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fingers still on it, and we could see that it was a folded knife tipped with silver on the end. “This is supposed to be your present, Dad.” She sounded excited and full of pride. “Watch what I’ve learned to do—taught myself how to do it!” She opened the knife and aimed at a brown spot on the wall, a little spot hardly big enough to see and high up across the room. “Look out!” Dad shouted. “Stop!” He shoved back his chair and tried to snatch the knife, but jerked at her arm instead. Merle and I screamed out, and the knife went wild, straight at old Cale’s blind head, and slashed across his nose. “God damn you!” Father shouted. He grabbed at Kerrin and knocked her back against the wall. Merle started to cry and Kerrin screamed out some horrible things. Only Mother had sense enough to run to Cale and slop at his nose with water. But he growled and snapped at her with his mouth full of red foam, so that she couldn’t get near enough to help him. Then Father grabbed him from behind and held his mouth so he couldn’t bite her.The cut was deep and slashed back in his head, and it bled as if every vein were opened. I stood holding on hard to Merle and trying to stop her howls, and Kerrin was on her knees by Mother, trying to sop up the blood, but Dad knocked her away and roared at her to get out and leave the room. It was terrible—the way she went out in a black rage, crying, with her hands clenched and her eyes—I was scared and Merle screamed when we saw her eyes and the awful hate in them. She slammed the door and rushed out in the dark, though it was beginning to rain and a cold wind had come up. I stood there dumb, not knowing what to do or say, and Merle kept on crying. Then Dad said, “It’s no use.” He picked Cale up and started out toward the door. “The girl’s killed him,” he said. They went outside, Mother still holding the cloth around Cale’s mouth, and we heard her tell Dad that it was he who had shaken Kerrin’s arm. But the door slammed after and we could not hear his answer except as a loud and angry sound.
    Merle and I stayed, looking at the broken-up cake and the blood, and after a few minutes she stopped crying and was quiet. Then we went to the door and listened, and over the wind heard two thumps of agun and then only the sound of rain running down the gutters. . . . “Let’s go shut the chickens up,” I said. I took the lantern down, and Merle put Mother’s sweater on. She looked so sad and patient with the sweater hanging down around her ankles and her fat cheeks streaked with tears and icing that I thought my heart would crack.
    It was cold and quiet out in the chicken house, and the new straw had a clean smell to it. We could hear the chickens moving and churring in their sleep. There was a pile of weed hay in one corner, and we sat there with the lantern down on the floor in front. Rain made a slow and washing sound on the window glass, and we heard a small rustle of mice. We felt tired and sick, but out here in the dark with only mice sounds and the slide of rain things seemed less terrible and vile.
    â€œWhere do you think that Kerrin went?” Merle whispered to me after a while.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “But she’ll come back sometime soon, I guess.” I was empty of tears and could not cry even when I thought about old Cale. I hoped that they would not bury him out in the pasture or in some bare and ugly place. And I thought aboutpoor Kerrin, too, stumbling and hiding somewhere in the rain, angry and sick and raging like the devil.
    â€œI guess there won’t be any more party,” Merle said. She sat pushed up tight against me, her round hands clasped together looking like mittens in each other.
    â€œNo more tonight,” I said. “Maybe tomorrow or some other day we’ll finish.” But I knew it would never be the same.