The next time he came to Oaks, Doreen was on the porch with Annabel and immediately ran to fetch her grandmother from the kitchen where Edna was watching the women there boil up blackberries for jam and shell peas for supper. It was midafternoon.

Edna was glad to see Leon, as she would have been glad to see any visitor and proceeded to ask him detailed questions concerning Sarah’s activities, to which he gave vague answers because he seldom noticed how Sarah occupied herself. Then they spoke of crops, comparing their yield by acre of corn and cotton, each knowing the qualities of the other’s various fields as well as he did his own. Doreen listened eagerly to her grandmother and the visitor, little inclined to join in, being at a particular stage of shyness with men. Annabel sat back in her chair with the secret smile, feeling superior to everyone and amused by the situation, because Leon was so obviously put out at not finding her alone.

“Doreen!” Edna said, turning to the younger girl. “What was it I was trying to remember last night at the supper table, and your daddy couldn’t tell me?—I know.” She faced Leon again. “What was the name of that red-headed woman used to live, before she died, two doors over from Upton Cooks’s dry goods? Had a goiter big as my two fists—now surely you know who I mean.”

“I do, Miss Edna, but I can’t recall her name.”

“No more could I.” She nodded rapidly, as if fortified by his not being able to remember either. “That’ll worry me till I find out—you know how you get some bitty thing on your mind and can’t let it go till you finish with it. I’ll ask Lovey next time I see her. She remembers everything and everybody. She’s better than a family tree in a Bible. Sarah wouldn’t because it was before she came.”

Annabel and Doreen in one of their occasional collusions then all but exploded and collapsed with laughter they had held in. They were both at a time when they found their grandmother funny, although Doreen’s amusement was loving, and Annabel’s was patronizing.

“What?” Edna exclaimed in surprise. “So silly! Silly, silly!” She spoke more quietly when she turned back to Leon. “They think everything that happened before they were born of absolutely no consequence, and everybody that died before they were born might just as well never have lived. My only comfort is knowing they’ll get older.”

Together the girls cried, “Grandma” Doreen conciliating, Annabel protesting.