The Yearling

Chapter XV

Jody moved through a tortuous dream. With his father beside him, he fought a nest of rattlesnakes. They crawled across his feet, trailing their rattles, clacking lightly. The nest resolved itself into one snake, gigantic, moving toward him on a level with his face. It struck and he tried to scream but could not. He looked for his father. He lay under the rattler, with his eyes open to a dark sky. His body was swollen to the size of a bear. He was dead. Jody began to move backward away from the rattler, one agonized step at a time. His feet were glued to the ground. The snake suddenly vanished and he stood alone in a vast windy place, holding the fawn in his arms. Penny was gone. A sense of sorrow filled him so that he thought his heart would break. He awakened, sobbing.

He sat up on the hard floor. Day was breaking over the clearing. A pale light lay in streaks beyond the pine trees. The room was filled with grayness. For an instant he was still conscious of the fawn against him. Then he remembered. He scrambled to his feet and looked at his father.

Penny was breathing with a greater ease. He was still swollen and fevered, but he looked no worse than when the wild honey bees had stung him. Ma Baxter was asleep in her rocker with her head thrown far back. Old Doc lay across the foot of the bed.

Jody whispered, “Doc!”

Doc grunted and lifted his head.

“What is it — what is it — what is it?”

“Doc! Look at Pa!”

Doc shifted his body and eased himself on one elbow. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. He sat up. He leaned over Penny.

“Lord o’ the jay-birds, he’s made it.”

Ma Baxter said, “Eh?”

She sat upright.

“He dead?”

“Not by a long sight.”

She burst out crying.

Doc said, “You sound like you’re sorry.”

She said, “You jest don’t know what ‘twould mean, him leavin’ us here.”

Jody had never heard her speak so gently.

Doc said, “Why, you got you another man here. Look at Jody, now. Big enough to plow and reap and do the huntin’.”

She said, “Jody’s a’right, but he ain’t a thing but boy. Got his mind on nothin’ but prowlin’ and playin’.”

He hung his head. It was true.

She said, “His Pa encourages him.”

Doc said, “Well, boy, be glad you got encouragement. Most of us live our lives without it. Now, Ma’am, let’s get some more milk down this feller, time he wakes.”

Jody said eagerly, “I’ll go milk, Ma.”

She said with satisfaction, “About time.”

He passed through the front room. Buck was sitting up on the floor, rubbing his head sleepily. Mill-wheel was still asleep.

Jody said, “Doc says Pa’s done made it.”

“I be dogged. I woked up, fixin’ to go he’p bury him.”

Jody went around the side of the house and took down the milk-gourd from the wall. He felt as light as the gourd. It seemed to him in his liberation that he might spread his arms and float over the gate like a feather. The dawn was still nebulous. A mocking-bird made a thin metallic sound in the chinaberry. The Dominick rooster crowed uncertainly. This was the hour at which Penny arose, allowing Jody to sleep a little later. The morning was still, with a faint fluttering of breeze through the tops of the tall pine trees. The sunrise reached long fingers into the clearing. As he clicked the lot-gate, doves flew from the pines with a whistling of wings.

He called exultantly after them. “Hey, doves!”

Trixie lowed, hearing him. He climbed into the loft for fodder for her. She was very patient, he thought, giving her milk in return for so poor a feeding. She munched hungrily. She lifted a hind leg once in threat when he was clumsy with the milking. He stripped two teats carefully, then turned the calf in with her to nurse on the other two. There was not as much milk as his father would have gotten from her. He decided that he would drink none himself so that his father might have all of it until he was well again.

The calf butted the sagging udders and sucked noisily. It was too big still to be nursing. The thought of the fawn returned to him. A leaden feeling came over him again. It would be desperate with hunger this morning. He wondered if it would try to nurse the cold teats of the doe. The open flesh of the dead deer would attract the wolves. Perhaps they had found the fawn and had torn its soft body to ribbons. His joy in the morning, in his father’s living, was darkened and tainted. His mind followed the fawn and would not be comforted.

His mother took the milk-gourd without comment on the quantity. She strained the milk and poured a cupful and took it to the sick room. He followed her. Penny was awake. He smiled weakly.

He whispered thickly, “Ol’ Death got to wait a while on me.”

Doc said, “You belong to be kin to the rattlesnakes, man. How you done it without whiskey, I don’t know.”

Penny whispered, “Why, Doc, I’m a king snake. You know a rattler cain’t kill a king snake.”

Buck and Mill-wheel came into the room. They grinned.

Buck said, “You ain’t purty, Penny, but by God, you’re alive.”

Doc held the milk to Penny’s lips. He swallowed thirstily.

Doc said, “I can’t take much credit for savin’ you. Your time just hadn’t come to make a die of it.”

Penny closed his eyes.

He said, “I could sleep a week.”

Doc said, “That’s what I want you to do. I can’t do no more for you.”

He stood up and stretched his legs.

Ma Baxter said, “Who’ll do the farmin’ and him asleep?”

Buck said, “What’s he got, belongs to be done?”

“Mostly the corn, needs another workin’ to be laid by. The ‘taters needs hoein’, but Jody’s right good at hoein’ do he choose to stick to it.”

“I’ll stick, Ma.”

Buck said, “I’ll stay and work the corn and sich.”

She was flustered.

She said stiffly, “I hates to be beholden to you.”

“Hell, Ma’am, they ain’t too many of us shiftin’ for a livin’ out here. I’d be a pore man, didn’t I not stay.”

She said meekly, “I’m shore obliged. If the corn don’t make, we jest as good all three to die o’ snake-bite.”

Doc said, “This is the soberest I’ve waked up since my wife died. I’d be proud to eat breakfast before I go.”

She bustled to the kitchen. Jody went to build up the fire.

She said, “I never figgered I’d be beholden to a Forrester.”

“Buck ain’t exactly a Forrester, Ma. Buck’s a friend.”

“Hit do look that-a-way.”

She filled the coffee-pot with water and added fresh coffee to the grounds.

She said, “Go to the smoke-house and git that last side o’ bacon. I’ll not be out-done.”

He brought it proudly. She allowed him to slice the meat.

He said, “Ma, Pa shot a doe and used the liver to draw out the pizen. He bled hisself and then laid on the liver.”

“You should of carried back a haunch o’ the meat.”

“There wasn’t no time to figger on sich as that.”

“That’s right, too.”

“Ma, the doe had a fawn.”

“Well, most does has fawns.”

“This un was right young. Nigh about new-borned.”

“Well, what about it? Go set the table. Lay out the brierberry jelly. The butter’s right strong but it’s yit butter. Lay it out, too.”

She was stirring up a cornpone. The fat was sizzling in the skillet. She poured in the batter. The bacon crackled in the pan. She turned and flattened the slices, so that they would brown evenly. He wondered if they would ever be able to fill up Buck and Mill-wheel, accustomed to the copiousness of Forrester victuals.

He said, “Make a heap o’ gravy, Ma.”

“Iffen you’ll do without your milk, I’ll make milk-gravy.”

The sacrifice was nothing.

He said, “We could of kilt a chicken.”

“I studied on it, but they’re all too young or too old.”

She turned the cornpone. The coffee began to boil.

He said, “I could of shot some doves or some squirrels this mornin’.”

“A fine time to think of it. Go tell the men-folks to wash theirselves and come to table.”

He called them. The three men went outside to the water-shelf and slapped water over their faces, dabbled their hands. He brought them a clean towel.

Doc said, “Blest if I don’t get hungry when I’m sober.”

Mill-wheel said, “Whiskey’s a food. I could live on whiskey.”

Doc said, “I’ve near about done it. Twenty years. Since my wife died.”

Jody was proud of the table. There were not as many different dishes as the Forresters served, but there was enough of everything. The men ate greedily. At last they pushed away their plates and lit their pipes.

Mill-wheel said, “Seems like Sunday, don’t it?”

Ma Baxter said, “Sickness allus do seem like Sunday, someway. Folks settin’ around, and the men not goin’ to the field.”

Jody had never seen her so amiable. She had waited to eat until the men were done, for fear of their not having plenty. She sat now eating with relish. The men chatted idly. Jody allowed his thoughts to drift back to the fawn. He could not keep it out of his mind. It stood in the back of it as close as he had held it, in his dreaming, in his arms. He slipped from the table and went to his father’s bedside. Penny lay at rest. His eyes were open and clear, but the pupils were still dark and dilated.

Jody said, “How you comin’, Pa?”

“Jest fine, son. Ol’ Death gone thievin’ elsewhere. But wa’n’t it a close squeak!”

“I mean.”

Penny said, “I’m proud of you, boy, the way you kept your head and done what was needed.”

“Pa—”

“Yes, son.”

“Pa, you recollect the doe and the fawn?”

“I cain’t never forget ‘em. The pore doe saved me, and that’s certain.”

“Pa, the fawn may be out there yit. Hit’s hongry, and likely mighty skeert.”

“I reckon so.”

“Pa, I’m about growed and don’t need no milk. How about me goin’ out and seein’ kin I find the fawn?”

“And tote it here?”

“And raise it.”

Penny lay quiet, staring at the ceiling.

“Boy, you got me hemmed in.”

“Hit won’t take much to raise it, Pa. Hit’ll soon git to where it kin make out on leaves and acorns.”

“Dogged if you don’t figger the farrest of ary young un I’ve ever knowed.”

“We takened its mammy, and it wa’n’t no-ways to blame.”

“Shore don’t seem grateful to leave it starve, do it? Son, I ain’t got it in my heart to say ‘No’ to you. I never figgered I’d see daylight, come dawn today.”

“Kin I ride back with Mill-wheel and see kin I find it?”

“Tell your Ma I said you’re to go.”

He sidled back to the table and sat down. His mother was pouring coffee for every one.

He said, “Ma, Pa says I kin go bring back the fawn.”

She held the coffee-pot in mid-air.

“What fawn?”

“The fawn belonged to the doe we kilt, to use the liver to draw out the pizen and save Pa.”

She gasped.

“Well, for pity sake—”

“Pa say hit’d not be grateful, to leave it starve.”

Doc Wilson said, “That’s right, Ma’am. Nothing in the world don’t ever come quite free. The boy’s right and his daddy’s right.”

Mill-wheel said, “He kin ride back with me. I’ll he’p him find it.”

She set down the pot helplessly.

“Well, if you’ll give it your milk — We got nothin’ else to feed it.”

“That’s what I aim to do. Hit’ll be no time, and it not needin’ nothin’.”

The men rose from the table.

Doc said, “I don’t look for nothing but progress, Ma’am, but if he takes a turn for the worse, you know where to find me.”

She said, “Well. What do we owe you, Doc? We cain’t pay right now, but time the crops is made—”

“Pay for what? I’ve done nothing. He was safe before I got here. I’ve had a night’s lodging and a good breakfast. Send me some syrup when your cane’s ground.”

“You’re mighty good, Doc. We been scramblin’ so, I didn’t know folks could be so good.”

“Hush, woman. You got a good man there. Why wouldn’t folks be good to him?”

Buck said, “You reckon that ol’ horse o’ Penny’s kin keep ahead o’ me at the plow? I’m like to run him down.”

Doc said, “Get as much milk down Penny as he’ll take. Then give him greens and fresh meat, if you can get it.”

Buck said, “Me and Jody’ll tend to that.”

Mill-wheel said, “Come on, boy. We got to git ridin’.”

Ma Baxter asked anxiously, “You’ll not be gone long?”

Jody said, “I’ll be back shore, before dinner.”

“Reckon you’d not git home a-tall,” she said, “if ‘twasn’t for dinner-time.”

Doc said, “That’s man-nature, Ma’am. Three things bring a man home again — his bed, his woman, and his dinner.”

Buck and Mill-wheel guffawed. Doc’s eye caught the cream-colored ‘coonskin knapsack.

“Now ain’t that a pretty something? Wouldn’t I like such as that to tote my medicines?”

Jody had never before possessed a thing that was worth giving away. He took it from its nail, and put it in Doc’s hands.

“Hit’s mine,” he said. “Take it.”

“Why, I’d not rob you, boy.”

“I got no use for it,” he said loftily. “I kin git me another.”

“Now I thank you. Every trip I make, I’ll think, ‘Thank you, Jody Baxter.’”

He was proud with old Doc’s pleasure. They went outside to water the horses and feed them from the scanty stock of hay in the Baxter barn.

Buck said to Jody, “You Baxters is makin’ out and that’s about all, ain’t it?”

Doc said, “Baxter’s had to carry the work alone. Time the boy here gets some size to him, they’ll prosper.”

Buck said, “Size don’t seem to mean much to a Baxter.”

Mill-wheel mounted his horse and pulled Jody up behind him. Doc mounted and turned away in the opposite direction. Jody waved after him. His heart was light.

He said to Mill-wheel, “You reckon the fawn’s yit there? Will you he’p me find him?”

“We’ll find him, do he be alive. How you know it’s a he?”

“The spots was all in a line. On a doe-fawn, Pa says the spots is ever’ which-a-way.”

“That’s the female of it.”

“What you mean?”

“Why, females is on-accountable.”

Mill-wheel slapped the horse’s flank and they broke into a trot.

“This female business. How come you and your Pa to pitch into us, when we was fightin’ Oliver Hutto?”

“Oliver was gittin’ the wust of it. Hit didn’t seem right, a hull passel o’ you-all whoppin’ Oliver.”

“You right. Hit were Lem’s gal and Oliver’s gal. They should of fit it out alone.”

“But a gal cain’t belong to two fellers at oncet.”

“You jest don’t know gals.”

“I hate Twink Weatherby.”

“I’d not look at her, neither. I got a widder-woman at Fort Gates, knows how to be faithful.”

The matter was too complicated. Jody gave himself over to thoughts of the fawn. They passed the abandoned clearing.

He said, “Cut to the north, Mill-wheel. Hit were up here Pa got snake-bit and kilt the doe and I seed the fawn.”

“What was you and your daddy doin’ up this road?”

Jody hesitated.

“We was huntin’ our hogs.”

“Oh — Huntin’ your hogs, eh? Well, don’t fret about them hogs. I jest got a idee they’ll be home by sundown.”

“Ma and Pa’ll shore be proud to see ‘em come in.”

“I had no idee, you-all was runnin’ so tight.”

“We ain’t runnin’ tight. We’re all right.”

“You Baxters has got guts, I’ll say that.”

“You reckon Pa’ll not die?”

“Not him. His chitlin’s is made o’ iron.”

Jody said, “Tell me about Fodder-wing. Is he shore enough ailin? Or didn’t Lem want I should see him?”

“He’s purely ailin’. He ain’t like the rest of us. He ain’t like nobody. Seems like he drinks air ‘stead o’ water, and feeds on what the wild creeturs feeds on, ‘stead o’ bacon.”

“He sees things ain’t so, don’t he? Spaniards and sich.”

“He do, but dogged if they ain’t times he’ll make you think he do see ‘em.”

“You reckon Lem’ll leave me come see him?”

“I’d not risk it yit. I’ll git word to you one day when mebbe Lem’s gone off, see?”

“I shore crave to see Fodder-wing.”

“You’ll see him. Now whereabouts you want to go, huntin’ that fawn? Hit’s gittin’ right thick up this trail.”

Suddenly Jody was unwilling to have Mill-wheel with him. If the fawn was dead, or could not be found, he could not have his disappointment seen. And if the fawn was there, the meeting would be so lovely and so secret that he could not endure to share it.

He said, “Hit’s not fur now, but hit’s powerful thick for a horse. I kin make it a-foot.”

“But I’m daresome to leave you, boy. Suppose you was to git lost, or snake-bit, too?”

“I’ll take keer. Hit’ll take me likely a long time to find the fawn, if he’s wandered. Leave me off right here.”

“All right, but you go mighty easy now, pokin’ in them palmeeters. This is rattlesnake Heaven in these parts. You know north here, and east?”

“There, and there. That fur tall pine makes a bearin’.”

“That’s right. Now do things go wrong again, you or Buck, one, ride back for me. So long.”

“So long, Mill-wheel. I’m shore obliged.”

He waved after him. He waited for the sound of the hooves to end, then cut to the right. The scrub was still. Only his own crackling of twigs sounded across the silence. He was eager almost past caution, but he broke a bough and pushed in ahead of him where the growth was thick and the ground invisible. Rattlers got out of the way when they had a chance. Penny had gone farther into the oak thicket than he remembered. He wondered for an instant if he had mistaken his direction. Then a buzzard rose in front of him and flapped into the air. He came into the clearing under the oaks. Buzzards sat in a circle around the carcass of the doe. They turned their heads on their long scrawny necks and hissed at him. He threw his bough at them and they flew into an adjacent tree. Their wings creaked and whistled like rusty pump-handles. The sand showed large cat-prints, he could not tell whether of wild-cat or of panther. But the big cats killed fresh, and they had left the doe to the carrion birds. He asked himself whether the sweeter meat of the fawn had scented the air for the curled nostrils.

He skirted the carcass and parted the grass at the place where he had seen the fawn. It did not seem possible that it was only yesterday. The fawn was not there. He circled the clearing. There was no sound, no sign. The buzzards clacked their wings, impatient to return to their business. He returned to the spot where the fawn had emerged and dropped to all fours, studying the sand for the small hoof-prints. The night’s rain had washed away all tracks except those of cat and buzzards. But the cat-sign had not been made in this direction. Under a scrub palmetto he was able to make out a track, pointed and dainty as the mark of a ground-dove. He crawled past the palmetto.

Movement directly in front of him startled him so that he tumbled backward. The fawn lifted its face to his. It turned its head with a wide, wondering motion and shook him through with the stare of its liquid eyes. It was quivering. It made no effort to rise or run. Jody could not trust himself to move.

He whispered, “It’s me.”

The fawn lifted its nose, scenting him. He reached out one hand and laid it on the soft neck. The touch made him delirious. He moved forward on all fours until he was close beside it. He put his arms around its body. A light convulsion passed over it but it did not stir. He stroked its sides as gently as though the fawn were a china deer and he might break it. Its skin was softer than the white ‘coonskin knapsack. It was sleek and clean and had a sweet scent of grass. He rose slowly and lifted the fawn from the ground. It was no heavier than old Julia. Its legs hung limply. They were surprisingly long and he had to hoist the fawn as high as possible under his arm.

He was afraid that it might kick and bleat at sight and smell of its mother. He skirted the clearing and pushed his way into the thicket. It was difficult to fight through with his burden. The fawn’s legs caught in the bushes and he could not lift his own with freedom. He tried to shield its face from prickling vines. Its head bobbed with his stride. His heart thumped with the marvel of its acceptance of him. He reached the trail and walked as fast as he could until he came to the intersection with the road home. He stopped to rest and set the fawn down on its dangling legs. It wavered on them. It looked at him and bleated.

He said, enchanted, “I’ll tote you time I git my breath.”

He remembered his father’s saying that a fawn would follow that had been first carried. He started away slowly. The fawn stared after him. He came back to it and stroked it and walked away again. It took a few wobbling steps toward him and cried piteously. It was willing to follow him. It belonged to him. It was his own. He was light-headed with his joy. He wanted to fondle it, to run and romp with it, to call to it to come to him. He dared not alarm it. He picked it up and carried it in front of him over his two arms. It seemed to him that he walked without effort. He had the strength of a Forrester.

His arms began to ache and he was forced to stop again. When he walked on, the fawn followed him at once. He allowed it to walk a little distance, then picked it up again. The distance home was nothing. He could have walked all day and into the night, carrying it and watching it follow. He was wet with sweat but a light breeze blew through the June morning, cooling him. The sky was as clear as spring water in a blue china cup. He came to the clearing. It was fresh and green after the night’s rain. He could see Buck Forrester following old Cæsar at the plow in the cornfield. He thought he heard him curse the horse’s slowness. He fumbled with the gate latch and was finally obliged to set down the fawn to manage it. It came to him that he would walk into the house, into Penny’s bedroom, with the fawn walking behind him. But at the steps, the fawn balked and refused to climb them. He picked it up and went to his father. Penny lay with closed eyes.

Jody called, “Pa! Lookit!”

Penny turned his head. Jody stood beside him, the fawn clutched hard against him. It seemed to Penny that the boy’s eyes were as bright as the fawn’s. His face lightened, seeing them together.

He said, “I’m proud you found him.”

“Pa, he wa’n’t skeert o’ me. He were layin’ up right where his mammy had made his bed.”

“The does learns ‘em that, time they’re borned. You kin step on a fawn, times, they lay so still.”

“Pa, I toted him, and when I set him down, right off he follered me. Like a dog, Pa.”

“Ain’t that fine? Let’s see him better.”

Jody lifted the fawn high. Penny reached out a hand and touched its nose. It bleated and reached hopefully for his fingers.

He said, “Well, leetle feller. I’m sorry I had to take away your mammy.”

“You reckon he misses her?”

“No. He misses his rations and he knows that. He misses somethin’ else but he don’t know jest what.”

Ma Baxter came into the room.

“Look, Ma, I found him.”

“I see.”

“Ain’t he purty, Ma? Lookit them spots all in rows. Lookit them big eyes. Ain’t he purty?”

“He’s powerful young. Hit’ll take milk for him a long whiles. I don’t know as I’d of give my consent, if I’d knowed he was so young.”

Penny said, “Ory, I got one thing to say, and I’m sayin’ it now, and then I’ll have no more talk of it. The leetle fawn’s as welcome in this house as Jody. It’s hissen. We’ll raise it without grudgment o’ milk or meal. You got me to answer to, do I ever hear you quarrelin’ about it. This is Jody’s fawn jest like Julia’s my dog.”

Jody had never heard his father speak to her so sternly. The tone must hold familiarity for his mother, however, for she opened and shut her mouth and blinked her eyes.

She said, “I only said it was young.”

“All right. So it is.”

He closed his eyes.

He said, “If ever’body’s satisfied now, I’d thank you to leave me rest. Hit puts my heart to jerkin’, to talk.”

Jody said, “I’ll fix its milk, Ma. No need you should bother.”

She was silent. He went to the kitchen. The fawn wobbled after him. A pan of morning’s milk stood in the kitchen safe. The cream had risen on it. He skimmed the cream into a jug and used his shirt sleeve to wipe up the few drops he could not keep from spilling. If he could keep the fawn from being any trouble to his mother, she would mind it less. He poured milk into a small gourd. He held it out to the fawn. It butted it suddenly, smelling the milk. He saved it precariously from spilling over the floor. He led the fawn outside to the yard and began again. It could make nothing of the milk in the gourd.

He dipped his fingers in the milk and thrust them into the fawn’s soft wet mouth. It sucked greedily. When he withdrew them, it bleated frantically and butted him. He dipped his fingers again and as the fawn sucked, he lowered them slowly into the milk. The fawn blew and sucked and snorted. It stamped its small hooves impatiently. As long as he held his fingers below the level of the milk, the fawn was content. It closed its eyes dreamily. It was ecstasy to feel its tongue against his hand. Its small tail flicked back and forth. The last of the milk vanished in a swirl of foam and gurgling. The fawn bleated and butted but its frenzy was appeased. Jody was tempted to go for more milk, but even with his father’s backing he was afraid to press his advantage too far. A doe’s bag was as small as a yearling heifer’s. Surely the fawn had had as much as its mother could have given it. It lay down suddenly, exhausted and replete.

He gave his attention to a bed for it. It would be too much to ask, to bring it into the house. He went to the shed behind the house and cleaned out a corner down to the sand. He went to the live oaks at the north end of the yard and pulled down armfuls of Spanish moss. He made a thick bed in the shed. A hen was on a nest close by. Her bright beady eyes watched him dubiously. She finished her laying and flew through the door, cackling. The nest was a new one, with six eggs in it. Jody gathered them carefully and took them to his mother in the kitchen.

He said, “You’ll be proud to git these, Ma. Extry eggs.”

“Hit’s a good thing they’s somethin’ extry around to eat.”

He ignored the comment.

He said, “The new nest is right next to where I fixed the fawn’s bed. In the shed, where it’ll not bother nobody.”

She did not answer and he went outside where the fawn lay under a mulberry tree. He gathered it up and carried it to its bed in the dark shed.

“Now you belong to do whatever I tell you,” he said. “Like as if I was your mammy. I tell you to lay here ‘til I come git you agin.”

The fawn blinked its eyelids. It groaned comfortably and dropped its head. He tiptoed from the shed. No dog, he thought, could be more biddable. He went to the wood-pile and shaved fine splinters of fat-wood for kindling. He arranged the pile neatly. He gathered an armful of black-jack oak and took it to his mother’s wood-box in the kitchen.

He said, “Was it all right, Ma, the way I skimmed the cream?”

“Hit was all right.”

He said, “Fodder-wing’s ailin’.”

“Is?”

“Lem wouldn’t leave me see him. Lem’s the only one is mad at us, Ma. On account of Oliver’s gal.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Mill-wheel said he’d leave me know and I could slip in some time and see Fodder-wing when Lem ain’t around.”

She laughed.

“You’re talkified as a old woman today.”

She passed him on her way to the hearth and touched his head lightly.

She said, “I feel right good, myself. I never figgered your Pa’d see daylight today.”

The kitchen was filled with peace. There was a clanking of harness. Buck passed through the gate from the field and crossed the road to the lot to put up old Cæsar for the noon hour.

Jody said, “I best go he’p him.”

But it was the fawn that drew him from the contentment of the house. He slipped into the shed to marvel at its existence and his possession. When he returned with Buck from the lot, chattering of the fawn, he beckoned him to follow.

He said, “Don’t skeer him. There he lies—”

Buck was not as satisfying as Penny in his response. He had seen so many of Fodder-wing’s pets come and go.

“He’ll likely go wild and run off,” he said, and went to the water-shelf to wash his hands before dinner.

A chill came over Jody. Buck was worse than his mother to take away pleasure. He lingered a moment with the fawn, stroking it. It moved its sleepy head and nuzzled his fingers. Buck could not know of the closeness. It was all the better for being secret. He left the fawn and went to the basin and washed, too. The touch of the fawn had left his hands scented with a faint grassy pungency. He hated to wash it away, but decided that his mother might not find it as pleasant.

His mother had wet and combed her hair for dinner, not with coquetry, but with pride. She wore a clean sacking apron over her brown calico.

She said to Buck, “With only Penny to do, we ain’t got the rations plentiful like you folks. But we do eat clean and decent.”

Jody looked quickly to see if Buck would take offense. Buck ladled grits into his plate and scooped a hole in the center for the fried eggs and gravy.

“Now Miss Ory, don’t fret about me. Jody and me’ll slip off this evenin’ and git you a mess o’ squirrels and mebbe a turkey. I seed turkey sign the fur edge o’ the pea field.”

Ma Baxter filled a plate for Penny, and added a cup of milk.

“You take it to him, Jody.”

He went to his father. Penny shook his head at the plate.

“Hit look jest plain nasty to me, son. Set up there and feed me a spoon o’ the grits, and the milk. Hit wearies me to lift my arm.”

The swelling had left his face, but his arm was still three times its normal size, and his breath came heavily. He swallowed a few mouthfuls of the soft hominy and drank the milk. He motioned the plate away.

“You gittin’ along all right with your baby?”

Jody reported on the moss bed.

“You picked a good place. What you fixin’ to name him?”

“I jest don’t know. I want a name is real special.”

Buck and Ma Baxter came into the bedroom and sat down to visit. The day was hot and the sun high and there was no hurry for anything.

Penny said, “Jody’s in a tight for a name for the new Baxter.”

Buck said, “Tell you, Jody, when you see Fodder-wing, he’ll pick a name. He’s got a ear for sich things, jest like some folks has got a ear for fiddle music. He’ll pick you a name is purty.”

Ma Baxter said, “Go eat your dinner, Jody. That spotted fawn has takened your mind off your rations.”

The opportunity was choice. He went to the kitchen and heaped a plate with food and went to the shed. The fawn was still drowsy. He sat beside it and ate his dinner. He dipped his fingers in the grease-covered grits and held them out to it, but it only snuffed and turned its head away.

He said, “You better learn somethin’ besides milk.”

The dirt daubers buzzed in the rafters. He scraped his plate clean and set it aside. He lay down beside the fawn. He put one arm across its neck. It did not seem to him that he could ever be lonely again.