Grant decided that a big window in the front of the office would do a lot to attract business. The south wall, facing the highway, was solid, and the occupants of cars coming from the east couldn't see the light inside the office until they had gone a little past, where they could see the window in the west wall above the driveway. For the daylight and early evening hours the proposed window wouldn't have much value, but Grant figured that the extra nighttime business it would bring would pay for it in a week's time. Around midnight or later, travelers hesitated to disturb motel owners unless they could see that they were up anyway. The advantage of a window would be that Grant would be able to lure customers in by sitting comfortably in the office reading a paper, instead of having to run outside whenever a slow car approached, so that its occupants would be sure to see him. One summer of that had been enough for him, and I knew exactly how he felt. The idea of a huge window facing the highway appealed to me, too; never again would I have to perch on top of a typewriter case set precariously on a chair, while with one eye I watched out the kitchen window for slow cars from the east, and with the other eye tried to read. Grant hired a man to cut away the wall and put in the window. He helped the man and watched every move he made, and if ever again in the course of Grant's life it becomes necessary for a window to be installed in a building that belongs to him, I know that he will install it deftly, correctly, and without assistance. It was like stepping straight from a one-room prison on a desert island, to the geographical center of Times Square. I had never realized how much had been going on, or that we had been missing so much. When the window was finished, we could stand at the office desk and see life whirling by us on wheels; we could see life pulsing and throbbing in the accidents, quarrels, and petty encounters that were an inevitable part of a fast highway neighborhood; we could see life a trifle in its cups, staggering in and out of the bar across the street. We could see busses, cars, motorcycles, trains (on the track parallel with the highway, a block away) trucks, highway maintenance equipment, bicycles, and an occasional weird departure from conventional methods of transportation such as a covered wagon drawn by burros. Horseback riders cantered or galloped past daily, and it was a common, pleasantly exhilarating thing to see the great planes drifting down toward the airport, outlined against the sky and then silhouetted against the crowding mountains.