his heart and his soul, and so his mind and his fightingâs not on his farm no more, not on it no more like it was before. Not on it. Because heâs just a-renting now. Heâs not no owner now. Just a renter. And then, for Godâs sake, how low down the ladder is he? My good God. Heâs down just about as low and as lousy as heâll ever get, or as he thinks that heâll ever get. I felt that way. I had some care and some plans and some pep and some piss and some vinegar about me when I used to work on my own folksâ place, but then since I fell down to just being a renter, I donât know, I donât know why, I never will know why, but I sort of seemed to lose about half of that old stuff that I had in me, felt in me toward my land and my seeds and my seasons. And then I went and I fell down ten times lower and lower than to be even a renter! For Godâs sake in heaven! Elly! Elly! Hon! Iâve lost all of my hold on my whole world! Iâve messed around and let myself fall so low, so damned low, as to end up being just another cropper! Cropping on the shares!â And for a full half minute Tike stood still, listeningfor Ella to say something, as he looked out the east door toward the cow barn.
Ella May felt a sour belch come from her stomach up into her nostrils, and muddy little tears caused her eyes to shine through the room. She closed her eyes and saw jerks and kinks of her whole life in her mind and in the room. She laid her head back against the wallpaper again and smelled the rot and the filth of the place. Exactly one mile out the window and to the north she saw two cars running past on the 66. Her face felt like a cake of mud to her when she smiled. âLook at those two cars.â
âUh-huh.â Tike leaned the back of his head against the door frame. âOne runs like a giant. One runs like a dwarf. One runs like a Cadillac, and thâ otherân like an Austin.â
âLittle bitty one looks like some kind of a little teeny-bitsy termite or a bug of some kind. Donât it?â Ellaâs tears tasted salty and gritty on her tongue and lips, and a vacant, gummy, far-off feeling was in her words. âTermites. Ha ha ha.â
Tike kept his hands in his hip pockets, his thumbs stuck out. He tapped his left shoe heel against the worm-eaten floor, and with his right shoe he kicked against the edge of a thin, hard, long-gone rim of cheap linoleum. Ella tried to smile. He smiled away toward the highway, over the fences and the fields, over all of the rot and troubles. And he spoke: âTermites. Ha.â And his voice had a wide-open flat tone. And his face smiled with the smile that had made him ten thousand friends and enemies in his thirty-three years.His face smiled. His face smiled with all of the puzzles, the echoes, the visions of every man that followed the plow and the seed and the seasons. His eyes were marbles and they reflected, like radio, like television, all of the earth rays of sorrow. He bent his knees and started to sit down in the doorway, but thought it would make Ella May feel better if he stood up. He made his body stand up tall and straight as he could, then rested his head against the door frame. His eyes looked away through the wind and watched the large car and the small one fade out down the road to the west. His shoes kicked more loose hunks of linoleum off the edge, and he gripped his hands so tight inside his pockets that his fingernails made deep purplish gashes in the palms of his hands.
His face smiled in the same old wind that he had felt, smelled, and known as a thing of life or death all of his life there. The wind was a thing of the weather, and the weather was the life or the death of people and crops. He had always sort of halfway frowned, halfway smiled, into the weather, up into the sun, up to the stars that chase around the big blue bowl. Blue northern blizzards cut grass blades. The noses and ears of all
Ella May felt a sour belch come from her stomach up into her nostrils, and muddy little tears caused her eyes to shine through the room. She closed her eyes and saw jerks and kinks of her whole life in her mind and in the room. She laid her head back against the wallpaper again and smelled the rot and the filth of the place. Exactly one mile out the window and to the north she saw two cars running past on the 66. Her face felt like a cake of mud to her when she smiled. âLook at those two cars.â
âUh-huh.â Tike leaned the back of his head against the door frame. âOne runs like a giant. One runs like a dwarf. One runs like a Cadillac, and thâ otherân like an Austin.â
âLittle bitty one looks like some kind of a little teeny-bitsy termite or a bug of some kind. Donât it?â Ellaâs tears tasted salty and gritty on her tongue and lips, and a vacant, gummy, far-off feeling was in her words. âTermites. Ha ha ha.â
Tike kept his hands in his hip pockets, his thumbs stuck out. He tapped his left shoe heel against the worm-eaten floor, and with his right shoe he kicked against the edge of a thin, hard, long-gone rim of cheap linoleum. Ella tried to smile. He smiled away toward the highway, over the fences and the fields, over all of the rot and troubles. And he spoke: âTermites. Ha.â And his voice had a wide-open flat tone. And his face smiled with the smile that had made him ten thousand friends and enemies in his thirty-three years.His face smiled. His face smiled with all of the puzzles, the echoes, the visions of every man that followed the plow and the seed and the seasons. His eyes were marbles and they reflected, like radio, like television, all of the earth rays of sorrow. He bent his knees and started to sit down in the doorway, but thought it would make Ella May feel better if he stood up. He made his body stand up tall and straight as he could, then rested his head against the door frame. His eyes looked away through the wind and watched the large car and the small one fade out down the road to the west. His shoes kicked more loose hunks of linoleum off the edge, and he gripped his hands so tight inside his pockets that his fingernails made deep purplish gashes in the palms of his hands.
His face smiled in the same old wind that he had felt, smelled, and known as a thing of life or death all of his life there. The wind was a thing of the weather, and the weather was the life or the death of people and crops. He had always sort of halfway frowned, halfway smiled, into the weather, up into the sun, up to the stars that chase around the big blue bowl. Blue northern blizzards cut grass blades. The noses and ears of all
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