Father turned back to me. 'If Timothy can make you know he is thirsty, he can tell you he is. You are not to give him a drink until he asks for it.' 'But, Father! He can't talk!' I protested. 'He has a voice,' said Father. 'He hasn't talked since he became conscious after the fire, but he said some words before then. Not our words, but words. If he can be blind and still not stumble, if he can comfort a bereaved mother by the touch of the hand, if he can make you know he's thirsty, he can talk.' I didn't argue. You don't with Father. They started getting ready for bed. I went to Timothy and sat beside him on the cot. He didn't put out his hand for the cup of water he wanted. He knew I didn't have it. 'You have to ask for it,' I told him. 'You have to say you're thirsty.' His blind face turned to me and two of his fingers touched my wrist. I suddenly realized that this was something he often did lately. Maybe being blind be could hear better by touching me. I felt the thought was foolish before I finished it. But I said again, 'You have to ask for it. You must tell me, 'I'm thirsty. I want a drink, please.' You must talk.' Timothy turned from me and lay down on the cot. Mama sighed sharply. Father blew out the lamp, leaving me in the dark to spread my pallet on the floor and go to bed. The next morning we were all up before sunrise. Father had all our good barrels loaded on the hayrack and was going to Tolliver's Wells for water. He and Mama counted out our small supply of cash with tight lips and few words. In times like these water was gold. And what would we do when we had no more money? We prayed together before Father left, and the house felt shadowy and empty with him gone. We pushed our breakfasts around our plates and then put them away for lunch. What is there to do on a ranch that is almost dead? I took Pilgrim's Progress to the corner of the front porch and sat with it on my lap and stared across the yard without seeing anything, sinking into my own Slough of Despond. I took a deep breath and roused a little as Timothy came out onto the porch. He had a cup in his hand. 'I'm thirsty,' he said slowly but distinctly, 'I want a drink, please.' I scrambled awkwardly to my feet and took the cup from him. Mama came to the door. 'What did you say, Barney?' 'I didn't say anything,' I said, my grin almost splitting my face. 'Timmy did!' We went into the house and I dipped a cup of water for Timmy. 'Thank you,' he said and drank it all. Then he put the cup down by the bucket and went back to the porch. 'He could have got the drink himself,' Mama said. wonderingly, 'he can find his way around. And yet he waited, thirsty, until he could ask you for it.' 'I guess he knows he has to mind Father, tool' I laughed shakily. It was a two days' round trip to Tolliver's Wells and the first day stretched out endlessly. In the heat of noon, I slept, heavily and unrefreshingly. I woke, drenched with sweat, my tongue swollen and dry from sleeping with my mouth open. I sat up, my head swimming and my heart thumping audibly in my ears. Merry and Mama were still sleeping on the big bed, a mosquito bar over them to keep the flies off. I wallowed my dry tongue and swallowed. Then I staggered up from my pallet. Where was Timothy? Maybe he had gone to the Little House by himself. I looked out the window. He wasn't in sight and the door swung half open. I waited a minute but he didn't come out. Where was Timothy? I stumbled out onto the front porch and looked around. No Timothy. I started for the barn, rounding the corner of the house, and there he was! He was sitting on the ground, half in the sun, half in the shade of the house. He had the cup in one hand and the fingers of the other hand were splashing in the water. His blind face was intent. 'Timmy!' I cried, and he looked up with a start, water slopping. 'Daggone! You had me scared stiff! What are you doing with that water?' I slid to a seat beside him. His two wet fingers touched my wrist without fumbling for it. 'We don't have enough water to play with it!' Ha turned his face down toward the cup, then, turning, he poured the water carefully at the bottom of the last geranium left alive of all Mama had taken such tender care of. Then, with my help, he got to his feet and because I could tell what he wanted and because he said, 'Walk!' we walked. In all that sun and dust we walked. He led me. I only went along for the exercise and to steer him clear of cactus and holes in the way. Back and forth we went, back and forth. To the hill in front of the house, back to the house. To the hill again, a little farther along. Back to the yard, missing the house about ten feet. Finally, halfway through the weary monotony of the afternoon, I realized that Timmy was covering a wide area of land in ten-foot swaths, back and forth, farther and farther from the house. By evening we were both exhausted and only one of Timmy's feet was even trying to touch the ground. The other one didn't bother to try to step. Finally Timmy said, 'I'm thirsty. I want a drink, please.' And we went back to the house. Next morning I woke to see Timmy paddling in another cup of water and all morning we covered the area on the other side of the house, back and forth, back and forth. 'What are you doing?' Mama had asked. 'I don't know,' I said. 'It's Timmy's idea.' And Timmy said nothing. When the shadows got short under the bushes we went back to the porch and sat down on the steps, Merry gurgling at us from her porch-pen. 'I'm thirsty. I want a drink, please,' said Timmy again, and I brought him his drink. 'Thank you,' he said, touching my wrist. 'It's sure hot!' 'It sure is!' I answered, startled by his new phrase. He drank slowly and poured the last drop into his palm. He put the tin cup down on the porch by him and worked the fingers and thumb of his other hand in the dampness of his palm, his face intent and listening-like under his bandaged eyes. Then his fingers were quiet and his face turned toward Merry. He got up and took the two steps to the porch-pen. He reached for Merry, his face turned to me. I moved closer and he touched my wrist. I lifted Merry out of the pen and put her on the porch. I lifted the pen, which was just a hollow square of wooden rails fastened together, and set it up on the porch, too. Timmy sat down slowly on the spot where the pen had been. He scraped the dirt into a heap, then set it to one side and scraped again. Seeing that he was absorbed for a while, I took Merry in to be cleaned up for dinner and came back later to see what Timmy was doing. He was still scraping and had quite a hole by now, but the dirt was stacked too close so that it kept sliding back into the hole. I scraped it all away from the edge, then took his right arm and said, 'Time to eat, Timmy. Come on.' He ate and went back to the hole he had started. Seeing that he meant to go on digging, I gave him a big old spoon Merry sometimes played with and a knife with a broken blade, to save his hands. All afternoon he dug with the tools and scooped the dirt out. And dug again. By evening he had enlarged the hole until he was sitting in it, shoulder deep. Mama stood on the porch, sagging under the weight of Merry who was astride her hip and said, 'He's ruining the front lawn.' Then she laughed. 'Front lawn! Ruining it!' And she laughed again, just this side of tears. Later that evening, when what cooling-off ever came was coming over the ranch, we heard the jingle of harness and then the creak of the hayrack and the plop of horses' hooves in the dust. Father was home! We ran to meet him at our gate, suddenly conscious of how out-of-step everything had been without him. I opened the gate and dragged the four strands wide to let the wagon through. Father's face was dust-coated and the dust did not crease into smiles for us. His hugs were almost desperate. I looked into the back of the wagon, as he and Mama murmured together. Only half the barrels were filled. 'Didn't we have enough money?' I asked, wondering how people could insist on hard metal in exchange for life. 'They didn't have water enough,' said Father. 'Others were waiting, too. This is the last they can let us have.' We took care of the horses but left the water barrels on the wagon. That was as good a place as any and the shelter of the barn would keep it-well, not cool maybe, but below the boiling point. It wasn't until we started back to the house that we thought of Timmy. We saw a head rising from the hole Timmy was digging and Father drew back his foot to
