With his limited funds, Roderick had abandoned the notion of purchasing something for Fathers Day. Instead, he wrote a clever story about a boy and his dad, and inserted a copy inside the front page of the Beauneville Bugle. On Fathers Day morning, Mr. Smith got out of bed, went downstairs in his bathroom and retrieved the newspaper from the front porch. Seated at the breakfast table, he opened the Bugle and found Roderick's story -- which he enjoyed immensely (especially since Roderick wrote it in Latin). They all had a good laugh. Mrs. Smith served pancakes, blueberry pancakes, with fresh local blueberries, and loads of scrapple.
Later that day, the Smiths went to Grandpa and Grandma's house on Larch Street. Grandma's roses seem to explode into bloom on Fathers Day, and they did not disappoint this year; Grandma cut several of the big red "Abraham Lincoln" and peach-colored "Peace" roses and made a bouquet for the picnic table under the apple tree.
Mrs. Smith brought a ribeye from Ackermann's, which Mr. Smith grilled on the charcoal pit. There was potato salad, too, and three-bean salad and some little green things that Roderick pushed to the side of his plate (to leave room for chocolate cake). Grandpa's favorite cake is a special chocolate cake with an unusual butterscotch icing Grandma learned to make when she was a little girl. The icing is a kind of glaze that Grandma pours over the cake while it is still hot; when it cools, it hardens to a sweet brown crust.
After dinner, Roderick stopped by the Blooms to see Molly. Mr. Bloom was in an excellent mood, as the Bloom girls had showered him with affection and gifts. Molly gave him a copy of James Joyce's Ulysses; Mary gave him a coffee table book from the Art Museum (Erotic Themes in European Painting), Margaret gave him Volume 6 of the Vegh Quartet's Beethoven cycle, and Catherine drew a funny picture (which Mrs. Bloom had framed).
Molly wore a plaid short-sleeve shirt and jeans; she sat at the piano and played the complete Diabelli Variations from memory. It was hot; she was sweating; but she didn't miss a note, except in the twenty-forth variation when her fingers slipped slghtly on the sweaty keys. Roderick doesn't know the music well enough to tell the difference, but he saw that look Molly gets when she makes a mistake.
After the music, Roderick and Molly sat alone on the steps to the front porch.
"I screwed up the twenty-forth variation", said Molly.
Roderick knows better than to argue with Molly when she criticizes herself. In Molly's world, she either plays it perfectly or she doesn't, and there's no point in putting lipstick on a pig. So Roderick didn't argue the point, he just noodged her in the ribs, which set off a round of noodging and laughter that ended at the base of the porch in the Arcostaphylos Uva-Ursa (which, fortunately, is very hardy and can tolerate trampling).
Meanwhile, Mr. Smiley retrieved Alexander from his crib and snuggled him. Alexander laughed, and was so thrilled that he pooped.
