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“Lord,” I said, nearly forgetting how scared I was.

It was a cookstove, shining in the Dakota autumn sun. Not just any cookstove—it was a four-burner cookstove with a halo of raised ivy ringing the oven door.

The men tore open the other crate. Inside was a potbelly stove.

The driver said, “Where you want these?” I pointed to the dugout, and when I realized that he wanted to know exactly where, I hurried in and showed him the longest wall in the kitchen. “The cookstove goes right here,” I said. Then I pointed to the bedroom, not wanting to go in there with the white men. “And the potbelly,” I said. “It goes along the back wall in there.”

I waited outside in the sun as the men worked the cookstove and then the potbelly through the door. Isaac, I thought. He didn’t tell me; he kept this a secret. He wanted to surprise me. I wondered how he managed it. I always went to town with him on Saturdays. He must have placed the order at Len Anderson’s store when I was in the back admiring all the bolts of fabric.

“You there,” the driver called out to me. I went to the open doorway, my hand on the knife, scared all over again. He was rubbing the top of the cookstove with a clean rag. The other men stood off to the side. “Come here,” the driver said to me. I took one step into the dugout. Without looking at me, he got down on his knees, opened and closed the door. He nodded, looking satisfied. “It’s a Moore, same as the potbelly. Ain’t cheap but none better. A man does right when he buys the best.” He glanced over at the other two men. “Their mother’s got one of these. It’ll last you a lifetime. Probably your granddaughter’ll be browning her biscuits in it someday.”

He got up using the stove to help him. He turned to me. “You know anything about breaking in a new cookstove?”

I wanted to say that I did, just to keep from showing my ignorance. But I wanted the cookstove to work right. I wanted it to last for the granddaughter this man made mention of. I said, “No.”

“Didn’t think so.” He worked his mouth. The bulge that had been in one cheek disappeared and then showed up in the other cheek. He said, “Keep a low fire going a couple days before cooking. Burn the rawness out. Same with the potbelly. Before it gets any colder, make yourself a few easy fires, not too hot, mind you.”

“Yes,” I said. “All right.”

One of the sons along the wall crossed his arms. “Ma likes her stove as much as she likes us,” he said.

“More,” the other boy said, and they all three laughed loud and long like they had just told a joke. I smiled as if I understood, and then to my surprise, I found myself wanting to do something for these men what all at once looked to be better people than I first supposed. Without thinking I said, “You’re welcome to stay for noon dinner. I’ve got some stew going outside. My husband’ll be along any time.”

The men suddenly tensed. Their eyes darted to one another. Without a word they tossed around the idea of sitting down to dinner with Negroes. My mouth went dry. I wanted to take back the offer. I had never fed white men before; I didn’t know anything about how to do that. The driver shook his head slightly. The sons blew out some air. “Can’t,” the driver said. “Got to get over to Rapid by morning.”

“Well, then, help yourself to the well by the barn,” I said, much relieved. “There’s a trough for the oxen.”

“Appreciate that.” The driver gave the stove one last wipe and stuffed the rag in his back pocket. Then he looked at me and put his hand to the narrow brim of his slouch hat. He tugged it into place and as he did, I imagined that he tipped his head to me.

As I remembered that day, sitting in my parlor, a strange thought from out of the blue came to me. That driver had it wrong. It wouldn’t be my granddaughter baking biscuits in the cookstove. It’d be some white woman, somebody I didn’t know. I saw it as clear as day: a white woman and her husband in my house picking over our belongings. At first these people would claim they’d come for curiosity’s sake. They’d never