Free We Are What We Pretend to Be by Kurt Vonnegut Page B

the barn floor.” He held up an empty packet of cigarette papers. “This is the kind he used.”
    “He could have dropped them there anytime since he came to work for you. They’re all over the place,” suggested Haley.
    “Maybe so. One thing’s for sure: He isn’t in this barn. I’ve checked every nook and cranny.”
    Haley was not at all dismayed by the menace of Mr. Banghart. For one thing, he felt a personal immunity to that threat, since Mr. Banghart avowedly considered him one of his few friends in all humanity. For another, he was confident that the General
would blow the poor devil to bits if he dared appear. But certainly most distracting was the exotic mixture of despondency and elation that simmered in his young soul. He was despondent over his smashed dreams of a musical career, but elation was born of Hope’s subtle but unmistakably affectionate mien. He found himself in the emotional dilemma of a hurt child who has been presented with an ice-cream cone.
    He was realist enough to know that the ice-cream cone was a small one, but hungry enough to make a great deal of it in his fancy. Honing his scythe in the cool dampness of the tool shed, he savored again the moments when Hope had seemed to look at him warmly. His expedition to Chicago had made him more of a man in her melodrama-loving eyes, he thought. If he had made a mess of his flight, it had at least been an adventuresome mess, not in a boy’s world but in a man’s. With the clean music of the blade against the stone mingling with his thoughts, Haley promised himself that he was indeed man enough to win the love of Hope.
    During supper, Annie monopolized the conversation with a new complaint. “If you don’t get enough to eat, for Heaven’s sake say so,” she said. “But don’t let me catch anybody nosing around the icebox between meals. It’s getting so bad that I never know when I’m going to have enough on hand for a meal, with everybody helping himself or herself whenever he or she feels like it.” She shrugged disconsolately. “These potatoes were supposed to have cheese on top of them, but somebody walked off with all the cheese last night, and some leftover wieners, too.”
    “Well, which one of you did it?” asked the General, looking from Kitty to Hope to Haley, all of whom shook their heads and
showed the long countenances of hurt innocence. “The trouble with you is that you all eat like farmhands, but not one of you’ll work like one.”
    “You certainly hit the nail on the head that time,” said Annie.
    The General rose, walked over to the kitchen window, and peered out at the barn, which was receding into nightfall. He picked up the shotgun from its place by the doorframe. “Attaboy, Haley,” he said at last. “Keep her spotless. Get Annie to give you a toothpick sometime, so you can clean up some of the fancy work around the trigger guard.” He rested the gun against the doorframe once more and left the kitchen.
    “He’s telephoning somebody,” said Kitty. “Who do you suppose it is?”
    “Can’t tell,” said Hope. “He’s talking softly for the first time in his life.”
    “It’s none of our business, or he would have seen fit to tell us about it,” said Annie primly.
    “Whoever it is,” said Hope, straining her ears, “he told them not to hurry.”
    Haley heard the click of the receiver, and the General called from the hall, “Remember, the rules are still in force. Nobody leaves the house after sunset under any condition.”
    After supper, Haley invited Hope to play checkers with him. They set up the board in the sewing room, a small chamber that opened onto the hallway in the rear of the house, next to the kitchen. Haley closed the door of the room, insulating it from the noise of the General’s favorite news commentator, and of Annie stacking the dishes in the sink.

    As they played, their conversation centered upon the game, which Haley was winning. He adored Hope’s every word and