Lovey saw her leave the house and go off toward the woods with a bundle in her arms, but she registered merely the sight, without trying to explain it to herself, having a good deal too much, she thought, on her mind already. She—so far only she—knew that Floyd had made his decision. She knew too that she would have the hardest thing of all to do—explain the leaving to Ezra.

“I can’t, Mama,” he had said in a tight, quiet voice. “Going is hard enough. I can’t both go and lie too. Not even to Papa.”

“Come back,” she had said, “when you get over it.”

“What will you tell them?”

“I don’t know. Something. Do me a favor? When you’re ready, just go. Don’t tell me again, I’ll know.” She had seen the little signs, and she knew that he was ready.

After church services, which were short but not short enough, because every woman present was thinking more about her dinner than of giving thanks to the Lord, the Kendrick family with Penelope, gossiping with old friends and county neighbors, went into the grove where the coaches and buggies, and a few wagons with improvised cross-board seats, giving them the function of buckboards, had been left. The Kendricks and Penelope settled into the coach comfortably with Leon on the driver’s seat this time, and Sugar, who had driven them in, riding to Oaks on the outside back frame of the Davis carriage. The oldest boy, Adam, had insisted on riding there with him. Sugar had long been courting the girl named Violet at Oaks, with the permission of the masters of both plantations. All the Davises had come in except Bonard. Felix drove his buggy, with Nell on the seat beside him and a light trunkful of their necessaries on the buggy box behind. They were going to Beulah Land for dinner and, as Sarah had asked them, “… for a day or two anyway after?”

The dinner they ate was truly a feast, and when they all, including Lauretta who felt much, much better, she said, went in to the dining room, the very sight of the table full of food made Selma feel that she had already eaten. Suddenly, she could not, she decided, sit down and watch them eating, and listen to their exclamations about the tastiness of this and that and their polite arguments about whether the ham or the turkey was better. Taking one look at the table, she said, “You must all excuse me,” and went away quickly to her room, knowing that her name for eccentric behavior would allow them to accept her action without surprise or hurt feelings. Anyway, she had missed Pauline, and Pauline would sulk during the first hour of her return.

Those remaining laughed and sat down and were very soon indeed debating the merits of the ham as opposed to those of the turkey.

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