Tom jumped high in the air and waved his hat. “Hey George! Hey Benbow! It’s quitting time!” He waved to his Uncle George, several hundred yards away at the far end of the large field they prepared for next summer’s corn crop, and halted his mule team. He walked around to the front of his two mules and rubbed their snouts, praising them. “You’re both so strong, such good workers,” he said, turned and looked toward George again.
George frowned at Tom and waved. “Is it quittin’ time?” he shouted.
Why are yuh makin’ all that ruckus?” He reigned his mules, they stopped, and he took off his straw hat, slapped it against his leg, and wiped his face with his red checker bordered neck scarf. He looked up again at Tom. Tom’s face, neck and shoulders glistened from the heat of the afternoon sun. He raised his voice, shouting, “Sure as heck it’s hot, ain’t it?” He bent over and coughed hard.
“That youngun’s gonna be burned, goin’ without a shirt on.” George rubbed the sleeves and shoulders of his long johns and felt his hard muscles beneath the cotton weave. He was moist every on his body. He stared at Tom’s tanned face, shoulders and arms. George was troubled that Tom was too exposed to the hot Kansas sun.
The fierce afternoon winds that rolled across the western parts, this time of year, died down slowly. Some disappeared while others grew up to large sizes, showed off fast movements and vanished. Small dervishes whirled in different places on the parched fields, loaded with clods of hard, rock like, loam. Dust blew everywhere.
Tom watched the small tornadoes, as he called them, and wiped his face then ran his wrist over his tongue, to suck the salt off his arm. Really dry. My mouth is really dry, he thought. The salt tastes good.
Several images raced through Tom’s mind. That George, even though he’s only a year older than me.... Let’s see, I’m eighteen, then he’s nineteen.... He’s losing his hearing. Can’t believe it. Wonder why? He didn’t even react to Maw’s ringing the triangle. He’s Maw’s youngest brother: my uncle, my best friend.
Pulling his head back so he could see better, he strained to observe his shoulders, a red-brown tan and gently pulled his shoulder straps aside to lower his overall bib down to his waist. He enjoyed the feeling of freedom he got by not wearing long johns under his overalls. “Too hot,” he had told his mother. “Tellin’ yuh Maw. Too damned hot, Maw!”
Grace shook her head, opened the oven door, peered inside and closed it again. She turned to her son. “Tom, long underwear keeps out the hot as well as the cold, my boy. You’d best listen” She passed closed to him and walked to the end of a long table. “You don’t want to get your skin all burned, especially in certain places. Your face, them arms and shoulders are brown as a nut now.”
Tom loved his mother. She was George Benbow’s older sister, and Tom enjoyed teasing her. “Does a butt tan, Maw? Grace?” he asked, using her first name. He knew she would respond to that familiarity. She always did. As he looked down inside his overalls, he noted his belly, thighs and manhood, in his mind he still saw his mother working at the cast iron stove in the large cook’s tent. He heard her voice.
“‘Nough of that sassin’,” she said as she walked back to the stove and began to stir gravy in the large pot. She looked small in front of the large stove. A wood burner, he thought and recalled hauling wood to burn in it. “Mock,” she said, without looking up at her son. “And don’t call me Grace. It ain’t polite. Mind your manners, son.”
“But Maw. Your name is Grace Fields, ain’t it?” he said chuckling. He grabbed a biscuit from a table.
She paid no attention to his actions, but warned, “Don’t take any more of ‘em. I’m too tired this morning to fix another batch.” She turned toward the table and counted the biscuits. “My name is Grace Benbow Fields, my boy. I was a Benbow ’afore I was a Fields. And you remember that.”
Tom’s images showed him that he smiled at his mother, kissed her cheek and walked toward the tent’s flaps. He saw the tent flap dance and snap in the morning wind. He heard George’s voice call to him. He looked up from this thoughts at George, without thinking, he rubbed his belly and felt as though he needed a swim.
George was only about ten feet from him as he tucked his gallusses into his huge overall pockets. “What did you say before?” George said, almost shouting. He looked at Tom’s overalls, the gallusses gathered around his waist and tucked away, as he stepped over dirt rows. “Your head and neck is sorta brown gettin’ red like me. Part of your chest is brown, your shoulders, ‘ceptin’ where your gallusses cover you is brown, and.... He pulled Tom’s overalls forward and looked at Tom’s naked body. “You ain’t wearing nothing underneath? Woe, padnuh! That’s something new, ain’t it?”
“It’s too hot, to wear much more than enough to keep the sun off us,” Tom said, wiping his cheeks and nose.
“Guessin’ you’re about right,” George said, as he took off his straw hat, wiped his forehead, and stared toward camp. “Couldn’t hear yuh, before! Is it quittin’ time? Must be from the way you look.” They laughed.
They maneuvered their teams closer. George stepped close to Tom who had stopped and was rubbing his face with the end of his scarf again.
“Sure is hot today,” Tom said, in a loud voice. “But it’s quitting time now. Didn’t you hear Maw’s signal?”
“The triangle?” George asked and continued looking toward camp, looking at turn at each of the tents. “No. Guess my hearin’s gettin’ worse.”
“You really didn’t hear the signal?” Tom drove his two mules behind George as they headed back to camp.
“Nope,” he yelled back over his shoulder. “And, Ah don’t like the fact my hearin’ ain’t what it should be.
They guided their mule teams onto the wide dirt road and walked slowly toward the corral. “Are we gonna have a swim?” George asked.
“Yep, Ah thought we would,” Tom said, anticipating the cool water in the small lake.
“Walcha gonna wear? You don’t have anything to wear,” George said.
“What ah was born with, ah guess,” Tom said. Blood rushed to his head as he felt he had made a brash statement to his uncle, like he had seen in a movie theater. He decided he felt very bold and he wanted to be bold to swim naked in the lake. He thought about his hard body and wanted to move faster.
They corralled their mules, threw off their harnesses, moved hay so the mules could
feed, closed the gate and walked quickly toward the lake.
“You don’t mind if ah don’t wear nothin’ do you, George?” Tom asked.
“Naw. Looks like only you and me is gonna be there anyway. We’ve seen each other before. The other men are over at farmer Glanceys trying wake up his land.”
“That’s gonna take some wakin’, ain’t it?”
They laughed again and headed through the small row of crab apple trees. Tom began to run and George followed close behind. They ran into a clearing and the small lake was calm, blue and inviting. Tom stopped, sat down, took off his boots and socks, stood and stepped out of his overalls and plunged head first into the cool water.
He dove deep and felt the slippery bottom mud and surfaced. “Come on George, you slowpoke.” He laughed and washed the water from his face and eyes. He tread and laughed as George stepped out of his overalls. George walked toward the water’s edge.
“You gonna wear your long johns to swim in?”
“You bet, nephew,” George said. “Boy that water’s great.”
“Fraidy cat,” Tom said.
George scowled.
“Fraid of what?” George said. He slowly pulled his long johns down, stepped out of them, tossed them next to his overalls and shouted, “Does this look like a fraidy cat?”
Tom laughed as George plunged into the water and came up next to him. They paddled around and talked of many different events in their lives. Tom didn’t mind having to repeat most of what he said to George. George had taught him many things about life, about being a man, about men’s desires and feelings. He was sad and felt a helplessness regarding George’s apparent loss of hearing. He didn’t know whether the loss was in both ears or just one.

Tom heard the triangle and turned toward George who continued talking about the game of checkers. “...and if you’ve got a King or two....” Tom didn’t hear George’s words. He motioned him toward the shore. George continued his explanation. Tom realized his uncle had not heard the triangle and fought off an ache inside. He pressed his lips together as they walked out of the lake. Tom pulled on his overalls and George got into his long john bottoms by holding onto Tom’s shoulder. He jumped into his overalls and said, “We can go barefoot back to camp, can’t we?”
“Sure can,” Tom said.
They walked slowly, George continued his explanation of winning at the game of checkers, passed the rows of crab apple trees, and back toward the road. Tom’s mind wandered as George talked. Tom didn’t enjoy playing checkers. He remained silent though, because he knew Checkers was one of George’s favorite pastimes.
Tom kicked at the soft dirt and sand of the road. He stopped and looked backward at George, who no longer spoke. He stared into the distance. “You see that?” he asked.
“What?” Tom said and looked in the same direction. “What is it?” Tom asked. Shivers went up his back. He shook. “What in heck is that?” He pulled his gallusses up and wore them over his shoulders as he moved closer to George.
“Does it look to you like you can see through that pink mist?” George’s voice wavered.
“Yeah. What is that thing? What’s that old building. Hey look! It looks like a little girl in a Red Riding Hood outfit, or my name isn’t....”
‘She gettin’ redder too. Now she’s really easy to see. Ah can’t believe this!”
“Maybe, she’s lost George,” Tom said. They stared hard at the image. It moved toward the gray structure. “What is that old building, George?”
Ah don’t know, but she walked into it.”
“Hey, George, maybe we better go see if she’s alright. What do yuh think?”
“Let’s go,” George shouted.
They ran across the dirt clods of the farm land and finally onto the green grass of a field that surrounded the old building. They ran up to it and stopped to catch their breaths.
“Looks like a one room building,” George said as they peered through the broken window panes.
“Hey George,” Tom said, “look! The front door is off its hinges and... hey, this is a one room schoolhouse.”
George agreed as they walked inside. “But where is the little girl?” he asked, whispering.
They shivered again at the unusual situation, looked with great care under old desks, in closets and around the building. Finally, George looked at Tom and said, “She’s not here.”
“Ah don’t understand. There are open fields for miles around. We can see the land is flat from here back to town. If she was walking, we could still see her. This is funny, scary Ah mean,” Tom said.
George frowned and shook his head. “Ah admit, ah don’t understand. Do yuh suppose we didn’t see anything? Maybe we imagined we saw something?”
“Ah really don’t want to talk about it. This don’t make any sense. Let’s get back to camp. The dinner bell rang about twenty minutes ago.”
They walked back toward the large tents. Periodically, George would stare toward the old weathered building and then toward town. Tom knew the event bothered George a lot.
As they approached the cook’s tent, Tom shouted to his mother. “You boys get washed up for dinner and hurry. The men will be here pronto.”
They walked into the wash tent, poured water from large pitchers into huge porcelain bowls, soaped and washed their upper bodies, faces and hands. They didn’t speak. Tom was glad because he had no words for what he knew he had seen. He hoped he would never have to speak about it to anyone again.