“Lady,” he said in a firm nasal voice, “I’d give a fortune to live where I could see me a sun do that every evening.” “Does it e
very evening,” the old woman said and sat back down. The daughter sat down too and watched him with a cautious sly look as if he were a bird that had come up very close. He leaned to one side, rooting in his pants pocket, and in a second he brought out a package of chewing gum and offered her a piece. She took it and unpeeled it and began to chew without taking her eyes off him. He offered the old woman a piece but she only raised her upper lip to indicate she had no teeth. —“The Life You Save May Be Your Own,” Flannery O’Connor How does this passage help reveal Mr. Shiftlet’s secret motivation?
