Cash comes and fixes it back.
“You get on to the house,” Cash says. He leads pa to the house and returns with the raincoat and folds it and places it beneath the shelter where the lantern sits. Vernon has not stopped. He looks up, still sawing.
“You ought to done that at first,” he says. “You knowed it was fixing to rain.”
“It’s his fever,” Cash says. He looks at the board.
“Ay,” Vernon says. “He’d a come, anyway.”
Cash squints at the board. On the long flank of it the rain crashes steadily, myriad, fluctuant. “I’m going to bevel it,” he says.
“It’ll take more time,” Vernon says. Cash sets the plank on edge; a moment longer Vernon watches him, then he hands him the plane.
Vernon holds the board steady while Cash bevels the edge of it with the tedious and minute care of a jeweller. Mrs. Tull comes to the edge of the porch and calls Vernon. “How near are you done?” she says.