many basic skills. Yet Ish always knew that George was essentially stupid; he had probably never read a book in his life. No, not George.
Next to George, was Evie, the half-witted one. Molly kept her well groomed, and Evie, blond and slender, was good-looking, if you could forget the vacantness of her face. She sat there glancing right and left at whoever was talking. She even gave an illusion of alertness, but Ish knew that she was understanding little, perhaps nothing, of what was being said. She was no foundation-stone for the future. Certainly, not Evie.
Then came Molly, Ezra’s older wife. Molly was not a stupid person, but she had little education and could certainly not be called intellectual. Besides, like the other women, she had expended her energy at bearing and rearing children, and now five of hers were still alive. That was enough contribution to ask of anyone. No, not Molly.
Beyond Molly, the next person was Em. When Ish looked at Em, so many feelings boiled up within him that he knew any judgment he might try to make of her would be of no value. She, alone, had made the first decision to have a child. She had kept her courage and confidence during the Terrible Year. She it was to whom they all turned in time of trouble. Some strong power lodged within her, to affirm and never to deny. Without her they might all have been as nothing. Yet, her power lay deep in the springs of action; in a particular situation, though she might inspire courage and confidence in others, she herself seldom supplied an idea. Ish knew that he would always turn to her and that she was greater than he, but he also knew that she would not be of help in planning toward the future. No—though it seemed disloyalty to say so—not even Em!
Beyond Em, lolling on the floor, were Ralph and Jack and Roger, the three who were still called boys, even though they themselves were married and had children. Ralph was Molly’s son who was married to Ish’s daughter, Mary; Jack and Roger were Ish’s own sons. But as he looked at them now, Ish felt very far from them, even though his connection by family was as close as could well be. Though he was only some twenty years older, still he seemed separated from them by centuries. They had not known the Old Times, and so they could not look forward much and think how things might again be in the future. No, probably not the boys either.
Ish’s eyes had moved around the circle, and he was looking now at Jean, Ezra’s younger wife. She had borne ten children, and seven of them were still alive. She had a mind of her own, as her refusal to join in the church- services had shown. Still, she was not a person of new ideas. No, not Jean.
As for Maurine, George’s wife, she had not even bothered to come to the gathering, but had gone directly from the rock to her own house, where she would already be engaged at sweeping or dusting or some other of her perpetual and beloved tasks of housewifery. Of all persons, certainly not Maurine.
Three other adults also were not present. They were Mary, Martha, and young Jeanie, who were married to the three boys. Mary had always seemed to Ish the most stolid of all his children, and now with her own children coming so fast, she grew a little more bovine, yearly. Martha and Jeanie also were mothers, and motherhood was absorbing them. No, none of these.
Present and absent, twelve adults! He still had difficulty in realizing that there was no vast reservoir of humanity from which to draw.
Half a dozen children were interspersed among the adults or circled around restlessly on the outside of the circle. Instead of going to help with the bonfire, these few had kept with the adults—half-bored, and yet apparently thinking that such a large gathering of their elders was important and should be watched. Ish let his attention shift to them, speculatively. Sometimes they listened to what the older people were saying, and sometimes they merely poked each other or scuffled. Yet, in them, careless as they seemed, rested the hope. The older people could probably slide along on the present arrangements as long as they lived, but the children might have to adapt. Could any of them supply the spark?
And now, as he began to focus on the children, Ish saw that one of them was not scuffling with any other, but was sitting there, steadily listening to what the older ones were saying, his big eyes glancing back and forth with a bright glow of intelligence and interest. This was Joey.
No sooner had Ish’s eyes focused for a moment upon Joey, than Joey’s alertly wandering glance noticed the attention his father was giving him. He squirmed with delight, and his face broke into the all-embracing grin of a nine-year-old. Upon the impulse of the moment, Ish winked slyly at his youngest son. Joey’s grin could scarcely have become any broader than it was, but in some way it seemed to spread. Ish caught the flutter of an eyelid in return. Then, not to embarrass Joey, Ish turned his glance elsewhere.
There was a slow argument going on among George and Ezra and the boys. Ish had heard it all before, and was not enough interested to participate or even to listen to all of it.
“One of them things don’t weigh more’n four hundred pounds anyway, I think,” George was saying.
“Yes, maybe,” Jack replied. “But just the same, that’s a lot to lug up here.”
“Aw, that’s not so much!” said Ralph, who was heavy-set and powerful, and liked to show off his strength.
And so, thought Ish, the argument would go on, as he had heard it often before, about whether it was possible to get a gas-refrigerator somewhere, and set it up, and supply it with still charged tanks of pressurized gas, and so have ice again. Yet, in the end, nothing would be done, not because the project was impossible or even inordinately difficult, but merely because everybody was fairly well contented with things as they were, and in a region of notably cool summers there was no great drive which led anyone to want to have ice. Yet, in a vague way, the old argument disturbed him.
He let his gaze shift back to Joey. Joey was small, even for his age. Ish enjoyed watching the little boy’s face, the quick way in which his eyes shifted from one speaker to another, never missing a point. In fact, Ish could see that Joey often picked up the point of a sentence, even before the speaker arrived at the end of it, especially with a slow speaker, like old George. This must be, Ish reflected, a tremendous day for Joey. A year had actually been named after him, the Year When Joey Read. No other child had ever had any such honor as that. Perhaps it was even such a distinction as to be bad for him. Yet, the idea had come spontaneously from the other children, a tribute to sheer intellect.
The languid argument was still going on. George was talking now:
“No, there shouldn’t be no great trick to connecting up the pipes.”
“But, George,” this voice was Ezra’s with its quicker tempo and faint tone of Yorkshire still noticeable after all these years, “has gas-pressure kept up in those tanks of compressed gas? I should think, p’raps, after all this time….”
Ezra’s voice trailed off that moment at a sudden rumpus between two of the children. Weston, Ezra’s own twelve-year-old son, was engaged in a punching contest with Betty, his half-sister.
“Stop it, Weston,” Ezra snapped out. “Stop it, I say, or I’ll warm your pants for you!”
The threat did not carry conviction, and as far as Ish could remember, he had never seen the easygoing Ezra punish a child. Nevertheless, at the paternal order the scuffle subsided with no more than the conventional protest from Weston, “Aw, Betty started it!”
“Yes, but what do you want ice for anyway, George?” This was Ralph speaking. It was a natural and never- failing phase of the argument. The boys, who had never known what it was to have ice, had no urge to make them go to the work of obtaining it.
Ish was thinking to himself that George had been asked that question a great many times in the course of this argument before. He really should have had his answer ready, but George was not a quick thinker and was not a man to be hurried. He shifted his tongue in his mouth, shaping words before he actually set out to reply, and in the pause Ish again watched Joey. The little boy’s glance moved quickly from the hesitant George to Ezra and to Jack, as if to see how those others were taking the pause; then Joey’s eyes sought his father’s again. All at once there was a quick comradeship and sense of understanding in the glance. Joey seemed to be saying that either his father or he would find an answer quickly and not hesitate as George was doing.
Then something exploded inside Ish’s brain. He did not hear the words that at last began to unroll slowly from George’s mouth.
