BALLARD HAS COME IN FROM the dark dragging sheaves of snowclogged bracken and he has fallen to crushing up handfuls of this dried or frozen stuff and cramming it into the fireplace. The lamp in the floor gutters in the wind and wind moans in the flue. The cracks in the wall lie printed slantwise over the floorboards in threads of drifted snow and wind is shucking the cardboard windowpanes. And Ballard has come with an armload of beanpoles purloined from the barnloft and he is at breaking them and laying them on.

When he has the fire going he pulls off his brogans and stands them on the hearth and he pulls the wadded socks from his toes and lays them out to dry. He sits and dries the rifle and ejects the shells into his lap and dries them and wipes the action and oils it and oils the receiver and the barrel and the magazine and the lever and reloads the rifle and levers a shell into the chamber and lets the hammer down and lays the rifle on the floor beside him.

The cornbread he has baked in the fire is a crude mush of simple meal and water. A flat tasteless crust that he chews woodenly and washes down with water. The two bears and the tiger watch from the wall, their plastic eyes shining in the firelight and their red flannel tongues out.