The doctor looked closely at him. “I think you’re telling the truth, Samuel. I’ll keep the money.”

Samuel went in to see Will in his fine new store. He hardly knew his son, for Will was getting fat and prosperous and he wore a coat and vest and a gold ring on his little finger.

“I’ve got a package made up for Mother,” Will said. “Some little cans of things from France. Mushrooms and liver paste and sardines so little you can hardly see them.”

“She’ll just send them to Joe,” said Samuel.

“Can’t you make her eat them?”

“No,” said his father. “But she’ll enjoy sending them to Joe.”

Lee came into the store and his eyes lighted up. “How do, Missy,” he said.

“Hello, Lee. How are the boys?”

“Boys fine.”

Samuel said, “I’m going to have a glass of beer next door, Lee. Be glad to have you join me.”

Lee and Samuel sat at the little round table in the barroom and Samuel drew figures on the scrubbed wood with the moisture of his beer glass. “I’ve wanted to go to see you and Adam but I didn’t think I could do any good.”

“Well, you can’t do any harm. I thought he’d get over it. But he still walks around like a ghost.”

“It’s over a year, isn’t it?” Samuel asked.

“Three months over.”

“Well, what do you think I can do?”

“I don’t know,” said Lee. “Maybe you could shock him out of it. Nothing else has worked.”

“I’m not good at shocking. I’d probably end up by shocking myself. By the way, what did he name the twins?”

“They don’t have any names.”

“You’re making a joke, Lee.”

“I am not making jokes.”

“What does he call them?”

“He calls them ‘they.’ ”

“I mean when he speaks to them.”

“When he speaks to them he calls them ‘you,’ one or both.”

“This is nonsense,” Samuel said angrily. “What kind of fool is the man?”

“I’ve meant to come and tell you. He’s a dead man unless you can wake him up.”

Samuel said, “I’ll come. I’ll bring a horse whip. No names! You’re damn right I’ll come Lee.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll kill a chicken,” said Lee. “You’ll like the twins, Mr. Hamilton. They’re fine-looking boys. I won’t tell Mr. Trask you’re coming.”

2

Shyly Samuel told his wife he wanted to visit the Trask place. He thought she would pile up strong walls of objection, and for one of the few times in his life he would disobey her wish no matter how strong her objection. It gave him a sad feeling in the stomach to think of disobeying his wife. He explained his purpose almost as though he were confessing. Liza put her hands on her hips during the telling and his heart sank. When he was finished she continued to look at him, he thought, coldly.

Finally she said, “Samuel, do you think you can move this rock of a man?”

“Why, I don’t know, Mother.” He had not expected this. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think it is such an important matter that those babies have names right now?”

“Well, it seemed so to me,” he said lamely.

“Samuel, do you think why you want to go? Is it your natural incurable nosiness? Is it your black inability to mind your own business?”

“Now, Liza, I know my failings pretty well. I thought it might be more than that.”

“It had better be more than that,” she said. “This man has not admitted that his sons live. He has cut them off mid-air.”

“That’s the way it seems to me, Liza.”

“If he tells you to mind your own business—what then?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

Her jaw snapped shut and her teeth clicked. “If you do not get those boys named, there’ll be no warm place in this house for you. Don’t you dare come whining back, saying he wouldn’t do it or he wouldn’t listen. If you do I’ll have to go myself.”

“I’ll give him the back of my hand,” Samuel said.

“No, that you won’t do. You fall short in savagery, Samuel. I know you. You’ll give him sweet-sounding words and you’ll come dragging back and try to make me forget you ever went.”

“I’ll beat his brains out,” Samuel shouted.

He slammed into the bedroom, and Liza smiled at the panels.

He came out soon in his black suit and his hard shiny shirt and collar. He stooped down to her while she tied his black string tie. His white beard was brushed to shining.

“You’d best take a swab at your shoes with a blacking brush,” she said.

In the midst of painting the blacking on his worn shoes he looked sideways up at her. “Could I take the Bible along?” he asked. “There’s no place for getting a good name like the Bible.”

“I don’t much like it out of the house,” she said uneasily. “And if you’re late coming home, what’ll I have for my reading? And the children’s names are in it.” She saw his face fall. She went into the bedroom and came back with a small Bible, worn and scuffed, its cover held on by brown paper and glue. “Take this one,” she said.