Nell thought of Felix; she did when it rained in the night—she did not know why. In her mind she saw the cemetery with its oak and willow trees shiny wet, the poor graves soaking the water in and down to the defenseless corpses with their moldy clothes and cold bones. Near sleep but with something of her mind still held by the sound of the rain, she mused: “If only I could put dry stockings on his feet”—waking herself with the thought and shuddering with relief that she was alive and warm in her own bed, finally falling into real sleep, the sound of rain in her ears but fainter now, and she dreaming that Myrtis would take it into her head to make sweet potato biscuits for breakfast to cheer the damp morning.

Edna found comfort in the rain and in the knowledge that James and Rachel lay together. To her, rain on earth meant sprouting seed; in time James and Rachel’s lying together would provide sons and daughters to fill the house and tend the land. Edna never thought of the cemetery when it rained at night. The dead were dead. Come day, she might be moved to go and brush the leaves from Benjamin’s grave and set straight the border of single bricks the storm had disordered. But now she rested, and comfortably belched away the gas of pumpkin pie, and went to sleep peaceful.

In her bed Doreen lay stiff as a corpse for a long time, until she cried out, “Oh, God. I wish it was me!” And when she had wept a while to ease herself, she asked God to forgive her and to bless the union that had been formed that day.

Tired and relieved, Sarah listened to the rain, and then felt shame for her relief, for was it not echo and variation of the memory of Casey Troy? Where was he now? she wondered. Whose country wife did he please tonight? She thrashed in her bed with an unhappy itching and turned, throwing the covers off, then shivered and drew them over her again.