The Sun’s special help

The Sun’s special help is the intervention Klara hopes will make Josie better, and the uncertain promise at the center of her appeal to the Sun. When Josie weakens and the expected help does not arrive, Klara asks for it directly, offering to destroy the machine responsible for pollution in return. The encounter offers no clear assurance, but it transforms waiting into a bargain and gives Klara a task to undertake for Josie’s sake.

Meaning and First Expectation

Klara’s belief in special help grows from an earlier instance in which, as she understands it, the Sun aided Beggar Man and his dog. She therefore distinguishes this hoped-for intervention from the ordinary nourishment the Sun provides. Her faith is not merely that sunlight sustains life: she imagines that the Sun can choose to show particular kindness to someone in need.

The distinction becomes urgent as days pass without a visit from Rick. Josie grows lethargic, and Klara fears she is becoming weak again. Klara watches for a sign in the Sun’s pattern: a sudden alteration of the light in Josie’s bedroom or the Sun breaking through after overcast weather. Although the Sun continues to send its normal nourishment unfailingly, the special help does not come. The contrast between dependable daily light and an absent exceptional intervention makes Klara’s hope increasingly anxious.

The Appeal in Mr McBain’s Barn

Klara carries her request to the Sun in Mr McBain’s barn. As the light grows more pronounced and orange, she decides she cannot risk losing her chance by being too polite. She first asks the Sun to make Josie better, invoking the precedent of Beggar Man. She then insists that Josie is still a child and has done nothing unkind.

Klara also recognizes that her request may be unwelcome. She recalls the Mother’s scrutinizing eyes at Morgan’s Falls and the angry bull that seemed to resent her passing through its field. These memories make her fear that she has intruded when the Sun needs to rest, and that the Sun may be angry with humans because of their pollution and inconsideration. She apologizes in her thoughts and acknowledges that the Sun might refuse to consider her request, yet presses on because the opportunity is fleeting.

Rather than demand help, Klara proposes an exchange. She offers to do something special that would please the Sun, asking whether, in return, it might show Josie the same special kindness it showed Beggar Man and his dog. As Klara makes this proposal, the barn’s dense red glow takes on a gentler aspect. The divided segments of the space seem to drift, and the lower half of the Glass Display Trolley rises out of view. The terrible bull disappears. Klara takes these changes as a vital advantage and uses the remaining moment to state her offer plainly: she has identified the machine that creates pollution and proposes to find and destroy it.

The Uncertain Bargain

The Sun does not explicitly agree to Klara’s terms. As it moves on, the barn darkens, the divisions in Klara’s surroundings disappear, and she sees the Sun sinking toward the ground beyond the field and its line of trees. She waits at the barn’s back opening until its last glow has vanished, then leaves. The scene gives Klara grounds for hope, but not a spoken guarantee that Josie will recover.

Afterward, Klara says she believes there is now reason to hope that Josie will get better, but that she must first perform a task. When asked whether help is possible, she refuses to discuss the matter freely: she believes an understanding, or a contract, was achieved that night, and that speaking about it might jeopardize it. Her reserve shows how seriously she treats the bargain even while its terms remain uncertain to others.

Narrative Significance

Special help links Klara’s care for Josie to her belief that the Sun can respond to a human appeal. Its absence first heightens the danger of Josie’s renewed weakness; the appeal then converts helpless watching into a chosen course of action. Klara’s proposed payment is not abstract: she intends to destroy the pollution-producing machine because she believes pollution angers and saddens the Sun.

The episode preserves uncertainty rather than confirming the Sun’s power or the bargain’s success. The changing light and the vanishing bull appear to Klara as signs that her proposal has altered the encounter, while the Sun gives no explicit promise and continues on its way. For Klara, however, the encounter is enough to make hope actionable: she leaves believing that Josie may receive special help, and that she must first fulfill her side of the proposed exchange.