They walked out just the way the eye was drawn into that garden, through the dappled shade of the crape myrtle, around the dense green of the camellias, and into the sunny place. “Oh, good,” said Helen, “Arthur’s taking a rest in the shade.”

“But the mower’s still running,” said Essie.

“He’s probably scared to shut it off for fear it won’t start up again.…Arthur, it’s beautiful!” Helen called. “Absolutely beautiful!”

But Arthur wasn’t taking a rest. Arthur was lying stone dead, half in the shade and half in the sun, right where he had fallen off that Gravely mower when the heart attack hit him. The part of him that was in the sun was warm, and the part of him that was in the shade was cool.

After all the gasping was over, and the cries of “Arthur, oh, Arthur!” and the hopeless attempts at resuscitation, and a little weeping, Essie and Helen tried to turn Arthur over to get him into a more lifelike position, but his knees buttressed him, and he wouldn’t roll. They gave up and just stood there, looking down at him lying on the mowed grass, just as they had looked down into the engine of the Gravely mower, with their hands clasped to their bellies. His eyes were open, and he had a look on his face of wonder and delight, as if he had just bitten into something unexpectedly good.

“I’ll stay here with him,” said Helen. “I’ll cover him up with something. You go call that cousin in Woodberry, and 911 or whoever you’re supposed to call.”

Just as Essie came around the crape-myrtle tree the telephone started ringing, and by the time she got to the porch steps there was that familiar voice talking on the answering machine.

Essie was not the kind to cry, but now the tears began to flow. She picked up the telephone and without any greeting or pause she cried out in a rough, choked voice, “Arthur is dead! And no one at this number wants to hear from you, ever again!” Then she slammed the receiver down and banged out the screen door and sat down on the steps.

Out through the vista she could just see Helen sitting on the mowed grass, and there they sat for a long time, two old ladies clutching their knees, with a dead man between them, and in the background the sound of the Gravely mower, first a steady hum, then a sputter and a cough as it ran out of gas, then just birdsong—a cardinal calling from the feeder, the loud tweet of a wren in the tea-olive tree, then in the distance the thin, wavering whistle of the white-throated sparrow, the first one of the season.

Miss Wigglesworth’s Bull