“So are you. But we still get up before daylight.”

“You don’t have to get up,” Charles repeated. “But if you’re going to farm, you’d better farm.”

Adam said ruefully, “So we’re going to buy more land so we can do more work.”

“Come off it,” said Charles. “Go back to bed if you want to.”

Adam said, “I bet you couldn’t sleep if you stayed in bed. You know what I bet? I bet you get up because you want to, and then you take credit for it—like taking credit for six fingers.”

Charles went into the kitchen and lighted the lamp. “You can’t lay in bed and run a farm,” he said, and he knocked the ashes through the grate of the stove and tore some paper over the exposed coals and blew until the flames started.

Adam was watching him through the door. “You wouldn’t use a match,” he said.

Charles turned angrily. “You mind your own goddam business. Stop picking at me.”

“All right,” said Adam. “I will. And maybe my business isn’t here.”

“That’s up to you. Any time you want to get out, you go right ahead.”

The quarrel was silly but Adam couldn’t stop it. His voice went on without his willing it, making angry and irritating words. “You’re damn right I’ll go when I want,” he said. “This is my place as much as yours.”

“Then why don’t you do some work on it?”

“Oh, Lord!” Adam said. “What are we fussing about? Let’s not fuss.”

“I don’t want trouble,” said Charles. He scooped lukewarm mush into two bowls and spun them on the table.

The brothers sat down. Charles buttered a slice of bread, gouged out a knifeful of jam, and spread it over the butter. He dug butter for his second slice and left a slop of jam on the butter roll.

“Goddam it, can’t you wipe your knife? Look at that butter!”

Charles laid his knife and the bread on the table and placed his hands palm down on either side. “You better get off the place,” he said.

Adam got up. “I’d rather live in a pigsty,” he said, and he walked out of the house.

2

It was eight months before Charles saw him again. Charles came in from work and found Adam sloshing water on his hair and face from the kitchen bucket.

“Hello,” said Charles. “How are you?”

“Fine,” said Adam.

“Where’d you go?”

“Boston.”

“No place else?”

“No. Just looked at the city.”

The brothers settled back to their old life, but each took precautions against anger. In a way each protected the other and so saved himself. Charles, always the early riser, got breakfast ready before he awakened Adam. And Adam kept the house clean and started a set of books on the farm. In this guarded way they lived for two years before their irritation grew beyond control again.

On a winter evening Adam looked up from his account book. “It’s nice in California,” he said. “It’s nice in the winter. And you can raise anything there.”

“Sure you can raise it. But when you got it, what are you going to do with it?”

“How about wheat? They raise a lot of wheat in California.”

“The rust will get to it,” said Charles.

“What makes you so sure? Look, Charles, things grow so fast in California they say you have to plant and step back quick or you’ll get knocked down.”

Charles said, “Why the hell don’t you go there? I’ll buy you out any time you say.”

Adam was quiet then, but in the morning while he combed his hair and peered in the small mirror he began it again.

“They don’t have any winter in California,” he said. “It’s just like spring all the time.”

“I like the winter,” said Charles.

Adam came toward the stove. “Don’t be cross,” he said.

“Well, stop picking at me. How many eggs?”

“Four,” said Adam.

Charles placed seven eggs on top of the warming oven and built his fire carefully of small pieces of kindling until it burned fiercely. He put the skillet down next to the flame. His sullenness left him as he fried the bacon.

“Adam,” he said, “I don’t know whether you notice it, but it seems like every other word you say is California. Do you really want to go?”

Adam chuckled. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he said. “I don’t know. It’s like getting up in the morning. I don’t want to get up but I don’t want to stay in bed either.”

“You sure make a fuss about it.” said Charles.

Adam went on, “Every morning in the army that damned bugle would sound. And I swore to God if I ever got out I would sleep till noon every day. And here I get up a half-hour before reveille. Will you tell me, Charles, what in hell we’re working for?”

“You can’t lay in bed and run a farm,” said Charles. He stirred the hissing bacon around with a fork.

“Take a look at it,” Adam said earnestly. “Neither one of us has got a chick or a child, let alone a wife. And the way we’re going it don’t look like we ever will. We don’t have time to look around for a wife. And here we’re figuring to add the Clark place to ours if the price is right. What for?”

“It’s a damn fine piece,” said Charles. “The two of them together would make one of the best farms in this section. Say! You thinking of getting married?”