Henry Pimber smiled at Omensetter's muddy clothes, at the girls leaning over the side of the wagon, laughing; he was running, barking dog, the placid, remote wife; though h conscious mainly of his own wife, quiet in the kitchen now, endeavoring to hear. Sheets of water still glittered in the road; the sky muttered; yet the wagon stood uncovered, belongings piled into a tower; and Henry felt amazement move his shoulders. Three flies walked brazenly on the screen between them. Omensetter was cross-hatched by the wires. To Henry he seemed fat and he spoke with hands which were thick and deeply tanned. His belt was tight though he wore suspenders. His dark hair fell across his face and he'd tracked mud on the porch, but his voice was musical and sweet as water, his moist lips smiled around his words, his eyes glimmered from the surface of his speech. He said he was working for Watson, mending harness and helping out. Henry noticed several squares of screen clogged with paint. There was a tear in the fellow's sleeve, and his nails had yellowed. Clay eased to the porch from his boots. Henry's wife was in the parlor then, tiptoeing. She held her skirts. He said his name was Brackett Omensetter and he came from out near Windham. He was honest, he said. Flies already, Pimber thought, and the swatter in the barn. But they were something to fix his eyes on and momentarily he was grateful. Then his vision slipped beyond the screen and he received the terrible wound of the man's smite. His weakness surprised him and he leaned heavily against the door. He had a horse, Omensetter said. He had a dog, a wagon, a pregnant wife and little girls. They needed a place to stay. Not large or fancy. A room for the girls. Land enough to vegetable a little and hay the horse. Henry listened for his wife and shook his head. The screen was no protection — futile diagrams of air. He shifted his weight and the clogged squares blotched Omensetter's cheek. There was mud to his thighs. It hung on the wagon's wheels and caked the belly of the dog. His teeth weren’t really clean. Henry realized that heavy-jawed and solemn as Matthew Watson was, as slow and cautious, as full of dreams of geese as he was, continually making the sound of a shotgun in his head, Omensetter had nevertheless instantly overpowered him, set his fears at rest, met his doubts, and replaced his customary suspiciousness with an almost heedless trust; yet to have sent Omensetter to see him this way was strangely out of character too, for Watson knew perfectly well that the ancient Perkins house which Pimber had so recently inherited was very near the river and a yearly casualty of flood. The paint was peeling and the porch would soon be split by weeds. Henry sighed and flicked the screen. He had overpowered even Matthew. Matthew — who listened only to the high honk of the geese and his own hammer, and whose sight had been nearly burned out by the forge.
He had a place, Henry finally said. It was down the South Road near the river, but he hadn't thought of renting it on such notice, at such a time of year. There were difficulties… Omensetter opened out his arms and Pimber, trembling, laughed. There, you see; we'll care for it and keep it well in life. Pimber clenched his fists upon the curious phrase. His wife was in the crook of the door, holding her skirts, breathing carefully. It's down the South Road, though, he said, and near to the river. We all love the water, Omensetter said. Lucy and I are good for houses and we will promptly pay.
Who knew what sort of boots? Five narrow boards between his feet. Three flies regaining the screen. The shadows of clouds on the panes of water. His wife gently rustling. And the stout man is talking, his hands undulating. A button on his shirt is broken. Under his arms there are stains. His stubby fingers clutch the air as though to detain it. Lis-sen. Lis-sen. The dog runs under the wagon. We have wives of the same name, Henry finds himself saying.
There, you see, Omensetter said, as if his words included explanation.
Pimber laughed again. It's down the South Road, I'll get the key. As he moved away he heard her knuckles snap. Behind him she stood stiff and motionless as a stick, he knew. She wouldn't like the mud on her porch either. He said the days of the week. After the habit of his father. He said the months of the year. Then he went the back way for his horse and prepared to hear about his crimes at dinner. Five boards between his boots. Mud on every step. A half a button missing. How many down? His face was broken when he laughed. Sweetly merciful God, Henry wondered, sweetly merciful God, what has struck me?
Omensetter left the wagon out all night, and the next morning he took his horse down the South Road and pulled Hatstat's rig out of the mud where three horses had skidded, kicked, and floundered the day before. Then he went to work as he'd said he would, bringing Hatstat's carriage on to town while his wife, daughters, and the dog moved in the wagon things and cleaned the house. Henry rose at dawn. His wife was scathing. Wrapped in the bedclothes she confronted him like a ghost. He dawdled along the road to the Perkins house until he heard the children shouting. He tried to help and thus to handle everything he could: he peeked in boxes on the sly and sat in chairs and backed apologetically from room to room ahead of brooms and mops and mop-thrown water, observing and remembering, until, obedient to some overwhelming impulse, astonished and bewildered by it though it filled him with the sweetest pleasure, he secretly thrust one of their tin spoons into his mouth. But this action ultimately frightened him, especially the delight he took in it, and he soon apologized once more for being in the way, and left.
Hatstat thanked Omensetter graciously, and he and Olus Knox, who, with his horse, had helped Hatstat the day before and got mud rubbed through his clothes and lumped up in his crotch, said nice things to people afterward of Omensetter's luck and thought, at the same time, of flood.
Rain fell a week and the river rose, water moving against water, a thin sheet of earth and air between the meeting rise and fall. The rain beat steadily on the river. The South Road drained. Clay banks slid quietly away, pools grew; runnels became streams, streams torrents. Planks laid across who had street sank from sight. Everyone wore hip them. Everyone worried for the south.
You didn't tell him about the river, did you, she would suddenly say. Whenever Henry was at home now his wife quietly followed him and in a venomous low voice struck with the question. She waited for the middle of an action like filling his pipe or settling himself to read, often when he had no thought that she was near, while shaving or buttoning his pants. You didn't tell him about the water, did you? How are you going to feel when the river's up and you're down there in a boat, getting him out? Or don't you intend to? Is it dangerous there when the river floods? Mightn't you drown?