“He couldn’t have managed the people.”

“He wouldn’t have driven and beaten them, but he would have managed them. Oh, I know we told Roscoe not to punish them without permission from either you or me, but he goes his own way, you may be sure, and the people are either in debt to him, or too awed and frightened of him to complain. If only Floyd were here!”

“Well, he isn’t,” Leon said, nursing still some of his own old hurt over Floyd’s having left Beulah Land.

“No, he isn’t. And you have made it all too clear to Roscoe how much we need him.”

“I’m sorry my behavior—my expression of attitude, if you will, fails to meet your requirements and expectations.”

She laughed shortly. “Don’t talk like a play, Leon. You sound like Roscoe with the hifalutin balances and repetitions he fancies are so elegant. Nevertheless, he knows he has the upper hand of us.”

“Upper hand! He owns a few miserable acres and a clutch of ignorant slaves who are probably not worth their keep. Be reasonable.”

“You will see,” she said maddeningly, and went out to find Juanita and Rachel, or Roman, or even sour Lovey—any real friend who might cheer her up after the interview she had found degrading.

It was nearly three weeks later that the move took place. Emily and Bessie had the day after the funeral taken the few items from the house they wanted. Being townswomen now, they laughed at country things, calling them tacky and old-fashioned. Roscoe’s own wagon, drawn by Roscoe’s own mule, came over to carry back to the new Elk Place the clothes and other personal belongings of the Elk family. Soon after it, Turnip drove a horse and carriage over to transport in style to their new home Clovis and her sons, Roscoe and Alonzo, who were now fourteen and eleven.

Clovis was dressed in one of her own-sewed best dresses, a deep purple woolen. The boys were clean and shiny black, wearing white shirts and good gray trousers and coats.

“Y’all ready?” Turnip asked after he had helped Clovis—which he had been instructed to do—into the carriage, and the boys had climbed up after her.