"It's been a long time--but I think so."
"Good. I have a team. We'll drive to the north field. I've got to start
getting the corn in pretty soon."
The room in the barn was bare: four board walls, a board ceiling and
floor, an iron cot, blankets, the sound and smell of the cows beneath.
Hugo slept dreamlessly, and when he woke, he was ravenous.
His week passed. Cane drove him like a slave-master, but to drive Hugo
was an unhazardous thing. He did not think much, and when he did, it was
to read the innuendo of living that was written parallel to the
existence of his employer and Roseanne. They were troubled with each
other. Part of that trouble sprang from an evident source: Cane was a
miser. He resented the amount of food that Hugo consumed, despite the
unequal ratio of Hugo's labours. When Hugo asked for a few dollars in
advance, he was curtly refused. That had happened at lunch one day.
After lunch, however, and evidently after Cane had debated with his
wife, he inquired of Hugo what he wanted. A razor and some shaving
things and new trousers, Hugo had said.
Cane drove the station wagon to town and returned with the desired
articles. He gave them to Hugo.
"Thank you," Hugo said.
Cane chuckled, opening his thin lips wide. "All right, Danner. As a
matter of fact, it's money in my bank."
"Money in your bank?"
"Sure. I've lived here for years and I get a ten-per-cent discount at
the general store. But I'm charging you full price--naturally."
"Naturally," Hugo agreed.
That was one thing that would make the tribulation in her eyes. Hugo
wished that he could have met these two people on a different basis, so
that he could have learned the truth about them. It was plain that they
were educated, cultured, refined. Cane had said something once about
raising cattle in England, and Roseanne had cooked peas as she had
learned to cook them in France. "_Petits pois au beurre_," she had
murmured--with an unimpeachable accent.
Then the week had passed and there had been no mention of the advance in
wages. For himself, Hugo did not care. But it was easy to see why no one
had been working on the place when Hugo arrived, why they were eager to
hire a transient stranger.
He learned part of what he had already guessed from a clerk in the
general store. One of the cows was ailing. Mr. Cane could not drive to
town (Mrs. Cane, it seemed, never left the house and its environs) and
they had sent Hugo.
"You working for the Canes?" the clerk had asked.
"Yes."
"Funny people."