Noon Wine is a 1937 short novel by American author Katherine Anne Porter. It initially appeared in a limited numbered edition of 250, all signed by the author and published by Shuman's. It later appeared in 1939 as part of Pale Horse, Pale Rider (), a collection of three short novels by the author, including the title story and "Old Mortality." A dark tragedy about a farmer's futile act of homicide that leads to his own suicide, the story takes place on a small dairy farm in southern Texas during the 1890s. It has been filmed twice for television, in 1966 and 1985.
While Noon Wine and its companion pieces, "Old Mortality" and "Pale Horse, Pale Rider," have been described as novellas, Porter referred to them as short novels. Porter, in the preface "Go Little Book . . " to The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter, abjured the word "novella," calling it a "slack, boneless, affected word that we do not need to describe anything." She went on to say, "Please call my works by their right names. We have four that cover every division: short stories, long stories, short novels, novels."
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 manual labor. Thompson lives with his wife, Ellie, and two small sons, Arthur and Herbert. Ellie is chronically ill, though she does her best to perform her domestic duties.
Olaf Helton presents himself at the farm. The taciturn Swede asks Thompson for a job. Thompson offers Helton a small monthly wage, plus room and board. 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 proves himself to be an efficient farmhand, transforming Thompson's run-down dairy farm into a profitable enterprise.
Thompson grows to appreciate his mysterious, silent farmhand. He increases his pay and entrusts him with much responsibility. Ellie also values the difference Helton has made to the farm. She is troubled by him just once, when she sees Helton silently shake her two boys in a terrifying manner after they had snatched his harmonica. She asks her husband to tell Helton that in the future he is to leave the discipline of the boys to their parents. The family quickly moves past the event.
Nine years go by, and Helton's incomparable work ethic continues the farm's prosperity. 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 that they simply accept.
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 says he is there to find Helton. Hatch annoys Thompson immediately with his grating banter and subtle insults. Hatch eventually reveals that he is a bounty hunter, and Helton is an escaped mental patient who must be returned to the asylum. Helton had killed his only brother with a pitchfork after he lost one of Helton's harmonicas and refused to replace it. Thompson is stunned by this news and unwilling to give up Helton, instinctively sensing that Hatch is an evil man.
Thompson has a vision of Hatch driving a knife blade into Helton's stomach. The farmer 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. The fleeing Helton, in the midst of an apparent "mad" episode, is killed by the sheriff's men. When found, Helton's body bears no mark of a knife; it appears that Hatch's attack on Helton was merely 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. Thompson continues to relive the killing, sometime wondering if he could have sent Hatch away, other times certain that he had no choice. Worse, he is sure that the community regards him as not innocent, and 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.