All the women of the village take part in the fall planting, including of course scrawny old Sally Bakey. Dirty, wearing a torn pinafore, less than four feet in height, it is Sally who discovered a new preserve of virgin blisterlilies in a meadow on the other side of the shiny westward-lying lake. There, where only mice walk, the flowers still grow in profusion, and the bulbs divide year by year as they once did in these parts.

Sally lives alone in a rough cabin on a diet of rolled oats and eggs. Raw eggs, some say. She has a foul smell and shouts obscenely at passers-by, especially those who betray by their manner of speech or dress that they are not of the region. But people like her smile. A troll’s smile without teeth. In winter, when the snow reaches a certain height, the men of the village take its measure by saying: The snow’s up to Sally Bakey’s knees. Or over Sally Bakey’s bum. Or clear up to Sally Bakey’s eyebrows. No one knows how old Sally Bakey is, but she’s old enough to remember when churches in the area were left unlocked and when people could go about knocking on any door and ask for a chair to sit down on or for a cup of strong tea.

From the railway bridge you can see the women fanned out along the highway in groups of twos or threes. Some of them work along the verge and others on the median. Right up to the horizon they go. In this part of the country, because the land is low lying and the sun reluctant, the horizon exercises an exceptionally strong influence. It presses downward like a punishing lintel. Every inch of pasture or woodland feels its weight, but roofs and chimneys and porches take the brunt of it, making the houses look squashed and stupid, thick-walled and inhospitable. It never lets up. But today the women, bending and patting their bulbs into place, then standing upright and placing their hands on their hips, taking a moment’s rest, bring about a softening of the harsh horizontals. They scatter the light and, from a certain distance, the flexed silver of their bodies appears to pin the dark ground to the lowering sky, the way tablecloths and sheets are pinned to a slackly hung clothesline. There’s ease in it, and merriment. Sally Bakey can be heard singing in her crone’s cracked voice, a song she invents as she goes along-except for the refrain that is full of ritual cunning and defiance.

The women wear comfortable, practical clothes that are widely dissimilar in style and variously colored. Bright sports clothes. Fringed deerskin. Pants wide and narrow, reaching to the thigh, knee or ankle. Pleated skirts, leather tunics. Rayon blouses. Knitted cardigans. Aprons of terry cloth or linen. Dresses of denim, challis or finely shirred woven cotton. Age and inclination account for these differences.