1
"Stop the team a minute," Peter told Gus. He looked down upon the white-roofed house and barns, the frozen creek, strawstacks like giant mushrooms capped with white, the drifted hedgerows interlaced with rabbit tracks, Lake Koshkonong like a floor of green glass surrounded by its gnarled forests of black, leafless oaks.
"What's the matter?" Gus asked. "Had a fight with your girl?"
"You wouldn't understand."
"Don't trust no woman farther'n you could throw a horse," counseled the hired man.
"I told her that if she went off to her Grandmother's in Madison over Christmas she could stay away for good."
"And so she went!"
"How'd you know?"
"Any woman would."
"Damn her," said Peter. "No, I don't mean that." He wondered why he was confiding in Gus. No one else to confide in, really.
"Just act like she doesn't exist," said Gus. "Go ahead and have a good time without her. She'll come crawling back on her belly."
"You don't know this girl."
"Maybe not this one," Gus admitted, "but they're all cats out of the same litter."
* * *
"You home, boy?" Stud asked.
Early Ann helped Peter off with his coat and chucked him under the chin.
"Trailer factory's shut down, Dad. They're losing money."
"Shut down for good?"
"Start up again the first of the year more'n likely."
"What'd you do if the 'Trailer' shut down for good?"
"Don't know, Father."
"Might you come back to the farm?"
"I might," said the boy, averting his eyes.
Four days until Christmas. The house was already decorated with holly and red bells. There were frost flowers on the window panes and the base burner glowed brightly. His mother was sitting before the stove in her favorite rocker piecing a quilt.
"There's lots of rabbits this year," Sarah said. She thought: I don't want him to kill rabbits. I hate trapping, hunting, and slaughtering. It made me sick the time I saw Stanley castrating the little boars.
"I'll have a good time, Mother," Peter said. He thought: why shouldn't I have a good time. Maxine probably lets half the boys in Brailsford Junction kiss her.
"We haven't had a good rabbit stew all season," Sarah said. She thought: I used to tell him stories about every piece in the quilt. What dress it came from and where I wore it. This piece is out of the brown silk I took along on my honeymoon. I wore it that night we rowed out on Lake Mendota and saw the dome of the capitol at Madison shining in the moonlight. I wonder if Stanley remembers.
"That's a pretty quilt," Peter said. He thought: she used to tell me stories about the pieces she was sewing. I wish she would again.
"See, it's a flower design," she said. She thought: he's grown up now. He wouldn't want to listen.
"I got the drawings for my camp trailer done, Ma," he said. He thought: I'll do something great for Mother when I'm rich.
"I'm sure Mr. O'Casey will build one," she said. She thought: then he'll be gone forever.
"I'm not so sure," Peter said. He thought: if the "Trailer" shuts down I'll probably have to come back to the farm and be glad of the chance.
Sarah thought: I want to know every little thing about his life—how he gets on at the factory, how Temperance Crandall takes care of him, whether he smokes or drinks, whether he's a good boy and goes to church, or whether he hangs around the pool hall. I want to know about Maxine Larabee. But I don't dare ask. It would frighten him still farther away.
The needle clicked against the thimble. The silk rustled in Sarah's hands. Coal crackled in the stove and the wind whispered at the corners of the house. After a while the smell of roasting chicken drifted in from the kitchen.
"You're getting to be a big boy," she said. She thought: I wanted him to stay little forever. I wanted to keep him close to me, but he's grown so far away.
"I'm more than six feet," the boy said. He thought: it's beautiful with Maxine. I can't get along without her any more. I'm a man now and know all there is to know about women.
Sarah was startled looking into his face. She thought: why, he isn't my little boy. He's a stranger.