The day clouded over and rain gathered in the sky. Ellen lay on a large rocky shelf, tired from wandering. Her thin flanks sank against the white stone and her stringy legs quivered with their exhaustion. Her closed eyes saw the book out of which Eva Stikes had learned to tell the fortunes, a little green book, rolled at the corners and dirty, smelling of snuff-dip. Eva had sent ten cents for it; it had come from Batavia, Illinois. ‘Gives lucky and unlucky days, interprets dreams, tells fortunes by all methods, cards, palmistry, tea-cup zodialogy,’ was printed on the paper cover. The picture on the back of the fortune book looked very much like Eva herself, for Eva’s mouth sank together where her teeth were gone. Tessie knew all about Eva’s youngones; she had six dead, but four were living. A high thin voice and a low deep voice took turns in memory:

‘Mammy, I want to eat.’

‘Well, go to the grub box.’

‘There ain’t e’er bite there, I been.’

‘Well, ask Joe Stikes to feed you, he’s your daddy.’

Henry Chesser drove the mower up and down the clover field, cutting the hay for Mr Bodine. Ellen lay on a bed of the cut grass under a cloudy sky and rested her tired muscles, her mind at ease, her body glad for the day of rest before the long jolting of the wagon should begin again. She looked at the clover narrowly, minutely, trying to see it as ants see, as bees. She piled cool clover on her face and felt the smell come and go until sense was drugged and there was no odour left in the blossoms. Henry was singing as he drove the clinking instrument up and down the field, his song coming when the machine ran easily along the clear sweeps of hay and checking itself when the horses turned and the blades must be matched to the uncut corners. She was amused to hear her father singing loud and rolling out long high ‘ohs’ to keep the song a little longer in his mouth.

As I went up the new-cut road,

Tired team and a heavy load – oh…

Cracked my whip and the leader sprung,

Bid farewell to the wagon tongue – oh…

She would be telling Tessie about the hay field, perhaps tomorrow, at any rate by the day after. ‘Warm smells a-steamen up and a lark a-singen when he hopped up on a snag tree, and Pappy a-whistlen when the team goes down the field. A hay field is a good singen place now. But a baccer patch, who wants to be a-singen in baccer! I just wish you could ’a’ seen Pappy a-sitten up big on that-there rake and a-whistlen to fair split his sides. I didn’t say e’er a word or let on like I hear. If I’d taken notice he would ’a’ shut right up. I never in life hear Pap sing so hard before.’

The day went slowly, warmth, idleness, weariness that passed with the turning of the shadows until, when the chimney birds came darting about the cabin ridge, the world lay clearly seen through clear eyes, lay heavy with colour, lying back outstretched upon its own colour and way. The leaves hung still on the locust tree, or they moved a little. The lane ran down to the highroad, clear to see, easy to go. Ellen stood about the stone step, without a care, without a wish, or she walked into the cabin past the cooking fire, ready for something more and passive for the next happening. In the early dusk Mr Bodine and Henry came talking beside the cabin door.