Raw Stanfield and b.u.t.t Johnson had helped carry Mun home. Then, understanding the fearful consequences of Melinda's heresy, they'd summoned Queenie and Thunder to heel and hadn't been seen since.

Shaken from the tips of his toes to the ends of his s.h.a.ggy hair, Harky needed another fifteen minutes before he could muster strength to start milking. Melinda had put a hex on all of them that night she stood beneath Old Joe's sycamore, with Old Joe up, and declared so loftily that the sycamore was not a magic tree but merely one that hunters were too lazy to chop or climb, and that Old Joe was nothing more than a big, wise, and rather interesting c.o.o.n.

That accounted for the broken leg of Mun, the aloofness of Raw Stanfield and b.u.t.t Johnson, and the unhappiness of Harky. He sat down to milk, but he was still so jarred by the dreadful tidings he'd just imparted to himself that when Old Brindle kicked the pail over Harky didn't even threaten her with a club. Affairs were already in a state so hopeless that nothing Old Brindle did could complicate them further. Not even if she kicked Harky's brains out.

He finished the milking and the other ch.o.r.es and latched the barn door.

Duckfoot trailed behind him as he walked toward the house, but Harky did not have even his usual friendly pat for the hound's head when they came to the porch. Duckfoot, who'd shed most of his puppyish ways, crawled disconsolately into his sleeping box.

Gloom remained Harky's companion. Fifty-one years ago, or approximately at the beginning of time, his great-grandfather had settled this very farm. There'd been Mundees on it since, and hounds of the lineage of Precious Sue, and all of them had hunted Old Joe. Now the spell was broken because a mere girl, who had been taught by Miss Cathby, who didn't know anything about anything, had considered it right to trifle with spells.

Harky recalled the night Melinda had brought Glory to the c.o.o.n hunt. He had, he remembered, hoped Melinda would fall in the mud and had promised to stamp on her head if she did. He could not help thinking that that had been a flash of purest insight, and that all would now be favorable if Melinda had fallen in the mud and had her head stamped on.

Harky turned the door k.n.o.b and made his decision as he did so. The new and radical, as represented by Melinda and Miss Cathby, must go. The old and steadfast, as embodied in the immortality of Old Joe and the probability that Duckfoot's father was really a duck, must be restored to the pedestal from which it had toppled. But Harky needed Mun's advice, and he was so intent on the problem at hand that he only half heard his father's greeting.

"So ya finally come back, eh? Of all the blasted, lazy, pokey, turtle-brained warts on the face of creation, I jest dunno of a one wust than you!"

Harky said, "Yes, Pa."

Startled, but too much under the influence of his own momentum to stop suddenly, Mun demanded, "Didja git the corn in?"

"No, Pa."

The fires in Mun's brain died. Harky, who should have been sa.s.sing him back, was meekly turning the other cheek. Despite Mun's frequently and violently expressed opinions concerning the all-around worthlessness of his offspring, Harky was his son and the sole hope of the c.o.o.n-hunting branch of the clan Mundee.

"Ya sick, Harky?" Mun asked suspiciously.

"No, Pa."

"Then what is chawin' on ya?"

"Tell me again when my great-grandpappy come here," Harky requested.

Mun said, "Nigh onto fifty-two years past."

"That's a heap o' time, ain't it?" Harky asked.

"A smart heap o' time," Mun declared proudly. "Not many famblys knows as much about themselfs as us Mundees."

"You sure," Harky went on, "that Sue come to no good end on account she run in the dark o' the moon?"

Mun shrugged. "What else?"

"And Duckfoot's pappy was a duck?"

Mun looked puzzled. "Think I'd lie, Harky?"

"No, Pa," Harky said hastily. "Just tell me again that all us Mundees been on the trail of Old Joe."

"How kin ya ponder?" Mun asked. "My grandpappy told my pappy, who told me, who told you, that Old Joe's been hunted by every Mundee."

"What do you think of Old Joe's big sycamore?" Harky questioned.

"It's a witch tree," Mun said seriously. "I ain't rightly been able to figger if'n Old Joe takes wings an' flies off it or if'n he does jump in the slough. But I'm sure that if'n Old Joe gits in his witch tree naught can harm him."

"Ha!" Harky exclaimed. "Now we know!"

"Know what?" Again Mun was puzzled.

"All," Harky declared. "Mellie Garson gets mule-kicked; Melinda brings Glory to horn in on our hunt; we get Old Joe up in his sycamore; Melinda says it ain't no witch tree and Old Joe's naught but a big c.o.o.n; you believe her and try to climb; you bust your leg; Raw and b.u.t.t don't want no more part of us--and," Harky wailed, "I can't even take pleasure on account you can't make me fetch the corn in!"

"By gum!" Mun said, "you got it!"

"Sure I got it," Harky a.s.serted. "Why'd you let Melinda horn in on our c.o.o.n hunt, Pa?"

"I don't rightly know," Mun admitted. "I wa'n't of no mind to have her, an' I know Raw'n b.u.t.t wa'n't. But she was of a mind to go, an' gol ding it, when a woman's of a mind to do somethin', they do it!"

"I would of stomped on her head if she'd fell in the mud," Harky a.s.sured his father.

"I know," Mun meditated, "an' it wa'n't a poor notion. But, gol ding it, men just don't mistreat wimmen."

"I still don't know why," said Harky.

"Nor I," Mun admitted. "They jest don't an' that's all. Your ma, she didn't weigh mor'n half what I do, but she's the only mortal critter ever made me take to the woods."

"Are women ornery all the time?" Harky questioned.

"'Bout half," Mun said. "Rest o' the time, well, they're wimmen."

"What else do you know about 'em, Pa?"

"Durn little," Mun confessed. "What ya drivin' at anyhow, Harky?"

"Melinda put a spell on us," Harky said. "But it ain't all her doing.

Miss Cathby showed her how."

"I never thought of that," said Mun. "Never ag'in do I make ya go to school, Harky."

"Good," Harky said. "But I got to get that spell off."

"How do ya aim to go about it?" Mun questioned.

"I'll ask Melinda to fetch Glory on another c.o.o.n hunt," Harky declared.

"We'll run Old Joe up his sycamore again. Then I'll climb the tree and make her climb with me. She'll eat mud when she finds out there ain't no den."

"Harky!" Mun said joyously. "Your great-grandpappy would be right proud of the way you talk!"