“Goin’ in a little while now,” said Pa. “You’d a missed us if you’d come an hour later. All packed up—see?”
“All packed up.” Muley looked at the loaded truck. “Sometimes I wisht I’d go an’ fin’ my folks.”
Ma asked, “Did you hear from ’em out in California?”
“No,” said Muley, “I ain’t heard. But I ain’t been to look in the post office. I oughta go in sometimes.”
Pa said, “Al, go down, wake up Granma, Grampa. Tell ’em to come an’ eat. We’re goin’ before long.” And as Al sauntered toward the barn, “Muley, ya wanta squeeze in with us an’ go? We’d try to make room for ya.”
Muley took a bite of meat from the edge of a rib bone and chewed it.
“Sometimes I think I might. But I know I won’t,” he said. “I know perfectly well the las’ minute I’d run an’ hide like a damn ol’ graveyard ghos’.”
Noah said, “You gonna die out in the fiel’ some day, Muley.”
“I know. I thought about that. Sometimes it seems pretty lonely, an’ sometimes it seems all right, an’ sometimes it seems good. It don’t make no difference. But if ya come acrost my folks—that’s really what I come to say—if ya come on any my folks in California, tell ’em I’m well. Tell ’em I’m doin’ all right. Don’t let on I’m livin’ this way. Tell ’em I’ll come to ’em soon’s I git the money.”
Ma asked, “An’ will ya?”