2

The Major sat in the kitchen with his fat stomach against the table and under it as he rested on his pudgy forearms. An empty mug that had contained milk and a plate with crumbs of Patience Merritt’s johnnycake had been pushed back away from him. There were golden crumbs on the curve of his flowered waistcoat.

He looked up and smiled broadly as Obie entered, but he let Mistress Merritt speak first.

“The major would like to talk to you,” she said. She hardly paused in her work, busying herself with ladles and crocks and pots.

The place smelled fine of new-made apple butter. The boy turned to the major. At fourteen, Obie’s leanness and manner of standing Indian-straight made him seem tall. His leanness, though, was a matter of flesh, not bone, for his wrists were large and his hands broad and knotty. The major judged him shrewdly. If he grows up to fit those feet, he’ll be a big one all right, he thought. He looked closely. Gray eyes, overconfident for a boy as young as he, were wide spaced in a face that still retained the browning given it by the summer sun. A brown, even now, so dark that it made his to