"Don't you know me, Grant? I am Howard.
The man approached him, gazing intently at his face. "You are?"
after a pause. "Well, I'm glad to see yeh, but I can't shake hands.
That damned cow had laid down in the mud."
They stood and looked at each other. Howard's cuffs, collar, and
shirt, alien in their elegance, showed through the dusk, and a glint
of light shot out from the jewel of his necktie, as the light from the
house caught it at the right angle. As they gazed in silence at each
other, Howard divined something of the hard, bitter feeling which
came into Grant's heart as he stood there, ragged, ankle-deep in
muck, his sleeves rolled up, a shapeless old straw hat on his head.
The gleam of Howard's white hands angered him. When he spoke,
it was in a hard, gruff tone, full of rebellion.
"Well, go in the house and set down. I'll be in soon's I strain the
milk and wash the dirt off my hands."
"But Mother-"
"She's 'round somewhere. Just knock on the door under the porch
'round there."
Howard went slowly around the corner of the house, past a vilely
smelling rain barrel, toward the west. A gray-haired woman was
sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, her hands in her lap, her
eyes fixed on the faintly yellow sky, against which the hills stood
dim purple silhouettes and the locust trees were etched as fine as
lace.
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