All Flesh Is Grass Read Online Free

door shutting and I knew the dog was in.
    It was strange, I thought, that there’d been no alarm. Perhaps it was because few people as yet knew about the barrier. Perhaps the few who had found out about it were still a little numb. Perhaps most of them couldn’t quite believe it. Maybe they were afraid, as I was, to make too much fuss about it until they knew something more about it.
    But it couldn’t last for long—this morning calm. Before too long, Millville would be seething.
    Now, as I followed it, the barrier cut through the back yard of one of the older houses in the village. In its day it had been a place of elegance, but years of poverty and neglect had left it tumbledown.
    An old lady was coming down the steps from the shaky back porch, balancing her frail body with a steadying cane. Her hair was thin and white and even with no breeze to stir the air, ragged ends of it floated like a fuzzy halo all around her head.
    She started down the path to the little garden, but when she saw me she stopped and peered at me, with her head tilted just a little in a bird-like fashion. Her pale blue eyes glittered at me through the thickness of her glasses.
    â€œBrad Carter, isn’t it?” she asked.
    â€œYes, Mrs. Tyler,” I said. “How are you this morning?”
    â€œOh, just tolerable,” she told me. “I’m never more than that. I thought that it was you, but my eyes have failed me and I never can be sure.”
    â€œIt’s a nice morning, Mrs. Tyler. This is good weather we are having.”
    â€œYes,” she said, “it is. I was looking for Tupper. He seems to have wandered off again. You haven’t seen him, have you?”
    I shook my head. It had been ten years since anyone had seen Tupper Tyler.
    â€œHe is such a restless boy,” she said. “Always wandering off. I declare, I don’t know what to do with him.”
    â€œDon’t you worry,” I told her. “He’ll show up again.”
    â€œYes,” she said, “I suppose he will. He always does, you know.” She prodded with her cane at the bed of purple flowers that grew along the walk. “They’re very good this year,” she said. “The best I’ve ever seen them. I got them from your father twenty years ago. Mr. Tyler and your father were such good friends. You remember that, of course.”
    â€œYes,” I said. “I remember very well.”
    â€œAnd your mother? Tell me how she is. We used to see a good deal of one another.”
    â€œYou forget, Mrs. Tyler,” I told her, gently. “Mother died almost two years ago.”
    â€œOh, so she did,” she said. “It’s true, I am forgetful. Old age does it to one. No one should grow old.”
    â€œI must be getting on,” I said. “It was good to see you.”
    â€œIt was kind of you to call,” she said. “If you have the time, you might step in and we could have some tea. It is so seldom now that anyone ever comes for tea. I suppose it’s because the times have changed. No one, any more, has the time for tea.”
    â€œI’m sorry that I can’t,” I said. “I just stopped by for a moment.”
    â€œWell,” she said, “it was very nice of you. If you happen to see Tupper would you mind, I wonder, to tell him to come home.”
    â€œOf course I will,” I promised.
    I was glad to get away from her. She was nice enough, of course, but just a little mad. In all the years since Tupper’s disappearance, she had gone on looking for him, and always as if he’d just stepped out the door, always very calm and confident in the thought that he’d be coming home in just a little while. Quite reasonable about it and very, very sweet, no more than mildly worried about the idiot son who had vanished without trace.
    Tupper, I recalled, had been something of a pest. He’d been a pest with everyone, of course, but