“Listen to this,” he said to the operator.

“I already read it.”

“You did?”

“It comes over the wire,” said the operator. “I wrote it down.”

“Oh! Yes, sure. ‘Urgent need you telegraph me one hundred dollars. Coming home. Adam.’ ”

“Came collect,” the operator said. “You owe me sixty cents.”

“Valdosta, Georgia—I never heard of it.”

“Neither’d I, but it’s there.”

“Say, Carlton, how do you go about telegraphing money?”

“Well, you bring me a hundred and two dollars and sixty cents and I send a wire telling the Valdosta operator to pay Adam one hundred dollars. You owe me sixty cents too.”

“I’ll pay—say, how do I know it’s Adam? What’s to stop anybody from collecting it?”

The operator permitted himself a smile of worldliness. “Way we go about it, you give me a question couldn’t nobody else know the answer. So I send both the question and the answer. Operator asks this fella the question, and if he can’t answer he don’t get the money.”

“Say, that’s pretty cute. I better think up a good one.”

“You better get the hundred dollars while Old Breen still got the window open.”

Charles was delighted with the game. He came back with the money in his hand. “I got the question,” he said.

“I hope it ain’t your mother’s middle name. Lot of people don’t remember.”

“No, nothing like that. It’s this. ‘What did you give Father on his birthday just before you went in the army?’ ”

“It’s a good question but it’s long as hell. Can’t you cut it down to ten words?”

“Who’s paying for it? Answer is, ‘A pup.’ ”

“Wouldn’t nobody guess that,” said Carlton. “Well, it’s you paying, not me.”

“Be funny if he forgot,” said Charles. “He wouldn’t ever get home.”

[3]

Adam came walking out from the village. His shirt was dirty and the stolen clothes were wrinkled and soiled from having been slept in for a week. Between the house and the barn he stopped and listened for his brother, and in a moment he heard him hammering at something in the big new tobacco barn. “Oh, Charles!” Adam called.

The hammering stopped, and there was silence. Adam felt as though his brother were inspecting him through the cracks in the barn. Then Charles came out quickly and hurried to Adam and shook hands.

“How are you?”

“Fine,” said Adam.

“Good God, you’re thin!”

“I guess I am. And I’m years older too.”

Charles inspected him from head to foot. “You don’t look prosperous.”

“I’m not.”

“Where’s your valise?”

“I haven’t got one.”

“Jesus Christ! Where’ve you been?”

“Mostly wandering around all over.”

“Like a hobo?”

“Like a hobo.”

After all the years and the life that had made creased leather out of Charles’ skin and redness in his dark eyes, Adam knew from remembering that Charles was thinking of two things—the questions and something else.

“Why didn’t you come home?”

“I just got to wandering. Couldn’t stop. It gets into you. That’s a real bad scar you’ve got there.”