“I hain’t got feed for my own beast,” Luce said. “I’ll be buying corn for my horse-mule before another month. Poppet has already et more than she’s worth. She must be twelve years old. The day’s a-coming you’ll need another nag to crap with. It would be right proper to take ol’ Poppet out and end her misery.”

Grandma raised up in anger. “Luce Middleton, if you was in reach I’d pop your mouth,” she said. Then she lay back and cried a little. Uncle Luce went over and shook her, saying he never meant a word about Poppet. He wouldn’t shoot her for a war pension.

Uncle Luce didn’t say a word about Uncle Jolly until Grandma asked him. She waited a long time, giving him a chance to tell her without asking. “You hain’t said a word yet about your own brother,” Grandma said. “It’s about time you told.” Then we learned that Uncle Jolly’s trial had come up the last of September, and he had been sentenced to the state penitentiary for two years. “I’ll get Toll to move in with you next March,” Uncle Luce said. “I figure he’d be right glad to come. He’s renting land anyway. And his wife would be a sight o’ company.”

“No,” Grandma said. “I’ll make out. This chap can stay through to spring, and maybe on into summer. My children I’ve worked and slaved for have thrown their ol’ mommy away. Now that I can’t fotch and carry for them, they never give me a grain o’ thought. I’ve been patient and long-suffering. The Lord knows that.”

Grandma began to cry again.

“I figure you’d fare better with Toll than Jolly,” Luce said. “Toll is solid as a rock and never give you a minute’s worry. Jolly is a puore devil. He jumps in and out of trouble like a cricket. Puts me in mind of a hound dog trying to lay down on a shuck. I hope the pen will make him pull his horns in a little.”

Grandma’s voice trembled as she spoke. “He hain’t mean to the bone, and he’s the only one of my boys that looks after me. I’m afeared I won’t live till he gets back. I pray the Lord to keep me breathing till he comes.”

Grandma was quiet when Uncle Luce got ready to go. She brought out a string of Job’s tears she had been threading. “It might pleasure Rilla to have them,” she said. “It might help with her time coming.”