She went often to the church to be among the women and to feel the warmth of the singing and of the preacher’s voice. She would sit in the hour before the service with the other quiet-spoken women at the rear of the church, and hear their talk, believing their words. They talked of good places where they had formerly lived, of the number of cows they were allowed to keep, or they would speak of their husbands, of their generosity and thought. One would tell a little of her childhood home, or of a sister or brother, or they would talk of sickness or death or grief. But they came back over and over to their men for they were young as yet. Ellen heard them as if she heard a fairy tale of life, believing, and it was comforting to be there, to sit among them before the time of the singing and the sterner comfort of the preacher.

‘Lige, he gave me the money for a new dress, but law, I said, I’ll wear the old a spell yet.’

‘Same with Charlie. And he gave me two dollars for shoes.’

‘Sam, he tells me to go to the store and buy whatsoever I fancy, no matter what hit comes to. But me, I don’t like to spend.’

Sometimes one wore a new garment, but usually they kept the same apparel all spring and summer, and their faded garments withered as the summer drew toward the autumn. Ellen could not go to the church many times more, for another child would come, a child she did not want. Autumn and it would come. All week she would sit in the doorway waiting. Jasper had spent the money that Goddard had owed him, his back pay, for a wild, unbroken horse; drunk he had become on horseflesh. She would sit in the door all week, idle, for there was nothing to sew. There was a small bit of coin in the tin can on the shelf, twenty cents, perhaps, and that would buy the next sugar or meal. One day she saw the children, the three born and the one unborn, as men and women, as they would be, and more beside them, all standing about the cabin door until they darkened the path with their shadows, all asking beyond what she had to give, always demanding, always wanting more of her and more of them always wanting to be. She took up the bucket and went down the hill to the spring, walking quickly as if she were pursued. ‘Out of me come people forever, forever,’ she said as she went down the hill-path.

Often she would meet one of the women at the store or see them trading there, offering a few eggs for a bit of sugar or some other food, or she would see them take a few small coins from the corner of a handkerchief and spend them carefully. Sunday she went to the church for the last time, for autumn was coming fast now. She sat among the women, speaking with them softly, saying but little; she had never spoken more than some acquiescence or some reply.