She visited her mother’s grave and Grandpa Deal’s and the tiny one of Janet’s baby with the wild honeysuckle tangled over it. Her mother lay under a tall pine on which the dried cones rustled all the afternoon in the summer breezes. Abbie sat and thought about her,—the little peasant girl whose life had changed because a young hunter rode by. She thought of the trail of graves across the country. Her father was buried in New York State, a little brother in Illinois, her mother in Iowa, her husband in Nebraska. A trail of graves marked the westward trek of her family.

When she got back to town they asked her to guess whoever she supposed could be there. “Dr. Ed Matthews’ wife from New York City,” they told her.

Abbie could not think that it would be so hard to meet any one. Surely, at forty-seven one did not care about things like that.

The woman was slender, wasp-waisted, beautifully dressed, her huge leg-o’-mutton sleeves the height of style. She had on a whole garnet set, a pin, earbobs and bracelet.

“They tell me you are one of Doctor’s old sweethearts.” She smiled at Abbie with her graying hair and her sunburned skin and her work-worn hands. Abbie’s heart was pounding ridiculously. Certainly at forty-seven one ought to have more poise than that. She leaned over Grace and fixed her sash. When she raised her face it was composed. She smiled back, “Oh, he used to come past the schoolhouse sometimes where I taught . . . and stop to talk.”

When Abbie came back, she stopped in Lincoln a day to visit Margaret. Fred, Jr. was two years old now, and sitting up to the table on Gus’s and Christine’s wedding gift of Twenty Lessons in Etiquette, but as far as Abbie could see, the association was a lost cause, for Fred, Jr.’s, table activities were of such an adventurous type that an onlooker might gather he was sitting on The Life and Voyages of Columbus.

Abbie arrived at the farm to face the utter ruin of her corn crop. During that week of July in which she had been back to the old home, the hot winds had blown out of the southwest with their scorching, blighting breath, and the young, shoulder-high stalks were so many blistered pieces of pulp.

She had been home two days when Henry Lutz drove out to tell her that Sarah was not well enough to go to Omaha to be with Emma during confinement and to ask her to go in Sarah’s place. The hot winds had wearied Sarah, Henry said,—just tired her out.

For a few brief moments Abbie felt a fierce resentment that Sarah was always so well taken care of. Wasn’t it hot for her too? Just back from burying Grandma, after caring for her two years, with the chickens and the house and everything to see to,—wasn’t she weary, too? Oh, why could she never live any life of her own? For a few minutes resentful thoughts tumbled about in her mind, and then she said cheerfully, “Why, yes, tell Sarah I’ll go.”