that fight.
Again he waited and squeaked beside his beautiful
burrow in the beautiful place, but no female ever came, and after
a while he had to move away. He had to move two blocks up the
hill to a dahlia garden where they put out traps every night.
Chapter XXXI of "Cannery
Row"
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