LOVE OF MY DAYS LOUISE ERDRICH

This happened on the table-flat plains before most farms had telephones.

- LOUISE ERDRICH

So these incidents came about because news travelled slow. Early one morning, Jake Weir went to town to see about a mixture of grains for his horses. When he returned to his farm and went into the house, he saw a stranger sitting at his table.

“What are you doing here?”

Both men said this at the same time.

“This is my house,” said Weir.

“You are mistaken,” said the stranger.

“I must ask you to leave,” said Weir.

“You're the one who should leave.”

“I guess I'll have to go back to town and get the sheriff.”

“Go get him then. I don't care.”

The man stood up. He wasn’t large or threatening, or red-haired or dark-haired or blond. Everything about him was middling—hair, height, face, age. Weir was confused by the man’s unusual conviction, though. He half believed that the man did own the place, although he himself had bought it the previous year. Yet maybe there was some odd reason that the man had a claim. Weir got back into his good black buggy and turned around. So responsive were his two horses that he barely needed to shift his grip on the reins. He made good time and easily located the sheriff, who was at the courthouse in the presence of a judge. Weir explained the predicament, found he was in the right, and proceeded to obtain a warrant for eviction. Sheriff Flower and Deputy Otto Ponath drove out to Weir's farmstead, with Weir following along in his buggy. By then a thin wet snow was coming down. As they entered the yard, the front door of the house gaped open, but when the horses stopped the door swung shut. The men climbed down off their rigs, and Sheriff Flower approached the house.

“May I come in and dry my feet?” he asked.

“There's no place in here to dry your feet” was the reply.

“Well, then,” said Flower, “I want to feed my team.”

“Go to the stable and feed your team. I don't care.”

Both men listened hard on either side of the door.