Dear Life

look.
    Belle set the pail and stool down and started tramping through the morning-wet grass.
    “So-boss. So-boss.”
    She was half coaxing, half scolding.
    Something moved in the trees. A man’s voice called out that it was all right.
    Well of course it was all right. Did he think she was afraid of him? Better for him to be afraid of the cow with the horns still on.
    Climbing over the rail fence, he waved in what he might have considered a reassuring way.
    That was too much for Margaret Rose, she had to put on a display. Jump one way, then the other. Toss of the wicked little horns. Nothing much, but Jerseys can always surprise you in an unpleasant way, with their speed and spurts of temper. Belle called out, to scold her and to reassure him.
    “She won’t hurt you. Just don’t move. It’s her nerves.”
    Now she noticed the bag he had hold of. That was what had caused the trouble. She had thought he was just out walking the tracks, but he was going somewhere.
    “She’s upset with your bag. If you could just lay it down for a moment. I have to get her back towards the barn to milk her.”
    He did as she asked, and then stood watching, not wanting to move an inch.
    She got Margaret Rose headed back to where the pail was, and the stool, on this side of the barn.
    “You can pick it up now,” she called. And spoke companionably as he got nearer. “As long as you don’t wave it aroundat her. You’re a soldier, aren’t you? If you wait till I get her milked I can get you some breakfast. That’s a stupid name when you have to holler at her. Margaret Rose.”
    She was a short sturdy woman with straight hair, gray mixed in with what was fair, and childish bangs.
    “I’m the one responsible for it,” she said, as she got herself settled. “I’m a royalist. Or I used to be. I have porridge made, on the back of the stove. It won’t take me long to milk. If you wouldn’t mind going round the barn and waiting where she can’t see you. It’s too bad I can’t offer you an egg. We used to keep hens but the foxes kept getting them and we just got fed up.”
    We. We used to keep hens. That meant she had a man around somewhere.
    “Porridge is good. I’ll be glad to pay you.”
    “No need. Just get out of the way for a bit. She’s got herself too interested to let her milk down.”
    He took himself off, around the barn. It was in bad shape. He peered between the boards to see what kind of a car she had, but all he could make out in there was an old buggy and some other wrecks of machinery.
    The place showed some sort of tidiness, but not exactly industry. On the house, white paint all peeling and going gray. A window with boards nailed across it, where there must have been broken glass. The dilapidated henhouse where she had mentioned the foxes getting the hens. Shingles in a pile.
    If there was a man on the place he must have been an invalid, or else paralyzed with laziness.
    There was a road running by. A small fenced field in front of the house, a dirt road. And in the field a dappledpeaceable-looking horse. A cow he could see reasons for keeping, but a horse? Even before the war people on farms were getting rid of them, tractors were the coming thing. And she hadn’t looked like the sort to trot round on horseback just for the fun of it.
    Then it struck him. The buggy in the barn. It was no relic, it was all she had.
    For a while now he’d been hearing a peculiar sound. The road rose up a hill, and from over that hill came a clip-clop, clip-clop. Along with the clip-clop some little tinkle or whistling.
    Now then. Over the hill came a box on wheels, being pulled by two quite small horses. Smaller than the one in the field but no end livelier. And in the box sat a half dozen or so little men. All dressed in black, with proper black hats on their heads.
    The sound was coming from them. It was singing. Discreet high-pitched little voices, as sweet as could be. They never looked at him as they went by.
    That chilled him. The buggy in the barn and the horse in the field were nothing in comparison.
    He was still standing there looking one way and another when he heard her call, “All finished.” She was standing by the house.
    “This is where to go in and out,” she said of the back door. “The front is stuck since last winter, it just refuses to open, you’d think it was still frozen.”
    They walked on planks laid over an uneven dirt floor, in a darkness provided by the boarded-up window. It was as