When he opened the back door to the kitchen, Puddy was at the stove cooking lye hominy. She dropped her spoon and cowered beside the box of stove wood. As if he had not seen her Roscoe went on through the dining room into the sitting room. Clovis was in her chair, her back to him, rocking slowly, the piece of sewing on her lap. She was not aware of Roscoe’s presence until Sunup flattened himself on the floor and growled. Turning in her chair she saw him and exclaimed, “What you come creeping up on me like that for?” She rose, lighted a straw from the fireplace, and with the burning straw lighted a candle on the table.

Emboldened by her tone and movement the dog rose too and growled again, hackles rising. Without haste Roscoe walked to the dog and kicked him in the side. Sunup yelped and scuttled out of the room.

“Keep your foot off my dog!” Clovis said.

“You shut your mouth till I tell you to open it.” Roscoe stood with his back to the fire looking at her. She sat again and made a little business of taking the sewing into her lap, pulling the candle closer as if she meant to go on working.

“I see you been drinking,” he said.

“I been drinking for years,” she answered.

“Dainty of you to use two glasses.”

She frowned at her work, held it closer to the light and pursed her lips as if considering some small detail.

“I didn’t know you entertained visitors out of my liquor. Maybe that’s why you use so much.”

She took careful small stitches in the hem of the table scarf she had already embroidered.

His hands opened and closed behind his back, a sign of his anger she could not see. “Who’s been here?”

She continued sewing even when he stepped toward her. His slap spun the chair and almost knocked her out of it. She tried to stand. He pushed her down. “I asked you a question.”

“You told me to keep my mouth shut.”

“Until I told you to open it. Open it and speak, woman. Who was here?”

She drew herself back in the chair and flared with a show of bravery she did not feel. “How long you sneak around to spy on me?”

“I don’t have to spy.”

“Others do it for you?”

“I asked you something.”

“Didn’t your spies give you the answer?”

“Don’t you dare me, woman. Answer straight.”

Clovis got up from the chair carefully, and he did not move to stop her. She stepped to the table, took the cork from the jug and poured a glass half full of whiskey. He waited until she had taken a swallow of it.

“Who?” he said.

She grinned falsely, not at him, but toward vacancy as if she was alone. “Did the wind blow?”