Ma struggled to her feet and went to sit in the entrance to the tent. She sat on a box and put her elbows on her knees and her chin in her cupped hands. She saw the movement in the camp, heard the voices of the children, the hammering of an iron rim; but her eyes were staring ahead of her.
Pa, coming back along the road, found her there, and he squatted near her. She looked slowly over at him. “Git work?” she asked.
“No,” he said, ashamed. “We looked.”
“Where’s Al and John and the truck?”
“Al’s fixin’ somepin. Had ta borry some tools. Fella says Al got to fix her there.”
Ma said sadly, “This here’s a nice place. We could be happy here awhile.”
“If we could get work.”
“Yeah! If you could get work.”
He felt her sadness, and studied her face. “What you a-mopin’ about? If it’s sech a nice place why have you got to mope?”
She gazed at him, and she closed her eyes slowly. “Funny, ain’t it. All the time we was a-movin’ an’ shovin’, I never thought none. An’ now these here folks been nice to me, been awful nice; an’ what’s the first thing I do? I go right back over the sad things—that night Grampa died an’ we buried him. I was all full up of the road, and bumpin’ and movin’, an’ it wasn’t so bad. But now I come out here, an’ it’s worse now. An’ Granma—an’ Noah walkin’ away like that! Walkin’ away jus’ down the river. Them things was part of all, an’ now they come a-flockin’ back. Granma a pauper, an’ buried a pauper. That’s sharp now. That’s awful sharp. An’ Noah walkin’ away down the river. He don’ know what’s there. He jus’ don’ know. An’ we don’ know. We ain’t never gonna know if he’s alive or dead. Never gonna know. An’ Connie sneakin’ away. I didn’ give ’em brain room before, but now they’re a-flockin’ back. An’ I oughta be glad ’cause we’re in a nice place.” Pa watched her mouth while she talked. Her eyes were closed. “I can remember how them mountains was, sharp as ol’ teeth beside the river where Noah walked. I can remember how the stubble was on the groun’ where Grampa lie. I can remember the choppin’ block back home with a feather caught on it, all criss-crossed with cuts, an’ black with chicken blood.”