"Mrs. Brabbam?" asked Cora of her scouring cloth.
"That's who it is!" And there stood the Widow Lady, her gingham dress dragging the warm dust, her letters in her chickeny hand. "Morning! I just been to my mailbox. Got me a real beauty of a letter from my uncle George in Springfield." Mrs. Brabbam fixed Cora with a gaze like a silver needle. "How long since you got a letter from your uncle, missus?"
"My uncles are all dead." It was not Cora herself, but her tongue, that lied. When the time came, she knew, it would be her tongue alone that must take communion and confess earthly sinning.
"It's certainly nice, getting mail." Mrs. Brabbam waved her letters in a straight flush on the morning air.
Always twisting the knife in the flesh. How many years, thought Cora, had this run on, Mrs. Brabbam and her smily eyes, talking loud of how she got mail; implying that nobody else for miles around could read? Cora bit her lip and almost threw the pot, but set it down, laughing. "I forgot to tell you. My nephew Benjy's coming; his folks are poorly, and he's here for the summer today. He'll teach me to write. And Tom's building us a postal box, aren't you, Tom?"
Mrs. Brabbam clutched her letters. "Well, isn't that fine! You lucky lady." And suddenly the door was empty. Mrs. Brabbam was gone.
But Cora was after her. For in that instant she had seen something like a scarecrow, something like a flicker of pure sunlight, something like a brook trout jumping upstream, leap a fence in the yard below. She saw a huge hand wave and birds flush in terror from a crab-apple tree.
Cora was rushing, the world rushing back of her, down the path. "Benjy!"
They ran at each other like partners in a Saturday dance, linked arms, collided, and waltzed, jabbering. "Benjy!"
She glanced swiftly behind his ear.
Yes, there was the yellow pencil.
"Benjy, welcome!"
"Why, ma'am!" He held her off at arm's length. "Why, ma'am, you're crying."
"Here's my nephew," said Cora.
Tom scowled up from spooning his corn-meal mush.
"Mighty glad," smiled Benjy.
Cora held his arm tight so he couldn't vanish. She felt faint, wanting to sit, stand, run, but she only beat her heart fast and laughed at strange times. Now, in an instant, the far countries were brought near; here was this tall boy, fighting up the room like a pine torch, this boy who had seen cities and seas and been places when things had been better for his parents.
"Benjy, I got peas, corn, bacon, mush, soup, and beans for breakfast."
"Hold on!" said Tom.
"Hush, Tom, the boy's down to the bone with walking." She turned to the boy. "Benjy, tell me all about yourself. You did go to school?"
Benjy kicked off his shoes. With one bare foot he traced a word in the hearth ashes.
Tom scowled. "What's it say?"
"It says," said Benjy, "C and O and R and A. Cora."
"My name, Tom, see it! Oh, Benjy, it's good you really write, child. We had one cousin here, long ago, claimed he could spell upside down and backwards. So we fattened him up and he wrote letters but we never got answers. Come to find out he knew just enough spelling to mail letters to the dead-letter office. Lord, Tom knocked two months' worth of vittles out of that boy, batting him up the road with a piece of fence."
They laughed anxiously.
"I write fine," said the serious boy.
"That's all we want to know." She shoved a cut of berry pie at him. "Eat."
By ten-thirty, with the sun riding higher, after watching Benjy devour heaped platters of food, Tom thundered from the cabin; jamming
his cap on. "I'm going out, by God, and cut down half the forest!" he said angrily.
But no one heard. Cora was seated in a breathless spell. She was watching the pencil behind Benjy's peach-fuzz ear. She saw him, finger it casually, lazily, indifferently. Oh, not so casual, Benjy, she thought. Handle it like a spring robin's egg. She wanted to touch the pencil, but hadn't touched one in years because it made her feel foolish and then angry and then sad. Her hand twitched in her lap.