No Promises in the Wind by Irene Hunt Read Free Book Online Page B

two won’t send us downhill much faster than we’re goin’ now. It’s just that Josie wants to feed every hungry man who comes to the door. That’s got to stop—but like she says, we can share with two boys.”
    And so we went with them up the road to their place, which wasn’t a lot better than the one we had left except there was a little furniture in the house. There was a shabby old rug on the living room floor, a few chairs, and a rickety-looking table holding a pile of newspapers and a few faded photographs. There was a little framed card on the wall with birds and flowers on it and the name of some Nebraska town in gold letters; there was also a picture of the presidential candidate Franklin Roosevelt, which had been cut from a newspaper and pinned under an old-fashioned clock.
    The woman went immediately to the kitchen where she began fixing something for dinner. Joey and I sat in the living room and listened to the man as he talked on and on of the hard times that were with us and the harder times we might expect later on.
    He jerked his finger toward the newspaper picture on the wall. “Now that fellow—Josie puts some stock in what he says. Not me. Maybe he’s got some new ideas—more than likely it’s just hot air. Things have gone too far. I don’t think him nor anybody else can do anything now. We’re beat! We’d just as well give up and—”
    â€œBen,” the woman called from the kitchen, “they’re just boys. Can’t you talk of something a little more cheerful? We don’t help ourselves with all this carryin’ on.”
    If he heard her, he paid no attention. “Last hog I took to market was a big one,” he continued as if the woman hadn’t spoken. “Upwards of two-fifty it weighed. You know what I got for it? After shipping and yard expenses, exactly ninety-eight cents. That’s what I got for it. Ninety-eight cents. And I had to take it—I had to take what I could get because I hadn’t any feed for it. I’d ha’ had a dead critter on my hands so I took the ninety-eight cents.” He had been handling a folded newspaper nervously as he talked, and now he threw it on the table with a gesture of disgust. “This is the kind of country you boys are in—a flat broke country that’s growin’ flatter broke. Banks have already foreclosed on half the farms in this county. Mine’ll go in matter of months—everything we’ve worked for will be up on the auction block.”
    Joey and I didn’t say anything. We didn’t know what to say. This angry, hopeless talk was so much like Dad’s that it made me feel restless and uneasy. I don’t think, though, that the man expected us to say anything; he didn’t even care whether we were listening or not. He just had to talk.
    He was starting in again about more troubles of the times when the woman came and stood at the door. “Ben, I want you to hush now, and get washed up for dinner,” she said quietly. “You boys can make good use of a pan of water, too. Now, come on, all of you, and get ready for a bite to eat.”
    It was a good dinner. There were plenty of biscuits, and the woman kept asking us to eat more. She managed the conversation all during the meal, and I could see that she was determined to keep her husband off the subject of his hardships.
    When we had finished eating, she pointed to Howie’s banjo lying on our jackets, and asked if I could play it. I had been dreading the first time that I would have to hear those strings again, but I knew that reality had to be faced. I didn’t have Howie’s skill on the banjo by a long way, but I twanged a few chords and asked Joey to sing. It was a hard moment for both of us, but it pleased the couple who sat listening. I noticed that as the man watched Joey sing, his face grew quieter and less angry-looking. After a while he laid