Noon Wine - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Royal Earle Thompson owns a dairy farm in southern Texas during the late 1890s. His farm is fairly unproductive, due in part to Thompson's laziness and distaste for most of the required labor on a dairy farm, which he considers "women's work." Thompson lives with his wife, Ellie, and his two small sons, Arthur and Herbert. Ellie is continually ill, though she does her best to perform her domestic duties around the house. The two boys, aged about six and eight when the story opens, are generally well-behaved.

One day, a man named Olaf Helton presents himself at the farm. The remarkably taciturn Swede asks Farmer Thompson for a job. Thompson agrees to employ Helton, offering him a small monthly wage, plus room and board. It is clear that Thompson views Helton as somewhat beneath him because he is a foreigner. Even though the wage is far below what Helton reports having earned in the wheat fields of North Dakota, he nonetheless sets to work immediately and proves himself to be an efficient farmhand, single-handedly transforming Thompson's run-down dairy farm into a productive, profitable enterprise. Though he is unable to figure out anything about his Helton's personal life or origins, Thompson grows to appreciate and respect his mysterious, silent farmhand. He increases his pay and entrusts him with much responsibility. Ellie also values Helton for the prosperity he brings to the farm, and is troubled by him just once, in a bizarre event in which she sees Helton silently shake her two boys in a terrifying manner after they had snatched his harmonica. She tells Thompson about what she saw and asks him to tell Helton that in the future he is to leave the discipline of the boys to their parents, and the family quickly moves past the event.

Nine years go by, and the Thompson dairy farm thrives, thanks to Helton's incomparable work ethic. The Thompsons come to view Helton as one of the family; his traits of rarely speaking, never smiling, and continually playing the same song on his precious harmonica, are oddities, once puzzling, that they simply accept.

One day, an offensive and irritating stranger named Homer T. Hatch shows up at the farm. Like Helton, he has come to Texas from North Dakota, and, more interesting still, he is there to "locate" Helton. The man annoys Farmer Thompson immediately with his grating banter and subtle insults. Hatch eventually reveals the reason for his visit: he is a bounty hunter, and Olaf Helton is an escaped mental patient who must be returned to the asylum. Many years earlier, Helton killed his only brother with a pitchfork. The man had lost one of Helton's harmonicas and refused to replace it. Thompson is stunned by this news and unwilling to give up Helton to Hatch, whom he instinctively feels is an evil man.

At this point, Helton, apparently believing Hatch is attacking Thompson, runs onto the scene, and Thompson sees Hatch drive a knife blade into Helton's stomach. Thompson rushes to Helton's defense, striking Hatch with an axe blade and killing him. Ellie comes on the scene only in time to see Hatch lying on the ground and Helton running away (unaccountably, in view of what Thompson "saw"), and she faints. The fleeing Helton, soon afterwards, in the midst of an apparent "mad" episode, such as he had never exhibited while with the Thompsons, is killed by the sheriff's men. When found, Helton's body bears no mark of a knife. It appears (though what happened is never explained) that Hatch's attack on Helton was Thompson's hallucination. Thompson impresses on Ellie the importance of her swearing that she witnessed Hatch attacking Helton, and she reluctantly agrees.

After a perfunctory trial, Thompson is acquitted on the ground of self-defense/defense of another. Despite the verdict, Thompson continues to relive the killing, at one moment sure that there must have been a way to get Hatch off his farm without harming him, at the next certain that he had no choice and that if the scene were playing before his eyes again, he would instinctively act as he did before. Worse, he is sure that though he is legally "not guilty," the community regards him as not innocent, and he fears that he has become an outcast. He decides to pay a visit on every household of the small farming community, accompanied by the unwilling Ellie, in an attempt to regain his reputation. His efforts are unsuccessful; both he and Ellie can see that they have lost the esteem of their neighbors and former friends. In a climactic scene at home, Thompson realizes that even his wife is afraid of him, and that their now nearly-grown sons no longer trust him with her. He decides that he must end his ruined life. Dressed in his best, he leaves the house and walks as far as he can while still on his land. He writes a note of explanation, saying that he never intended to harm Hatch, even though Hatch deserved to die; still, he is sorry that he had to be the one to kill him. Poignantly, Thompson puts no blame on Helton and observes that had Hatch come hunting him instead of Helton, his friend would have done the same for him. Thompson then shoots himself with his shotgun.