There was something crooked about Jasper’s skin as it was set to the contour of his face, but he was in no way like Regina. When he came up out of the pasture and out of the curve of the road she would see his face and its heavy skin, unevenly traced and deeply seamed, darkly stained with years of sun and wind, heavy with work. As he came bending toward her she would see his face, but after he came she would no longer see; his serious talk of ploughing and seasons, of cures and signs and selling prices, and his suspicions and hates would surround him. She herself was a woman now, that she knew. She had seen her mouth that morning in the kitchen glass and again in the pool that lay at the foot of the quarry. Under his heavy skin with its uneven sewing and rugged marks of sun and wind, under his bent shoulders, he had been quietly bold, taking the field away from her with a few words and a smile, his hands strong on the hoe, the sinews working flat and strong, drawing directly, fast to their purpose. Some day Tarbell would look at Susie Whelen and he would see that her eyes were blue and bold and that she took the world easily, and that is what a man wants. Then he would give her the printed verses with the choicest sweets. Space between one and Susie Whelen melted down and away and she reached out all ways, her dark hair rolled up from her forehead. Jasper would be bound to look at Susie some time and then he would want her in his arms with her easy-going laugh and her careless curses. She herself, then, would hate Susie and she would watch her, and she would not trust the days or the accidents of the summer. She hated the house Susie lived in, back a little from the road with a few flowers struggling to bloom when the drouth had eased. A ragged shagbark tree grew across the road, in Susie’s sight day after day, and the pigs in the pen beside the barn walked in and out of the sun, the gate tied up with a string, a rosebush over against the garden; she would hate all of it.

Jasper was visible as a distant spot on the even green of the field. His hoe would be tearing away the weeds to make the soil fresh and light, and his lips would hang loose as he worked, relaxed to the toil, his back bent deeply to the straight of the hoe, the sweat running into the furrows of his uneven face. He was twenty-six years old. He gave her his money to hide away for him because she was near at hand and because he could trust her to be careful, but he would like Susie Whelen’s carelessness and her easy mouth. He knew the wonder of the light moon and how it drew the herbs and grains, and how the dark moon settled things back into the earth, and he knew the name of the morning star. She gathered the shelled peas into her apron and carried the hulls to the pen for the pigs, her mouth shut upon its determination and anxiety. She would take more care. She would watch for the huckster when he came and buy the best he had, a fan on a long chain, perhaps. The land was hard and rough and she must take what she could out of the bitter soil, and she bent to lift the heavy pig trough, a hollowed log, to turn it over and set it to rights, ready for the mash she would bring after a little. The pigs ate the pods hurriedly and when the last one was gone there was not one green thing left in the brown trampled dirt of the pen. When they had eaten the pods the swine went back to lie in the shade of the barn, lying long and narrow side by side on the dried wallow.