"I said, what...." But then it slipped away. Davie? No, that was part
of a dream he'd had last week. He and Edna had no children.
He felt the fear again, and got up fast to escape it. Edna opened her
eyes as soon as his weight left the bed. "Like hotcakes for breakfast?"
"Eggs," he said. "Bacon." And then, seeing her face change, he
remembered. "Course," he muttered. "Can't have bacon. Rationed."
She was fully awake now. "If you'd only go see Dr. Hamming, Harry. Just
for a checkup. Or let me call him so he could--"
"You stop that! You stop that right now, and for good! I don't want to
hear no more about doctors. I get laid up, I'll call one. And it won't
be that Hamming who I ain't never seen in my life! It'll be Timkins,
who took care'n us and brought our son into the world and...."
She began to cry, and he realized he'd said something crazy again. They
had no son, never had a son. And Timkins--he'd died and they'd gone to
his funeral. Or so Edna said.
He himself just couldn't remember it.
He went to the bed and sat down beside her. "Sorry. That was just a
dream I had. I'm still half asleep this morning. Couldn't fall off last
night, not till real late. Guess I'm a little nervous, what with all
the new regulations and not working regular. I never meant we had a
son." He waited then, hoping she'd say they _had_ had a son, and he'd
died or gone away. But of course she didn't.
* * * * *
He went to the bathroom and washed. By the time he came to the kitchen,
Edna had hotcakes on a plate and coffee in a cup. He sat down and ate.
Part way through the meal, he paused. "Got an awful craving for meat,"
he said. "Goddam those rations! Man can't even butcher his own stock
for his own table!"
"We're having meat for lunch," she said placatingly. "Nice cut of
multi-pro."
"Multi-pro," he scoffed. "God knows what's in it. Like spam put through
a grinder a hundred times and then baked into slabs. Can't hardly taste
any meat there."
"Well, we got no choice. Country's on emergency rations. The current
crisis, you know."
The way she said it irritated him. Like it was Scripture; like no one
could question one word of it without being damned to Hell. He finished
quickly and without speaking went on out to the barn.
He milked and curried and fed and cleaned, and still was done inside
of two hours. Then he walked slowly, head down, across the hay-strewn
floor. He stopped, put out his hand as if to find a pole or beam that
was too familiar to require raising his eyes, and almost fell as he
leaned in that direction. Regaining his balance after a sideward
staggering shuffle, he looked around, startled. "Why, this ain't the
way I had my barn...."
He heard his own voice, and stopped. He fought the flash of senseless
panic. Of course this was the way he'd had his barn built, because it
_was_ his barn!
He rubbed his hard hands together and said aloud, "Get down to the
patch. Them tomatoes need fertilizer for tang." He walked outside and
took a deep breath. Air was different, wasn't it? Sweet and pure and
clean, like country air always was and always would be; but still,
different somehow. Maybe sharper. Or was sharp the word? Maybe....
He went quickly across the yard, past the pig-pen--he'd had twelve
pigs, hadn't he? Now he had four--behind the house to where the
half-acre truck farm lay greening in the sun. He got to work. Sometime
later, Edna called to him. "Delivery last night, Harry. I took some.
Pick up rest?"
"Yes," he shouted.
She disappeared.
He walked slowly back to the house. As he came into the front yard,
moving toward the road and the supply bin, something occurred to him.
_The car._ He hadn't seen the old Chevvy in ... how long? It'd be nice
to take a ride to town, see a movie, maybe have a few beers.
No. It was against the travel regulations. He couldn't go further than
Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They couldn't go further than his. And
the gas rationing. Besides, he'd sold the car, hadn't he? Because it
was no use to him lying in the tractor shed.
* * * * *
He whirled, staring out across the fields to his left. Why, the tractor
shed had stood just fifty feet from the house!
No, he'd torn it down. The tractor was in town, being overhauled and
all. He was leaving it there until he had use for it.
He went on toward the road, his head beginning to throb. Why should
a man his age, hardly sick at all since he was a kid, suddenly start
losing hold this way? Edna was worried. The Shanks had noticed it too.
He was at the supply bin--like an old-fashioned wood bin; a box with
a sloping flap lid. Deliveries of food and clothing and home medicines
and other things were left here. You wrote down what you needed, and
they left it--or whatever they allowed you--with a bill. You paid the
bill by leaving money in the bin, and the next week you found a receipt
and your new stuff and your new bill. And almost always you found some
money from the government, for not planting wheat or not planting corn.
It came out just about even.
He hauled out a sack of flour, half the amount of sugar Edna had
ordered, some dried fruit, a new Homekit Medicine Shelf. He carried it
into the house, and noticed a slip of paper pinned to the sugar bag. A
television program guide.