I don’t have anything else right now.
Then I can use you. She smiled at him. Let me show you what I have in mind.
She came down the steps, followed by the two girls, and they went around the corner of the house to a sun-scorched garden beside the alley. She pointed out the weeds that had come up since he’d last been there and the rows of beans and cucumbers she wanted him to pick. Do you mind doing that? she said.
No, ma’am.
But don’t let yourself get too hot out here. Come sit in the shade when you need to.
It’s not too hot for me, he said.
I’ll send the girls out with some water.
They went back inside and he began to weed in the rows between the green plants, kneeling in the dirt and working steadily, sweating and brushing away the flies and mosquitoes. He was accustomed to working by himself and used to being uncomfortable. He piled the weeds at the edge of the alley and then began to pick the bushbeans and cucumbers. An hour later the girls came out of the house with three cookies on a plate and a glass of ice water.
Mama said for you to have these, said Dena, the older girl.
He wiped his hands on his pants and took the glass of water and drank half of it, then he ate one of the big cookies, eating it in two bites. They watched him closely, standing in the grass at the edge of the garden.
Mama said you looked hungry, Dena said.
We just baked these cookies this afternoon, Emma said.
We helped, you mean. We didn’t bake them ourselves.
We helped Mama bake them.
He drank the rest of the water and handed them the glass. There were muddy prints and streaks on the outside.
Don’t you want these other cookies?
You eat them.
Mama sent them for you.
You can have them. I’ve had enough.
Don’t you like them?
Yes.
Then why won’t you eat these?
He shrugged and looked away.
I’ll eat one, Emma said.
You better not. Mama sent them out for him.
He doesn’t want them.
I don’t care. They’re his.
You can have them, he said.
No, Dena said. She took the two cookies from the plate and put them down in the grass. You can eat them later. Mama said they’re yours.
The bugs’ll get them first.
Then you better eat them.
He looked at her and then went back to work, picking green beans into a white-enameled bowl.
The two girls watched him work, he was on his knees again crawling, his back to them, the soles of his shoes turned up toward them like the narrow faces of some strange being, his hair dark with sweat at the back of his neck. When he reached the end of the row the girls left the cookies in the grass and went back inside.
AFTER HE WAS FINISHED HE TOOK THE BEANS AND THE cucumbers to the back door and knocked and stood waiting. Mary Wells came to the door with the two girls.
My, look at all you found, she said. I didn’t think there were that many. You keep some of them yourself. Now, let me get you some money.
She turned back into the house and he stepped away from the open doorway and looked out across the backyard toward the neighbors’ yard. There were patches of shade under the trees. Where he stood on the porch the sun shone full on his brown head and on his sweaty face, on the back of his dirty tee-shirt and the corner of the house. The girls were watching him. The older one wanted to say something but couldn’t think what it should be.
Mary Wells came back and handed him four dollars folded in half. He didn’t look at the money but put the bills in his pants pocket. Thank you, he said.
You’re welcome, DJ. And take some of these vegetables with you. She handed him a plastic bag.
I better go then. Grandpa’ll be getting hungry.
But you take care of yourself too, she said. You hear me?
He turned and went around to the front yard and started up the empty street in the late afternoon. He had the money in his pocket and the bag of green beans and two of the cucumbers.
When he was gone the girls walked out to the edge of the garden to see if he’d eaten the cookies, but they were still in the grass. There were red ants crawling on them now and a line of ants moving away in the grass. Dena picked up the cookies and shook them hard, then threw them out into the alley.
AT HOME HE FRIED HAMBURGER IN AN IRON SKILLET AND boiled some red potatoes and the green beans Mary Wells had given him and set out bread and butter on the table together with the sliced cucumbers on a plate. He made a new pot of coffee and when the potatoes and beans were ready he called his grandfather to the table and they began to eat.
What’d she have you doing over there? the old man said.
Pulling weeds. And picking vegetables.
Did she pay you?
Yes.
What’d she give you?
He drew the folded bills from his pocket and counted them out on the table. Four dollars, he said.
That’s a lot.
Is it?
It’s too much.
I don’t think it is.
Well, you better hang on to it. You might want to buy something someday.
After supper he cleared the table and washed the dishes and set them to dry on a towel on the counter while his grandfather went into the living room and turned on the lamp beside the rocker and read the Holt Mercury newspaper. The boy did his schoolwork at the kitchen table under the overhead light and when he looked in an hour later the old man was sitting with his eyes shut, their paper-thin lids crosshatched by tiny blue veins and his dark mouth lapsed open, breathing harshly, and the newspaper spread across the lap of his overalls.
Grandpa. He touched his arm. You better go to bed.
His grandfather woke and peered at him.
It’s time for bed.
The old man studied him for a moment as if trying to think who he was, then folded the paper together and set it on the floor beside the chair and, pushing against the arms of the rocker, rose slowly and walked into the bathroom, and afterward went back to his bedroom.
The boy drank another cup of coffee at the kitchen sink and dumped the dregs in the drain. He rinsed out the pot and turned off the lights and went back to bed in the little room next to his grandfather’s, where he read for two hours. Through the wall he could hear the old man snoring and coughing and muttering. At ten-thirty he cut the light out and fell asleep and the next morning he got up early to make their breakfast and afterward went to school across the tracks to the new building on the south side of Holt, and at school he did willingly and skillfully all that was required of him but didn’t say much of anything to anybody throughout the day.
4
THEY HAULED THE BLACKBALDY YEARLING STEERS TO town in the gooseneck trailer and jumped them out into the alley at the load-in dock behind the sale barn and the yard crew sorted them into a pen. The veterinarian inspected them and found none of the respiratory diseases he looked for in yearlings, nor the cancer eyes nor Bang’s nor the occasional malformed jaw he might expect in older cattle, and the brand inspector cleared them without question. Afterward they were handed the chit saying the steers were theirs and how many of them there were, and then they drove home again and ate in the kitchen in the quiet and went up to bed, and the next morning in the stilldark they rose from bed and chored out.
Now at noon they were seated at a square table in the little dirty sale barn diner ordering lunch. The waitress came with a pad and stood over them, sweating and red-faced. What are you two going to have today?
You look about like you was flat wore out, Harold said.