A Painted House by John Grisham Page A

and tossed me the glass.
    “Thanks,” I said, catching it.
    “Now leave us alone,” he said as he lay down on the grass. I retreated to the house and waited for my mother.
    You could quit picking at five if you wanted. That was when Pappy pulled the trailer back to the house. Or you could stay in the fields until dark, like the Mexicans. Their stamina was amazing. They would pick until they couldn’t see the bolls anymore, then walk a half mile with their heavy sacks to the barn, where they would build a small fire and eat a few tortillas before sleeping hard.
    The other Spruills gathered around Trot, who managed to look even sicker for the short minute or so they examined him. Once it was determined that he was alive and somewhat alert, they hurriedly turned their attention to dinner. Mrs. Spruill built a fire.
    Next, Gran hovered over Trot. She appeared to be deeply concerned, and I think the Spruills appreciated this. I knew, however, that she merely wanted to conduct experiments on the poor boy with one of her vile remedies. Since I was the smallest victim around, I was usually the guinea pig for any new brew she discovered. I knew from experience that she could whip up a concoction so curative that Trot would bolt from the mattress and run like a scalded dog. After a fewminutes, Trot got suspicious and began watching her closely. He now seemed more aware of things, and Gran took this as a sign that he didn’t need any medicine, at least not immediately. But she placed him under surveillance, and she’d make her rounds again tomorrow.
    My worst chore of the late afternoon was in the garden. I thought it was cruel to force me, or any other seven-year-old kid for that matter, to awake before sunrise, work in the fields all day, and then pull garden duty before supper. But I knew we were lucky to have such a beautiful garden.
    At some point before I was born, the women had sectioned off little areas of turf, both inside the house and out, and laid claim to them. I don’t know how my mother got the entire garden, but there was no doubt it belonged to her.
    It was on the east side of our house, the quiet side, away from the kitchen door and the barnyard and the chicken coop. Away from Pappy’s pickup and the small dirt drive where the rare visitor parked. It was enclosed in a wire fence four feet tall, built by my father under my mother’s direction, and designed to keep out deer and varmints.
    Corn was planted around the fence so that once you closed the rickety gate with the leather latch, you stepped into a secret world hidden by the stalks.
    My job was to take a straw basket and follow my mother around as she gathered whatever she deemed ripe. She had a basket, too, and she slowly filled it with tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, onions, and eggplant. She talked quietly, not necessarily to me, but to the garden in general.
    “Look at the corn, would you? We’ll eat those next week.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    “The pumpkins should be just right for Halloween.”
    “Yes ma’am.”
    She was constantly searching for weeds, little trespassers that survived only momentarily in our garden. She stopped, pointed, and said, “Pull those weeds there, Luke, by the watermelons.”
    I set the basket on the dirt trail and pulled with a vengeance.
    The garden work was not as rough in the late summer as it was in the spring, when the ground had to be tilled and the weeds grew faster than the vegetables.
    A long green snake froze us for a second, then it disappeared into the butter bean vines. The garden was full of snakes, all harmless, but snakes nonetheless. My mother was not deathly afraid of them, but we gave them plenty of room. I lived in fear of reaching for a cucumber and feeling fangs sink into the back of my hand.
    My mother loved this little plot of soil because it was hers—no one else really wanted it. She treated it like a sanctuary. When the house got crowded, I could always find her in the garden, talking to