Now, watching the fire consume his barn, Elijah remembered the disfigured face and felt sure that he was the victim of animosity and tribal hunger. This was just one more personal disaster that had befallen him during the past year, the most tragic being the death of his and Hannah’s youngest child, a two-year-old son. Hannah, now dressed in her loose-fitting dress she called a Mother Hubbard, came out of the house. She saw the expression of anger and despair on his face and approached him timidly. “We’ve still got a hill full of sweet potatoes and almost three bushels of meal and grits in the house,” she said quietly. “We’ll make out somehow.”

He managed a small, sardonic smile. “Yeah, and we can eat more coons and possums, or maybe little Johnny will be more successful with his squirrel and rabbit snares.” Elijah was barefoot and wore only a long homespun shirt, but this was how he was often clad throughout the day when he was working in his small fields or tending the animals in the woods. The soles of his feet were as tough as leather, and he put on his moccasins, linsey-woolsey underwear, and buckskin breeches only when it was cold or when he expected to meet someone other than Hannah and his son John. He caught and tethered the horses and, since there was nothing else to be done until daybreak, not more than an hour in the future, they moved back toward the cabin and lit a candle. It was not customary for the couple to talk to each other except concerning matters of the moment, but now seemed a good time to consider some more basic decisions about their future. They sat across the table from each other, and Hannah waited for Elijah to break the silence.

“Hannah, I don’t know what we’ll do now. We’ve both of us worked as hard as we could, and have nothin’ much to show for it. I’m thirty-eight years old, don’t have any learnin’, tho’ I’ve always thought I was a good farmer and had a way with animals. But two years of drought and now this fire has got me, and the heavy taxes of the damned governor are past due and we can’t pay ’em. All we’ve got to sell is the few cows and hogs that are feedin’ on acorns and leaves in the woods and swamps, and the market for them has almost dried up because farmers don’t have any hay or corn for feed and everybody’s tryin’ to sell at the same time.”

She had never before heard him speak so frankly about himself or share future plans with her.

“Well, we’ve had bad times before, and the Lord has always taken care of us. Don’t you think we’ll get any help with the taxes and some protection from the government?”