The Collected Stories of William Humphrey Read Online Free

did have to sell his house—at least he had a good house to sell when the time came, with good things in it, well cared for. He never realized he owned so many fine things. There was nothing he need feel ashamed to have strangers see and handle and own. It was a feeling you couldn’t get seeing the place day by day that came over him now. His mark was set on this spot; the work he had done was here for everybody to see. There were not a lot of things lying around half-finished. The man who bought this land would be lucky and would thank him for working it into such fine shape. A good neighbor for fifty years, he had never had any trouble with anybody, always minded his own business. People would miss him. They would point it out and say, “That’s the old Hardy place,” no matter how long the next man owned it.
    Actually he had done twice as well as most men; it wasn’t bragging of him to say it. For he had raised not one but two families here and raised them the best he knew how. He had done well by his first wife and what things he hadn’t been able to give her before she died, he’d seen to it that his second wife got.
    Without Clara, thought Mr. Hardy, he never could have done it.
    Mr. Hardy collected the stray bits of tobacco in one cheek and squeezed them dry. He shot the wad into the ashes and ran his tongue around his mouth.
    â€œYou know,” he began and paused, waiting for Clara to reach a stopping place in her thoughts. She had fallen into a way of not answering when he spoke. Her mind was so far away, forever thinking over some old party or the time she had the twins or some such thing. She didn’t like to be interrupted in her thoughts and he could appreciate that himself. In a minute she would answer in a tone of voice that let him know she heard him the first time.
    Mrs. Hardy stopped washing a teacup and dangled her hands in the dishwater, waiting for him to call her by name. Why couldn’t he at least begin what little he had to say with, “Clara this, or Clara that,” at least show he knew it was her he was speaking to, that he had something he really wanted her to hear, that it made some difference to him who listened. She stood remembering the early days when time and again he had called her Virgie. Oh, she couldn’t count the times he had done that, and each time was like a slap in the face.
    â€œYou know,” he tried once again, and she wondered if the fear of making that same mistake over and over had brought him to call her by no name at all.
    Today must have taken him right back. Reminded in a thousand ways of Virgie who had died young, his own years had peeled in layers off his mind. He could see the two of them young and happy together, only to look up and find her there, stooped and worn with years of work and sickness, no teeth of her own, a thing that could never have been young. “Look at yourself!” she felt like telling him. “Do you think a young girl would look twice at you now?”
    From the corner of her eye she watched him inspect the things she was putting aside. Was he afraid some of it was Virgie’s? Wasn’t it little enough for fifty years? You have yours; leave me to my own.
    Mr. Hardy yawned loudly. He stretched and the effort sounded down his body like the snapping of many strings. Clara was tired and he decided to leave her be, when she turned and asked, “What were you going to say?”
    He couldn’t recall. “Nothing,” he said. “It wasn’t important.” He smiled to show that she wasn’t to worry herself, that she hadn’t missed anything.
    No, she supposed it wasn’t. When had he ever had anything to tell her that he thought was important? She stood waiting.
    â€œIt takes you back, a day like this,” he said, “makes you think. Brings back things you hadn’t thought of for years. For instance—”
    He looked up and there was Clara, her