“I plowed the pasture,” he said. “Put it in rye.”

“How did it do?”

“Just fine, once I got the rocks out.” He touched his forehead. “I got this damn thing trying to pry out a stone.”

“You wrote about that,” Adam said. “Don’t know whether I told you your letters meant a lot to me.”

“You never wrote much what you were doing,” said Charles.

“I guess I didn’t want to think about it. It was pretty bad, most of it.”

“I read about the campaigns in the papers. Did you go on those?”

“Yes. I didn’t want to think about them. Still don’t.”

“Did you kill Injuns?”

“Yes, we killed Injuns.”

“I guess they’re real ornery.”

“I guess so.”

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t want to.”

They ate their dinner under the kerosene lamp. “We’d get more light if I would only get around to washing that lampshade.”

“I’ll do it,” said Adam. “It’s hard to think of everything.”

“It’s going to be fine having you back. How would you like to go to the inn after supper?”

“Well, we’ll see. Maybe I’d like just to sit awhile.”

“I didn’t write about it in a letter, but they’ve got girls at the inn. I didn’t know but you’d like to go in with me. They change every two weeks. I didn’t know but you’d like to look them over.”

“Girls?”

“Yes, they’re upstairs. Makes it pretty handy. And I thought you just coming home—”

“Not tonight. Maybe later. How much do they charge?”

“A dollar. Pretty nice girls mostly.”

“Maybe later,” said Adam. “I’m surprised they let them come in.”

“I was too at first. But they worked out a system.”

“You go often?”

“Every two or three weeks. It’s pretty lonesome here, a man living alone.”

“You wrote once you were thinking of getting married.”

“Well, I was. Guess I didn’t find the right girl.”

All around the main subject the brothers beat. Now and then they would almost step into it, and quickly pull away, back into crops and local gossip and politics and health. They knew they would come back to it sooner or later. Charles was more anxious to strike in deep than Adam was, but then Charles had had the time to think of it, and to Adam it was a new field of thinking and feeling. He would have preferred to put it over until another day, and at the same time he knew his brother would not permit him to.

Once he said openly, “Let’s sleep on that other thing.”

“Sure, if you want to,” said Charles.

Gradually they ran out of escape talk. Every acquaintance was covered and every local event. The talk lagged and the time went on.

“Feel like turning in?” Adam asked.

“In a little while.”

They were silent, and the night moved restlessly about the house, nudging them and urging them.

“I sure would like to’ve seen that funeral,” said Charles.