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PARTISAN REVIEW
cubs playing. He sat with his back against a tree trunk and listened to
the owls. Or he stood by his favorite cow with his arm around her neck,
nuzzling his face into her; and the warmth that came into him from her,
and the hot sweet blasts of her breath on his arms and legs when she
turned her head to sniff at him meant the safety of kindness. Or he stood
leaning on a fence post staring up at the night sky, and on clear nights
he sang a little grunting song to the stars, or he danced around, lifting
his feet and stamping. Once old Mary thought she heard a noise that
needed investigation, went to a window, and caught a glimpse of Ben,
and crept down in the dark to watch and listen.
It
really did make her
scalp prickle and her flesh go cold. But why should she care what he did
for fun? Without him the animals would be unfed, the cows would stay
unmilked, the pigs would have to live in their dirt. Mary Grindly was
curious about Ben, but not much. She had had too much trouble in her
life to care about other people. Ben's coming to the farm she saw as
God's kindness to her.
Then Ted fell down some steps when drunk, and died. Surely
Matthew should have been next, the half-crippled coughing man, but it
was Mary who had a heart attack. Officials of all kinds suddenly
became curious, and one of them, demanding to see accounts, asked Ben
questions about himself. Ben was going to say something about the
money owed to him, but his instincts shouted at him,
Danger-and
he
ran away.
He picked apples on a cider farm, and then he picked raspberries.
The other pickers were Poles, mostly students, flown in by a contractor
of labor, jolly young people determined to have a good time in spite of
the long hours they had to work. Ben was silent and watchful, on his
guard. There were caravans to sleep in, but he hated that closeness, and
the bad air, and when he had finished eating with them, at night, listen–
ing to their songs and their jokes and their laughter, he took a sleeping
bag into a wood.
When the picking was finished he had a good bit of money, and he
was happy, because he knew that it was having no money that made
him helpless. One of the singing and joking young people stole his
money from his jacket that was hanging above him on a bush where he
lay asleep. Ben made himself go back to the farm, thinking of all that
money in the drawer, and half of it belonging to him, but the house was
locked, the animals were gone, and there were already nettles growing
close up around the house. He did not care about Matthew, who had
scarcely spoken to him except for unkind remarks such as when the old
dog died-"We don't need another dog, we've got Ben."
