***
It might have been nine in the morning, judging by the milky sun. Old Man Bruin was out on the stoop in his union suit. George reckoned he hadn't lifted a finger since sun-up. He never did.
'Tcha want, boy', the old man spat a jet of tobacco juice at the boy's dusty boots.
'Got any work, jes' fer food. Like always.' George looked down at the man, took in the holes in his socks.
'Kin fetch my boots, they's in the barn, sonny.'
Bruin's barn had no door, no cows and no point as far as George could see. A few broken wisps of straw blew over the hard-packed mud of the floor. The old man's boots were neatly set in the very center of the barn. They'd been polished and the cracked old leather shone like the old man's own head.
‘Put ‘em on me, boy. I’m too old to bend over, even for boots.’
The old man’s boots went on after a short struggle. George had learned to be a little rougher with Bruin’s feet. The joints were swollen and his toes pointed pretty much every which way. And the smell wasn’t too sweet either, come to that.
‘Firewood?’
Another jet of tobacco juice hit the ground, turning a dollar sized patch from dust to mud.
‘It’d be a start.’
The boy chopped logs for an hour, until he ran out of wood.
Bruin liked to grow pumpkins on a patch in back of the barn. He told George to fetch a shovel from the tool shed and extend the patch by half as much again. He was going to have to dig a quarter acre over. Then dig in the mule's manure that the old man had been hoarding for months.
Every so often the boy would spy a bent nail in the soil. If it wasn't too rusty he'd put it in his pocket. Nails were a penny a dozen in the general store in town. He'd straighten them out at home. He could get a penny for 50 from Parminter at the store. It was pointless, he knew, but maybe one day he'd have enough for a quarter. Deep down, George knew he'd never take the nails to the store, probably just use them around the dismal shack.