After he had waited for a week, he began going to town every
day to the post office for the letter he expected, and coming
home much worse for a visit to Casey's. Since plowing time he had
asked Dannie for money as he wanted it, telling him to keep an
account, and he would pay him in the fall. He seemed to forget or
not to know how fast his bills grew.
Then came a week in August when the heat invaded even the cool
retreat along the river. Out on the highway passing wheels rolled
back the dust like water, and raised it in clouds after them. The
rag weeds hung wilted heads along the road. The goldenrod and
purple ironwort were dust-colored and dust-choked. The trees were
thirsty, and their leaves shriveling. The river bed was bare its
width in places, and while the Kingfisher made merry with his
family, and rattled, feasting from Abram Johnson's to the
Gar-hole, the Black Bass sought its deep pool, and lay still. It
was a rare thing to hear it splash in those days.
The prickly heat burned until the souls of men were tried. Mary
slipped listlessly about or lay much of the time on a couch
beside a window, where a breath of air stirred. Despite the good
beginning he had made in the spring, Jimmy slumped with the heat
and exposures he had risked, and was hard to live with.
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