The boys are well paid for their work, by 1930s values: ten cents a bushel. Every Saturday night, payday, after supper, by the light of a kerosene lamp hanging over the dining room table, Joe will teach his boys the finer points of poker—stud, draw, lowball, anaconda, Montana Gouge—and win back most of the wages that he’s paid them. Not all; he’s a kindly, generous man.

Our mother did not approve of this weekly ceremony. Darning socks, she watched with scornful eyes as Joe raked in another pot. The washtub simmered on the cookstove: almost time for the boys’ weekly bath. She was eager to break up the game before Henry, the most careless player, lost everything he’d earned. Sunday school tomorrow morning. The game continued for another half hour before Lorraine interrupted. Joe had reduced Will’s earnings for the week to two dollars, Henry’s to fifty cents, Paul’s to one dollar.

“Joe,” says Lorraine much later, as they nestled together in bed, “you shouldn’t do that to the boys.”

“Why not?” he says, grinning in the dark. “Them boys got to learn to hang on to their pay. Besides, they love the game.”

“Poor little Henry. You took all his wages but fifty cents. That was mean.”

“He’s got to learn. Got to learn to stop trying to bluff too much, stop trying to fill inside straights, learn when to raise and when to fold. Anyhow he’d waste the money on soda pop and Little Big Books.”

“They worked hard for that money.”

“Will did. Will worked hard.” Joe listened to the sound of the old hemlock tree thrashing in the night wind, brushing against the clapboard siding under the eaves. “Henry don’t. Henry never worked hard in his life. That limb is still worryin’ the corner. Got to cut that thing off.”

Lorraine turned a little away from Joe. “In his life? Henry is ten years old. He’s a bright boy. Mrs. Lingenfelter says Henry’s I.Q. is one hundred ten. She says Henry’s the brightest pupil she’s ever had.”

“You mean he ain’t dumb enough to be a farmer, Lorrie? Is that what you’re saying?” No answer. “I don’t believe in that I.Q. business anyway. I.Q.—what the hell does that mean? I quit? I’m queer? I think it’s a lot of happy horseshit, that I.Q. business.”

“Joe, don’t talk like that.” But now she was smiling in the dark. “If he studies hard and does well in high school, Mrs. Lingenfelter says Henry might go on to State Teachers’ College in Shawnee.”

“He’s so smart why can’t he play poker?”

“Joe, Joe…he’s still a little boy. He’s only a child.”

“Yeah? Well Will’s only twelve and he can do the work of a grown man.” The limb of the hemlock, seized by the wind, thumped against the outside wall. “Maybe I ought to saw down that whole tree before it comes through the attic roof some night.”

“They’re both good boys. But they’re different.”

“You mean Will’s a Lightcap and Henry’s a Holyoak. Ain’t that what you mean?”