Satan's Bushel by Garet Garrett Page B

wheat. It wiped him out. What was worse, he owed the bucket shop so much that even what was left of the farm would not satisfy the debt. There would be a dead horse to pay for. Therefore, the friend argued, it would be better now for the two boys to come forward and take charge of the family’s future. They could not be sued for the father’s debt. With all his wisdom he persuaded the wife to this line of conduct and admonished her to be firm. When he ceased speaking, having said everything three times, the little clock on a bracket shelf against the wall took up his exhortation. It was a little out of plumb, with an injured tick, and kept saying: “Be firm, be firm, be firm.”
    It was a winter night. Snow was falling. They sat in the kitchen—the sympathetic friend, the wife and four children. The chores were all done. A lantern on the floor by the door had not quite gone out and was fuming. Supper was over, except Weaver’s, and his was on a plate in the oven. It had been kept warm for so long that it was already spoiled, and no one minded it any more. The wife’s arms lay limp on the red tablecloth in the round shadow of the hanging coaloil lamp. At the slightest unexpected sound she would start, take in her breath, then let it out again in a weary, reconciled sigh. The kind of a woman who secretly enjoys misery and aggrievedness because she can so easily dramatize it. A girl of sixteen was clearing up. She had to walk around two boys, almost grown, who surrounded the stove; and she did it without speaking.
    A much younger girl stood alone at the window looking out. It was she who spoke and her voice was bright.
    “There he is,” she said. “I see him.”
    The wife swallowed, twitched the corners of her mouth, and looked at the family’s friend, who silently repeated the admonition, “Be firm.” The child at the window continued to look out. The others listened. They heard him drive in and open the barn door. Neither of the two boys stirred. A few minutes later they heard him close the barn door and began to hearken for his step on the back porch. It did not come.
    “What’s he doing?” the wife asked, speaking to the girl in the window.
    “Walking around,” she answered, not turning her face. Her voice had changed.
    Several minutes passed in silence.
    “Now what’s he doing?” the wife asked.
    Instead of answering the girl threw her arm across her face, leaned against the window frame and began to sob.
    “Oh, that child!” the mother sighed. “Stella, do look. See what he’s doing.”
    Stella was wiping a plate. She approached the window obliquely, intending to glance out in passing. What she saw caused her to stop and look again and then to stand gazing. The hand that was drying the plate went slower and slower round and stopped. Then she turned from the window, shaking her head, frowning.
    “I don’t know what he’s doing.” she said.
    “Can you see him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Well, then, what does he seem to be doing?”
    “He seems to be hugging the trees,” said Stella.
    “Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” the mother aspirated. “That’s it. That’s it.”
    “What’s it, mother?” Stella asked in a petulant voice.
    “Hush, child. Don’t ask me. Will that young one stop her crying?”
    Just then Weaver’s steps were heard on the porch. The doorlatch clicked. He paused on the threshold and looked around him, at each of them in turn, at the room, at the familiar objects in it, as if he were trying to remember something. Then he picked up the fuming lantern, put it out and set it on the floor again. Forgetting to close the door or to remove his hat and outer coat he walked mechanically to the oven and drew forth his plate of supper without looking at it. He put it on the table, seated himself, and began to stare at it, as he had stared at everything else. Stella laid a knife and fork by his plate, holding herself aloof. He might have been a stranger. Nobody spoke to him. Then he seemed to see