Now in November by Josephine W. Johnson Page A

burst out suddenly. He looked at me hard with his stained round eyes, and then sank back again into brooding.
    â€œChrishun don’ like folks to talk about your Dad,” Lucia said. “Most people he wouldn’t let have his mules!”
    She came to the door with me, her great body blotting the light behind, and snuffed the air. Then she looked at the stars, always too clear now, never changing or covered. “Might rain tomorrow,” she said.
    â€œâ€”Don’ feel like a frost anyway.” The children giggled and Christian gave an exasperated laugh.—“Bettah get out your ark, Lucia,” he said.
    Lucia grinned. “Chrishun’s got a bile-stomach,” she said. “It makes all his words come out sour. You tell your Pop that he’s welcome, only not to let ’m catch cold.”
    . . . It seemed a long way back. I was glad to get the mules, but uneasy with the obligation and afraid already that it would never be paid—having debt enough now, without adding the weight of kindness to it. I couldn’t think of much else, though, but the relief of getting home and lying in bed asleep. Unsaddling the horse was effort to even think about, and I tried to smother the tiredness with pretending that Grant might wait up and do it for me. Then even this was set aside and there was only the horse’s lurch and stumble, and the ache of tiredness like a stone on top of my lungs. The stars were foolish pin-points of pain, and I wondered whether I ought to use peas or spinach first, and how soon both would dry up anyway, and if Kerrin would remember—or do it if she did—to scrape out the chicken house, and how Dad wouldtake it when he found that matches were gone up a cent and a half.
    There was a light by the barn when I came back, and for a minute I thought that perhaps Grant had really waited, and my hands shook on the reins with a stupid hope. Then Merle came out of the oak-shadow and helped me to strip off the saddle, and took Cairn down to drink.
    â€œEverybody’s asleep,” she told me, “—especially Grant. Didn’t notice how grey the dishes were he wiped, or stop even to wash his face. Tired out as an old mule.”
    I asked if Kerrin had gone in yet, and Merle said she was sleeping, too. “Maybe we’ll get some work out of her for a change,” she said, but her voice didn’t sound like her words.
    â€œWhat’ll we do with her?” I burst out at Merle. “She never is well any more—looks like the ghost of a person. It’s awful to see her ruin herself this way! It’s awful to see her so unhappy!”
    â€œYou can’t do anything,” Merle said. “She’s always been that way. She doesn’t belong here, and there’s no place else for her to go.—She asked Grant to sing againtonight, but he fell asleep instead.—Slumped down like a dead person in his chair.”
    We went inside then and saw a light still burning in Kerrin’s room, faint and uncertain like a candle, and looked at each other. The house was still and hot, and the mosquitoes came through the torn screen places, even where Merle had glued on paper. We went in and lay down, and Merle slept without moving, soundly as though she were still seven and consciousness only a shoe or pin, worn when needed and as easily put aside. But I lay awake a long time, wondering what would happen if no rain came pretty soon, and how Dad was going to meet his taxes. I remembered that this was June, and started to figure the value of all we owned; and if the new shed for the horses had been such a good thought after all, though Grant had built it for nothing, and the old one was rotting like oaks in swamp. I thought that maybe we should have waited until July and not added even ten cents to what the tax was already going to be. I remembered I had the cooking tomorrow, and wasted a long time figuring how to make up a cake without