“Fine! Believe me, we're glad to hear it — all of us. Now eat up. You've got to put on some weight.”
“Can I borrow a razor?” Gary asked. “And if you have a pair of scissors handy I'd like to trim off this hair. I haven't been to a barbershop in a long time.”
Staring at his newly pale image in the yellowed mirror later that morning, he winked at the lathered man in the glass. “Very neat, Corporal Gary.” The image agreed.
* * *
Gary studied the terrain about the farm buildings, conscious of the one blind approach to their defenses. Beyond the barn the ground fell away sharply, a rough pasture land that dipped down to a frozen creek nearly three-quarters of a mile away. Anyone approaching from that direction need only keep the barn between himself and the house, to be able to come very near without detection. Gary found baling wire in a machine shed and strung trippers across the slope beyond the barn, fastening a rusty cowbell to the outermost wire. The next snow would hide everything from sight.
He set up a pattern of watching at night and sleeping during the day, knowing from experience that the most dangerous marauders would approach only under cover of darkness. In his nightly prowling he looked for and expected every trick of the trade that he himself had practiced, knowing there were men out there as smart as he, and as hungry as he had been. Awake at night and sleeping during the day, but still unwilling to miss the day's hot meals, he had himself awakened for each of them. And after dusk he stalked about the deserted land, prying around the buildings, alert for sight or sound of any moving thing. The farmer's family slept soundly, trusting him.
Gary came into the house one evening just at bedtime, just as Sandy was snapping off the radio. The illumination was slowly dying behind the transparent dial and he watched it fade with startled eyes.
“That thing works! ”
“What?” Hoffman turned around. “Oh — sure it does. Didn't you know it?” The farmer shrugged. “Ain't worth a dang, though. All the time them silly comics is blabbering, and it's always selling something we can't buy.”
“But how?” Gary demanded impatiently, indicating the single, flickering kerosene lamp the farmer held in his hand. “Where do you get the electricity for a radio over here?”