Elmer and Dorine went to town one day and returned married. The Wheatleys moved away from MacMurtrie’s tenant house and in a little while the dock and the fennel overgrew the yard and tall sprouts obliterated the windows. Ellen never knew whether Jonas had her letter or not, and when no reply came with the passing days she felt sure that it had gone astray. The cherries ripened and went, but then they were earlier than usual that year, and there would be the blackberries coming and these were in plenty.

CHAPTER SIX

Dorine and Elmer lived on Gowan land, back in the farm, far from the large house, their place approached by a different pike. The cabin stood under a great poplar tree, strange and distantly removed as Ellen came toward it along its fenceline, as if it held its occupants but temporarily, and she always felt that presently she should go there no more. She went to see Dorine several times in June, whenever she could get away from the tobacco and when she could find a work horse idle in the pasture. Dorine would be glad to see her and eager to display herself as mistress of a house, but she was changed, and Elmer was changed. If Ellen went on Sunday she would find Elmer sitting around the house door, and he would talk a little. He seemed secure and satisfied, even drowsy and unalert. If a man he knew came along the road, stopping to talk, they would spend the hour droning. One day Dorine talked much of Sallie Lou Brown and her pretty dress, her new stitches, her pink petticoat and her bracelet. Sallie Lou had no home; she lived about among relatives, and now she had come to stay a while with the Seays, three miles away. She had been to see Dorine the week before and she was coming again soon. When Ellen went again Dorine said:

‘Sallie Lou was here Sunday with Jonas. I reckon you know he’s back and a-worken for Barnet down the river a long piece.’

Ellen felt with her hand for Jonas’s letter where it lay pinned to an inner garment and crushed warm against her breast. She had not known that he had come back.

‘They drove up in Barnet’s buggy hitched to Jonas’s horse and they looked all spruced up fitten to kill.’

‘I reckon Sallie Lou is a right pretty girl by now,’ Ellen hardly knew what her mouth was saying. She had not known he had come.

‘You know Jonas was a-worken, while he was gone, right in the Brown neighbourhood, amongst Sallie Lou’s kin.’

‘I reckon Sallie Lou is right pretty.’

‘Sallie Lou is pretty enough. She and Jonas went together a right smart while he was over there, from all they have to talk about.’

Ellen went home long before sundown to be ready for the turkeys and the milking hour. She was penetrating deeply into her memory to try to reconstruct Sallie Lou, whom she had seen but once, on the night of Dorine’s first party. She saw again through it. Voices were singing together and feet were tramping to measures. A girl was stepping about in the dance, a girl with white stockings on her slim ankles. She had on a green flowered dress that made her look very slender up and down. Her hand was lifted to catch the hand of her partner and she had a gold ring on her finger, a slim gold ring. Ellen saw her again, this time in the kitchen by the little mirror. Her hair this time was yellow and brown; it had fallen down and she was pinning it up before the glass. A boy – his name was Tim – was beside her, handing her the hairpins and teasing. He dropped a hairpin down her back. When she laughed her mouth became square at the corners and a little mark came under one eye. She was nearly always in the dance with Tim. Her dress had small sewing-machine stitches going in rows up the front and over the shoulder.