At length he ate. He had reached the point of licking his fingers by way of having dessert, when a sharp knock on the door caused him to leap eighteen inches higher than upright, so utterly unexpected was it.
In the doorway stood the little girl in the plaid dress. Her hair was combed, her face scrubbed. She carried with a superb air an object which seemed to be a handbag but which at second glance revealed itself as a teakwood cigarette box with a piece of binder-twine fastened to it with four-inch nails. ‘Good evening,’ she said concisely. ‘I was passing by and thought I would come to call. You are at home?’
This parroting of a penurious beldame who once was in the habit of cadging meals by this means was completely incomprehensible to Lone. He resumed licking his fingers but he kept his eyes on the child’s face. Behind the girl, suddenly, appeared the heads of his two previous visitors peeping around the doorpost.
The child’s nostrils, then her eyes, found the stewpot. She wooed it with her gaze, yearned. She yawned, too, suddenly. ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said demurely. She pried open the lid of the cigarette box, drew out a white object and folded it quickly but not quickly enough to conceal the fact that it was a large man’s sock, and patted her lips with it.
Lone rose and got a piece of wood and placed it carefully on the fire and sat down again. The girl took another step. The other two scuttled in and stood, one on each side of the doorway like toy soldiers. Their faces were little knots of apprehension. And they were clothed this time. One wore a pair of lady’s linen bloomers, the like of which has not been seen since cars had tillers. It came up to her armpits, and was supported by two short lengths of the same hairy binder-twine, poked through holes torn in the waistband and acting as shoulder straps. The other one wore a heavy cotton slip, or at least the top third of it. It fell to her ankles where it showed a fringe of torn and unhemmed material.
With the exact air of a lady crossing a drawing room towards the bonbons, the white child approached the stew-pot, flashed Lone a small smile, lowered her eyelids and reached down with a thumb and forefinger, murmuring, ‘May I?’
Lone stretched out one long leg and hooked the pot away from her and into his grasp. He set it on the floor on the side away from her and looked at her woodenly.
‘You’re a real cheap stingy son of a bitch,’ the child quoted.
This also missed Lone completely. Before he had learned to be aware of what men said, such remarks had been meaningless. Since, he had not been exposed to them. He stared at her blankly and pulled the pot protectively closer.
The child’s eyes narrowed and her colour rose. Suddenly she began to cry. ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I’m hungry. We’re hungry. The stuff in the cans, it’s all gone.’ Her voice failed her but she could still whisper. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘please.’
Lone regarded her stonily. At length she took a timid step towards him. He lifted the pot into his lap and hugged it defiantly. She said, ‘Well, I didn’t want any of your old…’ but then her voice broke. She turned away and went to the door. The others watched her face as she came. They radiated silent disappointment; their eloquent expressions took the white girl to task far more than they did him. She had the status of provider and she had failed them, and they were merciless in their expression of it.
He sat with the warm pot in his lap and looked out the open door into the thickening night. Unbidden, an image appeared to him—Mrs Prodd, a steaming platter of baked ham flanked by the orange gaze of perfect eggs, saying, ‘Now you set right down and have some breakfast.’ An emotion he was unequipped to define reached up from his solar plexus and tugged at his throat.
He snorted, reached into the pot, scooped out half a potato and opened his mouth to receive it. His hand would not deliver. He bent his head slowly and looked at the potato as if he could not quite recognize it or its function.
He snorted again, flung the potato back into the pot, thumped the pot back on the floor and leapt to his feet. He put one hand on each side of the door and sent his flat harsh voice hurtling out: ‘Wait!’
The corn should have been husked long since. Most of it still stood but here and there the stalks lay broken and yellowing, and soldier-ants were prospecting them and scurrying off with rumours. Out in the fallow field the truck lay forlornly, bogged, with the seeder behind it, tipped forward over its hitch and the winter wheat spilling out. No smoke came from the chimney up at the house and the half-door into the barn, askew and perverted amid the misery, hollowly applauded.
Lone approached the house, mounted the stoop. Prodd sat on the porch glider which now would not glide, for one set of end-chains was broken. His eyes were not closed but they were more closed than open.
‘Hi,’ said Lone.
Prodd stirred, looked full into Lone’s face. There was no sign of recognition. He dropped his gaze, pushed back to sit upright, felt aimlessly around his chest, found a suspender strap, pulled it forward and let it snap back. A troubled expression passed through his features and left it. He looked up again at Lone, who could sense self-awareness returning to the farmer like coffee soaking upward into a lump of sugar.
‘Well, Lone, boy!’ said Prodd. The old words were there but the tone behind them behaved like his broken hay rake. He rose, beaming, came to Lone, raised his fist to thump Lone’s arm but then apparently forgot it. The fist hovered there for a moment and then gravitated downward.
‘Corn’s for husking,’ said Lone.
‘Yeah, yeah, I know,’ Prodd half said, half sighed. ‘I’ll get to it. I can handle it all right. One way or ‘tother, always get done by the first frost. Ain’t missed milkin’ once,’ he added with wan pride.
Lone glanced through the door pane and saw, for the very first time, crusted dishes, heavy flies in the kitchen, ‘The baby come,’ he said, remembering.
‘Oh, yes. Fine little feller, just like we…’ Again he seemed to forget. The words slowed and were left suspended as his fist had been. ‘ Ma!’ he shrieked suddenly, ‘fix a bite for the boy, here!’ He turned to Lone, embarrassedly.’ She’s yonder,’ he said pointing. ‘Yell loud enough, I reckon she’d hear. Maybe.’
Lone looked where Prodd pointed, but saw nothing. He caught Prodd’s gaze and for a split second started to probe. He recoiled violently at the very nature of what was there before he got close enough to identify it. He turned away quickly. ‘Brought your axe.’
‘Oh, that’s all right. You could’ve kept it.’
‘Got my own. Want to get that corn in?’
Prodd gazed mistily at the corn patch. ‘Never missed a milking,’ he said.
Lone left him and went to the barn for a corn hook. He found one. He also discovered that the cow was dead. He went up to the corn patch and got to work. After a time he saw Prodd down the line, working too, working hard.
‘Well past midday and just before they had the corn all cut, Prodd disappeared into the house. Twenty minutes later he emerged with a pitcher and a platter of sandwiches. The bread was dry and the sandwiches were corned beef from, as Lone recalled, Mrs Prodd’s practically untouched ‘rainy day’ shelf. The pitcher contained warm lemonade and dead flies. Lone asked no questions. They perched on the edge of the horse trough and ate.
Afterwards Lone went down to the fallow field and got the truck dug out. Prodd followed him down in time to drive it out. The rest of the day was devoted to the seeding with Lone loading the seeder and helping four different times to free the truck from the traps it insisted upon digging for itself. When that was finished, Lone waved Prodd up to the barn where he got a rope around the dead cow’s neck and hauled it as near as the truck would go to the edge of the wood. When at last they ran the truck into the barn for the night, Prodd said, ‘Sure miss that horse.’