Losing Battles by Eudora Welty Page B

a man was sure of anything at all, I was sure I had to give this house a new tin top to shine in Jack’s face the day he gets home,” said Mr. Renfro. “That roof speaks just a world, speaks volumes.”
    “Mr. Renfro give up just about all we had left for that tin top over our heads,” said Miss Beulah. “He had to show the reunion single-handed the world don’t have to go flying to pieces when the oldest son gives trouble.”
    “You hammer that tin on by yourself?” protested Aunt Beck. “Since he wasn’t even here to help you? Cousin Ralph, I’m more than half surprised you didn’t crack at least your collarbone for today.”
    “He had so-called help. And I’ll tell you what I got tired of was Mr. Willy Trimble scurrying and frisking around like a self-appointed squirrel up over my head,” said Miss Beulah. “He was neighborly to offer, but he’s taken liberties ever since. It’s still our roof!”
    “Paid for with what?” the new Aunt Cleo asked in complimentary tones.
    “Take comfort. Our farm ain’t holding together a great deal better than yours, Mr. Renfro,” said Uncle Curtis. “Maybe me and Beck did raise a house full of sons, and maybe not a one of ’em had to go to Parchman, but they left home just the same. Married, and moved over to look after their wives’ folks. Scattered.”
    “Why, of course they did,” said Aunt Beck softly.
    “But all nine!” said Uncle Curtis. “All nine! And they’re never coming home.”
    “I’m thankful they can still get back all together at the old reunion,” said Uncle Percy, looking over at the ball game in the pasture. “Who are they playing—their wives?” But as he stood looking, he exclaimed in his faint voice, “Look where the turkey’s walking.”
    The Thanksgiving turkey, resembling something made on the farm out of stovepipe and wound up to go, walking anywhere he pleased with three months yet to stay alive, paraded into a grease-darkened, grassless patch of yard with a trench worn down in the clay, an oblong space staked out by the stumps of four pine trees.
    “I thought there’s something about the place that’s unnatural!” said Uncle Noah Webster. “Beulah!” he hollered. “Where’s Jack’s truck, Jack’s precious truck? It ain’t picked up and gone to meet him, has it?”
    “One guess.”
    “Oh, the skunk!” the uncles shouted, all rising.
    “Now you Beechams might as well sit down. It was nothing but a dirty piece of machinery,” Miss Beulah said.
    “Curly didn’t even let Jack get home first to make it go,” said Uncle Noah Webster.
    “Jack was so purely besotted with it, I’d been more greatly surprised to learn something hadn’t happened to it,” Uncle Dolphus said.
    “But a truck? How did Jack ever get hold of such a scarcity to start with?” asked Aunt Cleo. “You-all don’t look like you was ever that well-fixed.”
    “It fell in his lap, pretty near. Jack’s just that kind of a boy, Sister Cleo,” said Aunt Beck.
    “The last time I seen it enthroned in your yard, Beulah, it was still asking for some little attention,” said Uncle Curtis. “I don’t guess it improved a great deal with the boy away.”
    “I hadn’t let the children touch it!” she declared. She put up her hand. “And listen, everybody, don’t let on to Jack about his filthy truck—not today. Don’t prattle! Owing to the crowd, he might not see it’s gone any quicker’n you did. Don’t tell him, children!” she called widely. “Spare him that till tomorrow.”
    “Just lay the four stumps with some planks, like it’s one more table. And Ella Fay can have it covered up with a cloth. That wouldn’t be a hard trick at all,” said Aunt Nanny. “I’ll eat at it!”
    “And there’s another thing that’s gone he’ll come to find out.” said Uncle Curtis. “That’s the Boone County Courthouse. It burned to the ground, they don’t like to think how.”
    “How many here got to see it?” asked Aunt Cleo.
    Aunt