Plainsong (Plainsong #1)(45)

When he returned to the house it was just before dark. Raymond was still outside. He located him out back of the horse barn and pulled him inside into one of the plank-sided stalls as if there were a need for privacy. With some excitement in his voice he reported to Raymond what Maggie Jones had said to him in the Highway 34 Grocery Store while he stood before the meat case considering pork roast for their supper.

Raymond received the news in silence. Afterward he looked up and studied his brother’s face for a moment. That’s what she said?

Yes. That’s what she said.

That’s all of it? The sum and total?

All I can remember.

Then we got to do something.

That’s what I think too, Harold said.

I’m talking about we got to do something today, Raymond said. Not next week.

That’s what I’m telling you, Harold said. I’m trying to agree with you.

The McPheron brothers made their attempt that same evening. They had decided it was safe to wait until after supper, but believed they could wait no longer. After supper they sallied forth together.

They and the girl had just finished eating a meal of fried meat and red onions, boiled potatoes, coffee, green beans, sliced bread and equally divided portions of canned peaches, bright yellow in their own syrup. It had been the customary nearly silent evening meal, eaten almost formally out in the dining room, and afterward the girl had cleared the square walnut table of their dishes and had taken the dishes to the kitchen and washed them and put them away, and then she was started back to her bedroom when Harold said: Victoria. He had to clear his throat. He started again. Victoria. Raymond and me was wanting to ask you a question, if you don’t mind. If we could. Before you started back to your studies there.

Yes? she said. What did you want to ask?

We just was wondering . . . what you thought of the market?

The girl looked at him. What? she said.

On the radio, he said. The man said today how soybeans was down a point. But that live cattle was holding steady.

And we wondered, Raymond said, what you thought of it. Buy or sell, would you say.

Oh, the girl said. She looked at their faces. The brothers were watching her closely, a little desperately, sitting at the table, their faces sober and weathered but still kindly, still well meaning, with their smooth white foreheads shining like polished marble under the dining room light. I wouldn’t know, she said. I couldn’t say about that. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe you could explain it to me.

Well sure, Harold said. I reckon we could try. Because the market . . . But maybe you’d like to sit down again first. At the table here.

Raymond rose at once and pulled out her chair. She seated herself slowly and he pushed the chair in for her and she thanked him and he went back to the other side of the table and took his place. For a moment the girl sat rubbing her stomach where it felt tight, then she noticed they were watching her with close interest, and she put her hands forth on the table. She looked across at them. I’m listening, she said. Do you want to go ahead?

Why sure, of course, Harold said. As I was saying. He began in a loud voice. Now the market is what soybeans and corn and live cattle and June wheat and feeder pigs and bean meal is all bringing in today for a price. He reads it out every day at noon, the man on the radio. Six-dollar soybeans. Corn two-forty. Fifty-eight-cent hogs. Cash value, sold today.

The girl sat watching him talk, following his lecture.

People listen to it, he said, and know what the prices are. They manage to keep current that a-way. Know what’s going on.

Not to mention pork bellies, Raymond said.

Harold opened his mouth to say something more, but now he stopped. He and the girl turned to look at Raymond.

How’s that? Harold said. Say again.

Pork bellies, Raymond said. That’s another one of em. You never mentioned it. You never told her about them.

Well yeah, of course, Harold said. Them too. I was just getting started.

You can buy them too, Raymond said to the girl. If you had a mind to. He was looking at her solemnly from across the table. Or sell em too, if you had some.

What are they? the girl said.

Well that’s your bacon, Raymond said.

Oh, she said.

Your fat meat under the ribs there, he said.

That’s right, Harold said. They’re touted on the market too. So anyway, he said, looking at the girl. Now do you see?

She looked from one old man to the other. They were waiting, watching for some reaction, as if they’d been laying out the intricacies of some last will and testament or perhaps the necessary precautions to take against the onset of fatal disease and the contagion of plague. I don’t think so, she said. I don’t understand how he knows what the prices are.

The man on the radio? Harold said.

Yes.

They call them up out of the big salebarns. He gets the market reports from Chicago or Kansas City. Or Denver maybe.

Then how do you sell something? she said.

All right, Raymond said, taking his turn. He leaned forward toward her to explain these matters. Take for instance you want to sell you some wheat, he said. Take, you already got it there in the elevator in Holt next to the railroad tracks where you carried it back in July at harvest time. Now you want to sell some of it off. So you call up the elevator and tell him to sell off five thousand bushel, say. So he sells it at today’s prices and then the big grain trucks, those tractors and trailers you see out on the highway, they haul it away.