She and Peacock were in front and the other were in the back, looking like a complete team. She hugged her arms and climbed to the top of the mountain, as if she had become a great peasant woman: she found signs of danger and came out to see what was wrong.

1

Mrs. Schotley planned to stand on the mountain and the peacock followed her all the way up the mountain. She and Peacock were in front and the other were in the back, looking like a complete team. She hugged her arms and climbed to the top of the mountain, as if she had become a great peasant woman: she found signs of danger and came out to see what was wrong. With the majestic confidence of the mountains, she stood with her two thick legs, her body was like a narrow, long and solid granite , and two icy blue eyes pierced straight ahead, exploring everything. The blazing afternoon sun pretended to be an invader and crawled behind the jagged clouds. She turned a blind eye to these and stared at the red dirt road that was spinning out from the highway.

Peacock stopped behind her, and its tail—glowing with golden green and blue gloss in the sun—was slightly raised, just not dragging to the ground. The wings on both sides stretched out like floating skirts, and their heads looked back on their long blue reed-like necks, as if attracted by something that only it could see in the distance.

Mrs. Schotley saw a black car driving out of the highway and entering the gate. Near the tool house, almost fifteen feet away, the two black men, Astor and Salke, stopped and watched. They hid behind an mulberry tree, but Mrs. Schotley knew they were there.

Mrs. McIntel went down the steps to greet the car. She had a big smile on her face, but even though Mrs. Shortley was so far away, she could still notice her uneasiness. The people who came were just hired to be helpers, just like the Shortleys and the others, or the blacks. But the owner of this place came out to greet him in person. Look at her, wearing her best clothes and a string of beads, and now she is running out with her mouth grin.

The car stopped in front of the aisle, and she stopped too. The priest got off the car first. He was a long-legged old man, wearing black clothes, a white hat and a bow tie, and Mrs. Shortley knew that when the priest wanted to be recognized as a priest, he would dress up like this. These people were arranged by this priest. He opened the rear door and jumped out of two children, a boy and a girl, and then slowly walked out of a woman with brown skin and peanut-shaped figure. Then the front door opened and a man came out, the refugee. He was short, with a slightly sunken back and was wearing a pair of gold-framed glasses.

Mrs. Schotley's eyes first focused on him, and then expanded to the panoramic view of the woman and the two children. First of all, what made her feel particularly strange was that they were no different from others. Before, every time she imagined them, three bears would appear in her mind, walking in a row, wearing Dutch wooden shoes, wearing a sailor hat, and a bright coat with many buttons. But she would wear the clothes that the woman wore herself, and the children would wear them no differently from the others around her. Man wearing khaki pants and a blue shirt. When Mrs. McIntel reached out to him, he suddenly bent down and kissed the hand.

Mrs. Schotley raised her hand and covered her mouth, then immediately put it down, and rubbed it on her butt excitedly. If Mr. Shortley was going to kiss her hand, Mrs. McIntel would definitely beat him up, but Mr. Shortley wouldn't kiss her anyway. He had no time to hook up around.

She squinted her eyes and looked carefully. The boy stood among the crowd and spoke. He was probably the best English speaker in the family. He learned a little in Polish , so he heard his father speak Polish , translate it into English, and then listen to Mrs. McIntel speak English, translate it into Polish. The priest told Mrs. McIntel that the boy was named Rudolph, twelve, and the girl was named Slijwig, nine. Sliggieweg sounded like the name of a bug to Mrs. Shortley, and the other way around, like you call a boy Balvewell. Only they themselves and the priests can pronounce their surnames. Mrs. Shortley only heard what Gbohook. She and Mrs. McIntel called them the Gerbohooks for the whole week as they were preparing for their arrival.

There was a lot of preparations to welcome them, because they had nothing themselves, not even a piece of furniture, a sheet and a bowl, and everything had to be pieced together from items that Mrs. McIntel herself was useless. They found an unset piece of furniture from here, and then they made a printed chicken feed sack into curtains. Because the red sack was not enough, they made two red pieces and one green piece. Mrs. McIntel said she didn't have much money and couldn't afford curtains. "They don't gossip," said Mrs. Shortley. "Do you think they can recognize the color?" Mrs. McIntel said that after so many things, these people should be grateful for anything they get. She said, think about it, how lucky they had to escape from there.

Mrs. Schotley remembered that she had watched a short news film. The naked body was piled up into hills in a small room, with arms and legs wrapped around, one head hanging here, one head squeezing there, one foot and one knee, the part that should be covered was ridged out, and one raised hand couldn't hold anything. Before you could realize that all this was true and remember it in your mind, the picture changed, and an empty voice said, "Time flies!" Such things happen in Europe every day, which is not as developed as the United States. Mrs. Shortley suddenly had such an idea with a sense of superiority. Their Gbohook family were like rats with typhoid virus, and would directly bring all the ways to kill people across the ocean to this place. If they had experienced such an experience there, who can guarantee that they would not do the same to others? The broadness of this question almost scared her. Her stomach twitched slightly like an earthquake in her lower abdomen. She couldn't help but go down the mountain and went to receive an introduction, as if she was planning to find out their activities immediately.

She walked forward, thrusting her belly, tilting her head, holding her arms, and gently patting her thick legs with her boots. Fifteen feet away from the group of people who were more hand-touched, she stopped and stared at the back of Mrs. McIntel, making them realize her existence. Mrs. McIntel is a short woman in her sixties with a round, wrinkled face, and her red bangs almost cover two tall orange-red eyebrows. She had a small baby mouth, and when she opened her eyes wide, her eyes were light blue, but when she squinted her eyes to check the milk jug, it looked like steel or granite. She died a husband and divorced twice. Mrs. Shortley respected her and no one could fool her-haha, except the Shortleys. She pointed at Mrs. Shortley, and said to Rudolph, "This is Mrs. Shortley. Mrs. Shortley is my milkman. Where is Mrs. Shortley?" Mrs. Shortley came forward with her arms in her arms, and Mrs. McIntel said, "I want him to meet the Guzacs."

is now Guzac again. She didn't want to call them Gbohook in person. "Konsey is in the barn," said Mrs. Shortley. "He is not like those black people, and he has no time to rest in the bushes."

Her eyes first passed over the heads of the refugees, and then slowly hovered down, like a vulture gliding in the air until the remains of the body were found. She stood far away so that the man couldn't kiss her hand. He stared at her blankly with his green eyes, smiled big, with no teeth on one side of his mouth. Mrs. Shortley was serious and turned her attention to the little girl standing beside her mother and shaking her shoulders. Her long hair was braided into two pigtails. Although she had a bug's name, she was undeniably a beauty. She was better than both Mrs. Shortley's two daughters, Anne Maud and Sarah May, who were nearly fifteen years old and the other was almost seventeen, but Anne Maud was not tall, and Sarah May looked at one of her eyes. She compared this foreign boy with her son H.C., who had a great advantage. H.C. is twenty years old, with the same figure as hers, wearing glasses. He now goes to Sunday school and needs to build his own church after graduation.He has a strong and beautiful voice, suitable for singing hymns and can sell everything. Mrs. Shortley looked at the priest and remembered that these people had no noble faith. There is no way to know what these people believe in, because ignorance has not been eliminated. A room full of corpses appeared before her again.

The priest himself also spoke in a foreign accent. He spoke English, but it was like a straw that had been stuck in his throat. He has a big nose, a bald head and a rectangular face. As she looked at him, he opened his mouth wide and pointed behind her and said, "Ah!"

Mrs. Schotley turned around. The peacock stood a few feet behind her, holding her head slightly raised.

"What a beautiful bird!" the priest muttered.

"It's just an extra mouth to feed." Mrs. McIntel glanced at the peacock.

"When will it open the screen?" asked the priest.

"It has to be happy," she said. "There were twenty or thirty peacocks in this place, and I let them fend for themselves. I don't like hearing them cry in the middle of the night."

"It's so beautiful." The pastor said, "The sun is full." He walked over gently, looked down at the peacock's back, and the exquisite golden green pattern began to spread from there. The peacock stood motionless, as if he had just come down from a high place with abundant sunshine for them to appreciate. The priest's unpretentious blushing face leaned above, shining with a glimmer of joy.

Mrs. Schotley curled her lips to the side unhappily. "It's just a peacock," she whispered.

Mrs. McIntel raised her orange-red eyebrows and handed her eyes, as if she was saying that the old man was just a childlike heart. "Oh, we have to take the Guzaks to see their new home." She finished impatiently and drove them back into the car. The peacock walked towards the mulberry trees where the two black men were hiding, and the priest turned his mind to his focused face, got into the car, and took the group of refugees to the shed they wanted to live in.

Mrs. Schotley waited until the car disappeared from sight before she walked around the mulberry tree, standing about ten feet behind the two black men, an old man carrying a half bucket of cow food, and another yellow-skinned boy with an groundhog -like head and a round felt hat. "Well," said Mrs. Shortley slowly, "you have seen it for a long time, what do you think of them?"

Old man Astor stood up. "We've been watching," he seemed to be saying something about news to her, "Who are they?"

"They come from the sea," Mrs. Schotley waved her arm, "It's the so-called refugee."

"Refugees," he said, "Oh my god! What does that mean?"

"It means they left the place where they were born, and they didn't have it. Place to go - like you ran away from here and no one took you in."

" But they seemed to be staying here." The old man thought, "If they were staying here, wouldn't there be a place to live?" '

" Yes," the other man responded, "they were staying here." '

The lack of logic in black thinking often angered Mrs. Shortley. "They aren't staying where they should be," she said. "They should go back there, and everything there is familiar to them. It's better to be careful now," she nodded. "There are hundreds of people like them out there, and I know what Mrs. McIntel said."

"What did you say?" asked the young man.

"It's hard to find a place to live now, whether it's white or black, but I can hear what she means." She said loudly.

"You can hear anything." The old man said, leaning forward as if he was about to leave, but he didn't move.

"I heard her say, 'That lazy niggers should know to fear the Lord this time!'" Mrs. Shortley said loudly.

The old man stood up and left. "She said this all day long," he said, "Haha, really."

" You'd better go to the barn to help Mr. Shortley," she said to another black man, "What do you think she paid you for? "

" It was Mr. Shortley who sent me out," the black man muttered, "He told me to do something else. "

" Then you'd better go and do it right away. "Mrs. Schotley stood in place until he left, and then stood for a while, thinking, his godless eyes fell in front of the peacock's tail. The peacock jumped on the tree, its tail hanging in front of her, full of dazzling planets with eyes, each of which was embedded with green edges, and golden and orange sunlight flashed on it. She might have seen a picture of the universe, but she was absent-minded and did not notice that the spots in the sky broke the dull green of the trees. There was a picture in her heart. She saw thousands of black people rushing towards this new continent, and she herself was like a giant The big angel, stretching out its wings as wide as a house, told the blacks that they had to find another place. She turned to the barn, pondering, showing a proud and contented expression.

She walked toward the barn, and could look in before someone else could see her. Mr. Johncy Shortley was squatting at the feet of a big black and white cow at the door, adjusting the last milking machine. A half-inch long cigarette was held in the middle of his lower lip. Mrs. Shortley looked carefully for a while. "If she saw or heard you smoking in the barn, she would be furious. "She said.

Mr. Schotley raised a wrinkled face, his cheeks were sunken, and there were two long nasolabial folds on both sides of the corners of his mouth, which were blistered. "Will you tell her? "He asked.

"She herself has a nose. "Ms. Schotley said.

Mr. Schotley seemed to use his trick casually. He rolled up the cigarette butt with his tongue, swallowed it into his mouth, then stood up with his lips tightly closed, walked out of the barn, looked at his wife with praise, and spat the extinguished cigarette butt into the grass.

"Uh, Qiangxi. ” she said, “Uh, uh. "She dug a small hole with her toes and buried her cigarette's butt. Mr. Shotley's trick was actually a show of love. When he chased her, he neither played the guitar nor gave her any beautiful things. Instead, he sat on the steps of her porch, imitating the paralyzed person without saying a word, holding his body to swallow the clouds and mist. When the cigarette burned to the right length, he stared at her with love, opened his mouth, took the cigarette's butt in, and then sat there, pretending to swallow it. Every time he did this, she was crazy, wishing to pull his hat down to cover his eyes, and hugged him and die together.

"Oh. "She followed him into the barn, "The people from the Gerbohooks are here, she wants you to meet them, she asked, 'Where is Mr. Schotley? ’I said, ‘He is not available…’”

“It must have asked me to help them carry their luggage. "Mr. Schotley squatted back to the cow.

"Do you think that man can't even understand English, can he drive a tractor? "She asked, "I don't think it's worth it for her to spend the money on them." The boy speaks English, but he looks too delicate. Those who can work cannot speak English, and those who can speak English cannot work. She might as well hire a few more black people. "

" If it were me, hire black people. "Mr. Schotley said.

"She said there were hundreds of refugees like that outside, and the priest could get her as much as she wanted. "

" She would better not get entangled with that priest. "Mr. Schotley said.

"The priest doesn't look smart," said Mrs. Schotley, "--a little stupid. "

" I don't need the Pope to teach me how to milk. "Mr. Schotley said.

"They are not Italians, they are Polish ," she said, "polish bodies are piled up." Do you still remember those corpses? "

" I guess they will stay for up to three weeks. ” said Mr. Shortley.

Three weeks later, Mrs. McIntel and Mrs. Shortley drove to the cane field together to see Mr. Guzak operate the silage cutting machine. This new machine was just bought by Mrs. McIntel because she said that the first time someone could operate it. Mr. Guzak can operate tractors, rotary hay balers, silage cutting machines, harvesters, , and mills. He can use the machines she has. He is a capable technician, carpenter, bricklayer. Frugal and motivated. Mrs. McIntel said that he could save her twenty dollars in one month for repairs alone. She said hiring him was the most beautiful thing she had ever done in her life. He can use a milking machine and is very clean and never smokes.

She parked the car next to the sugarcane field and they got out. The young black man Salk was putting a cart on the silage cutting machine, and Mr. Guzak was connecting the silage cutting machine to the tractor. He finished his hand first, pushed the black boy who was in the way, put the big car on the cutting machine , and angrily gestured for a hammer and screwdriver. His hands and feet are too neat and others can't help. The black man made him impatient.

While having lunch last week, he happened to meet Salke holding a sack and sneaking into the chicken stocking of Xiao Turkey . He saw Salke grab a turkey that was big enough to be roasted from the open space, stuffed it into a sack, and hid it under his coat. He followed Salke to the barn, threw him down, dragged him to the back door of Mrs. McIntel, and demonstrated what had just happened before her, while the black man muttered and complained that if he stole the turkey, the Almighty Lord would give him death, and he just grabbed the chicken out and put black shoe polish on its head because it was a grumpy temper. He swore in front of Jesus that if there was a lie, the omnipotent God would give him death. McIntel asked him to put the turkey back and then spent a long time explaining to the Poles that all the blacks were stealing. She finally had to call Rudolph to speak English to him and then let him repost it to his father in Polish, and Mr. Guzak left with a look of shock and disappointment.

Mrs. Schotley stood beside her, hoping that something was wrong with the silage cutting machine, but everything was fine. Mr. Guzak was quick and accurate. He jumped onto the tractor like a monkey and dragged the huge orange cutter into the field; within a moment, the green silage sprayed into the truck from the pipe. He pounded along the rows of sugarcane until it disappeared, and the roar of the machine gradually faded away.

Mrs. McIntel breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally," she said, "I have a reliable person. I've been chaotic by a bunch of trash for so many years. Waste. Useless white scum, and black people." She muttered. "They have squeezed me out. Before you, I hired Refield, Cowlings, Jerry, Bojin, Pinjin, Hery, and God knows which one else is there. None of them will go away from me when they leave. None of them!"

Mrs. Schotley listened calmly, because she understood that if Mrs. Schotley also regarded her as scum, they would not discuss scum together. They don't like scum. Mrs. McIntel continues to talk about it in length, and Mrs. Shortley has heard it countless times. "I have managed this place for thirty years," she looked into the fields with her brows locked, "and often I can't hold on. Others think I have money. I have to pay taxes, insurance, maintenance fees, and feed." She cheered up, straightened her chest, and hugged her elbow with her small hand. "Since the judge died," she said, "I almost lost money. They were all in the way when they left. Black people didn't leave - they stayed here to steal. Black people thought he could steal all the rich, and white scum felt that rich people could afford to hire them such unusable goods. All I had was the dirt under my feet!"

Mrs. Schotley thought, "You have the final say for everyone to come and go, but she didn't always say what she was in her heart." She stood aside and waited for Mrs. McIntel to finish her sentence, but the conclusion this time was different from usual."But I was finally saved!" said Mrs. McIntel. "One person suffers, others benefit. That person," she pointed to where the refugees disappeared, "—he has to work! He wants to work!" She turned to Mrs. Shortley, her wrinkled face radiant. "That person is my savior!" she said.

Mrs. Schotley looked straight ahead, her eyes as if she had penetrated the sugarcane fields and hills, and stabbed to the other side. "I suspect the savior was sent by the demon," she said slowly.

"What do you mean?" Mrs. McIntel looked at her sternly.

Mrs. Schotley shook her head and stopped talking. In fact, she had nothing to say, because this thought was fleeting. She had never thought about the demons carefully before, because she felt that religion was essentially used by those brainless people to exorcise evil spirits. For a smart person like her, religion is nothing more than a social activity of singing hymns; if she thinks about it carefully, she will regard the devil as the leader and God as her supporter. The arrival of the refugees forced her to think about many things again.

"I know what Slijweig said to Anne Maud," she said, and Mrs. McIntel was so cautious that she didn't ask a question, but leaned over and broke a tender branch of a wet tree and chewed it. So she continued in a tone of speech but stopped, "They're going to get seventy dollars a month, and they can't stay long."

"It's worth adding some wages to him," said Mrs. McIntel, "He saved me money."

This is almost saying that Knsey never saved her money. Qiangxi got up at four o'clock in the morning to milk her cows. He was not afraid of the severe cold and heat, and he persisted for two years. They are the ones who have followed her for the longest time. The gratitude they received was that she suggested that they never saved her money.

"Is Mr. Schotley better today?" asked Mrs. McIntel.

Mrs. Schotley felt that she should ask about it. Mr. Shortley has been bedridden for two days. In addition to his own life, Mr. Guzak also took over the milking work. "No," she said, "the doctor said he was overworking."

"If Mr. Shortley was overworking," said Mrs. McIntel, "then he must have had other private work." She almost squinted at Mrs. Shortley, as if she was looking at the bottom of a can of milk.

Mrs. Schotley said nothing, but the doubts in her heart were like dark thunder clouds. In fact, Mr. Shortley was indeed doing private work secretly, but this was a free country and Mrs. McIntel had no control. Mr. Schotley makes whiskey . He had a small workshop in the most remote corner of this place, of course on Mrs. McIntel's land, but Mrs. McIntel only owned the land in name and did not reclaim it, it was a wasteland that had nothing to do with anyone. Mr. Shortley is not afraid of working. He got up at four o'clock in the morning to milk the cows, and when he should have a rest at noon, he went to the cooking workshop. Not every man can work like this. The black man knew his workshop, but he knew theirs, so he was at peace with each other. However, there are foreigners in this place now. These people are omniscient but not human relations. They come from countries with constant wars and have not experienced innovations in religion. You must be wary of such people at all times. She felt there should be laws against them. There is no reason they cannot continue to stay there, replacing those who died in war and massacre.

"And," she said suddenly, "Sligeweg said that his dad would buy a used car whenever he had money, and once he had a car, they would leave you."

"He can't save the money I paid him," said Mrs. McIntel, "I'm not worried about this. Of course," she said, "If Mr. Shortley can't work, I have to let Mr. Guzak milk all the time, and he has to pay him more. He doesn't smoke." This is the fifth time she has pointed this out in a week.

"No one works harder than Qiangsie," Mrs. Shortley stressed, "No one is more skilled in milking than him, and no one is more like a Christian than him." She held her arms and looked into the distance.The roar of tractors and silage cutters sounded again, and Mr. Guzak returned from the other end of the row of sugar cane. "Not everyone is like this," she muttered. She wondered if the Pole had discovered Qiangxi's workshop, would she be able to recognize it. Those people are troublesome, you can't say what they know. When Mr. Guzak smiled, Europe appeared in Mrs. Schotley's imagination. Mystery and evil were simply the demon's experimental station.

Tractors, silage cutting machines and trucks rumbling and rolling past them. "If someone had to do this with mule , I don't know how long it would take." Mrs. McIntel shouted, "At this speed, we can finish the whole piece in two days."

"Maybe," Mrs. Schotley muttered, "as long as there is no terrible accident." She thought that the tractor actually made the mule worthless. The mule is useless now. She reminded herself that it was the black man’s turn next.

In the afternoon, she explained the current situation to Astor and Salk who were adding fertilizer to the fertilizer on the ranch. She sat next to the salt bricks under the shed, with her belly against her knees and her arms resting on her belly. "You blacks are better be careful," she said. "You know how much you can get from a mule."

"Nothing can be made, really," the old man said. "Nothing can be made at all."

"When there is no tractor," she said. "Mule is still useful. When there is no refugee, blacks are still useful. Soon," she predicted, "there will be no blacks to speak soon."

The old man smiled politely. "Yes," he said, "haha."

The young man said nothing. He looked gloomy, and when Mrs. Schotley returned to the house, he said, "The big belly seems to know everything."

"It's okay," the old man said, "You have a low status, no one will argue with you about this."

It was not until Mr. Schotley went back to milk and then she told him about his concerns about the small workshop. One night they were lying on the bed, she said, "The man was sneaky."

Mr. Schotley placed his hand on his skinny chest and looked like a corpse.

"Sneaky," she continued, kicking him hard with her knees. "Who can guess what he knows, and what he doesn't know? Who knows if he finds it, will he tell her right away? How do you know that they don't make wine in Europe? They can drive tractors. They can use any machine. You say."

"Don't bother me." Mr. Shortley said, "I'm a dead person."

"His small eyes are foreigners at first glance," she muttered, "and his shrugging," she raised her shoulders and shrugged a few times, "Why does he always shrugg?" she asked.

"If everyone is so dead like me, there will be no trouble," said Mr. Shortley.

"That priest," she muttered, silent for a while, and continued, "they may have other ways to make wine in Europe, but I guess they all know. They are full of evil thoughts. They have no spiritual reforms. They have no different beliefs than they were a thousand years ago. They can only be done by demons. They always fight and fight. They argue endlessly. Then they pull us in. Haven't they pulled us in twice? We're still foolishly going to help them settle them, and then they come back here, inquire about it, and find out your workshop and report to her later. Always ready to kiss her hand. Are you listening to me?"

"No." Mr. Shortley said.

"I want to tell you one more thing." She said, "No matter whether you speak English or not, he will understand whatever you say, I will not be surprised."

"I won't say anything else." Mr. Shortley murmured.

"I doubt," she said, "It won't take long before there will be no black people here. I tell you, I'd rather have black people than those Poles. And, then, I'll protect black people.Think back to how Gbohook shook hands with them when he first came, as if he didn't know the difference, as if he was as dark as them, but when he found out that Salke stole a turkey, he caught someone and told her. I know Salk is stealing turkeys. I could have told her myself. "

Mr. Schotley breathed softly, as if he was asleep.

" Black people don't know when they have friends. "She said, "I'll tell you one more thing." I've heard a lot from Slijwig. Sliggieweg said they lived in a brick house in Poland and one night a man came over and told them to leave before dawn. Do you believe they have lived in brick houses?

"Barring," she said, "totally nonsense. I think the wooden house is good enough. Johnsey," she said, "turn around. I don't want to see black people being treated unfairly and run away. I sympathize with black people and the poor. Am I always like this?" she asked, "I mean, I have always been friends with black people and the poor, right?"

"When the time comes," she said, "I'm going to stand on the side of black people. I won't watch the priest drive them all away."

Mrs. McIntel bought a new rake and a tractor with a lift because she said she had hired someone who could operate the machine for the first time. She and Mrs. Shortley drove to the back field to check the ground he had raked the day before. "So beautifully done!" Mrs. McIntel looked around the undulating red land.

She has changed since refugees started working for Mrs. McIntel, and Mrs. Shortley has carefully observed these changes: her words and deeds are like a man who has made a fortune in secret, and she no longer reveals her heart to Mrs. Shortley as she used to. Mrs. Shortley suspects that the priest is the source of change. They are all very cunning. At first he took her into the church, and then he reached into her purse. Alas, she is so stupid! Mrs. Shortley herself has a secret. She knew the refugees were doing something that would defeat Mrs. McIntel. "I'm still saying that he makes seventy dollars a month and stays here for a short time," she muttered. She intended to keep this secret, only Mr. Shortley knew.

"Yeah." Mrs. McIntel said, "I might have to drive someone away to pay him more."

Mrs. Schotley nodded, saying that she had known for a while. "I'm not saying that those black people shouldn't be driven away," she said. "But they can only do their best to do the work they can do. If you let them do their work, you have to stare at them."

"The judge said the same way." Mrs. McIntel looked at her with approval. The judge was her first husband, and he left this place. Mrs. Shortley heard that when Mrs. McIntel married him, she was thirty and he was seventy-five. Mrs. McIntel thought that once her husband died, she would become a rich man, but the old man was a villain. When they liquidated the inheritance, they found that he had no son. What he left her was the fifty acres of land and a house. But Mrs. McIntel always speaks of him with respect and often quotes him, such as "One person suffers, others benefit" and "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."

"But," said Mrs. Schotley, "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know". She had to turn her head and prevent Mrs. McIntel from seeing her smirking. She found out from the old man Astor what the refugees were doing, and she told no one except Mr. Shortley. Mr. Shortley jumped straight from the bed like Lazarus climbing out of the grave.

"Shut up!" he said.

"Really." she said.

"Impossible," said Mr. Shortley.

"Really." she said.

Mr. Schotley lay straight back.

"The Poles don't know anything." Mrs. Shortley said, "I think it was the priest who instigated him. It's all the blame for the priest."

The priest came to see the Guzak family from time to time, and they would visit Mrs. McIntel. They would walk around here, and she showed him the place to change and listened to him. Mrs. Shortley suddenly realized that the priest was convincing Mrs. McIntel to hire another Polish. If two families were here, they would only speak Polish! After the black people left, the two families would deal with Mr. Shortley and herself! She began to imagine a language battle and saw Polish words and English words confront each other, chasing and blocking, there are no sentences, only words, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, and twisting. She saw dirty, omniscient, unrenovated Polish words throw mud on clean English words until every word becomes as dirty. She saw all the dead dirty words piled up in the room, their words and her words piled up like naked bodies in a short news film. She cried silently, "Lord, save me from the dirty power of Satan! "From that day, she read the Bible with special concentration. She read Revelation carefully and quoted from the Prophets. Soon, she thought deeper about her life. She clearly realized that the meaning of the world was a pre-planned mystery. She suspected that she was a special part of the plan because she was a strong man, and she was not surprised at all. She found that the Almighty Lord created the strong man, letting them do what they should do, and she felt that she would be prepared when she was called. At this moment, she felt that her task was to monitor the priest.

The visit of Father priest became more and more angered her. The last time he came, he picked up feathers everywhere. He found two peacock feathers, four or five turkey feathers, and a brown hen feather, and took it away like a bouquet of flowers. This stupid behavior did not deceive Mrs. Schotley at all. He was here: bringing wandering foreigners to places that were not theirs, causing disputes, driving away black people, and planting a Babylonian slut in the righteous! No matter when he came, she hid in the dark and watched him until he left.

One Sunday afternoon, she had hallucinations. Mr. Schautley's knees hurt, so she went to drive the cattle for him. She hugged her arms slowly across the pasture, staring at the low clouds in the distance, like rows of white fish washed up onto the vast blue beach. After walking a slope, she stopped, gasping for exhaustion, because she was too heavy and no longer young. From time to time, she could feel her heart as a child's fist, tight and loose on her chest. When this feeling arose, her thoughts suddenly stopped, like a huge shell walking aimlessly, but She climbed up the slope without shaking her legs and feet, standing on the top of the slope, feeling quite contented. While she was watching, the sky suddenly closed from both sides like a stage curtain, and a huge figure stood in front of her. It was glowing with a white gold light like the sun at noon. It had no fixed shape, but the steamer was turning rapidly around, and there were fierce black eyes in the steamer. She could not tell whether the figure was going forward or backward, because it shone brightly. To see clearly, she closed her eyes, it turned blood red, and the wheel turned white. A very loud voice said the word: "Prophecy! ”

She stood there, staggering slightly, but stood straight. She closed her eyes tightly, clenched her fists, and pressed her shade straw hat low on her forehead. “The descendants of the evil nation will be massacred,” she said loudly, “the legs are in the original position of the arm, the feet are facing the face, and the ears are in the palm of the hand. Who is still complete? Who is still complete? who? "

She immediately opened her eyes. The sky was covered with white fish, lazily held by invisible waves, and the submerged sunlight in the distance flashed from time to time, as if it was being washed to the other side. She stepped one foot in front of the other until she passed through the ranch and came to the yard. She walked through the barn dizzyly without talking to Mr. Shortley. She continued to walk along the way until she saw the priest's car parked in front of Mrs. McIntel's house. "It's coming again. "She muttered, "Come and do damage.""

Mrs. McIntel and the priest were walking in the yard. In order not to run into them, she turned left and got into the feed house, a single-room shed with printed sacks of feed. Oyster shells were scattered in one corner, and several dirty old calendars were posted on the wall, with advertisements for cattle feed and various patent medicines. There was a painting with a gentleman in a dress with bearded, holding a bottle, with a line under his feet: "This magical discovery cured my constipation. "Ms. Shortley always felt very close to this man. He was like a big man she knew, but now her mind was full of dangers of the priest. She stood behind the gap between two wooden boards and looked out, and saw the priest and Mrs. McIntel walking towards the turkey hatching shed next to the feed house.

"Ah! "When they approached the hatching shed, the priest said, "Look at those little chickens!" "He leaned over and looked in through the barbed wire.

Mrs. Schotley curled her lips.

"Do you think the Guzak family will leave me? "Mrs. McIntel asked, "Do you think they'll go to Chicago or something like that?" "

" Why do they do this now? "The priest teased a turkey with his fingers and leaned his big nose against the barbed wire mesh.

" For the money. "Mrs. McIntel said.

"Ah, then give them a little more money. "He said indifferently, "They have to live a life, too. "

" So do I. "Mrs. McIntel muttered, "If this happens, I have to drive away the others." "

" Are the Schotleys' family still satisfied? "He asked, his interest in turkey was significantly greater.

"I found Mr. Shortley smoking in the barn five times last month," said Mrs. McIntel, "five times. "

" How about black people? "

" They lie and steal things, and they have to watch them all day long. "She said.

"Tsk tsk. "He said, "Who are you going to let go?" "

" I plan to notify Mr. Shortley tomorrow and let him leave within a month. "Mrs. McIntel said.

Father was busy putting his finger into the wire, as if he hadn't heard what she said. Mrs. Shortley sat on an open bag of egg-laying chicken feed, with a piece of feed powder rising around her. She found herself staring straight at the wall opposite, the gentleman on the calendar holding a magical discovery, but she turned a blind eye. She looked ahead, and seemed to see nothing. Then she got up and ran home, blushing Like an erupting volcano.

She opened all the drawers and dragged out the boxes and worn suitcases from under the bed. She kept pouring everything in the drawers into the boxes, not even taking off the sun hat on her head. She asked her two daughters to work with her. When Mr. Shortley came in, she didn't look at him, but continued to pack with one arm, pointing at him and said, "Drag the car to the back door, don't you want to wait to be driven away. "

Mr. Schotley has never questioned her omniscience in his life. He thought about the whole thing for half a second, then he walked out of the door with a calm face and drove the car to the back door.

They tied two iron beds to the roof, with two rocking chairs stuffed into the bed, and rolled two mattresses between the rocking chairs. A box of chickens tied on the top. The car was filled with old suitcases and boxes, leaving a small piece of space for Anne Maud and Sarah May. They worked from afternoon until midnight. Mrs. Schotley was determined to be in Ling. Leaving here before four in the morning, and deeming that Mr. Shortley should no longer debug the milking machine. She had been working, her face quickly turned red and white.

It was drizzling before dawn and they were ready to go on the road. The family squeezed into the car, curled up between the boxes, bags and bundles of bedding. The square black car started with a louder squeak than usual, as if protesting against the load. In the back seat, two tall and thin blond girls sat on a stack of boxes, a Beagle and a cat with two cats hid under the blanket.The car slowly left their shed like an overloaded and leaking ark, passing Mrs. McIntel's white house, in a deep sleep—not sure that Mr. Schotley wouldn't milk her cow this morning—passing the Pole's shed on the top of the mountain, heading down the gate along the way, two black men were walking one after another to help milk. They looked straight at the car and the people in the car, but even though the dim lights illuminated their faces, they politely acted as if they had seen nothing, or no matter what they said, they felt that what they saw in front of them was nothing big. The overloaded car may be just a fog floating by in the dim early morning. They continued to move forward at a constant speed without looking back.

A dark yellow sun rose in the sky, and the sky was as smooth and gray as the road. The rugged and overgrown fields stretched out to both sides of the road. "Where are we going?" Mr. Shortley asked for the first time.

Mrs. Schotley sat, resting one foot on the bag, and her knees against her belly. Mr. Shortley's elbow almost poked under her nose, and Sarah May's bare left foot was supported to the front seat and touched her ear.

"Where are we going?" Mr. Shortley asked again, but she still didn't answer, so he turned his head to look at her.

The heat slowly swelled, spreading to her entire face, as if it was about to rush up and make the last blow. Although one leg curled under her body and one knee was almost pressed to her neck, she still sat straight, but her cold blue eyes were unhappy. Everything in her eyes seemed to have turned around and looked into her heart. She suddenly grabbed Mr. Shortley's elbow and Sarah May's feet at the same time and pulled it up, as if she wanted to put these two extra pieces of limbs on her body.

Mr. Schotley stopped immediately with a swearing and Sarah May yelled to get off, but Mrs. Schotley seemed to plan to re-arrange the entire car immediately. She patted the front and the back, grasping everything she could hold, and hugged it in her arms, Mr. Schotley's head, Sarah May's legs, cats, a bundle of white bedding, her knees like a big full moon; then the fury on her face suddenly turned into astonishment, and her hand holding the thing was loosened. One eye moved closer to the other, and she didn't move, as if she had collapsed quietly.

The two girls didn't know what was wrong with her and said, "Where are we going, mom? Where are we going?" They thought she was joking, but their parents looked at her intently, as if they were pretending to be dead. They didn't know that their mother had experienced a lot and had no place to live in the world that once belonged to her. They were frightened by the smooth and dark road in front of them, and kept asking over and over again in an increasingly sharp voice: "Where are we going, Mom? Where are we going?" And their mother's huge body was still leaning against her seat, her eyes were like blue glass, as if she was staring at the vast border of the motherland for the first time.

2

"Okay," Mrs. McIntel said to the old black man, "We can do it without them. We watch them come and go-blind or white." She stood in the bullpen, the old black man was cleaning, and she held a rake in her hand, rake out a corn cob from the corner from time to time, or point out a wet ground that the old black man had not cleaned. She was happy to find out that the Shortleys left so she didn't have to chase them away. The people she hired always leave her - because they are such people. Of all the families she has hired, except for the refugee family, the Shortley family is the best. They are not scum; Mrs. Schotley is a good woman, she will miss her, but the judge said that there is a dilemma and she is very satisfied with the refugees. "We watched them come and go." She said again with satisfaction.

"You and I," the old man bent down and dragged the hoe under the feed rack, "It's still here."

She accurately captured the meaning in his tone. The sun shone through the cracked ceiling on his back, dividing him into three parts. She looked at his slender hands holding the hoe, and his hunched and aging figure leaned on his hands.She said to herself, maybe you were here earlier than me, but it seems that I am still here after you leave. "I've been dealing with useless people for half my life," she said seriously, "it's finally over."

"Blacks and whites," he said, "is the same."

"I've been over." She said again, quickly pulling the collar of the dark blouse, and she draped the blouse on her shoulders as a cloak. She wore a black wide-brimmed straw hat, which she bought for twenty years ago for twenty yuan and is now used as a sun hat. "Money is the root of sin," she said, "the judge says so every day. He said he hates money. He said you blacks are so arrogant because there is too much money in circulation."

Old blacks know the judge. "The judge said he longed to be too poor to afford to hire black people to work," he said. "When he said that day, the world stood up again."

She leaned forward, put her hands on her hips, stretched her neck and said, "Hmph, that day is coming, I tell each of you: You better be smarter. I don't have to endure stupidity anymore. I have people working now."

The old man knows when to talk to each other and when not. He ended up saying, "We watched them come and go."

"But the Schotleys are not the worst." She said, "I remember the Galits clearly."

"There are the Cowlings's family behind them," he said.

"No, it's the Refield family."

"Lord, Refield family!" he muttered.

"No one of them wants to work," she said.

"We watched them come and go," he seemed to be singing, "but there was never a person in the past," he straightened up to face her, "like this person now." His skin was yellow, his old eyes were blurred, and his eyes seemed to be hanging behind a spider web.

She glanced at him deeply until he leaned over and held the hoe again and piled the shavings next to the wheelbarrow. She said coldly, "Just the time when Mr. Soutley made up his mind to clean the barn, he had already cleaned it up."

"He came from Poland." The old man muttered.

"I came from Poland."

"Poland is different from here." He said, "They do things in different ways." He mumbled without knowing what he was muttering.

"What are you talking about?" she said, "If you have any opinions about him, just say it out loud."

He didn't say a word, curled up his knees tremblingly, and slowly cleaned under the feed rack with a rake.

"If you know what he did not do, I hope you report to me," she said.

"It's not that he shouldn't do it," he muttered, "but others don't do that."

"You have no objection to him." She said slowly, "He wants to stay here."

"We just haven't seen someone like him." He whispered, showing a polite smile.

"Times have changed." She said, "Do you know what's going on in this world? It's expanding. There are too many people, and only those who are smart, frugal and motivated can survive." She tapped the words "intelligence, frugal and motivated" in her palm. Looking through the long partition, she saw the refugee standing by the open barn door holding green water pipes. His figure was stiff, and she felt that she had to approach him slowly, even in her mind. She decided it was because she couldn't talk to him easily. Every time she talked to him, she found herself nodding in a clamor, and she found that there was always a black man hiding in the nearest shed to monitor.

"Really!" She sat on the feed rack and picked up her arms. "I've thought about it. The scum I've met here has been exhausted for a lifetime. I will never get involved with the Schotleys, the Rifields, or the Cowlings family again. There are people in the world who work."

"Why are there so many redundant people?" he asked.

"People are selfish." She said, "They have given birth to too many children and have lost their minds."

He grabbed the handle of the wheelbarrow, exited the door, and stopped again. Half of his body was in the sun, and he stood there chewing gum, as if he had forgotten which direction to go.

"You black people haven't realized it yet," she said. "I'm in charge here. If you don't work, I won't make any money to pay your salary. You all rely on me, but each of you acts as if things are reversed."

I can't tell from his face whether he heard her words. Finally he pushed the wheelbarrow out the door. "The judge said he knew better than he didn't." He whispered clearly, pushing the cart away.

She stood up and followed him, and a deep vertical groove appeared under the red bangs in the middle of her forehead. "The judge has long stopped paying the bill here," she said shrillly.

He is the only black man here who knows a judge, and he thinks this is amazing. He looked down on her two other husbands, Mr. Clum and McIntel, who congratulated her in a subtle and polite manner every time she divorced. He would work under her window when he felt it was necessary. He talked to himself, embarking on a cautious, roundabout discussion, asking and answering himself several times. Once she stood up quietly and pulled down the window so hard that he almost fell. He occasionally talks to the peacock. The peacock followed him, staring at the ears of corn that were spread out from his butt pocket, or the peacock would sit beside him and peck on himself. Once she heard him say to the peacock by the open kitchen door: "I remember there were twenty peacocks here in the past, and now there are only you and two hens. When Krum was there, there were twelve, and when McIntel was there, there were five. Now you and two hens are left."

She immediately stepped out to stand on the porch and said, "Mr. Crum and McIntel! I don't want to hear you say these two names again. You figure it out: when this peacock dies, there will be no peacock again."

The reason why she still keeps this peacock is just because of superstition, worried that it will anger the judge in the grave. He likes to watch the peacocks walk around because it makes him feel rich. Among her three husbands, the judge was closest to her, even though she had buried him alone. He was buried in a small ancestral tomb circled from the cornfield behind, and buried with his mother, father, grandfather, three aunts and two dead cousins. Her second husband, Mr. Clum, was in a state mental hospital forty miles away, and she estimated that her previous husband, Mr. McIntel, was drunk in a hotel room in Florida. But the judge buried in the cornfield with his family, always at home.

When she married the judge, he was already an old man. She liked his money, but there was another reason she could not admit that she liked him. He was a dirty old man who smoked snuffs, worked in court, and was well-known in the county. He wore short boots, bow tie, gray black striped suit, and a yellow Panamanian hat regardless of winter or summer. His teeth and hair were yellowed by tobacco, his face was clay-like pink, bumpy, covered with mysterious prehistoric marks, as if unearthed with fossils. He always had a special smell of sweating and banknotes, but he never brought money, not even a single child. She worked as secretary for him for several months, and the old man's sharp eyes immediately discovered that the woman loved him. The three years after their marriage were the happiest and happiest days in Mrs. McIntel's life, but after he died, she realized that he was bankrupt. He left her a mortgaged house and fifty acres of land, and he managed to cut down all the trees before he died. This seemed to be his last victory in his successful life, and he took everything away.

But she survived.Despite meeting a series of tenant farmers and milkmen that even the old man was difficult for her to deal with, she survived, dealing with a group of moody black men, and even competed with blackmailers, cattle dealers, lumberjacks, and businessmen who came together to drive trucks, honking loudly in the yard.

She leaned back slightly, hugged her arms under her shirt, and watched with satisfaction as the refugees closed the water pipes and disappeared in the barn. She sympathized with him, the poor man was expelled from Poland and traveled through Europe and had to live in a shack in a strange country, but she was not responsible for it. She herself had a difficult situation. She knows what struggle is. Everyone has to fight. On the way through Europe to come here, everything Mr. Guzak was given by others, and he might not have fought hard enough. She gave him a job. I don't know if he is grateful for this. She knew nothing about him except that he worked hard. In fact, he wasn't real enough to her. He was like a miracle she witnessed and talked about, but she still couldn't believe it.

She saw him coming out of the barn and greeted Sarke who was walking from the back of the yard. He was drawing something out of his pocket, and the two of them stood there and stared. She walked towards them along the path. The black figure was tall and lazy, and he was silly lying his round head as stupid as usual. He is not much better than an idiot. If he is really an idiot, he is probably a good worker. The judge said that no matter when, they would hire idiots and black people because they kept working. The Poles competed quickly. He left after he handed something to the black boy, and before she could reach the turn, she heard the sound of a tractor. He went down the field. The black man stood there, staring at the things in his hand in a daze.

She walked into the yard, walked through the barn, and looked at the clean and damp concrete floor with approval. It's only nine-thirty, and Mr. Shortley never washed anything before eleven o'clock. As she walked out from the other end of the barn, she saw the black man slowly passing by her, still staring at what Mr. Guzak gave him, not seeing her. The black man stopped, curled up his knees, looked at what was in his hands, his tongue tying in his mouth. He was holding a photo. He raised a finger and gently brushed across the surface of the photo. Then he looked up and saw her, and was stunned for a moment, holding his fingers, smiling.

"Why don't you go to the fields?" she asked.

He raised one foot, grinned, and stretched his hand into his butt pocket with the photo.

"What is that?" she said.

"Nothing." He muttered, consciously handing the photo to her.

The photo shows a girl about twelve years old, wearing a white dress, wearing a flower crown on her golden hair, looking forward with light-colored eyes, her eyes quiet and gentle. "Who is this kid?" asked Mrs. McIntel.

"His cousin." The boy said loudly.

"Then why are you holding the photo?" she asked.

"She wants to marry me." His voice became louder.

"Marry you!" she screamed.

"I took half of the money to let her come over." He said, "I pay that man three dollars a week. She is growing up now. She is his cousin. She wants to leave there and doesn't care who she marry." He said in a loud voice, and then looked at her face, and his voice gradually calmed down. Her eyes were like blue granite as he stared at her, but she didn't look at him. She looked along the road and heard the sound of a tractor from afar.

"I don't think she can come." The boy muttered.

"I will help you get all the money back." She said quietly, folded the photo in half, and turned around and left. She was shocked at all from her short and cold figure.

As soon as she got back to the room, she lay on the bed, closed her eyes, and pressed her hands on her heart, as if she wanted to hold her heart down. She opened her mouth and let out two or three dry roars. After a while, she sat up and shouted, “They are all the same. This has always been."Then he lay straight back, "I have been hit hard for twenty years, and they even had to dig his grave! "When she thought of this, she started crying silently, and wiped her tears from time to time with the curled edge of her shirt.

She remembered the little angel on the judge's tombstone. One day, the old man saw a naked granite angel in the window of a tombstone shop in the city. He bought it immediately, on the one hand because the little angel's face reminded him of his wife, and on the other hand because he wanted a real work of art on his tombstone. On the train home, he asked the little angel to sit on the green velvet cushion beside him. Mrs. McIntel never noticed the similarity between her and the little angel. She thought it was very scary, but she was still furious when the Herry family stole it from the old man's grave. Very beautiful, often to the cemetery to see it. When the Hery family left, they took the angel away, leaving only its toes, because the old man Hery cut a little higher when he waved his axe. Mrs. McIntel had no money to buy a new one.

After she cried, she got up and came to the back hall. The secret room-like place was dark and quiet, like a chapel. She sat down next to the judge's black mechanical chair, and supported her elbows on the desk. This was a huge rolled desk with a file compartment filled with dusty documents. The old bank passbook and led the ledger were packed in half-open drawers, and there was a small safe, empty, locked, placed in the middle like a niche. She had never moved since the old man left. Passing this corner of the room. This is a commemoration of him, a little sacred, because he had worked here. When he moved a little to the side, the chair made a skull-like moan, sounding like he was complaining of having no money. His first code of conduct was to speak like the poorest person in the world, and she learned it, not because he did it, but because it was the fact. When she frowned and sat in front of the empty safe, she knew that no one in the world was poorer than her.

She sat motionlessly at the desk for ten to fifteen minutes, then as if she had accumulated some strength, got up and got into the car, and drove towards the cornfield.

The road passed through a dark pine The bushes lead to the top of the mountain, a large green-like tree on the mountain rolled like a fan. Mr. Guzak was harvesting from the outer edge of the cornfield in the middle, and the cemetery in the center was covered by corn. She saw him sitting on a tractor on the top of the hillside, behind him was a silage cutting machine and a cart. The black man had not arrived yet, and he had to get off the tractor from time to time and climb into the cart to spread the silage. She stood in front of the black car, watching impatiently, holding her arms under her shirt, slowly moving forward along the edge of the field, gradually approaching her, and seeing her waved to him and telling him to come down. He stopped the machine, jumped out, and ran up, rubbing his red chin with a greasy rag.

"I want to talk to you. "She greeted him into the shade of the tree beside the woods. He took off his hat and followed her with a smile, but when she turned to face him, his smile disappeared. Her eyebrows were thin and fierce like spider feet, ominously tied together, deep vertical grooves inserted from under the red bangs to the bridge of her nose. She took out the folded photo from her pocket and handed it to his hand silently. Then she took a step back and said, "Mr. Guzak, you are going to get this poor little guy here and marry a dirty idiot stealing idiot! You are such a beast! "

He took the photo and his smile slowly returned to his face. "This is my cousin," he said, "She was twelve years old at that time. The first time receiving the holy communion. Now he is sixteen years old. "

Beast! She told herself that she looked at him, as if she had seen him for the first time. His forehead and head, which was protected by the hat, were still white, and the rest of his face was red, covered with dense yellow hair. The eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses looked like two shining rivets, and the glasses were fixed with hay-bound wire near the bridge of his nose. His entire face seemed to be made up of several faces."Mr. Guzak," she said slowly at first, and then she said faster and faster until she paused in the middle of a word, "that black man can't marry a white wife from Europe. You can't talk to a black man like this. You will stimulate him, and it's impossible. Maybe in Poland, but it's impossible here, you have to stop. This is stupid. That black man has no brains, you will stimulate..."

"My cousin has been in the concentration camp for three years," he said.

"Your cousin," she said with certainty, "can't come over and marry my black man."

"She is sixteen," he said, "in Poland. Mom is dead, dad is dead. She is waiting in the concentration camp. She has waited for three years." He took out his wallet from his pocket, flipped around, and found another photo, which was still the girl, a few years older, wearing dark clothes that were not decent. She leaned against a wall, and next to her was a short woman who looked toothless. "Her mom," he pointed to the woman and said, "She died in the concentration camp two years ago."

"Mr. Guzak," Mrs. McIntel pushed the photo back into his hand. "I don't want to upset my black people. There can't be no black people here. I can't be without you, but I can't be without black people. If you mention this girl to Salke again, you don't have to work for me anymore. Do you understand?"

He was confused, as if he wanted to put all the words in his mind together to figure it out.

Mrs. McIntel remembered Mrs. Shortley's words: "He understands everything, but pretends not to understand, so that he can do things arbitrarily." The initial anger appeared on her face again. "I don't understand a person who claims to be a Christian," she said. "Will bring an innocent poor girl here and marry that kind of thing. I don't understand. I don't understand!" She shook her head, looking into the distance with blue eyes in pain.

After a while, he shrugged and lowered his arms as if he was tired. "She doesn't care if it's black," he said. "She's been in the concentration camp for three years."

Mrs. McIntel felt her knees weak. "Mr. Guzak," she said, "I don't want to discuss this with you anymore. If you do this, you have to get out of here. Do you understand?"

's pieced together face didn't say anything. She felt that he didn't look at her at all. "This is my territory," she said, "I decided to stay or not."

"That's right." He put on his hat again.

"The pain in the world has nothing to do with me." She thought for a while and said.

"That's right." he said.

"You have a good job. You should be grateful for being here," she added, "but I don't know if you are grateful."

"That's right." He shrugged slightly and returned to the tractor.

She watched him climb onto the tractor and started the machine and drove it back into the cornfield. He drove past her and turned a corner. She climbed up the top of the hill, stood with her arms in her arms, and looked at the fields seriously. "They are all the same," she muttered, "whether from Poland or from Tennessee. I can deal with the Hery, the Refield, the Schotley, and the Guzak." She narrowed her eyes, focusing on the tractor's moving figure, as if staring at him through a scope. She has been fighting against people that the world cannot tolerate for the rest of her life, and now she has to deal with a Pole. "You and everyone else are all the way," she said, "--it's just smart, frugal, and motivated, but I'm the same. This is my territory." She stood there, a short figure in a black hat and black shirt, an old angel-like face, holding her arms, as if nothing could be difficult for her. But her heart was pounding, as if she had suffered an inner blow. She opened her eyes and saw the entire field. In her broad vision, the tractor was not as big as a grasshopper.

She stood there for a while. The breeze blew, and the corn on both sides of the hillside swayed and stirred up huge waves.The huge silage cutting machine roared monotonically, continuously spraying the chopped silage powder into the truck. Before nightfall, refugees should have been circled and circled, and the last two hills were left with only stubble on either side, and the cemetery in the middle rose like an island, and the judge was lying under his desecrated tombstone with a smile.

3

The priest supported his gentle long face with one finger and talked about Purgatory for ten minutes. Mrs. McIntel sat in the chair opposite him, squinted at him angrily. They drank dried ginger water on the front porch, she kept shaking the ice in the cup, and the beads and bracelets kept shaking like an uneasy little foal shaking the harness. She whispered that there was no moral responsibility to keep him, and there was no moral responsibility at all. She suddenly staggered and stood up, breaking his Irish dirt cavity, like a drill bit drilling into a mechanical saw. "Listen," she said, "I don't understand theology. I'm a pragmatic person! I want to talk to you about real issues!"

"Uh." He moaned, his harsh voice stopped.

She poured whiskey at least a finger deep into her dried ginger water so that she could hold on until he left, she sat down clumsyly and found that the chair was closer than she expected. "Mr. Guzak can't do it," she said.

The old man raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"He is the redundant person," she said, "he is not suitable for here. I have to find someone who is suitable for here."

The priest carefully put his hat on his knee. He played a little trick, waited silently for a while, and then turned the topic back on his track. He is almost eighty years old. She never dealt with a priest until she met this one while hiring a refugee. After he found a Pole for her, he took advantage of the opportunity of business to preach to her - she knew he would do so.

"Give him some time," said the old man, "he will learn to adapt. Where did your beautiful bird go?" he asked, and continued, "Ah, I saw it!" He stood up and looked out, the peacock was walking nervously on the lawn with two hens, their long necks standing on the peacock, their peacock was blue-purple, and the hen was silver-green, glittering in the evening sun.

"Mr. Guzak is very capable," continued Mrs. McIntel in a steady voice, "I admit it. But he doesn't know how to get along with my black people, they don't like him. I can't live without black people. I don't like his attitude either. He stays here without feeling grateful at all." Father

pushed open the screen door and prepared to say goodbye. "Ah, I have to leave," he mumbled.

"I tell you, if I can find a white man who understands black people, I will let Mr. Guzak run away." She said and stood up again.

The priest turned around and looked at her face. "He has no place to go," he said. Then he said, "Dear Madam, I know you very well. You won't drive him away because of this little thing!" He waved his hand before she could answer, and said a blessing in disguise.

She smiled angrily and said, "I didn't do all this."

The priest's eyes fell on the chicken and peacock. They walked into the middle of the grass. The peacock suddenly stopped, bent her neck back, and raised her tail at the same time, spreading a dazzling light. The layers of full little sun floated in the golden green mist above its head. The priest opened his chin and was stunned. Mrs. McIntel thought she had never seen such a stupid old man. "That's what Jesus came." He shouted happily, wiped his mouth with his hands, and stood in amazement.

Mrs. McIntel showed a puritanic look and her face turned red. Talking about Jesus made her feel embarrassed just as talking about sex would make her mother feel embarrassed. "Mr. Guzak has nowhere to go," she said. "I don't have to be responsible for all the extra people in the world."

The old man seemed to be deaf. He looked at the peacock with all his attention, which took small steps and stepped back, his head against his open tail. “Change."He whispered.

She didn't know what he was talking about. "Mr. Guzak shouldn't have come here in the first place. "She glanced at him fiercely.

Peacock drooped his tail and ate it and drafted it.

" He shouldn't have come from the beginning. "She said it word by word.

The old man smiled absent-mindedly. "He is here to save us. "He shook her hand gently and said he was going to say goodbye.

If Mr. Schotley hadn't come back a few weeks later, she would have to hire someone again. She didn't want him to come back, but when she saw the familiar black car driving all the way up and parked next to the house, she felt that she was the one who had returned home after a painful long journey. She immediately realized how much she missed Mrs. Schotley . After Mrs. Shortley left, no one spoke, she ran to the door, hoping to see her up the steps.

Mr. Shortley stood alone. He wore a black woolen hat and a shirt with a red and blue palm tree pattern, but his long face, which was bitten by the insect, was thinner than a month ago.

"Ha! "She said, "Where is Mrs. Shortley?" "

Mr. Schotley was silent. His face seemed to have changed from the inside out; he was like a person who had been away for a long time without a drop of water. "She is the angel of God," he shouted, "she is the best woman in the world. "

" Where is someone else? "Mrs. McIntel asked in a low voice.

"She died," he said, "she had a stroke the day she left here. "There was a kind of corpse-like quiet on his face. "I know it was the Pole who killed her. "He said, "She saw through that person at the beginning. Knowing that he was sent by the devil. She told me. "

Mrs. McIntel took three days to accept Mrs. Schotley's death. She told herself that everyone would think they were close. She hired Mr. Schotley to do farm work again, although she did not want to hire him without his wife. She told him that at the end of the month she would notify the refugees to leave in thirty days and that he could do the milking work again. Mr. Schotley prefers milking work, but he thinks he can wait. He said watching the Poles leave the place would give him some comfort, McIntel Mrs. Terr said she would be very pleased. She confessed that she should have been content at the beginning and should not go to other parts of the world to find help. Mr. Shortley said he had participated in the First World War, so he never liked foreigners and knew what they were. He said he had seen all kinds of things, but they were all different from us. He said he remembered the face of a man who had thrown grenades at him, who wore small round glasses, just like Mr. Guzak.

"But Mr. Guzak was Pole, not German." "Mrs. McIntel said.

"They don't have much difference." "Mr. Shortley explained.

The blacks were very happy to see Mr. Shortley come back. The refugees asked the blacks to work as hard as they were, and Shortley knew their limitations. When Mrs. Shortley watched, he was never a good worker, and now without her, he was even more forgetful and procrastinated. The Poles worked as hard as usual, as if they didn't know they were about to be driven away. Mrs. McIntel saw the work she felt she could never finish, but she was determined to get rid of him. Seeing his short and firm figure Moving around quickly, she was furious and felt that she had been fooled by the old priest. He said that if the refugees could not satisfy her, there was no law that she would have to keep him, but then he brought out moral responsibility.

She planned to tell him that she only took moral responsibility to her own people, and that she was responsible to Mr. Shotley, who had fought for her country, but not to Mr. Guzak, who only came here to make a cheaper price. She felt that she had to explain clearly to the priest before driving the refugees away. At the beginning of the month, the priest did not come, and she decided to notify the Poles a few days later.

Mr. Schotley told himself that he should have known for a long time that no woman can do what she says. He didn't know how long he could endure the hesitation about her. He privately thought she was probably soft-hearted, worried that they would not find a new place to stay after driving the Poles away. He could tell her the truth: If she had let the Poles go, in less than three years he would have his own house with a TV antenna on the roof. As a strategy, Mr. Shortley goes to her back door every night to reason with her. "Sometimes the white man is not as good as the black man," he said. "But that's okay, because he's white after all. But sometimes," he said that he stopped and looked into the distance. "A man who fought bloody and willingly died for his country was not as good as his enemy. I asked you: Is this right?" He would stare at her face when he asked her such questions to see if his words worked. She looked bad during this period. He noticed the wrinkles around her eyes, and there were no wrinkles when he was the only two white helpers, including Mrs. Shortley. When he thought of Mrs. Shortley, he felt his heart sinking into a dry well like an iron bucket.

The old priest has not appeared for a long time, and seems to be in lingering fear of the last visit, but he found that the refugees were not driven away, and finally came to the door again boldly, intending to continue to preach to Mrs. McIntel when the topic was cut off last time. She did not ask him to preach, but he insisted on doing so, no matter who he talked to, he would talk about some explanations of sacraments or doctrines in his conversation. He sat on her porch, turning a blind eye to her half-sarcastic and half-angry expression, while she sat shaking her legs, ready to interrupt him at any time. "Because," his tone seemed to be talking about what happened in the town yesterday, "God sent his only son, Jesus Christ our Lord" - he slowly lowered his head - "As the savior of mankind, he..."

"Father Flynn!" Her voice almost made him jump, "I want to talk to you about something important."

The old man's right eye twitched.

"To my opinion," she glanced at him fiercely, "Jesus is just another refugee."

He raised his hand slightly and placed it on his knees. "Ah." He muttered, as if thinking about this sentence.

"I have to let that person go." She said, "I have no obligation to him. I have an obligation to those who contribute to the country, not those who come and take advantage of it." She said quickly, remembering all the arguments. The pastor's attention was like retreating back to a private prayer room until she finished speaking. Once or twice, his eyes wandered on the lawn outside, as if looking for a way to escape, but she didn't stop. She told the priest how she persisted in this place for thirty years, always dealing with people who came out of nowhere and didn't know where to go, those people just wanted a car. She said she found that they were all the same, whether from Poland or from Tennessee. She said that when the Guzak family has a hard wing, they will leave her without hesitation. She told the priests that those who seem rich are actually the poorest because they have a lot to maintain. She asked the priest how he thought she paid the feed bill. She told the priest that she wanted to renovate the house but had no money. She even had no money to repair her husband's tombstone. She asked the priest if she knew how much her insurance money had accumulated this year. Finally she asked the priest if she felt that she was full of money, and the old man suddenly let out an ugly roar, as if it was a funny question. After Father

, she was listless, although she obviously had the upper hand. She immediately decided to give refugees a thirty-day deadline at the beginning of the month, and she told Mr. Shortley about this decision.

Mr. Schotley remained silent. His wife is the only woman he knows who says what he says. She said the Poles were sent by demons and priests. Mr. Shortley was sure that the priest had exerted special control over Mrs. McIntel, and soon Mrs. McIntel would go to him for a mass. She seemed to be swallowed by something from her body. She is thinner, more anxious, and no longer sharp.She looked at the milk jug now, but couldn't see how dirty it was. He had seen her moving her lips even though she wasn't talking. The Poles never did anything wrong, but kept annoying her. Mr. Shortley did whatever he wanted—not as she did—but she seemed to care. Although she noticed that the Poles had gained weight, she pointed out to Mr. Shortley that their cheeks were sunken and that they must have saved all their money. "Yes, madam, one day he will buy your land and sell it all." Mr. Shortley said boldly, and he could see that these words scared her.

"I'll wait for the beginning of the month," she said.

Mr. Schotley also waited, and then came and left at the beginning of the month, and she did not fire the Poles. He could have told anyone. He is not a rough man, but he hates seeing a woman ruined in foreigners. He felt that men could not stand by.

Mrs. McIntel had no reason not to fire Mr. Guzak immediately, but she dragged it out day after day. She is worried about bills and her health. She has insomnia at night and even if she falls asleep, she will dream of refugees. She had never driven anyone away, they all left her by themselves. One night she dreamed that Mr. Guzak and his family had moved into her house and she moved to live with Mr. Schotley. She was frightened and couldn't fall asleep for several nights after waking up; one night she dreamed of a priest visiting and chatting endlessly. "Dear madam, I know you are a kind-hearted person and will not drive away the poor Poles. Think of the thousands of refugees outside, think of the crematoriums, carriages, concentration camps, and sick children, and my Lord Jesus."

"He is an extra person, and he has broken the balance here." She said, "I am a pragmatic woman with brains. There is no crematorium, no concentration camps, and no Lord Jesus. He will make more money when he leaves. He can work in the factory, buy a car, and never have to talk to me again - they just want a car."

"Crimsoniums, carriages and sick children," the priest chattered, "and our dear Lord."

"Too many," she said.

The next morning, she was determined to inform him immediately while having breakfast. She got up and walked out of the kitchen, walked down the road, holding a napkin in her hand. Mr. Guzak was washing the barn, hunched over as usual, with his hands on his hips. He closed the water pipe and looked at her impatiently, as if she had interfered with his work. She came over without thinking about how to speak. She stood at the barn door, scrutinizing the spotless wet floor and dripping pillars. "Is there anything wrong?" he asked.

"Mr. Guzak," she said, "I can't fulfill my responsibilities now." Then she raised her voice and said word by word in a more determined voice, "I have to pay the bill."

"So much," said Mr. Guzak, "there are a lot of bills, but the money is very small." He shrugged.

She saw a tall figure with a hooked nose slid past the barn like a snake, and the sun shone on the open barn door, and the figure stayed there; she realized that a minute ago the black man was shoveling the ground somewhere behind her, but now it was silent. "This is my territory," she said angrily, "you are all redundant people. They are all."

"Yes." Mr. Guzak said, turning on the faucet again.

She wiped her mouth with the napkin in her hand and walked away, as if she had completed the task.

Mr. Schotley's figure shrank back from the door, leaned against the barn, took out half of the cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He can't do anything now, he can only obey God's arrangements, but he knows one thing: he won't shut up and wait.

From that morning, he began to complain and complain about everyone he met, whether it was black or white. He complained in the grocery store, in the county, in the street corner, and directly complained to Mrs. McIntel because he never sneaked in. If the Poles could understand, Mr. Shortley would have told him."Everyone is born free and equal," he said to Mrs. McIntel. "I was born and died. I fought and bleeded there, and died. When I came back, I found out who robbed my job - my enemy. A grenade almost killed me, and I saw who threw it - a small man wearing glasses like him. They might have bought it in the same store. The world is so small." He smiled bitterly. Since Mrs. Shortley was not there to speak for him, she simply said that he found himself very talented. He has a way to make others feel that he makes sense. He said a lot to black people.

"Why don't you go back to Africa." One morning when they were cleaning the silage he asked Salk, "That's your country, isn't it?"

"I won't go there," the boy said, "they will swallow me alive."

"Well, if you follow the rules, there's no reason not to stay here," Mr. Soutley said kindly, "because you didn't escape from where you got away. Your grandfather was bought. He didn't want to come at all. I hate those who escaped from his country."

"I always felt that traveling was unnecessary," said the black man.

"Oh," said Mr. Shortley. "If I travel again, I will go to China or Africa. If you go to any of them, you can tell the difference between you and them immediately. The only difference when you go to other places is language. And you may not necessarily find out, because half of the people speak English. We made mistakes here." He said, "-Let everyone learn English. If everyone speaks only themselves My language would be less trouble. My wife said that knowing two languages ​​is like having an eye on the back of her head. You can't hide anything from her."

"Of course I can't hide it from her." The boy whispered, and then added, "She's very good. She's a good person. I've never seen a better white woman than her."

Mr. Schotley turned around and worked silently for a while. After a while he stood up and patted the black boy on the shoulder with the shovel handle. He stared at him for a moment, and there seemed to be thousands of words in his wet eyes. Then he whispered, "The Lord says, the grievance is with me."

Mrs. McIntel found that everyone in the city had heard Mr. Shortley say about her affairs, and everyone criticized her actions. She began to realize that she had moral integrity to fire the Poles, and she was running away because it was too difficult to do. She could no longer bear the accumulated guilt, and one cold Saturday morning, she was going to fire him after breakfast. She heard that he was starting the tractor and walked towards the machine shed.

The ground was thick with frost, and the fields looked like wool on the back of a sheep; the sun was almost silver, and the trees were penetrated straight towards the skyline like dry manes. A small circle of noise rippled around the shed, and the countryside seemed to retreat to the surroundings. Mr. Guzak squatted on the ground next to the small tractor, filling a part in it. Mrs. McIntel hopes that he can turn over the land for her for the remaining thirty days. The black boy stood beside him, holding a tool in his hand, and Mr. Shortley was under the shed, intending to climb onto the big tractor and pour it out. She planned to wait until he and the black man walked away before fulfilling her unhappy obligations.

She looked at Mr. Guzak, the rising cold paralyzed her feet and legs and she had to stomp her feet on the solid floor. She was wearing a thick black coat, a red turban, and a black hat was pressed on it to block the sun. Under the black hat brim, she looked absent-minded and her lips moved silently once or twice. Mr. Guzak yelled over the noise of the tractor and asked the black man to hand him a screwdriver. After he got it, he put his back on the cold ground and drilled under the machine. She couldn't see his face, but only his feet, legs and body stretched out rashly from one side of the tractor. He was wearing a pair of broken rubber shoes splashed with mud. He raised one knee, put it down, and turned a little. Among all the things she hated him, the thing she hated the most was that he did not leave on his own initiative.

Mr. Schotley climbed onto a large tractor and fell out from under the shed. He seemed to be warmed by it, and its heat and power were transmitted to him in waves, and he immediately tamed it. He drove towards the small tractor, but stopped on the small slope and braked, jumped off the tractor, turned around and walked towards the shed. Mrs. McIntel stared at Mr. Guzak's legs stretched to the ground. She heard the brakes of the big tractor slip off and looked up and saw it moving forward talking. Later she remembered seeing the black man jumping away silently, like a spring that had grown from the ground, and she saw Mr. Shortley turn around in incredible slow motion and look back silently, remembering that she shouted at the refugees, but she didn't shout. She felt her eyes, Mr. Shortley's eyes, and the black eyes gathered together, freezing them forever as accomplices, and he called softly when she heard the tractor rolling over the Poles' spine. Two men rushed over to help, and she fainted on the ground.

She remembered where she ran to after waking up. Maybe she ran into the house and ran out again, but she couldn't remember why, and she couldn't remember whether she fainted again when she ran over. By the time she finally ran back to the tractor, the ambulance had arrived. Mr. Guzak had his wife and two children lying on his body, and a man in black stood beside him, whispering something she couldn't understand. At first she thought it was a doctor, but later she realized it was annoyed that it was a priest who came in an ambulance and was putting something into the mouth of the man who was being crushed to death. After a while he stood up, she first saw his bloody trouser legs, and then his face, he looked directly at her, but just like the surrounding countryside, it was both bleak and cold. She just looked at him because she was extremely frightened and couldn't handle herself. Her mind cannot fully accept what happened. When the ambulance took the deceased away, she felt that she was abroad, and the people lying on the body were locals, while she was like a foreigner.

That night, Mr. Shortley left without saying goodbye and found another way out. The black Sarke suddenly wanted to explore the world and set out to the southern part of the state. Old man Astor cannot work alone. Mrs. McIntel hardly noticed that she had no helper anymore because she had a neurological disease and had to go to the hospital. After she came back, she found that she could no longer manage the place, so she handed over all the cows to a professional auctioneer (losing a lot of money), and lived on the remaining money at hand, and had to maintain a deteriorating health. One of her legs began to numb, her hands and head trembled, and she finally had to stay in bed all day, with only one black woman taking care of her. Her eyesight continues to decline and her throat cannot speak. Not many people remember to come to the countryside to see her, except for the old priest. He came regularly once a week, brought a bag of bread crumbs, and after feeding the peacock, he went into the house and sat by her bed to explain the teachings of the church to her.