Mary pulled him over to the bench and hung on to his arm. ‘‘Sit down here and tell me what you’re saying.’’ She was never long on patience.
‘‘It’s time I’m thinking about, time and change. I have a horse that climbs the fence whenever I start up the truck. He goes wild. But any day now I’ll go out and see him nuzzling the radiator and the next thing you know, he’ll be willing to go tandem with it. It’s what the wear of time does to man and beast.’’
‘‘You’re an old fart, Donel.’’ Only Mary could say it with affection. She pointed to where Denny was crawling from one currant bush to another, at the bottom of the field. ‘‘He’ll be coming up from there any minute. I sent him back to strip them clean. Now he’ll be counting every currant he puts in the basket.’’
‘‘Have you sent him around the town to make inquiries?’’
‘‘He’ll need more starch in him for that,’’ Mary said.
‘‘Well, there isn’t a hell of a lot of that in the family… Ah, now, Mary, I’ve offended you,’’ Rossa said, for her chin shot out. ‘‘Michael had the heart of a lion. What about Norah? Isn’t there work she could put him to?’’
‘‘She’d eat him alive!’’
Rossa changed the subject in a hurry. ‘‘The nuns brought him up pretty well, didn’t they?’’
‘‘He can do his sums,’’ Mary said. ‘‘He’s not a child, you know, and he’s strong as a bull. He was digging ditches for the city of Chicago till they ran out of money.’’
‘‘I hate to tell you what that qualifies him for on the farm, Mary.’’
She grunted. ‘‘And isn’t the world full of it?’’
Denny came up as Rossa was about to leave. His face was as red as the currants. ‘‘Do you want to do a day’s work for me on the farm now and then?’’ Rossa asked him. ‘‘A dollar a day and your grub.’’
‘‘On the farm,’’ Dennis said, as though to be sure.
‘‘Didn’t I say on the farm? Would I be sending you to Australia? And you’ll have to walk the five miles or hitch a ride on the road.’’
‘‘I could pay Aunt Mary for my keep,’’ Denny reasoned aloud but in no hurry to take up the offer.
Why? Mary wondered, when half the country was out of work. And why the ‘‘Aunt’’ Mary, which had been dropped after the first day?
‘‘That’s the idea, lad,’’ Rossa said as though to a child.
It wasn’t starch Denny needed. It was yeast. But Mary was pleased, too, at the prospect of getting him out from under her feet now and then, as long as it wasn’t to Norah.
Norah had no great opinion of herself, though most people thought the opposite. Trying to get Denny out of her mind, she kept at the sewing machine until her eyes were bleary and her foot going numb on the treadle. She excused her back-and-forth trips to the window as the need to relieve cramps in her leg. She said the Hail Mary every time but she knew very well that her true intention was to catch sight of Denny going about his chores. She even numbered his trips to the outhouse, and noted when he carried Mary’s pot with him, though it turned her stomach to think of it. Not often, but often enough to give her a surge of pleasure, and only when Mary was not in sight, he’d send a little salute her way-the tip of his fingers to his forehead to her. Sometimes she left the window open and sang while she worked, harking back to songs of her childhood even as Margaret had to ‘‘The Last Rose of Summer.’’ It wasn’t true that she despised Ireland. That was Mary belittling her. It was Ireland that let her go. Mary was the one with a passion for America.
But this was Norah’s busiest season. The hand-me-downs were patched and freshened at home, but in most Hopetown families the oldest child got a new outfit at the start of the school year, and as often as not Norah was chosen over Sears, Roebuck to provide the girls’ dresses. No one, at least to Norah’s knowledge, ever remarked on the similarity between Norah’s new dresses and last year’s fashion in the Sears catalogue.
The morning Rossa came by and talked with Mary and then with Denny, Norah guessed rightly what it was about. She intercepted Denny on his way into town for Mary that afternoon. ‘‘Will you be going to work for Donel?’’ she asked outright, to be sure of a yes or no before Mary interfered. ‘‘He’s a hard man, Dennis.’’
‘‘I was thinking that myself and I’ll have to walk five miles before starting the day’s work.’’
‘‘Doing what, do you know, Denny?’’
‘‘It’s on the farm. I made sure of that.’’
Where else? Norah wondered, but before she could ask, Mary was at the barn door shouting to him.
‘‘Amn’t I waiting for the sugar? Get on with you, man.’’
Dennis went on and Norah sought out Mary in her kitchen. ‘‘I’ve sugar enough to let you have five pounds, Mary.’’
‘‘He’ll be back in time.’’ She was picking over a great basin of currants, her hands stained bloodred. ‘‘Thank you, anyway,’’ an afterthought.
Norah settled on a kitchen chair she almost overflowed. It creaked with her weight.
‘‘You’re fading away to a ton,’’ Mary said with pleasure.
Where the inspiration came from Norah would never know. The thought just came up and out. ‘‘I’ve decided it’s time to get rid of all those things of theirs in the cellar.’’ ‘‘They’’ or ‘‘theirs’’ always referred to the couple who had brought her over from Ireland. ‘‘There’s some I kept for you, if you remember, when you first wanted a place of your own. You might want to take a look at them now.’’
A little twitch of Mary’s nose betrayed her interest and Norah pressed on. ‘‘The wash boiler-pure copper-I ought to have sold it,’’ she began, ‘‘and the mirror. It wouldn’t hurt you to take a look at yourself now and then.’’
As soon as the jelly was sealed in jars, Mary took Dennis with her to Norah’s. They went first to the cellar door, but Norah waved them around. It was his first time in her house, and she didn’t even ask him to wipe his feet.
Dennis’ great dark eyes took in everything Mary gave him time to see. She nudged him on with the knob of her cane. He wasn’t a dumb animal, Norah thought, but she smiled and bit her tongue. Above all she wanted him to see the piano. Mary shoved him past the parlor door.
Norah had to lift the door to the storage room where it sagged on the hinges and scraped the floor.
‘‘Maybe I could fix that,’’ Denny said.
‘‘Some rainy day when Mary has nothing for you to do.’’
‘‘That’ll be the day,’’ Mary said, but by then her curiosity was picking up and she was the first into the room, where there was only a whisper of light from the ground-level window. Norah pulled the electric switch. Mary let out a squeak of pleasure at things she thought on sight she had a use for. Then she settled down to a careful selection. One glance at her own reflection eliminated the mirror. Nor did she want Norah’s junk. Denny figured the most in her calculation, of course. The clothes wringer, for example, would have to be fastened to the sink board in the kitchen, where the only running water in her place came in. She’d not have needed it for her bits and pieces, but laundering a man’s wear could put a terrible strain on her knotty hands. Denny carted the wringer to the cellar door. Norah, her arms folded, watched. With an eagle’s eye, Mary thought. ‘‘Couldn’t you go and sit down somewhere?’’
‘‘I’d be willing to help,’’ Norah said.
‘‘Isn’t that what I’m talking about?’’
On Denny’s next trip between the storeroom and the cellar door, he brought back an old kitchen chair he’d seen near the furnace. He even dusted it with his bare hand. Norah sat.
‘‘God save the queen!’’ Mary cried.