Lovey was honest to the bone; it would not have occurred to her to be otherwise; it was part of her independence. Never shy, she found perfectly natural her new role as household harrier. She abominated dirt and laziness and understood that they came together in the persons of bad workers; so her duty was clear to her. She harried, she scolded, she trotted about seeing that work was properly done. Deborah found ease and comfort in her noisiness and nervous good humor. The work got done, and its accomplishment was the satisfaction Lovey took and gave. The girls and women who worked under her supervision resented her, of course, and occasionally, briefly, hated her. But they could not hate her long, because even the dullest of them saw that she was as just as she was relentless. Deborah might now and then choose to appear not to see a piece of slovenly work for what it was; Lovey, never. The house was hers. It would be clean.

And to comfort the sullen and the slovenly, Lovey offered one ridiculous flaw: she was a bad cook. Every other woman on the place took pride in her ability to cook certain dishes better than others could or did, for herself and her family, sometimes for the Kendricks. But Lovey knew and admitted her failing. She said herself that if she stepped through a kitchen door where cake was baking, the cake would fall. Laughing, she declared that the sound of her voice soured cream, encouraged rice to stick and burn. Her not being able to cook, and her generous appreciation of the good cooking of others, made her almost, sometimes popular.

2

Time went by, and the two principal families of Beulah Land remained childless. Lovey conceived and miscarried three times, and gossip offered several explanations: Ezra had so long denied himself a woman that when he got one, the mysterious ways of flesh and spirit would not acknowledge and accommodate each other. Their blood refused to mix; what each was, canceled the other. He old, she young; he silent, she turbulent.

As for Deborah and Arnold, none on the plantation had ever seen them touch, not a hand on hand or arm, so there was less wonder at Deborah’s being barren. Yet both Deborah and Arnold wanted to have children; not because they were a loving pair, but because children were needed to inhabit and sustain Beulah Land. For all their need and wanting, they remained two, alone each and together.

The land flourished, with plenty and to spare. There was increase in the yield of cotton and corn, of cattle, pigs, and fowl. Old slaves died or became so feeble they were good for nothing but sitting in doorways as flies walked undisturbed over the backs of their hands and they wondered when the next meal would be ready. But babies were born—kicked, cried, lived.