down and began scratching her head, an attention the animal seemed merely to tolerate, for though her eyes closed momentarily as if in pleasure, she soon moved out of reach.
Freirs watched her uncertainly. She was fat and sleek, with fine grey fur halfway between charcoal and silver. Placid-looking enough, but you never knew about these animals. Hesitantly he reached out to stroke her, but she backed away – mostly, it seemed, out of fear, though as his hand drew closer she made a menacing sound deep in her throat. He decided it was best to keep his distance.
'She's the oldest of the cats,' said Poroth, 'and it takes her a while to get used to people. She's not even sure of Deborah yet.' With a sigh he squinted at the sun. 'Well, we should probably be heading back. I want to get you into town in plenty of time.'
Freirs followed him up the grassy slope through the lengthening shadows. Looking back, he saw Bwada crouched on the bank, eyes wide as she followed the bobbing flight of a dragonfly above the stream. Inching forward, she thrust out her paw and dabbed tentatively at the moving water, as if testing whether the surface were strong enough to walk on, then settled back again to watch and wait.
'She's found a way to cross the brook by some fallen logs over in the woods,' said Poroth, who had turned to see why Freirs had stopped. 'She's afraid to try and cross anywhere else. She really hates the water.'
His stride had an athlete's spring to it as he continued toward the farmhouse, rising up onto the toes of his boots with every step, arms swinging easily at his sides, as if drawing upon some private source of power. Strong ankles, too, no doubt. Freirs himself was beginning to feel bushed. It couldn't be just the walk, he told himself; he walked farther every day in the city. The antihistamine, maybe, or something to do with the country air. The air seemed healthy here, but maybe it was only an illusion. Though you had to admit those pines smelled sweet and good, down by the brook, nothing like the disinfectant pine smell he was used to, in aerosol and after-shave. You only smelled the real stuff in the winter, walking past a sidewalk stand of Christmas trees.
As they rounded the barn, they saw that a second pickup truck was parked in front of the house. Freirs felt a sudden rush of disappointment. 'That's Brother Matt Geisel,' he heard Poroth saying. 'He and Sister Corah are our closest neighbors. They live up the road, just past the turn.'
The man was in the kitchen with Deborah when they came inside, leaning stiffly against the counter as if his limbs were too long to fold into a chair. 'Hello there!' he said in a gravelly voice, beaming from
Poroth to Freirs. 'We still had a few winter parsnips left over, and I thought you folks might find a use for 'em.' He looked about sixty or seventy, his face lined and deeply tanned, like patches of leather stitched together.
'Matthew's brought us enough for a full-size family,' said Deborah, nodding toward a pile of greens and pale carrotlike vegetables on the counter by the sink. She made a mock frown. 'I wanted to give him some of these cookies, but he says he's getting too fat.'
Geisel grinned broadly, displaying a mouthful of small stained teeth. 'It ain't just me that says it. Corah, she says it too!' He blinked. 'Anyways, we got ourselves a cellar full of parsnips from the winter, and with the weather like it is, pretty soon they won't be good for much. No sense wasting 'em.'
'Brother Matthew,' said Poroth, 'I want you to meet Jeremy Freirs.'
Solemnly the old man took Freirs' proffered hand. His grip was as steely as Freirs had expected. 'You the fellow from New York City?' he asked, cocking his head and glaring at him with – Freirs had caught on now – the humorous gruffness that old codgers like this sometimes assumed.
Freirs nodded, playing the game. 'Four fifty-two Bank Street, right in the heart of Greenwich Village.'
'Jeremy's going to be renting our guest house this summer,' added Poroth.
Deborah's face brightened. Casting a quick inquiring glance at her husband, who nodded to confirm the news, she turned to Freirs and grinned. 'Good, Jeremy! I'm so glad.' Freirs felt his skin grow warm; in less formal company, he'd almost have expected her to hug him.
But already her expression had changed. 'Uh-oh, don't we have to get you back to town?'
'I'm just about to take him in,' said Poroth.
Geisel ambled forward. 'Well, I'm heading up to the Co-operative myself,' he announced. 'I'll be glad to give your young friend a ride.'
'Thanks,' said Freirs, and, seeing that Poroth appeared pleased, he added, 'Yes, I'd appreciate that.' He glanced at his watch. Nearly five o'clock. 'But I think we're going to have to leave right now.'
As they filed out to the porch and down to where the trucks were parked, he surreptitiously touched his wallet, wondering, suddenly, if the Poroths were going to hit him for a deposit.
'So it's all straight now, right?' he said, standing beside the trucks. 'I'm aiming for the weekend I told you, the twenty-fourth of June. Of course, I'll get in touch before that. And you'll be able to pick me up again at the bus stop?'
'I'll be there,' said Poroth. 'Just let me know the time.'
Geisel's old black Ford pickup looked even more beat up than the Poroths'. Geisel slapped its rusted fender. 'A beauty, ain't she?' he said, grinning. He opened the door on the driver's side and climbed gingerly into the front seat. 'I'll just slide my bones behind the wheel here… 'Freirs climbed in beside him and waited as Geisel fiddled with the ignition and the choke, the other's solemnity genuine now, an old man operating something he still didn't quite believe in. The motor rattled, turned over, and caught. Freirs waved goodbye to the Poroths, returning Deborah's smile; they made a traditional-looking tableau as they stood waving back, the old grey house rising cozily behind them.
As the truck began to pull out, easing onto the bumpy surface of the road, Freirs looked back. Sarr was turning toward the fields, already preoccupied with some new task, while Deborah, still waving, had retreated to the porch steps, the late-afternoon sun shining almost directly behind her, outlining her full figure as she stood there, hips cocked, one leg on the higher step. As Freirs gave a last farewell wave, he couldn't help but notice that she didn't seem to be wearing anything beneath the long black dress.
Crack!
The axe blade bit deep into the wood, scattering chips of bark. The pine stood trembling; branches shook. The tree was part of God; he felt it testing him. But other matters occupied him now. He swung the axe back for another blow.
Crack!
He was thinking about the summer ahead – and about the visitor they'd had today, who'd be coming among them this summer with his books and clothes and city ways. He wondered if he and Deborah had done right.
Crack! Leaving the axe buried in the tree, he paused to smooth his hair back and wipe away the sweat. Pensively he ran a thumb along his fringe of beard. He felt perplexed. Lord knew they needed the money the visitor would provide, there was no gainsaying it; though it was hateful to ask payment for the things a proper Christian should have offered guests for free, he and Deborah were deeply in debt to the Co-operative, an institution his own father had once run (this is what stung the worst), and he wouldn't be able to hold up his head among the Brethren till all of it was paid. Oh, the money would certainly be useful. And yet…
He yanked the axe from the tree, hefted it in his hand, and swung it back.
Crack!
And yet somehow he had bad feelings about the arrangement. He'd had them from the start. He had been ready – eager, even – to return to the fold from which his family had strayed and to identify himself henceforth as a farmer, a tiller of the earth, a toiler in the vineyards of the Lord. It was the one truly worthy occupation he knew of, in God's eyes and his own, offering a life of piety and independence, a life close to nature. The souvenir plaque above his mantelpiece expressed it all: A Plow on a Field Arable Is the Most Honorable of Ancient Arms. And now – crack! – he was being asked to alter that dream. Though he only half acknowledged it to himself, at the back of his mind was the thought – unworthy, selfish, even snobbish – that he didn't want to play hotelkeeper. It wasn't right; it was degrading. It made him and Deborah little better than servants, peasants in the hire of a godless master…
Crack!
He was beginning to think he should never have let Deborah talk him into it. Taking in a lodger had been her idea; she was already pressing him to make room for another. It was she who'd persuaded him to convert the old chicken coop into a guest house; it was she who'd convinced him to bring in electricity ('You show visitors a kerosene lamp out there,' she'd said, 'and they'll turn right around and go home'); it was she who'd written the advertisement and gotten him to leave it on the bulletin board over in Flemington, despite the disapproval of the
