White Narcissus by Raymond Knister Page A

older Bill put his hand on the boy’s bristling yellow head, half shoving playfully. “This is Alice,” he added of the girl, whom Richard had seen on the road the day before. “This gentleman used to live here when he was as little as you.”
    “This farm, this very farm?” Bill wanted to know.
    “Right here,” the man assented, smiling. “But I used to be everywhere, when I could get away.”
    “A great rover you used to be, Dick. Remember when we used to go for hickory nuts to old Broadus’s place? Nobody else’s was as good, because he didn’t want us.”
    “Now, here come Johnnie and Tom,” laughed Alice. “They couldn’t stay away.”
    The two raced up in silence, even more nearly breathless than the others. “He’s going to let me plant ’em,” gasped a seven-year-old chubby, dark boy, not stopping to pant, butseizing the basket in his father’s hand. He looked up, his long, silky lashes glistening, his dark skin shining. He was like a sleek baby animal, and somehow different from the others. They eyed his manoeuvre with misgiving, and knew better than to try to take the basket from him. The third boy, who had run with him, was evidently the oldest, thin, tall, stooped, with open mouth and light eyes.
    “Now we’ve lots of help,” mused Bill Burnstile. “I’m kind of juberous about letting you go at it; but maybe, if your sister looked after you, you could do a good job. Suppose Bill carries the basket, and Tom takes the plant out of it, while Johnnie here punches the hole with the stick. Alice can walk along behind and see that you keep straight in line with the row. And don’t waste the plants, and don’t miss any out. Give Bill the basket now, Johnnie.” The dark eyes were hurt, but Johnnie took his assigned part.
    “This drought makes it bad,” Burnstile explained, once more turning to his visitor. “I kept working the ground up to keep the moisture in, and waiting for a rain. Got her in finally, day before yesterday, but no rain yet to help much.”
    “It makes a lot of work, when you’ve got to go over the whole field this way and transplant.” Richard laughed, looking at the group of children hurrying down the row, stopping in a bunch, then running on. “Seems funny to see these infants planting tobacco. One thinks of nobody but men having been near that. Carson Hymerson was telling me this morning he doesn’t approve of growing it.”
    “Carson’s funny. Of course, it’s hard on the land. But that isn’t why he doesn’t grow it.”
    “A more personal objection?” Richard raised his eyebrows.
    “Seems like it. Arvin, he’s grown to be quite a sensible fellow, though. And that’s a wonder. He’s sure working under disadvantages. Why, the boy can’t open his mouth, can’t say it’s a fine day, but what the old man wants to argue. He’ll argue black’s white just to make out the boy’s a liar. Doesn’t matter to Carson that he’s got to seem one himself. Perhaps he wants to provoke the boy to calling him one. What he does want I don’t know, nor I guess he don’t neither. It’s a wonder Arvin doesn’t give him such a back-hander! With me he wouldn’t live long, or I wouldn’t. Oh, he’s a tartar.”
    “I seemed to see some change in the man. Something’s wrong. Something seems to be troubling him.”
    “Well,” said Bill Burnstile consideringly, “I’ve been among gangs of men, and I know just about how long he’d keep a whole skin if he acted that way….”
    “He seems,” Milne insisted on the word, “to have worries about the line fence between himself and Lethen. He was telling me a good deal about that.”
    “He would. You’ll find out what an awful man poor old man Lethen is. Haw, haw! Carson, he hasn’t bothered me much yet, and I suppose he’s got to size me up. I don’t think he will, either.”
    “Does Mr. Lethen farm all of his own land himself?” Richard cared little that he was exaggerating the casual tone of his