chill coming home,' Mary said. 'Maybe I did. It might be best if I went up to bed with a warm bri-hi-hi-hick- achoo!'
Mary got up to fetch the brick that was used as a door-stop to hold the pantry door open. She put it on the hottest part of the range to hurry it hot, instead of in the oven, as usual. She lifted the lid and used the poker to stir the fire up. She fetched a bottle of camphorated oil for Jonathan's chest, but when she brought it, saying she'd rub it on for him, he took it from her and said he'd do it upstairs if she would give him a rag to tie around his neck. She found one in the pantry, the one from which she'd torn the piece for her hair, just yesterday morning. Jonathan bade them a weary goodnight and left, armed with oil and rag. 'I'll bring the brick up as soon as it's hot,' Mary called after him. 'The basswood trees are in bloom. I'll brew you some basswood tea, too. That should stave off a cough.'
When she turned to begin clearing the table, she found that Aaron had already started it.
Jonathan lit the lamp so he could see what he was doing with the oil and also to give Mary some light to see by when she brought the brick up. When he'd attended to his anointing and tied the rag around his throat, there were steps sounding up the stairs. It was Aaron who came in with the hot brick, however, all wrapped in newspaper and a Turkish towel. 'Thanks, Aaron,' Jonathan said, his nose already stuffed up. 'Mary's busy doing dishes, so I thought I'd bring this up.'
Jonathan had turned back the coverlet and the bedclothes, way down to the foot of the bed so he could place the brick parcel there to warm his feet. The sheets were fragrant with fresh-air smell, and he was happy to get back to his own bed once again. Aaron had a blank look on his face as he watched Jonathan put the brick between the sheets. Then Jonathan spoke and Aaron moved to turn off the lamp before he left.
As Jonathan eased his weary body into the downy comfort of the bed, he was remembering the look on Aaron's face. He reached underneath and pulled the header of the sheet out and over the blankets and smoothed it under his arms. As he did so, he realized the sheets were freshly laundered. Had they not been slept on? But hadn't Mary said it had been raining since dawn? If that were so, then she must have washed the sheets yesterday- Monday was al ways washday, anyway. The fresh-air smell was too pungent for them to have come out of the bureau.
There was no denying it. These sheets had been washed yesterday but not slept on last night. And faster than he could catch it, the idea that had been running around the back of Jonathan's mind since the start of his trip began to take hold. Mary had not slept in this bed last night.
Jonathan paused and drew a long, slow breath. The only other bed in the house was Aaron's. The look on Aaron's face, the unused sheets-yes, even a small change of routine in the kitchen. It all came together in an instant, bringing a sudden vast hollowness to the inside of Jonathan Gray. And as he lay in his own fresh bed, that hollowness began to spread, making a place for second thoughts, thoughts it was now too late to consider.
As Mary climbed the stairs later, she was thinking over what Aaron had told her before she left him sitting in the kitchen. On the one hand, perhaps she should have thought about the unwrinkled sheets. On the other, it was as Aaron had said: what they'd done, they'd done, and it was too late now to undo it. Rumpling the sheets intentionally would have been a low, sneaky thing to do, and Mary wasn't cap- able of it.
She wondered if Jonathan knew now, then realized she'd be foolish to assume he didn't. Whatever the case, Jonathan was back, and she must make the best she could of her life with him. It had always been a good life before, and it would be again. What the outcome between herself and Aaron would be had been a question she'd not delved into.
Lying in bed beside Jonathan as he slept fitfully, she turned a key in her heart that would lock in forever the beautiful memory of what she and Aaron had shared, and lock out any more of the same. Jonathan was back, and with him had returned her common sense. This was the man with whom she must live, and the sooner she resumed that life, the less hurt would come to all concerned. There could be no ques- tion of leaving one man for another.
In the kitchen below, Aaron was trying not to think. Mary was back in bed beside her husband. He, Aaron, was again on the outside. He must take up the question of what to do about himself and Mary, but he would wait a few days. For now he would content himself with the fact that Mary loved him and he loved her.
The rain left Moran that night, and the town awoke under a brilliant late May sun that warmed it for the remainder of the week. Routine returned, and the warm days saw Jonathan and Aaron completing the last of the planting. Mary stayed pretty much to the house and chicken coop. It was nearly time for the chicks to hatch. They would be followed a week later by the goslings, each flock numbering about fifty if all went well. It would bring a tidy profit when she butchered them in the autumn.
Mary neither avoided Aaron nor sought him out, but treated him as she always had in the old days. She was aware of his many and constant considerations for her, and they couldn't help but warm her heart.
In spite of his second thoughts about Mary and Aaron, Jonathan found he could not question either of them about it. Although it hovered around his mind, he was wrapped up with happy expectations for Saturday, the day the bull would arrive. The week seemed to drag until the awaited afternoon came at last. Aaron had agreed to make the trip into town with him, but Mary declined, saying she was tired and would like to wash her hair with the water from the rain barrel while they were gone. But she sent her shopping list along with the men as they set out in the double box wagon.
The subject of Mary never came up between the brothers during their ride, for the subject of fences kept them in con- versation all the way as they laid plans to fence off a piece of woods adjacent to the rich, wild hayfield and connect it with gates to a lane leading to the barnyard. The wood for the fence posts would come from the woods themselves, and the proximity to the wild hay would make it easy to turn the bull into that field for foraging, once the initial hay crop had been put up in early July. June would give them time to do the fencing, for their main responsibility then would be only the cultivating of corn and potatoes.
They arrived well before train time in Browerville, saw to the list Mary had sent along, went to the hardware store to inquire about barbed wire, and were at the railway station in plenty of time to catch the drifting sound of the whistle as the wind blew it in from the south. They saw smoke from the pufferbelly before they saw the engine itself. Memories of the last time they'd stood on the waiting plat- form were in both of their minds, but for both it was easier to blot it out and think about the arrival of the bull.
The door of the cattle car was run open and a ramp put up. The head of a black bull appeared at the top of the ramp. He eyed his reception committee and pulled his head back with a complaining bawl. But Jonathan walked up the ramp then, and the animal stopped his balking and followed do- cilely down the ramp. Jonathan brought him up near the side of the wagon and tied his rope halter onto the end of it so that he could walk clear around the bull to admire him. 'Isn't he a beauty, Aaron?' he asked, rubbing the sleek black coat on the bull's sides and back. 'He sure is,' Aaron agreed. 'You are my little beauty, aren't'cha, Vindicator?' Jonathan asked the bull. 'Vindicator seems like a mighty fancy name for a little feller like you, though. How's about I call you Vinnie? Would you like that?' He leaned near the bull's ear to ask it. But the animal became skittish with the closeness of the man and pushed his head downward until the rope was taut.
Aaron and Jonathan both laughed at the feisty creature, trying to look so mean but with the facial expression of a lovable baby. 'Come on, Vinnie,' Aaron laughed, 'let's take you aboard and get you home. The ladies are waiting.'
Mary was sitting on the porch steps as they arrived with the bull. When the wagon was used for small loads, the men put a single tier of planks around it. Then it was called a 'single box.' Now, decked with a second, higher tier of planks, the 'double box' hid the bull entirely from Mary as the wagon pulled into the yard. Her first glimpse of him was from behind as Jonathan lifted the backboards free. He was so thoroughly and completely proud of this creature that she hadn't the heart to do anything less than join in his enthusiasm. She really couldn't see what all the hoopla was about, but Jonathan was certainly agog with it. He called the calf Vinnie already, nicknaming it as he would a child. He patted and rubbed it, admiring its cylindric- al shape and low-set body in spite of the gangly, youthful legs. By the time he and Aaron led Vinnie down to the barn, Mary had heard Jonathan bestow more gentle words on it than he ever had on her. The animal inspired a depth of feeling in Jonathan that she'd never been able to.
During the days when June eased her way over the coun- tryside and Moran felt the full flush of the simmering summer sun, Jonathan and Aaron worked on the fencing project, the subject of Mary still tacit between them. They felled small trees, trimmed them, and sawed them into equal lengths. As the stack of fence posts grew, so did the weeds in the potato patch. Aaron broke the stride of their activity to begin the first cultivating. The
