"That bridge wont stand a whole lot water," I said.
"Has somebody told Anse about it?"
"I told him," Quick said.
"He says he reckons the boys has heard and unloaded and are on the way by now.
He says they can load up and get across."
"He better go on and bury her at New Hope," Armstid said.
"That bridge is old.
I wouldn't monkey with it."
"His mind is set on taking her to Jefferson," Quick said.
"Then he better get at it soon as he can," Armstid said.
Anse meets us at the door.
He has shaved, but not good.
There is a long cut on his jaw, and he is wearing his Sunday pants and a white shirt with the neckband buttoned.
It is drawn smooth over his hump, making it look bigger than ever, like a white shirt will, and his face is different too.
He looks folks in the eye now, dignified, his face tragic and composed, shaking us by the hand as we walk up onto the porch and scrape our shoes, a little stiff in our Sunday clothes, our Sunday clothes rustling, not looking full at him as he meets us.
"The Lord giveth," we say.
"The Lord giveth."
That boy is not there.
Peabody told about how he come into the kitchen, hollering, swarming and clawing at Cora when he found her cooking that fish, and how Dewey Dell taken him down to the barn.
"My team all right?" Peabody says.
"All right," I tell him.
"I give them a bait this morning.
Your buggy seems all right too.
It aint hurt."
"And no fault of somebody's," he says.
"I'd give a nickel to know where that boy was when that team broke away."
"If it's broke anywhere, I'll fix it," I say.
The women folks go on into the house.
We can hear them, talking and fanning.
The fans go whish. whish. whish and them talking, the talking sounding kind of like "bees murmuring in a water bucket.
The men stop on the porch, talking some, not looking at one another.
"Howdy, Vernon," they say.
"Howdy, Tull."
"Looks like more rain."
"It does for a fact."
"Yes, sir.
It will rain some more."
"It come up quick."
"And going away slow.
It dont fail."
I go around to the back.
Cash is filling up the holes lie bored in the top of it.
He is trimming out plugs for them, one at a time, the wood wet and hard to work.
He could cut up a tin can and hide the holes and nobody wouldn't know the difference.
Wouldn't mind, anyway.
I have seen him spend a hour trimming out a wedge like it was glass he was working, when, he could have reached around and picked tip a dozen sticks and drove them Into the joint and made it do.
When we finished I go back to the front.
The men have gone a little piece from the house, sitting on the ends of the boards and on the sawhorses where we made it last night, some sitting and some squatting, Whitfield aint come yet.
They look up at me, their eyes asking.
"It's about," I say.