He was poor, that was one thing Lorna knew about him. The sleeves of his shirt were worn at the cuffs, the fabric giving way at the edges. His coat had a tear in it, neatly mended, and his shoes were worn nearly through. In spite of his tattered appearance, he was handsome; sandy hair, hazel eyes, a face both boyish and masculine. His name was Tarn, and when he wasn't being an errand boy, he drew pictures of people on scraps of paper.
Everyday Tarn came by the dairy barn where she worked, always arriving during her break. While she rested her hands, he would lean over the stall and talk. He never asked her any questions or even paused for her to add anything, he simply told her about his day in one long narrative until her break ended.
“Why do I let him do this?” she asked herself as she milked the cow with the crumpled horn. If she had the energy, if she wasn't so sad all the time, she would tell him that she was busy, that she couldn't talk. It wasn't a lie, she really was supposed to be writing a letter to Amias who had gone west to find his fortune. He said he would send for her, but that was eight months ago, and she was still at Jack’s house, milking cows with an ever increasing sense of desperation.
The question was twofold in that she had started to look forward to Tarn’s appearances. It was something in the look on his face that made her feel as though she was about to fall off the back of a moving horse.
Today he told her a ridiculous story about the cow she was milking. It was a chain of events so long, she wasn't even sure she could remember it correctly. She cocked her head and imitated Tarn’s voice, “I dropped a grain of malt this morning and a rat jumped on it so fast, that the cat got excited and chased it. The cat chased the rat out the front door and almost fell over himself when he saw the dog. Thinking it was a game, the dog followed the cat into the barn. All the ruckus startled the very cow you’re milking and she caught the dog on her horns and tossed him.” She wondered, as she often did, if he sometimes fabricated the stories he told her.
As she milked the cow, Tarn passed by the cow barn again. He jumped over side of the stall, grabbing her off her stool and kissing her. “She said yes!” he told her, his face ebullient. He skipped out of the barn, proclaiming to the farm animals, “She said yes!”
=+#=+#=+#=+#=+#=+#
My three-year-old keeps asking me to recite This is the House that Jack Built. I always get about halfway through before I start wondering what the heck is going on in this story.