It was a day of lassitude. People worked, but in an automatic way. No one hurried. No one raised his voice in anger or joy. Nothing that could be still moved, except the young in whom the heat and quiet bred boredom and kindled its antidote, lust. Even Roscoe, ordinarily unaffected by the weather, forgot to assign Floyd special work, and Floyd decided not to join the general work crew who were picking cotton that day. In the hot, late July weather the cotton had popped out of its bolls like exploding stars.

Instead, Floyd went to the woods with Leon. They carried a round watermelon, each taking his turn to hold it on his head or under an arm, because it was heavy and made a clumsy burden.

By midafternoon nothing much was going on in the big house. After the midday meal and a short rest Arnold had headed for town to see Felix on the business of the proposed building of a cotton gin. He would not have considered going in such sultry weather except that he had told Felix he would come yesterday and put it off to today.

Deborah retired to her room, undressed to her petticoat and rested herself on the bed. Selma sat under a tree in the peach and plum orchard. The ripest fruit was picked every day, but some inevitably was overlooked and dropped naturally to the ground, rotting and fermenting. The smell had made Selma drunk and sleepy. Even the bees moved slowly.

In the kitchen wing Lovey had thrown a large thin cloth over the food left from the midday meal, so that the flies could not soil and spoil it; and she had gone then to her cabin to rest for an hour, as long a time as she was ever able to lie down during the day, such was her restless nature. She left the kitchen girls, Clovis and Myrtis, to finish the dishwashing and to put things away.

Clovis dried as Myrtis washed. Both were mainly house and yard workers. They washed and ironed clothes, and often added their hands to those regularly employed in the kitchen. They were seldom called farther into the main part of the house than the dining room. Their work in the fields was occasional and light, such as the gathering of peanut plants to feed the hogs.