Grace did not get up for breakfast. The girls quietly fed them, then stayed in to clean up. Duke went hunting, carrying a forty-five and a hunting bow. It was his choice; arrows could be recovered or replaced, bullets were gone forever. Duke tried a few flights and decided that his shoulder was okay.
He checked watches and set out, with an understanding that a smoky fire would be built to home on if he was not back by three.
Hugh told the girls to take outdoors any book not bone-dry, then broke out pick and shovel and started leveling their house. Joe tried to join him; Hugh vetoed it.
"Look, Joe, there are a thousand things to do. Do them. But no heavy work."
"Such as what, Hugh?"
"Uh, correct the inventories. Give Duke a hand by starring everything that can't be replaced. In the course of that you'll think of things; write them down. Look up how to make soap and candles. Check both dosimeters. Strap on a gun and keep your eyes open—and see that those girls don't go outside without guns. Hell, figure out a way to get plumbing and running water, with no pipe and no lead and no water closets and no Portland cement."
"How in the world could you do that?"
"Somebody did it the first time. And tell this bushy-tailed sidewalk superintendent that I need no help."
"Okay. Come here, Doc! Come, come, come!"
"And Joe. Speaking of bathrooms, you might offer to stand guard for the girls while they bathe. You don't have to look."
"All right, I'll offer. But I'll tell them you suggested it. I don't want them to think—"
"Look, Joe. They are a couple of clean, wholesome, evil-minded American girls. Say what you please, they will still believe you are sneaking a peek. It's part of their credo that they are so fatally irresistible that a man just has to. So don't be too convincing; you'll hurt their feelings."
"I get it. I guess." Joe went away, Hugh started digging, while reflecting that he had never missed a chance, given opportunity without loss of face—but that incorrigible Sunday school lad probably would not sneak a peek at Lady Godiva. A good lad—no imagination but utterly dependable. Shame to have been so rough on him last night—
Very quickly Hugh knew what his worst oversight had been: no wheelbarrow.
He had dug only a little before reaching this new appreciation. Digging by muscle power was bad but carrying it away in buckets was an affront to good sense.
So he carried and thought about how to build a wheel—with no metal, no heating tools, no machine shop, no foundry, no— Now wait! He had steel bottles. There was strap iron in the bunks and soft iron in the periscope housing. Charcoal he could make and a bellows was simply an animal skin and some branches. Whittle a nozzle. Any damfool who couldn't own a wheel with all that at his disposal deserved to lift and carry.
He had ten thousand trees, didn't he? Finland didn't have a damn thing but trees. Yet Finland was the finest little country in the world.
"Doc, get out from under my feet!" If Finland was still there— Wherever the world was—
Maybe the girls would like a Finnish bath. Down where they could plunge in afterwards and squeal and feel good. Poor kids, they would never see a beauty parlor; maybe a sauna would be a "moral equivalent." Grace might like it. Sweat off that blubber, get her slender again. What a beauty she had been!
Barbara showed up, with a shovel. "Where did you get that? And what do you think you're going to do?"
"It's the one Duke was using. I'm going to dig."
"In bare feet? You're cra— Hey, you're wearing shoes!"
"Joe's. The jeans are his, too. The shirt is Karen's. Where shall I dig?"
"Just beyond me, here. Any boulder over five hundred pounds, ask for help. Where's Karen?"
"Bathing. I decided to stink worse and bathe later."
"When you like. Don't try to stick on this job all day. You can't."
"I like working with you, Hugh. Almost as much as—" She let it hang.
"As playing bridge?"
"As playing bridge as your partner. Yes, you could mention that. Too."
"Barbie girl."
He found that just digging was fun. Gave the mind a rest and the muscles a workout. Happy making. Hadn't tried it for much too long.
Barbara had been digging an hour when Mrs. Farnham came around a corner. Barbara said, "Good morning," added a shovelful to a bucket, picked both up half filled, and disappeared around the other corner.
Grace Farnham said, "Well! I wondered where you were hiding. I was left quite alone. Do you realize that?" She was in the clothes she had slept in. Her features looked puffy.
"You were allowed to sleep, dear."
"It isn't pleasant to wake up in a strange place alone. I'm not accustomed to it."
"Grace, you weren't being slighted. You were being pampered."
"Is that what you call it? Then we'll say no more about it, do you mind?"
"Not at all."
"Really?" She seemed to brace herself, then said bleakly, "Perhaps you can stop long enough to tell me where you have hidden my liquor. My liquor. My share. I wouldn't think of touching yours—after the way you've treated me! In front of servants and strangers, may I add?"
"Grace, you must see Duke."
"What do you mean?"
"Duke is in charge of liquor. I don't know where he put it."
"You're lying!"
"Grace, I haven't lied to you in twenty-seven years."
"Oh! You brutal, brutal man!"
"Perhaps. But I'm not lying and the next time you say I am, it will go hard with you."
"Where's Duke? He won't let you talk to me that way! He told me so, he promised me!"
"Duke has gone hunting. He hopes to be back by three."
She stared, then rushed back around the corner. Barbara reappeared, picked up her shovel. They went on working.
Hugh said, "I'm sorry you were exposed to that."
"To what?"
"Unless you were at least a hundred yards away, you know what."
"Hugh, it's none of my business."
"Under these conditions, anything is everybody's business. You have formed a bad opinion of Grace."
"Hugh, I would not dream of being critical of your wife."
"You have opinions. But I want you to have one in depth. Visualize her as she was, oh, twenty-five years ago. Think of Karen."
"She would have looked like Karen."
"Yes. But Karen has never had responsibility. Grace had and took it well. I was an enlisted man; I wasn't commissioned until after Pearl Harbor. Her people were what is known as 'good family.' Not anxious to have their daughter marry a penniless enlisted man."
"I suppose not."
"Nevertheless, she did. Barbara, have you any notion what it was to be the wife of a junior enlisted man in those days? With no money? Grace's parents wanted her to come home—but would not send her a cent as long as she stuck with me. She stuck."
"Good for Grace."
"Yes. She had no preparation for living in one room and sharing a bath down the hall, nor for waiting in Navy outpatient clinics. For making a dollar go twice as far as it should. For staying alone while I was at sea. Young and pretty and in Norfolk, she could have found excitement. She found a job instead—in a laundry, sorting dirty clothes. And whenever I was home she was bright and cheerful and uncomplaining.
"Alexander was born the next year—"
"'Alexander'?"
"Duke. Named for his maternal grandpappy; I didn't get a vote. Her parents were anxious to make up once they had a grandson; they were even willing to accept me. Grace stayed cool and never accepted a cent—back to work with our landlady minding the baby in weeks.
"Those years were the roughest. I went up fast and money wasn't such a problem. The War came and I was bucked from chief to j.g. and ended as a lieutenant commander in Seabees. In 1946 I had to choose between going back to chief or becoming a civilian. With Grace's backing, I got out. So I was on the beach with no job, a wife, a son in grammar school, a three-year-old daughter, living in a trailer, prices high and going higher. We had some war bonds.
"That was the second rough period. I took a stab at contracting, lost our savings, went to work for a water company. We didn't starve, but scraped icebox and dishrag soup were on the menu. Barbara, she stood it like a trouper—a hardworking den mother, a pillar of the PTA, and always cheerful.
"I was a construction boss before long and presently I tried contracting again. This time it clicked. I built a house on spec and a shoestring, sold it before it was finished and built two more at once. We've never been broke since."
Hugh Farnham looked puzzled. "That was when she started to slip. When she started having help. When we kept liquor in the house. We didn't quarrel—we never did save over the fact that I tried to raise Duke fairly strictly and Grace couldn't bear to have the boy touched.
"But that was when it started, when I started making money. She isn't built to stand prosperity. Grace has always stood up to adversity magnificently. This is the first time she hasn't. I still think she will."
"Of course she will, Hugh."
"I hope so."
"I'm glad to know more about her, Hugh. I'll try to be considerate."
"Damn it, I'm not asking that. I just want you to know that fat and foolish and self-centered isn't all there is to Grace. Nor was her slipping entirely her fault. I'm not easy to live with, Barbara."
"So?"
"So! When we were able to slow down, I didn't. I let business keep me away evenings. When a woman is left alone, it's easy to slip out for another beer when the commercial comes on and to nibble all evening along with the beer. If I was home, I was more likely to read than to visit, anyhow. And I didn't just let business keep me away; I joined the local duplicate club. She joined but she dropped out. She plays a good social game—but I like to fight for every point. No criticism of her, there's no virtue in playing as if it were life or death. Grace's way is better— Had I been willing to take it easy, too, well, she wouldn't be the way she is."
"Nonsense!"
"Pardon me?"
"Hugh Farnham, what a person is can never be somebody else's fault, I think. I am what I am because Barbie herself did it. And so did Grace. And so did you." She added in a low voice, "I love you. And that's not your fault, nor is anything we did your fault. I won't listen to you beating your breast and sobbing 'Mea culpa!' You don't take credit for Grace's virtues. Why take blame for her faults?"
He blinked and smiled. "Seven no trump."
"That's better."
"I love you. Consider yourself kissed."
"Kiss back. Grand slam. But watch it," she said out of the corner of her mouth. "Here come the cops."
It was Karen, clean, shining, hair brushed, fresh lipstick, and smiling. "What an inspiring sight!" she said. "Would you poor slaves like a crust of bread and a pannikin of water?"
"Shortly," her father agreed. "In the meantime don't carry these buckets too heavily loaded."
Karen backed away. "I wasn't volunteering!"
"That's all right. We aren't formal."
"But Daddy, I'm clean!"
"Has the creek gone dry?"
"Daddy! I've got lunch ready. Out front. You're too filthy to come into my lovely clean house."
"Yes, baby. Come along, Barbara." He picked up the buckets.
Mrs. Farnham did not appear for lunch. Karen stated that Mother had decided to eat inside. Hugh let it go at that; there would be enough hell when Duke got back.
Joe said, "Hugh? About that notion of plumbing—"
"Got it figured out?"
"Maybe I see a way to have running water."
"If we get running water, I guarantee to provide plumbing fixtures."
"Really, Daddy? I know what I want. In colored tile. Lavender, I think. And with a dressing table built around—"
"Shut up, infant. Yes, Joe?"
"Well, you know those Roman aqueducts. This stream runs uphill that way. I mean it's higher up that way, so someplace it's higher than the shelter. As I understand it, Roman aqueducts weren't pipe, they were open."
"I see." Farnham considered it. There was a waterfall a hundred yards upstream. Perhaps above it was high enough. "But that would mean a lot of masonry, whether dry-stone, or mud mortar. And each arch requires a frame while it's being built."
"Couldn't we just split logs and hollow them out? And support them on other logs?"
"We could." Hugh thought about it. "There's an easier way, and one that would kill two birds. Barbara, what sort of country is this?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"You said that this area is at least semitropical. Can you tell what season it is? And what the rest of the year is likely to bring? What I'm driving at is this: Are you going to need irrigation?"
"Good heavens, Hugh, I can't answer that!"
"You can try."
"Well—" She looked around. "I doubt if it ever freezes here. If we had water, we might have crops all year. This is not a tropical rain forest, or the undergrowth would be much more dense. It looks like a place with a rainy season and a dry season."
"Our creek doesn't go dry; it has lots of fish. Where were you thinking of having your garden?"
"How about this stretch downstream to the south? Several trees should come out, though, and a lot of bushes."
"Trees and bushes are no problem. Mmm— Joe, let's take a walk. I'll carry a rifle, you strap on your forty-five. Girls, don't dig so much that it topples down on you. We would miss you."
"Daddy, I was thinking of taking a nap."
"Good. Think about it while you're digging."
Hugh and Joe worked their way upstream. "What are you figuring on, Hugh?"
"A contour-line ditch. We need to lead water to an air vent on the roof. If we can do that, we've got it made. A sanitary toilet. Running water for cooking and washing. And for gardening, coming in high enough to channel it wherever Barbara wants it. But the luxury that will mean most to our womenfolk is a bath and kitchen. We'll clear the tank room and install both."
"Hugh, I see how you might get water with a ditch. But what about fixtures? You can't just let water splash down through the roof."
"I don't know yet, but we'll build them. Not a flush toilet, it's too complex. But a constant-flow toilet, a sort that used to be common aboard warships. It's a trough with seats. Water runs in one end, out the other. We'll lead it down the manhole, out the tunnel, and away from the house. Have you seen any clay?"
"There is a clay bank at the stream below the house. Karen complained about how sticky it was. She went upstream to bathe, a sandy spot."
"I'll look at it. If we can bake clay, we can make all sorts of things. A toilet. A sink. Dishes. Tile pipe. Build a kiln out of unbaked clay, use the kiln to bake anything. But clay just makes it easier. Water is the real gold; all civilizations were built on water. Joe, we are about high enough."
"Maybe a little higher? It would be embarrassing to dig a ditch a couple of hundred yards long—"
"Longer."
"—or longer, and find that it's too low and no way to get it up to the roof."
"Oh, we'll survey it first."
"Survey it? Hugh, maybe you didn't notice but we don't even have a spirit level. That big smash broke its glasses. And there isn't even a tripod, much less a transit and all those things."
"The Egyptians invented surveying with less, Joe. Losing the spirit level doesn't matter. We'll build an unspirit level."
"Are you making fun of me, Hugh?"
"Not at all. Mechanics were building level and square centuries before you could buy instruments. We'll build a plumbbob level. That's an upside-down T, and a string with a weight to mark the vertical. You can build it about six feet long and six high to give us a long sighting arm—minimize the errors. Have to take apart one of the bunks for boards. It's light, fussy work you can do while your ribs heal. While the girls do the heavy, unfussy excavating."
"You draw it, I'll build it."
"When we get the building leveled we'll mount it on the roof and sight upstream. Have to cut a tree or two but we won't have any trouble running a base line. Intercepts we run with a smaller level. Duck soup, Joe."
"No sweat, huh?"
"Mostly sweat. But twenty feet a day of shallow ditch and we'll have irrigation water when the dry season hits. The bathroom can wait—the gals will be cheered just by the fact that there will be one, someday. Joe, it would suit me if our base line cuts the stream about here. See anything?"
"What should I see?"
"We fell those two trees and they dam the creek. Then chuck in branches, mud, and some brush and still more mud and rocks and the stream backs up in a pond." Hugh added, "Have to devise a gate, and that I do not see, with what we have to work with. Every problem leads straight to another. Damn."
"Hugh, you're counting your chickens before the cows come home."
"I suppose so. Well, let's go see how much the girls have dug while we loafed."
The girls had dug little; Duke had returned with a miniature four-point buck. Barbara and Karen had it strung up against a tree and were trying to butcher it. Karen seemed to have as much blood on her as there was on the ground.
They stopped as the men approached. Barbara wiped her forehead, leaving a red trail. "I hadn't realized they were so complicated inside."
"Or so messy!" sighed Karen.
"With that size it's easier on the ground."
"Now he tells us. Show us, Daddy. We'll watch."
"Me? I'm a gentleman sportsman; the guide did the dirty work. But—Joe, can you lay hands on that little hatchet?"
"Sure. It's sharp; I touched it up yesterday."
Hugh split the breastbone and pelvic girdle and spread the carcass, then peeled out viscera and lungs and spilled them, while silently congratulating the girls on not having pierced the intestines. "All yours, girls. Barbara, if you can get that hide off, you might be wearing it soon. Have you noticed any oaks?"
"There are scrub forms. And sumach, too. You're thinking of tannin?"
"Yes."
"I know how to extract it."
"Then you know more about tanning than I do. I'll bow out. There are books."
"I know, I was looking it up. Doc! Don't sniff at that, boy."
"He won't eat it," Joe assured her, "unless it's good for him. Cats are fussy."
While butchering was going on, Duke and his mother crawled out and joined them. Mrs. Farnham seemed cheerful but did not greet anyone; she simply looked at Duke's kill. "Oh, the poor little thing! Duke dear, how did you have the heart to kill it?"
"It sassed me and I got mad."
"It's a pretty piece of venison, Duke," Hugh said. "Good eating."
His wife glanced at him. "Perhaps you'll eat it; I couldn't bear to."
Karen said, "Have you turned vegetarian, Mother?"
"It's not the same thing. I'm going in, I don't want that on me. Karen, don't you dare come inside until you've washed; I won't have you tracking blood in after I've slaved away getting the place spotless." She headed toward the shelter. "Come inside, Duke."
"In a moment, Mother."
Karen gave the carcass an unnecessarily vicious cut.
"Where did you nail it?" Hugh asked.
"Other side of the ridge. I should have been back sooner."
"Why?"
"Missed an easy shot and splintered an arrow on a boulder. Buck fever. It has been years since I used a—'bow season' license."
"One lost arrow, one carcass, is good hunting. You saved the arrowhead?"
"Of course. Do I look foolish?"
Karen answered, "No, but I do. Buddy, I cleaned house. If Mother did any cleaning, it was a mess she made herself."
"I realized that."
"And I'll bet when she smells these steaks, she won't want Spam!"
"Forget it."
Hugh moved away, signaling Duke to follow.
"I'm glad to see Grace looking cheerful. You must have soothed her."
Duke looked sheepish. "Well—As you pointed out, it's rough, chopping it off completely." He added, "But I rationed her. I gave her one drink and told her she could have one more before dinner."
"That's doing quite well."
"I had better go inside. The bottle is there."
"Perhaps you had."
"Oh, it's all right. I put her on her honor. You don't know how to handle her, Dad."
"That's true. I don't."