Across the room, she saw Noah’s knapsack and wondered about the clothes he must have in it. Maybe he kept them washed in creeks, but they probably needed a good scrubbing in hot water and washing soap. She would not take them without permission, however. People were touchy about other people getting so personal. She reached into her dress pocket, realized she had a short pencil and a piece of tablet paper with a shopping list written on it in the pocket. She would leave a note. Ask him about it.

She wondered if he could read. He had said he did not read much, but that could have been a way of putting off her questions about books. He had seemed genuinely surprised that his name was in a book, when she told him about Noah Joad. Maybe she should have said more about Noah Joad, maybe telling him that he and Noah Joad had some similarities, especially in the way of being quiet. And then she thought of another Steinbeck novel—Of Mice and Men—and of the character named Lenny, who had a child’s mind, much like Matthew Reynolds. Noah was not that way, not severe. Yet, there was an innocence about him—a shyness, a reserve—and she guessed he had never been good with schoolwork.

People like Noah made their way through life on tiptoes, afraid of being heard, or seen, she believed. If they had stories to tell, they told them to themselves, out of the hearing of other people, having learned the hard way about saying something out of place or ill-timed. Sometimes such people turned mean out of anger because of the ridicule they got. Sometimes they tried to vanish. Some of them did. People like Noah. It was probably the reason he had taken to the road with his fishing rod.

She felt a sudden sensation of pity for him, as she would feel pity for a motherless child.

It was a wonder he had not vanished completely, she thought.

The news of Noah’s fishing against the wager placed by Peavo Teasley and Moody Deal had moved flash-quick across the Valley of Light as Taylor had predicted it would. By ten o’clock, a small crowd of men and boys—Peavo and Moody among them—had again gathered at Bowerstown Store to hear the story firsthand and to take a look at Noah.

“Boys,” Taylor said to the crowd, “I know what you here for, and that’s all right with me, but Noah’s hired on with me to paint the store and that’s what he’ll be doing, so you can just listen to Peavo and Moody tell lies. When it gets too deep to wade around in, I’ll stop my work and tell you the truth.”

Peavo and Moody laughed, beamed. They did not care what Taylor said, or how much he protested about Noah’s having to work. What they had witnessed on the day before was worth talking about, a day they would never forget, they vowed, even if it did take money out of their pocket. It was made-to-order fishing. “Lord, it could of come from Sears and Roebuck,” Moody said, telling how Noah took nothing but catfish out of a river made up of everything from eels to horny heads.