Suddenly Adam turned in front of him so that Samuel had to stop. “I know what you’ve done for me,” Adam said. “I can’t return anything. But I can ask you for one more thing. If I asked you, would you do me one more kindness, and maybe save my life?”

“I would if I could.”

Adam swung out his hand and made an arc over the west. “That land out there—would you help me to make the garden we talked of, the windmills and the wells and the flats of alfalfa? We could raise flower-seeds. There’s money in that. Think what it would be like, acres of sweet peas and gold squares of calendulas. Maybe ten acres of roses for the gardens of the West. Think how they would smell on the west wind!”

“You’re going to make me cry,” Samuel said, “and that would be an unseemly thing in an old man.” And indeed his eyes were wet. “I thank you, Adam,” he said. “The sweetness of your offer is a good smell on the west wind.”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“No, I will not do it. But I’ll see it in my mind when I’m in Salinas, listening to William Jennings Bryan. And maybe I’ll get to believe it happened.”

“But I want to do it.”

“Go and see my Tom. He’ll help you. He’d plant the world with roses, poor man, if he could.”

“You know what you’re doing, Samuel?”

“Yes, I know what I’m doing, know so well that it’s half done.”

“What a stubborn man you are!”

“Contentious,” said Samuel. “Liza says I am contentious, but now I’m caught in a web of my children—and I think I like it.”

2

The dinner table was set in the house. Lee said, “I’d have liked to serve it under the tree like the other times, but the air is chilly.”

“So it is, Lee,” said Samuel.

The twins came in silently and stood shyly staring at their guest.

“It’s a long time since I’ve seen you, boys. But we named you well. You’re Caleb, aren’t you?”

“I’m Cal.”

“Well, Cal then.” And he turned to the other. “Have you found a way to rip the backbone out of your name?”

“Sir?”

“Are you called Aaron?”

“Yes, sir.”

Lee chuckled. “He spells it with one a. The two a’s seem a little fancy to his friends.”

“I’ve got thirty-five Belgian hares, sir,” Aron said. “Would you like to see them, sir? The hutch is up by the spring. I’ve got eight newborns—just born yesterday.”

“I’d like to see them, Aron.” His mouth twitched. “Cal, don’t tell me you’re a gardener?”

Lee’s head snapped around and he inspected Samuel. “Don’t do that,” Lee said nervously.

Cal said, “Next year my father is going to let me have an acre in the flat.”

Aron said, “I’ve got a buck rabbit weighs fifteen pounds. I’m going to give it to my father for his birthday.”

They heard Adam’s bedroom door opening. “Don’t tell him,” Aron said quickly. “It’s a secret.”

Lee sawed at the pot roast. “Always you bring trouble for my mind, Mr. Hamilton,” he said. “Sit down, boys.”

Adam came in, turning down his sleeves, and took his seat at the head of the table. “Good evening, boys,” he said, and they replied in unison, “Good evening, Father.”

And, “Don’t you tell,” said Aron.

“I won’t,” Samuel assured him. “Don’t tell what?” Adam asked. Samuel said, “Can’t there be a privacy? I have a secret with your son.”

Cal broke in, “I’ll tell you a secret too, right after dinner.”

“I’ll like to hear it,” said Samuel. “And I do hope I don’t know already what it is.”

Lee looked up from his carving and glared at Samuel. He began piling meat on the plates.

The boys ate quickly and quietly, wolfed their food. Aron said, “Will you excuse us, Father?”

Adam nodded, and the two boys went quickly out. Samuel looked after them. “They seem older than eleven,” he said. “I seem to remember that at eleven my brood were howlers and screamers and runners in circles. These seem like grown men.”

“Do they?” Adam asked.

Lee said, “I think I see why that is. There is no woman in the house to put a value on babies. I don’t think men care much for babies, and so it was never an advantage to these boys to be babies. There was nothing to gain by it. I don’t know whether that is good or bad.”

Samuel wiped up the remains of gravy in his plate with a slice of bread. “Adam, I wonder whether you know what you have in Lee. A philosopher who can cook, or a cook who can think? He has taught me a great deal. You must have learned from him, Adam.”

Adam said, “I’m afraid I didn’t listen enough—or maybe he didn’t talk.”

“Why didn’t you want the boys to learn Chinese, Adam?”

Adam thought for a moment. “It seems a time for honesty,” he said at last. “I guess it was plain jealousy. I gave it another name, but maybe I didn’t want them to be able so easily to go away from me in a direction I couldn’t follow.”

“That’s reasonable, enough and almost too human,” said Samuel. “But knowing it—that’s a great jump. I wonder whether I have ever gone so far.”