gone to sleep thumping, but I never noticed how low down on the door the knocking was till I opened it and never seen nothing. I held the lamp up, with the rain sparkling across it and Cora back in the hall saying “Who is it, Vernon?” but I couldn’t see nobody a-tall at first until I looked down and around the door, lowering the lamp.
He looked like a drowned puppy, in them overalls, without no hat, splashed up to his knees where he had walked them four miles in the mud. “Well, I’ll be durned,” I says.
“Who is it, Vernon?” Cora says.
He looked at me, his eyes round and black in the middle like when you throw a light in a owl’s face. “You mind that ere fish,” he says.
“Come in the house,” I says. “What is it? Is your maw—”
“Vernon,” Cora says.
He stood kind of around behind the door, in the dark. The rain was blowing on to the lamp, hissing on it so I am scared every minute it’ll break. “You was there,” he says. “You seen it.”
Then Cora come to the door. “You come right in outen the rain,” she says, pulling him in and him watching me. He looked just like a drowned puppy. “I told you,” Cora says. “I told you it was a-happening. You go and hitch.”
“But he ain’t said—” I says.
He looked at me, dripping on to the floor. “He’s a-ruining the rug,” Cora says. “You go get the team while I take him to the kitchen.”
But he hung back, dripping, watching me with them eyes. “You was there. You seen it laying there. Cash is fixing to nail her up, and it was a-laying