Vance had always been grateful that the doctor had talked that night not about the shooting and his brother but about bread, and that he had made no comment on his weeping until when it had got somewhat beyond control Doc stepped into the next room, fetching out some sort of surgical dressing “for you to bawl on, Vance.”

The Doctor had then continued his speech about (and Vance listened while choking back his sobs) the uses of bread in medical dressings from earliest recorded history up to today. Bread was once applied in water and oil or rosewater to soften abscesses (Vance would nod after a sentence or two of these bits of information). Mixed in wine it was for centuries used to treat bruises and sprains; stale bread or sailor’s bread, pounded and then baked again, was a remedy for looseness of the bowels. In wine again it was applied to swollen eyes (a quick glance toward and then away from the inconsolable one). Persons suffering from palsy were given bread soaked in water, immediately after bathing or fasting . . . With strong vinegar, stale bread was used to dissolve calluses on the feet. . . .

“Let me stay on with you, Doc!” Vance had burst forth at last. “I can’t go back to that house alone, can I?”

And without waiting for a response to this plea, Sidney’s brother sang out: “Do you think they will send him to the electric chair?”

“I do not,” the doctor replied immediately.

“Oh, thank you, thank you for saying that,” Vance murmured.

The first week he was back Sidney did not go out of the house at all. The beginning of the second week, around midnight, he came out of his sleeping room barefoot and walked through the parlor where Vance was mending a jacket belonging to his brother (he came out of jail with hardly a stitch to put on, and most of his old clothes didn’t look right on him anymore). Neither of the brothers exchanged a word. Vance could follow him with his eye as Sid strolled outdoors and passed into the little apple orchard, and finally sauntering over to a weathered bench he elected to sit down. After a long while he picked up a green eating apple resting at his feet, but did not offer to taste it, holding it gloomily and loosely in his hand.

Vance stopped sewing on his brother’s jacket; he averted his face slightly so that he would not seem to be staring at Sidney. Then he put out the lamp, leaving only the hall light burning. He walked over to the fireplace and poked the moribund ashes.

Almost before he knew it, Vance too had gone out to the apple orchard and seated himself next to Sidney on the bench.

“You got to go out by daytime too, Sid,” he commenced.

“Who says so?” came the crabby rejoinder.

“You got to face them eventually . . .”