Towser came around the corner of the house. He was sidling along, sniffing at the lowest row of siding and his ears were cocked with interest.

“That dog is nuts,” said Taine and went inside.

He went into the kitchen, his bare feet slapping on the floor.

He filled the teakettle, set it on the stove and turned the burner on underneath the kettle.

He turned on the radio, forgetting that it was out of kilter.

When it didn’t make a sound, he remembered and, disgusted, snapped it off. That was the way it went, he thought. He fixed other people’s stuff, but never got around to fixing any of his own.

He went into the bedroom and put on his shoes. He threw the bed together.

Back in the kitchen the stove had failed to work again. The burner beneath the kettle was cold.

Taine hauled off and kicked the stove. He lifted the kettle and held his palm above the burner. In a few seconds he could detect some heat.

“Worked again,” he told himself.

Some day, he knew, kicking the stove would fail to work. When that happened, he’d have to get to work on it. Probably wasn’t more than a loose connection.

He put the kettle back onto the stove.

There was a clatter out in front and Taine went out to see what was going on.

Beasly, the Hortons’ yardboy-chauffeur-gardener, et cetera, was backing a rickety old track up the driveway. Beside him sat Abbie Horton, the wife of H. Henry Horton, the village’s most important citizen. In the back of the truck, lashed on with ropes and half-protected by a garish red and purple quilt, stood a mammoth television set. Taine recognized it from of old. It was a good ten years out of date and still, by any standard, it was the most expensive set ever to grace any home in Willow Bend.