“How’s it go, Tom?”
“Goes, ’Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lif’ up his fellow, but woe to him that is alone when he falleth, for he hath not another to help him up.’ That’s part of her.”
“Go on,” Ma said. “Go on, Tom.”
“Jus’ a little bit more. ’Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken.’”
“An’ that’s Scripture?”
“Casy said it was. Called it the Preacher.”
“Hush—listen.”
“On’y the wind, Ma. I know the wind. An’ I got to thinkin’, Ma—most of the preachin’ is about the poor we shall have always with us, an’ if you got nothin’, why, jus’ fol’ your hands an’ to hell with it, you gonna git ice cream on gol’ plates when you’re dead. An’ then this here Preacher says two get a better reward for their work.”
“Tom,” she said. “What you aimin’ to do?”
He was quiet for a long time. “I been thinkin’ how it was in that gov’ment camp, how our folks took care a theirselves, an’ if they was a fight they fixed it theirself; an’ they wasn’t no cops wagglin’ their guns, but they was better order than them cops ever give. I been a-wonderin’ why we can’t do that all over. Throw out the cops that ain’t our people. All work together for our own thingall farm our own lan’.”