Daniel came on Thursday carrying a bundle of cured lumber from his workshop. He asked where she wanted it placed, and Vera told him she had not ordered any lumber. He said he knew, but that two boards might make a sturdier door for the brooder, and she was free to refuse them if she considered the old one satisfactory. She inspected the boards, found them better than anything in her own stack, and told him she would repay him with eggs when the college stopped consuming her best stock. Daniel nodded as if the arrangement had been settled in exactly the way he preferred.
She showed him the professor's letter before he could ask about the birds. He read it slowly, moving his lips over a few of the technical terms, then handed it back with obvious care. "Well," he said. "That's more serious than a rumor at Martha's store."
"It is," Vera said. "Though it doesn't prove the whole thing."
"What would prove it?"
"Time. Several hatches. Proper records. A laying season from the daughters, not just the mothers. You can't hurry that."
Daniel stood at the fence holding the letter, watching the birds in the run. "You sound disappointed that somebody agrees with you."
"I'm frightened they'll agree too quickly. People get excited about rare things. Then they expect miracles, and ordinary work starts looking like failure because it isn't dramatic enough."
He considered that for a moment. "Well, we know you're good at ordinary work. That's been the part I've been watching."
She met his eyes and felt an unfamiliar warmth rise behind her ribs. She had been observed by many people since her father's death, but most watched to see whether she would finally admit defeat. Daniel had watched through cold mornings, bad roofs, disputed measurements, and endless feed bills, and he had begun to see something beyond endurance. The distinction made her quiet.
"You should come inside for supper sometime," she said before she could talk herself out of it.
Daniel blinked. "Are you inviting me, or is that a recommendation from the poultry department?"
"Don't make it difficult."
"I wouldn't dream of it."
"Saturday. After we look at the latest hatch."
He smiled, but it was not the broad smile he used with other farmers. It appeared slowly, as if he were testing whether the moment could be trusted. "Saturday," he said, and he left the fence with a little less reluctance than she expected. Vera stood watching him walk north until the shelterbelt hid him, wondering when the fence had become a place where she might miss someone rather than simply meet him.