Kent Haruf - Plainsong

In December the girl appeared in the doorway of Maggie Jones’s classroom during the teacher’s planning hour. Maggie was sitting at her desk, marking student papers with a red ink pen.

Mrs. Jones? the girl said.

The teacher looked up. Victoria. Come in.

The girl entered the room and stopped beside the desk. Nobody else was in the room. The girl was heavier now, beginning to show, and her face looked wider, fuller. Her blouse had drawn more tightly over her stomach, making the material appear polished and shiny. Maggie set the papers aside. Come around here, she said. Let me look at you. Well, my yes. You’re getting there, aren’t you. Turn around, let me see you from the side.

The girl did so.

Are you feeling all right?

It’s been moving lately. I’ve been feeling it.

Have you? She smiled at the girl. You seem to be eating enough. Is there something you wanted? You don’t have a class now?

I told Mr. Guthrie I had to be excused to the rest room.

Is something wrong?

The girl glanced around the room and looked back. She stood beside the desk and picked up a paperweight, then put it back. Mrs. Jones, she said, they don’t talk.

Who doesn’t?

They don’t say more than two words at a time. It’s not just to me. I don’t think they even talk to each other.

Oh, Maggie said. The McPheron brothers, you mean them.

It’s so quiet out there, the girl said. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. We eat supper. They read the paper. I go into my room and study. And that’s about it. Every day it’s like that.

Is everything else all right?

Oh, they’re kind to me. If that’s what you mean. They’re nice enough.

But they don’t talk, Maggie said.

I don’t know if they even want me out there, the girl said. I can’t tell what they’re thinking.

Have you tried talking to them? You know you could start a conversation yourself.

The girl looked at the older woman with exasperation. Mrs. Jones, she said, I don’t know anything about cows.

Maggie laughed. She laid the red pen down on the stack of student papers and leaned back in her chair, stretching her shoulders. Do you want me to talk to them for you?

I know they mean well, the girl said. I don’t think they mean any harm.

Two days later that week, in the afternoon, after school was let out for the day, Maggie Jones discovered Harold McPheron standing in front of the refrigerated meat case at the rear of the Highway 34 Grocery Store on the east side of Holt. He was clenching a package of pork roast to his nose. She walked up beside him.

This look recent to you? he said. He held the meat out toward her.

It looks bloody, she said.

I can’t tell if it smells good. They got it wrapped up in all this goddamn plastic. You couldn’t tell the working end of a skunk with this stuff on it.

I didn’t know you ate skunks.

That’s what I’m talking about. I can’t tell what I’m eating with this goddamn plastic wrapped around it. It ain’t like our own beef from the meat locker — when we get it I know what I’m getting. He shoved the pork roast back into the meat case and picked up another package. He held it close to his face, sniffing at it, grimacing, his eyes squinted. He turned it over and peered suspiciously at the underside.

Maggie watched him, amused. I was hoping I’d run into you, she said. But I guess it’ll have to wait. I wouldn’t want to interrupt your shopping.

Harold looked at her. What for? What’d I do now?

Not enough, she said. Neither one of you has.

He lowered the meat package and turned to face her. He was dressed in his work clothes, worn jeans and his canvas chore jacket, and on his head, canted toward one ear, was an old dirty white hat.

What are you talking about? he said.

You and your brother want to keep that girl out there with you, don’t you?

Why yeah, he said. What’s the trouble? He looked surprised.

Because you think it’s kind of nice having a girl in the house, don’t you? You’ve gotten kind of used to having her out there with you?

Where’d we go wrong? he said.

You’re not talking to her, Maggie Jones said. You and Raymond don’t talk like you should to that girl. Women want to hear some conversation in the evening. We don’t think that’s too much to ask. We’re willing to put up with a lot from you men, but in the evening we want to hear some talking. We want to have a little conversation in the house.

What kind? Harold said.

Any kind. Just so you mean it.

Well damn it, Maggie, Harold said. You know I don’t know how to talk to women. You knew that before you ever brought her out there. And Raymond, he don’t know a thing about it either. Neither one of us does. In particular a young girl like her.

That’s why I’m telling you, Maggie said. Because you better learn.

But damn it, what would we talk to her about?

I expect you’ll think of something.

She said no more. Instead she walked away into one of the aisles of the grocery store, pushing her shopping cart ahead of her, her long dark skirt swirling briskly about her legs. Gazing after her, Harold followed her progress with considerable interest, watching from under the dirty brim of his hat. In his eyes there was the look of mystification and alarm.

When he returned to the house it was just before dark. Raymond was still outside. He located him out back of the horse barn and pulled him inside into one of the plank-sided stalls as if there were a need for privacy. With some excitement in his voice he reported to Raymond what Maggie Jones had said to him in the Highway 34 Grocery Store while he stood before the meat case considering pork roast for their supper.

Raymond received the news in silence. Afterward he looked up and studied his brother’s face for a moment. That’s what she said?

Yes. That’s what she said.

That’s all of it? The sum and total?

All I can remember.

Then we got to do something.

That’s what I think too, Harold said.

I’m talking about we got to do something today, Raymond said. Not next week.

That’s what I’m telling you, Harold said. I’m trying to agree with you.

The McPheron brothers made their attempt that same evening. They had decided it was safe to wait until after supper, but believed they could wait no longer. After supper they sallied forth together.

They and the girl had just finished eating a meal of fried meat and red onions, boiled potatoes, coffee, green beans, sliced bread and equally divided portions of canned peaches, bright yellow in their own syrup. It had been the customary nearly silent evening meal, eaten almost formally out in the dining room, and afterward the girl had cleared the square walnut table of their dishes and had taken the dishes to the kitchen and washed them and put them away, and then she was started back to her bedroom when Harold said:

Victoria. He had to clear his throat. He started again. Victoria. Raymond and me was wanting to ask you a question, if you don’t mind. If we could. Before you started back to your studies there.

Yes? she said. What did you want to ask?

We just was wondering. . what you thought of the market?

The girl looked at him. What? she said.

On the radio, he said. The man said today how soybeans was down a point. But that live cattle was holding steady.

And we wondered, Raymond said, what you thought of it. Buy or sell, would you say.

Oh, the girl said. She looked at their faces. The brothers were watching her closely, a little desperately, sitting at the table, their faces sober and weathered but still kindly, still well meaning, with their smooth white foreheads shining like polished marble under the dining room light. I wouldn’t know, she said. I couldn’t say about that. I don’t know anything about it. Maybe you could explain it to me.