Free A Place on Earth (Port William) by Wendell Berry Page B

disregarding all the figures he has already
made. And then, while they make their weekly drive out to the farm, he
reads off his latest figures to Wheeler.
    "No, Jack," Wheeler says. "You can't make that much."
    And then they have an argument. Old Jack argues. And then Wheeler
argues. And when Wheeler stops the car in front of the barn they both
figure in the notebook.
    "Lord no!" Wheeler says.
    It is an argument that neither of them ever wins. Jack never admits
that he has lost, but he can never bring himself to think that Wheeler has
lost, either-not for a minute. What he does believe, what he keeps very
firm in his mind, is that between him and Wheeler it does not matter
who wins, which is to say that between them the idea of winning is not
a very important idea. As a matter of fact, nothing would trouble him
more than to beat Wheeler in an argument.
    "Well, then, Wheeler," he says to mend their dispute, "I reckon we're
going broke then."
    Wheeler laughs. `No we're not, Jack. We're going to do fine. Don't
you worry."
    Old Jack slaps his hand down onto Wheeler's knee. "You're all right,
son."
    To tell the truth, Old Jack loves Wheeler as much as he would have loved his own son if he had ever had one-maybe more. Loves him stubbornly and strictly by his own rules, but devotedly and generously nevertheless. He has been seen more than once sitting on the back bench of
a courtroom, grinning and crying shamelessly as a child while Wheeler
makes his closing speech to the jury.

    "Listen to that boy," he says. "He's a shotgun. Lordy lord."
     

The Grass May Grow a Mile
    The room was Virgil's. It was hers and Virgil's. Now it is hers.
    But not hers. And this house is not hers.
    When she and Virgil married they came here to live-a short time,
they thought, until their own house would be built. They had made their
plans.
    And then, soon, Virgil was called into the war. Both her parents were
dead. She stayed on, to wait.
    "They want you to stay here," Virgil told her. `And I do."
    "You're welcome here. You know you are," Margaret and Mat told
her.
    She knew she was. She could not have refused them if she had wanted
to.
    Margaret and Mat made her welcome. They did all that was possible
to make it easy for her to be there. She stayed, feeling that she belonged
because Virgil belonged.
    In the still room, Virgil's and hers, not hers, she lies in bed, looking up
into the dark. She is not sleepy yet. With the bigness of her pregnancy
she is uncomfortable any way she lies. It will be difficult to sleep.
    Below her own window she can see the elongated shape of the livingroom window printed in yellow light on the yard. Mat is still down there.
At this time on most nights they would all still be there in the living room,
still talking. Now, divided in separate rooms, they have made themselves
lonely-to think alone, as now they must.
    Virgil was gone more than a year and a half, and then, in the last summer, he came home for two weeks. He had to leave again. For her, that
short time of his presence was nearly as painful as his absence. It began
nothing, ended nothing-a brief touching, an interruption of his ab sence, in which there seemed little to be said, nothing to be planneda troubled bearing of the nearness of his departure. She loved him; she
would be with him a few days; she would live beyond them, as she would
have to, remembering them. A certain amount of happiness was possible for a little while; she would see to it that he knew nothing but her
happiness. After that she would wait again. It was simple enough. She
would do what she had to do. Wait. She had learned to do that.

    "I'm getting better at it every day," she told Virgil. "I'm a champion
waiter."
    "You're a champion waitress," Virgil said.
    She never wasted a chance to smile. And it seemed to her that there
was a finer reality in her bogus happiness than in her sorrow. It was a gift
to Virgil-what she could give him; she kept him from