House Divided by Ben Ames Williams Page B

harmony, relished that and subsequent encounters.
    Ed and Trav were forever comparing notes and records, checking the results of their agriculture. Other farmers had good years and bad, and so did they; but to the others it was simply that times were good or times were bad. Ed—as well as Trav—could leaf through a worn and much-thumbed book of accounts and tell you just how much each year had yielded, and what crops in the long run were best, and why.
    Mrs. Blandy, still pretty despite the marks left upon her by a dozen years of hard and steady work indoors and out, thought Ed was a man beyond all other men. He had taught her to read and write, but she knew she could never know as much, nor be as wise and wonderful, as he. She had proudly borne him four children and would presently bear another; she was as ready to die for him as she had been to live and toil for him through these dozen years. Since Trav was Ed’s friend, so was he hers. With strangers she was shy as a wild thing, but with Trav she was at ease. So when one day in a pelt of rain, he and James Fiddler stopped at the gate and the dogs barked greeting, she bade them ’light and come in out of the wet, and she sent one of the children to fetch Ed, who was carting mud from the swamp for his compost pens. Trav said they could ride and find him, but she declared it was high time Ed came in. He would be wet to the bone as it was, in the sluicing rain. So they sat, their damp clothes steaming by the fire, and Trav talked with her, and the wide-eyed children watched and listened till Ed presently appeared. He was as wet as she had predicted, and he allowed her tender scolding to shepherd him into the other room and into dry clothes. While he changed he wondered why these two had come today. There was purpose in their manner; something sober, something almost sad. When he joined them by the fire
he was sure of it, yet waited without questions to hear what Trav had to say.
    It was worse than anything Ed might have imagined. Trav, like a man diving into icy water, put it at last without preamble.
    â€œI came to say good-by, Ed. I’m leaving Chimneys tomorrow.”
    Ed knew from the other’s manner and tone that Trav meant he was leaving for good and all, yet he refused to accept the sorrowful certainty. “Business?” he asked. He saw Mrs. Blandy watching them, knew she too was shaken, knew how much would go out of their lives if Trav no longer were their neighbor.
    â€œNo, I’m not coming back, not to stay.” As though Ed’s silence accused him, Trav said defensively: “Greak Oak is run down. My mother wants me to take hold of it.”
    â€œVirginia farms are mostly all cropped to death with tobacco.” It was as though Ed argued against Trav’s departure. “You’ve got Chimneys to where there ain’t a plantation this end of the state can match it.”
    â€œMy mother’s pretty old. I don’t see her much. And I can better things at Great Oak, some at least.”
    â€œSeems like you could come and go.” Their voices were level, but Ed was sick with sorrow and emptiness.
    â€œOh, I’ll be back.” Trav chuckled, trying awkwardly to jest. “I’ll have to keep an eye on James Fiddler here, see that he keeps things going right.”
    Ed looked at the overseer. James Fiddler was a good man when he had Trav to direct him. How well would he stand alone? “You’ll be wanting to come back, yes.”
    As though Ed’s thoughts were words, as though to justify himself in the face of Ed’s unspoken protests, Trav explained: “Mrs. Currain wants to go.” Ed for a moment hated Trav’s wife; a stuck-up, conceited, lazy, useless critter too high and mighty to be civil if she rode past your door, half the time pretending not to see you tip your hat to her. “It’s pretty lonesome for her here,” Trav reminded him. “She’ll see more