When Mun sent him out to hoe corn, Harky knew better than to protest or
evade. An outright refusal would instantly bring the flat of Mun's hand
against the nearest part of Harky's anatomy that happened to be in
reach. Evasion would rouse Mun's suspicions, and like as not bring a
surveillance so close that Harky would find escape impossible.
Campaigns must be planned. When Mun said, "You go hoe the corn," Harky
answered meekly, "Yes, Pa," and he did his best to seem enthusiastic as
he shouldered the hoe and strode off toward the cornfield.
The field was a full three hundred yards from the house, and if one were
fleet enough of foot, one might throw one's hoe down the instant one
arrived and simply start running. Harky had long ago learned the
futility of such tactics.
Mun was winded like a bear, gifted with the speed of a greyhound, and he
knew all the hiding places Harky might be able to reach if all he had
was a three-hundred-yard start. He knew some that were even farther
away. When it came to finding his son, Harky sometimes believed, Mun had
a nose fully as keen as Precious Sue's when she was sniffing out a coon.
Sue provided an interesting diversion of thought as Harky marched
manfully toward the cornfield. Neither she nor Old Joe had been seen
since that fateful night in February, and though of course Old Joe
seemed to be immortal, available evidence indicated that Sue had been
swept under the ice and drowned in Willow Brook.
It could be, but Harky had a feeling about Sue. She couldn't have been
more than a couple of jumps behind when Old Joe jumped into Willow
Brook, and if one had escaped, why hadn't both? Though there was always
a possibility that the ice had held for Old Joe and broken for Sue, in
Harky's opinion, the current where the ice broke should not have been
too strong for a swimmer of Sue's talent.
Naturally the catastrophe had not gone unchallenged. Except for
essential tasks, farm work ended the day after Sue disappeared. As Mun
explained it, a body could always get more cows or pigs, or even another
farm. But there was only one coon hound like Precious Sue.
Mun was not unduly optimistic when he began the search, for after all
Sue had run in the dark of the moon. But the fact that Sue was doomed by
the gods did not prevent Mun's pressing the hunt with utmost vigor. Mun
and Harky traveled up Willow Brook and down, visiting every neighbor for
nine miles in one direction and eleven in the other.
Mellie Garson hadn't seen Sue. Though Mellie had not seen her, he
recognized a genuine emergency and joined the hunt for her. So did Raw
Stanfield, Butt Johnson, Bear Pen Crawford, Pine Heglin, and Mule
Domster. After two weeks it was sadly concluded that Precious Sue had
indeed placed herself beyond hope of redemption when she took after Old
Joe in the dark of the moon. The searchers gathered in Mun Mundee's
kitchen, decided that Sue's mortal remains would come to rest an
undetermined number of miles down Willow Brook, since it was impossible
to tell where the breakup would carry her, and they drank a solemn toast
to the memory of a great coon hound.
And Harky still had a feeling.
He reached the cornfield, and, as though his heart were really in it,
started hoeing at the right place. The right place, naturally, was the
side nearest the house. Mun Mundee would have reason to wonder if Harky
evinced too much interest in starting near the woods. As he began the
first row, which was thirty yards long when one was not hoeing it and
thirty miles when one was, Harky mentally reviewed his caches of fishing
tackle.
Upstream, thirty steps north, eight east, and ten south from a round
rock above the first riffle, which in turn was above the first pool
where a snapping turtle with a pockmarked shell lived, a line and three
hooks were hidden in a hollow stump. Downstream, on a straight line
between the pool where Precious Sue had jumped an almost black coon and
the white birch in which she'd bayed it, a line and two hooks were
concealed in last year's nest of a song sparrow.
Harky worried about that cache. It had been all right two days ago
because he'd seen it, and most birds had already nested. But some would
nest a second time, and the ruins of this old nest might be summarily
appropriated for a new one. His line would disappear, too, and like as
not his hooks. Birds were not particular as long as they had something
to hold their nest together. As soon as he found another place not
likely to attract Mun's eye, perhaps he'd better move his tackle from
the nest. Good hooks and line were not so easy come by that a man could
get reckless with them.
Leaning slightly forward, the position in which Mun thought the wielder
of a hoe would do most work, and slanting his hoe at the angle Mun
favored, Harky sighed resignedly as the blade uncovered a fat and
wriggling earthworm. He did not dare pick it up and put it in his
pocket--Harky had never seen the need of bait containers--for there were
times when Mun seemed to have as many eyes as a centipede had legs, and
an eagle's sight in all of them. If he saw Harky put anything in his
pocket--and he would see--he'd be present on the double.
Well, there were plenty of worms to be had by probing in moist earth
near pools and sloughs. The trouble with them was that they were
accustomed to water, and they did not wriggle much when draped on a hook
and lowered into it. Garden worms, on the other hand, were so shocked by
an unfamiliar environment that they wriggled furiously and attracted
bigger fish.
The sun grew hot on Harky's back, but his body was too young, too lithe,
and too well-conditioned, to rebel at this relatively light labor. His
soul ached. Of all the vegetables calculated to bedevil human beings, he
decided, growing corn was the worst.
He tried to find solace by thinking of the good features of corn, and
happily alighted on the fact that it attracts coons. Also, it tasted
good when stripped milky from the stalk and either boiled or roasted.
However, the coons would come anyhow. If there was no corn, they'd still
be attracted by the apples in Mun's orchard. And if the Mundees had no
corn, neighbors who did would be glad to share with them. Meanwhile,
this patch must be hoed a few million times.
Harky pondered a question that has bemused all great philosophers: how
can humans be so foolish?
Working at that rhythmic speed which Mun considered ideal for hoeing
corn, missing not a single stroke, Harky went on. Discontent became
anguish, and anguish mounted to torture, but Harky knew that the wrong
move now might very well be ruinous. Like all people with great plans
and strong opposition, he must suffer before he gained his ends. But
he'd suffer only half as much if the master strategy he'd worked out did
not fail him.
Exactly halfway across the first row, Harky turned and started back on
the second.
It was a bold move, and Harky's heart began to flutter the instant he
made it, but the situation called for bold moves. Harky did not break
the rhythm of his hoeing or look up when he heard Mun approach, and he
managed to look convincingly astonished when Mun asked,
"What ya up to, Harky?"