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nce.  Do it again.  Ma wouldn’t mind.”
    Georgie glanced at me.  I shrugged, thinking he couldn’t do it anyway.  Shifting the boulder was one thing; lifting it was another.
    “Okay,” said Georgie.  His eyes went vacant, as if he were thinking about something that had happened a long time back.  A split second later Pa and I scrambled out of the way as the boulder came floating hole!
    Looking like a huge, prehistoric tooth that had somehow been ripped from the earth, it hovered three feet above the pit, the bottom third covered with dirt, my shirt and long johns still on top where I’d thrown them.  Pa danced around the stone, gleefully slapping his thigh.  “Over there, Georgie,” he shouted, pointing to the rock wall dividing our field from the McClintocks’ acreage .  “Over there!”
    Grinning , Georgie trailed along behind the boulder, dwarfed by the giant rock as it floated toward the center of the field.
    “Set it on top,” Pa ordered.  “Right on to p, Georgie.  Right on top! ”
    Recalling Ma’s story, I stood numbly, a premonition of disaster gnawing at my insides as Georgie set the boulder atop the boundary wall.  It settled onto the loose stones, thrusting them aside as it descended, shattering the larger rocks below and sending stone fragments flying in all directions.  The smell of powdered rock filled my nose as the boulder continued to settle , coming to rest when it had reburied itself a couple of feet in the soft earth.
    “By God, we did it!” Pa roared, thumping Georgie on the back.  “We did it!  Boys, we’re celebrating tonight.  Tonight you’ re going to the tavern with me .”
    Georgie was beaming with pride.  I’d never seen him happier.  “Pa, there’s a problem,” I said, not wanting to ruin the moment but knowing I had to speak.  “People will ask how we did it.  What are you gonna tell them?”
    “Hell,” Pa snorted, “I’ll tell ’em we just rolled it over there!”
     
    That night, for the first time since Ma had died, Georgie and I ate dinner at the tavern.  Oh, we had been to the Bent Pig often enough to help Pa stumble home, but not as paying customers, and definitely not to eat.  Georgie and I sat beneath a kerosene lantern at a table in the back, eating from large bowls filled with pork, potato, and butter-bean stew , one of the Pig’s specialties .
    The bar was fairly crowded that night—fifteen to twenty men drinking and smoking and discussing the weather, their harvest, news from the city.  Pa was buying drinks for friends and talking loud as usual, filling the room with his big booming voice.  We could hear him all the way back at our table.  He was bragging about his boys.
    I looked over at Georgie.  He was eating steadily but never taking his eyes off Pa, a big grin on his face.  For my part, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was about to go wrong.  Pa could hold his liquor, but sooner or later he would always reach a poin t when something slipped and suddenly he’d be soused.  He already had more than a good start on it when we arrived, and I was worried.  If he shot off his mouth about that boulder . . .
    My apprehension shot up several notches as I saw Abe McClin tock stomping through the door.  H is two huge sons, Caleb and Jake, were in tow.  From the expression on Abe’s face, I knew the mood in the Bent Pig was about to change.
    Abe stopped inside the doorway, his thick callused hands perched on his hips.  “John Neuman!  Where the hell are you?” he bellowed, surveying the room as if he owned it.  Caleb and Jake stood behind him like pit bulls, all muscle and spoiling for a fight.
    Pa turned slowly.  “You lookin’ for me, Abe?”
    “Damn right I am.  Get that rock off my property!”
    “What’re you talking about?” Pa replied.  “We put that stone dead center on the boundary wall, just like all the others.”
    “It’s hanging a good six feet onto my field!”
    “No more’n it is