“Looks to me you’ve lost two boarders and me two miners,” Darb said. “But Fd been a-firing them anyhow. I got orders yesterday to let off a dozen men, and cut down another day’s work.”

Uncle Samp told us as we were sitting at the table. Coonie Todd sat beside him, weaving willowy fingers in her lap. “We’re marrying soon’s times get better, soon’s work picks up,” he said. His face reddened, the thread veins quickening on his cheeks.

“A feller who’s got a doughbeater promised is square in luck,” Darb said, his words booming with laughter.

“Nothing sorry as a bachelor feller,” Father said, teasing. “A woman helps a man hang onto his money, and keeps him honest.”

Euly and Fletch looked queerly at me. Fletch’s chin was barely above the table. “Thar’s one o’ my pennies a-missing out of the clock,” he said. “That hain’t honest, now.”

I felt shriveled and old. All I had eaten seemed a great knot inside of me. My spoon clattered to the floor.

Uncle Samp grinned. The ends of his blunt mustache pointed like fingers. His cheeks burned. He shoved a hand into a pocket and drew something out. It was a rusty penny. He spun it on the table. “I borrowed it to get a little chew o’ tobacco,” he said, “and I plumb forgot to spend it.”

The bread was broken, the shucky beans passed, the pickle bowl lifted, hand to hand. Mother glanced at Father and Uncle Samp and Darb. She looked at Fletch and me. Her eyes were bright as a bird’s. “All you fellers have buttermilk mustaches,” she said.

FLETCH tiptoed through the kitchen and into the far room, closing the door between quietly. The latch barely clicked. He didn’t see me behind the meat box. Only Old Bartow had found me there. I sat hidden, looking at the signs of the zodiac in the Indian Doctor Almanac. A man stood on a page with his belly covering off. Printed beasts and varmints circled about. “A feller going to be a doctor ought to know the in-sides of beings,” I thought to myself.

I heard Fletch rummaging in the far room; I heard him stack one chair upon another, quiet as could be done. Uncle Samp was taking a nap on his bed and his muffled snoring was unbroken. Mother could not have heard where she rested in the front room. Fletch came out presently, passing on to the back porch. I peeped. He carried something in his fist. A hand was doubled tight against his chest. I stayed in my hiding place, looking at the odd picture-piece. Three meat pokes hung inside the printed man. I felt my own stomach, wondering if these things were there. Then I grew curious about Fletch and went to see why he stacked the chairs. He had reached to the mantel. A beeswax candle, a fox horn, and a pin pear lay upon the board. Nothing was gone. Then I looked to where the dynamite pouch hung on a nail only Father could reach. Its leather mouth was pursed. “Couldn’t have touched that/’ I thought and I went back to the meat box.