"Where we can all sit on it," Pewter, also brimming with curiosity, said.
"Those two culprits?" Tracy nodded at the two cats now posing in the doorway.
"Murphy's the tiger cat and the gray cannonball is Pewter. She used to belong to Market Shiflett but she spent so much time at the post office with my animals that he told me to just take her home. She also flicked meat out of the display case, which didn't go down well with the customers."
"They're beautiful cats."
"I knew I'd like this guy." Pewter beamed.
"He's handsome for his age." Mrs. Murphy purred, deciding to bestow a rub on Tracy's leg. She padded over, slid across his leg, then sat down. He stroked her head.
Pewter followed suit.
"I'll leave you to get settled. You can use the kitchen, the living room. I figure if something upsets you you'll tell me and vice versa. I'm going out to finish my barn chores."
"I'll go along. There's not that much in the bag to worry about. I thought I'd do a little shopping this week."
"You don't have to help me."
"Like to be useful." He beamed.
And he was. He could toss a fifty-pound bale of hay over his shoulder as though it weighed one-tenth of that. Although not a horseman, he had enough sense to not make loud noises around them.
Tracy whistled as he worked. Harry liked hearing him. It suddenly hit her how stupid it was to retire people unless they decided to retire. The terms "twilight years" and "golden years" ought to be stricken from the language. We shove people out of work at the time when they have the most wisdom. It must be horrible to sit on the sidelines with nothing vital to do.
Simon, belly flat to the hayloft floor, peered over the side. A new human! One was bad enough.
Harry noticed him. "Patience, Simon."
Tracy glanced up. "Simon?"
"Possum in the hayloft. He's very shy. There's also a huge owl up in the cupola and a blacksnake. She comes back to hibernate each fall. Right now she's on the south side of the property. I've tracked her hunting circle. Pretty interesting."
"That was the one thing I hated about my work. Kept me in cities most of the time. I worked out in gyms but nothing keeps you as healthy as farmwork. My father farmed. You wouldn't remember him, he worked the old Black Twig apple orchard west of Crozet. Lived to be a hundred and one. The worst thing we ever did was talk Pop into selling the orchard and moving to Florida. I'll never forgive myself for that."
"He's forgiven you."
Tracy stopped a moment to wipe the sweat from his face. The temperature hovered in the low eighties even though it was seven at night. "Thanks for that."
"Possums are interesting, too." Harry tactfully returned to the subject of Simon. "They'll eat about anything. There's a bug that infects birds and if the possums eat a bird with the bug they'll shed it in their poop. If horses eat the poop they come down with EPM, an awful kind of sickness that gets them uncoordinated and weak. If you catch it in time it still takes a long time to heal. Anyway, I love my Simon. Can't kill him but I don't want my kids here to, by chance, munch some hay that Simon has-befouled. So each night I put out sweet feed and the occasional marshmallow. He's so full he doesn't roam very far and there's no room for birds."
"I can see you're the kind of person who loves animals."
"My best friends." She slid the pitchfork between the two nails on the wall. "Mr. Raz-"
"Please call me Tracy."
"Thank you. And call me Harry. I hope you don't think I'm prying but I've just got to ask you. How did Mrs. Hogendobber come by the nickname 'Cuddles'?"
As they watched the ground fog slither over the western meadow and the meadowlarks scurry to their nests, the bobwhites started to call to one another and the bats emerged from under the eaves of Harry's house. Tracy recalled his high-school days with Miranda.
"Love bats." Mrs. Murphy fluffed her fur as a slight chill rolled up with the ground fog.
"Never catch one." Pewter liked the way bats zigged and zagged. Got her blood up.
"My mother caught one once," Murphy remembered. "It was on its way out, though. Still, she did catch it. You know they're mice with wings, that's how I think of them."
"Maybe we'd better catch the mice in the barn first."
Mrs. Murphy moved over to Pewter, leaning against her in the chill. "I heard them singing in the tackroom this morning. I expect them to be saucy in the feedroom. But the tackroom. It was humiliating. Fortunately, Harry can't hear them."
"An original song?"
The tiger cat laughed. "In those high-pitched voices everything sounds original but it was 'Dixie.'"
"Well, at least they're Southern mice."
"Pewter, that's a great comfort." Mrs. Murphy laughed so loudly she interrupted the humans.
"Getting a little nippy, Miss Puss?" Harry scooped her up in one arm while lifting Pewter with the other. "Pewts, light and lively for you."
A cat on each shoulder, Harry walked back to the house as Tucker trailed at Tracy's heels.
Tracy picked up where he'd left off when Murphy let out what sounded to him like a yowl. "-one of the prettiest girls in the class. Natural. Fresh."
"Was she plump?"
"Uh . . . full-figured. You girls are too skinny these days. Miranda sparkled. Anyway, we'd go on hay rides and trips to other high schools for football games. I played on the team. Afterwards we'd all ride back to school in our old jalopies. Fun. I think I was too young to know how much fun I was having. And World War Two ended five years before our graduation so everyone felt safe and wonderful. It was an incredible time." He chuckled as he opened the porch door for Harry. "Every chance I had I got close to Miranda and I nicknamed her 'Cuddles.'"
The kitchen door, open to catch the breeze, was shut behind them as the night air, drenched in moisture and coolness, was drawing through the house.
Harry put the cats on the kitchen counter. "Must be a cold front coming through. The wind is picking up. This has been an unusual summer. Usually it's brutally hot, like the last few days have been."
"Nothing like a Virginia summer unless it's a Delta summer. One year in the service I was stationed in Louisiana and thought I would melt. Heat and hookworm, the history of the South."
"Cured the latter. Did I interrupt you? If I did I apologize. You were telling me about Miranda."
"In my day we were all friends. It wasn't quite as much sex stuff. I had a crush on Miranda and we did a lot of things together but as a group. I took her to the senior prom. You know, I loved her but I didn't know that either. It wasn't until years later that I figured it all out but by then I was halfway around the world, fighting in Korea. I wish you could have known Miranda as a youngster."
"I'm glad to know her now."
"More subdued now. She said you thought she was a religious nut."
"I give her a hard time. She needs someone to give her hell," Harry half-giggled. "She's more religious than I am but I don't know as she's a nut. You know, Tracy, I've known Miranda from the time I was a child but what do children know? She was bright and chirpy. George died and she took a nosedive. That's when she turned more to religion, although she was a strong churchgoer before. But I've noticed this last year she's happier. It's taken her a long time."
"Does. Lost my wife two years ago and I'm just pulling out of it."
"I'm sorry."
"Me, too. You live with a woman for half of your life and she's the air you breathe. You don't think about it. You simply breathe."
"Poor fellow." Tucker whimpered softly.
"He's on the mend and he's sure good with chores so I hope he hangs around." Mrs. Murphy, ever practical, batted water drops as they slowly collected under the water tap.
The phone rang. Harry picked it up. Tracy noticed Mrs. Murphy and walked over to the faucet. He unscrewed the tap with his fingers, so strong was his grasp. The washer was shot. He put it back and grabbed a notepad by the phone and made a note to himself which he stuck in his pocket.