J.B. just handed his brother the money and went into the trailer.

Moses stared at the wad of money, then counted it in disbelief. Eight hundred and twenty-three dollars.

“Lord, lord,” Moses muttered.

He looked down at his old work shoes, then up at the home place. It was falling down around them. He looked back down at the money again, and then followed J.B. into the trailer.

“Well?” J.B. asked.

Moses opened a cabinet and pulled out the round oatmeal box that they used for a bank, and put the money inside, then put it back in the cabinet without saying a word.

“I already fed the chickens, and I got a call from a man up near Savannah who wants some windows hung tomorrow. We need to be there by 8:00 a.m.”

“All right,” J.B. said. “What’s he paying?”

“I told him we’d do it for three hundred,” Moses said.

“How many are we hanging?” J.B. asked.

“I reckon he said five of them. They’re regular size windows and all on the ground floor.”

J.B. nodded.

“All right, then.”

They stood for a minute looking at each other, and knew they’d both crossed a line that would have shamed their Mama. But then they weren’t too happy with her either. If it wasn’t for her, they wouldn’t be in this shape, so they let the guilt slide.

They went to bed after the sun went down. Moses in his room, J.B., in his across the hall. But neither one of them could sleep. J.B. sold something that didn’t belong to him, and Moses abetted the crime by taking the money from the sale.

It was a fitful night for both of them, and when the alarm went off at five a.m, they were up without complaint.

They came home that evening with two hundred and fifty-one dollars to add to their stash. They’d had to buy their own lunches and put gas in the truck coming and going, but it was money honestly earned.

It was another month before the brothers crossed the line again, but this time it was easier. They saw three steers out grazing in a bar ditch, and when they drove up on them, the steers turned and ran ahead of the pickup.

“You need to stop, or they’ll run all the way to our place,” Moses said.

“Yeah, they probably will,” J.B. said, and kept driving, and the steers kept running up that gravel road all the way to their home place. But when J.B. parked at the trailer, the steers finally stopped running.

Neither brother commented, but they both walked down to the barn. One opened the gate to the corral and the other herded them inside. They began grazing on the overgrowth in the corral.

“You feed the chickens. I’ll start supper,” Moses said, and that’s how the evening went.

They ate sausage patties and fried potatoes until they were gone, then cleaned up the kitchen together.

“How long do you reckon we oughta keep them steers?” J.B. asked.