t; Mac seldom cared for just
visiting. She talked to the Blaines, the Purveses, to the Gordon
children whose parents had let them remain at the wreck site even
after they had gone home for chores, to the Barfords and Hocholters
and many others. They asked about Mac and she offered her usual
excuses for him.

While she was there she saw an army car driven up. She watched while
some men got out and went through the roped-off area and pounded and
scraped on the cylinder and then stood off looking at the tail of it,
scratching their heads.

* * * * *

When she went home she was surprised to see how far the sun had moved
across the sky and hoped Mac wouldn't be upset by her prolonged
absence. She was gratified to see that he wasn't in the house. She
petted Dobie for a while before she went in to stir up the stove and
prepare supper.

During the meal Alice tried to tell her husband something of what she
had seen at the wreck site but if he paid any attention to her he
didn't reveal it. He had propped up a farm equipment catalogue against
the sugar bowl and studied the pages without saying a word. She
resigned herself to eating in silence with this great hulk of a man
before her and reflected that this night was no different from most of
the others. She wondered what it was that made him the way he was, so
intent on his farm to the exclusion of everything else, including
humanity. It was a fetish, an obsession that didn't pay off because
she couldn't see that they were better off than the Swearingens or the
Abbeys or any of the others in the neighborhood.

When he was through he simply got up, put on his overcoat and went
outside. In a few minutes she could hear the car start and knew it
would be another lonely evening. Mac would be home when he felt like
it, reeking of liquor but handling it well. She did not begrudge him
these absences because the man obviously needed something to take his
mind off his work. But she wished she had some comparable escape.

She had got out her writing board, had settled herself comfortably
with pen in hand in Mac's big chair and had even put the date on the
letter to her mother who lived in Canada when she heard Dobie's
excited bark.

She picked up a shawl on the way to the kitchen, turned on the big
light on the windmill and looked out the window. Dobie was in the
middle of the yard barking at something she couldn't see. She went
out.

"Dobie," she c