They would speak to each other, gathering their thought gently about their common wish, or he would thunder out an imprecation upon his enemies until the massive angles of his face broke into new and harder lines and his shoulders twitched to be spending their strength. Then Ellen would gather herself into the heart of his brawn and feel herself at the core of his power while the waves of it sundered the air and beat on the cracked fragments of the night, or she would lay her fingers on his face and his throat and brush lightly away their hate while she gathered outward in his being, one now with his smile and his embrace. As September passed she would sit wrapped in her old long coat, for the nights were chilled as the season of the first frost drew near. The hogs were taking on their fat daily, he said, for their corn was never stinted, and when they were sold he would market the hay and then all would be done. They would be free to go, sooner than the first of the year, perhaps before December. They would speak softly, the one to the other.

‘Hear the dogs howl,’ she said, ‘off toward Stigall’s it is. It’s a lonesome sound, like the end of the world. Are you afeared of the end of the world?’

‘I feel like I could pick up a hill or I could break open a mountain with my fist, and what call have I got to be afeared of a lonesome sound tonight? But it’s a lonesome one.’

‘Lonesome like doves a-callen in trees to each other. Did you ever in your time hear a dove call and then another one answers?’

‘I could pick up a hill with my strength.’

‘One asks the question, the doves, and then the other comes right along with the next call.’

‘I could pick up a hill or I could break open a rock with my fist.’

‘It’s the sorrowfulest sound there is, as if it knowed what would come. Fair and sorrowful all together. It calls to mind good times that are lost and bad sorrowful ones, both gone together somehow.’

‘I take notice of doves a heap in spring. A dove call denotes spring is come for sure, and it’s safe then to plant corn.’

‘And a dove has got one drop of human blood in its body somewheres, they say.’

‘By spring I aim to find some fields worth a man’s strength. I’m plumb tired trafficken about, good land and bad as it comes. I aim to go a long piece from here.’

‘Once when I was a youngone Pappy went to Tennessee and I saw cotton in bloom. We saw cotton grow.’

‘I’m plumb tired a-trafficken about.’

‘Saw cotton a-growen. The people gathered it after a while in big baskets, piled up white.’

‘We’ll go to some pretty country where the fields lay out fair and smooth. A little clump of woodland. Just enough to shade the cows at noon.’