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"Wayne, you know I've always told you our home was open to your friends, but just the same, I don't like this."

Wayne was helping with the dinner dishes because he had always liked to do things around the house. In exasperation he flung the towel on the sink. Although he was a man he had the face and figure of a boy. At twenty-two he weighed 118 pounds. He had inherited this slight frame from his mother's family. He was the type that would have made a jockey, but his face wouldn't have been right. His face was clear and sweet. Fresh looking. The woman saw one side of his mouth pulled tight-a sure sign that he was angry.

"As I said," she continued, "you are welcome to bring your friends home, but we have a right to know a little about them. Especially this Mr. Ballerick." "I told you," he answered, his voice as tight as his mouth, "he came up to me in a restaurant. He was alone, so was I, we started a conversation, he offered to show me around, and he's been a swell guy." He raised his voice. "Wake up, Mom, in a big town you don't have to know someone's grandparents before you speak to a person. He's all right, I tell you."

"Perhaps," she answered in a worried tone, "but it's the way he came here, an absolute stranger with all those questions. Personal and private things that I wouldn't ask someone I'd known a long time. And he's so clever you find yourself telling him before you realize what is happening."

"You don't understand him."

"Oh, and I suppose you understand each other?"

"He's the first person I've known that has understood me," he said and saw her eyes look as though she was in pain.

"But we don't know anything about him," she said.

"I've already told you," he answered with an air of finality.

"All I get is a mixed jumble of nothing," she said. "Jobs here and there. Too many for him to ever amount to anything. You say he's an artist. Bah! It's the man that works with his hands that amounts to something. He's too smart. Too smart to be paling around with a country boy. No matter what is mentioned he knows all about it."

"Mom," he pleaded, "lay off, will you? He went to college. Why shouldn't he be smart? He's told me all about himself, and I know he's on the level."

"And another thing," she cut in, "he's too old for you. I wouldn't be surprised he's as old as your dad. I just wish you would come home again to stay. You could find a good job around here." She paused and looked at him tenderly. "With the girls all married, you're all I have left."

"You're all excited over nothing, Mom," he said. "Forget it. I'm going down to the field."

She stood at the door and watched him go until he joined the other figure. The figures looked miniature and unreal as they watched the baler spew its match boxes, one after the other, across the stubbled field.