When the Town Carpenter arrived she was to her knees on the floor there and he, hearing the sharp tinkle of a bell as he got near, had slowed his uneven pace, and paused in the door respectfully. He waited for her to rise before he advanced into the kitchen with, — "Nymph in thy orisons, be all my sins remembered," crossing then to the other pot on the stove, — as Tom Swift has it, he added.
— Not that fork, not that fork! Janet said, coming to take away the fork he'd picked up.
— There. . now, he said to her, looking helpless until she thrust a piece of lath in his hand where she'd got the fork from.
— But this, it's got paint on it, he said waving the stick in the air.
— Old old paint, years and years old and hard and dry and it was white, she said sounding weary, speaking dry and low in no effort to make herself heard but giving him anyway the satisfaction of seeing her lips move. Then she turned away, stooped, cumbered with much serving.
He bent absorbed over the other pot; from it he raised a steaming length on the end of the stick. — There now, he muttered, let it drop back and stirred it a bit. — A month of underwear can't come clean in a minute.
— Four days it's been there, Janet said absently, — four days in the year, lamenting the daughter of Jephthah four days in the year. .
He continued to stir at his pot. — You were late this morning, he interrupted finally, as she drew breath to go on and fight the battles of Ammon and Gilead, to follow the daughter of Jephthah bewailing her virginity in the mountains. She did. not answer but with three sharp raps of the spoon on the rim of the saucepan.
— Three minutes late when I heard your press commence this morning, the Town Carpenter went on, to the square of her back. — How many pages did you print, tell me. — You don't print them one two three four five, she answered not turning, — six seven eight nine ten eleven. .
— How many? He tried to see her lips as she reached a bowl down.
— Eight one five four at a time, Janet said in the same dull tone, — two seven three six at a time. .
— There now, he mumbled, shaking his head and looking back into his own pot on the stove. — We all have our work to do.
— The Lord keep us, until we finish it, Janet said.
The shape of those first two syllables on her lips seemed to strike him, familiar; and the Town Carpenter drew his own lips close, bridling the argument which lay impatient behind them, not, however, before its invitation had escaped. — A man…
— The Lord. .
— A man takes his own chances, he got out quickly. Janet looked at him, her brow and lip drawn up, troubled.
— There now, I meant nothing. No disrespect to you, he said, twice her age but no more serious for all that even now, turning slow with his arms hung down and the top button of his underwear standing out like a creased stud against his informal attire. — After it all, he brought out soberly, — after your healing miracle then, restoring me the use of my legs, well, there now, I couldn't be disrespectful to you after that.
— Not to me, but to our Lord He healed you.
— There now, he mumbled in assent, — not after that.
— You must not talk so about these things, she said. — You must not, he must not, they must not. .
— Do you recall the queer little salesman selling brushes, the Town Carpenter began, opening a new conversation since he'd lost track of the old one, — and told Reverend he was a Manichee. .
Janet carried a bowl of oatmeal away through the door. Directly she was out he got the fork she'd taken from him and came back to his pot on the stove. He leaned down to blow off the steam, and then speared twice, each time coming up with a boiled potato. He quick wiped the fork on his trouser knee, then looked at it, and at the spot on his trouser knee, with a look near guilt, and thrust the tines of the fork under his shirt to wipe them clean there. When Janet came back, the fork was where she'd laid it; but she took no notice of him eating the one or the dog standing over the other boiled potato waiting for if to cool. She stood, wringing one hand in the other, and her eyes were very wide.
— There now, what is it? the Town Carpenter demanded, watching.
— He's come.
— What is it, now?
— He's here. As he said he would come.
The Town Carpenter hung there, imbibing Janet's excitement. She sought another bowl.
— Another bowl? he demanded, confused. — Someone's here?
— He's come back.
— So it's not the weightless show of a priest was here, him or the Manichee brush salesman. Is it… is it…
— He. .
— Prester John?
— Prester John! Janet repeated. — If Prester John is young and old, and warm and cold, and breathes and does not breathe alive, wears blood on the hand, and sees with eyes not open. Maran-atha!
— He's come! There now, the Town Carpenter said. — Feed him. Feed him well, it's a long journey. Here, a potato, take a potato. . But she was gone, with another bowl of oatmeal. — There now, no disrespect after that, the Town Carpenter muttered going toward the outside door. — He'll come down. I'll wait for him there, he said to himself; but he paused in the door till Janet returned to the kitchen. — There, he murmured to her, — no disrespect, you know. "I am but a lump of clay, but I was placed beside a rose and caught its fragrance. ." He stood a minute looking at Janet busy over the metal sink, squinting his eyes up with looking at her. Then the dog followed him out the door and down the lawn toward the carriage barn, carrying its hot potato.
He'd only got halfway down there when her voice on the air stopped him, and he turned. — And he, has he eaten? she cried.
— That one, he won't come near, the Town Carpenter called back to her, and he motioned toward the fence below which led away from the carriage barn and coursed the pasture's bounds. Title to that piece of land, long disputed with a neighbor, fell to his bull who spent the days there and had gradually become a familiar, encouraged by the girl and the old man with a feed box and even, finally, a stall in the carriage barn. Now Janet came out unwrapped in the cold morning and down the slope with long strides to the fence, where she made a moaning sound that brought the bull from out of sight immediately. The bull was all black, the weight well up in its forequarters sustaining those swells of muscle mounting in the great swell of the neck. Its approach was effortless, not a movement wasted, because every bit of it was in movement, movement which absorbed the weight of it and became motion coming forth here on legs as slender they looked as a man's wrists swinging beneath. It came on at an angle to its path, which gave it a sense of drift as though suffering the wind to carry it along from behind; and the great weight of it was not apparent until it came close by, when even its breath dashed on the cold air fell with weight, and a hoof no longer adrift, but exerted to break the crust of the winter ground, made its force volitive, standing still.
Janet had watched its advance with a look of familiar wonder which almost broke her face into a smile. Now it was before her she stirred the feed in the box there with a square hand of hers and gazed with two eyes into one; and which of them made the gentle sound that rose between them wasn't clear as she caught a finger in a curl above the eye, and then left the bull at the feed box, sobering her face as she turned back for the house, and the bull raised its head, and watched her go.