“In the corn was life, and the future”

The expression “In the corn was life, and the future” crystallizes the hope Ish finds in a small box of corn seeds brought back from an expedition. For a community that had waited too long to try growing corn and could no longer find living seed, the kernels represent not just food but the possibility of a future sustained by cultivation.

The Seeds and Their Discovery

Ish had known the box was in his desk, but the rapid succession of events had left him without time or peace of mind to examine it. When he finally opens it, he reaches among the cool, smooth kernels and discovers that they are small, pointed, and red and black—not the large yellow or white kernels he had expected. He recognizes that those larger kernels belonged to a highly developed, perhaps artificially hybridized variety; these smaller seeds were more primitive, like the corn traditionally raised by the Pueblo Indians.

A Future Made Tangible

Ish handles the kernels slowly, letting them run through his fingers and return to the box. The physical act of touching them brings merciful forgetfulness and a new peace: the seeds have come from the expedition eastward, carrying the prospect of renewed life. The expression gives that prospect its simplest form. Corn means a chance to grow something the community had previously failed to preserve, and therefore a chance to make a future rather than merely endure the present.

Sharing the Possibility with Joey

Looking up, Ish notices Joey watching him with interest. Warm toward the child, he calls him over and explains what the corn means. The community had delayed planting for so long that Ish had eventually been unable to find any living seed; now, he tells Joey, there is another chance. Their exchange turns the kernels into more than a private consolation: Ish makes them an object of shared knowledge, showing the next generation why they matter.

Although Ish knows that using seed for a demonstration risks wasting it, he takes Joey to the kitchen. They light a burner on the gasoline stove, put a frying-pan over the flame, and carefully parch only two dozen kernels. Ish is too moved to resist the temptation, and he justifies the small loss as necessary to demonstrate the corn to Joey at once. The scene binds the expression’s hope to both material scarcity and transmission: the future lies in the seeds, but also in teaching a child to understand their value.