It was a homecoming; oh, it was. Even Selma and Pauline came down from their private shelf to touch and smile and listen. Lovey was a woman reborn. She walked with youthier spring; her speech was crisp and crackling once more; and she laughed like a girl when she showed off the combs Floyd had brought to her from Greece, and the shawl from Spain. Ezra put on, and never again put off, a look of such quiet joy it made those who saw him shy, as though to speak to him of his son’s return were an impertinence, as superfluous as a compliment to a saint.

Myrtis sang and dreamed in the kitchen, wondering if she were too old, although she was just his age, to appear agreeable to a man who had seen half the women in the world. Her twins Otis and Lotus were owl-eyed when he admitted that he had been to Mesopotamia and begged to be told what he had seen there. Felix came out from Highboro and laughed and shook his head, and shook Floyd’s hand, and said he was both sorry and glad to see him again.

Leon, that first evening, after giving him two hours with Ezra and Lovey, took him into the office where they sat and smoked cigars together and drank a glass of claret. Sarah came in to greet him. She took both his hands in hers and looked as if she would have done more but did not. Leon smiled his regard on both as they smiled theirs on each other. She left, making Floyd promise he would come to Roman’s school soon and tell all the children together of the places he had been.

Floyd and Leon talked on, leaving the office after a while and walking over grounds of Beulah Land they had shared their whole lives. They may have been closer as boys when they did not appraise or question closeness, but they had not felt closer to each other as men. The admission and expression of old friendship had had to wait, it seemed, on Floyd’s going away and coming home again. As they talked, Floyd became increasingly aware of the ways Roscoe Elk loomed large in Leon’s recital of the fortunes and misfortunes of the last two years, although he made no comment on the fact.

It was not late, although it seemed so by plantation habits when they said good night and Floyd found his way back to the family cabin—and found Ezra on the back steps waiting for him. Ezra, who had already shown Floyd the growing plants, began to “show” him again in the dark. For the first time Floyd understood that his father was an old man.