Even if his oldest boy would help him with the fence, it’d still be an awful job. First off they’d have to move all the cows to another pasture so they could tear the whole fence down and do it right. And the only other pasture Mr. P.’s got available is forty acres right next to his corn patch. They’d probably push the fence down and eat his corn up while he’s across the road putting up the new fence, because his wife won’t run cows. Mr. P.’s run cows and run cows and tried to get his wife out there to help him run cows and she won’t hardly run cows at all. She’s not fast enough to head one off or anything. Plus, she’s scared of cows. She’s always afraid she’s going to stampede them and get run over by a crazed cow. About the only thing Mr. P.’s wife is good for when it comes to running cows is just sort of jumping around, two or three feet in any direction, waving her arms, and hollering, “Shoo!”

Mr. P. can’t really think of a whole lot his wife is good for except setting his kids against him. It seems like they’ve fought him at every turn, wanting to buy new cars and drive up to Memphis to shop and getting charge accounts at one place and another and wanting him to loan money to her old drunk brother. Mr. P. doesn’t know what the world’s coming to. They’ve got another damn war started now and they’ll probably be wanting his boys to go over there in a few more years and get killed or at the very least get their legs blown off. Mr. P. worries about that a good bit. But Mr. P. just worries about everything, really. Just worries all the time. There’s probably not a minute that goes by when he’s awake that he’s not worrying about something. It’s kind of like a weight he’s carrying around with him that won’t get off and can’t get off because there’s no way for it to get off.

The whiskey hasn’t done him any good. He hoped it would, but he really knew that it wouldn’t. Mr. P. thinks he knows the only thing that’ll do him any good, and it won’t be good.