Margaret looked at the 13-year-old with a post digger and the limp and the expression that said he was already calculating what her presence here meant. "You've been working the fence," she said. North Corner's soft, Wesley said. I told him about it first day. We're getting to it.
He means I told him to wait and he went ahead anyway. Calder said without heat. Wesley didn't look apologetic. The fence needed doing. Margaret looked at him for a moment.
There is a man in town, she said. Name of Hector Garza runs the feed store who lost his fence entirely to last spring storm. He could use help rebuilding it and he pays in goods, coffee, flour, that sort of thing. He won't hire an adult because he can't afford the wage, but he might hire a boy who knows fence work if that boy was willing to work for trade. Wesley stared at her.
I'm not suggesting it as charity, Margaret said clearly and without softness. I'm suggesting it as commerce. Wesley looked at Calder. Calder shrugged. Your call.
Wesley looked back at Margaret. How many days work? I don't know. You'd have to talk to Garza. Could Jonah come?
He's learning the work and he could carry things. That's between you and Garza. Wesley thought about this with the focused intensity he brought to every practical problem. All right, he said. I'll tell him to expect you Saturday, Margaret said.
She nodded once at Calder. It was the nod of someone who had not decided to approve of something, but had decided not to disapprove of it yet. And then she walked to her buggy and drove back toward Red Hollow. Calder stood on the porch and watched her go the same way he'd watched Agnes go and once again could not quite read the expression he'd se he'd seen on her face at the end of the visit. She brought Maisie something.
Clara said behind him. I saw she didn't have to. No, Calder agreed. Clara went back into the kitchen. Calder stood on the porch for another minute and then went to look at the porch railing because he promised this week and he meant to keep it.
The railing took the rest of that afternoon. Jonah helped hold the post steady without being asked, which was how Jonah helped with most things, quietly, presently, without announcement. While they worked, Jonah said out of nowhere. December let me touch her neck today. Called her kept working.