‘You must have a fine garden by now,’ Marthy said. ‘You always do have the earliest of anybody. I got no garden to speak of. Backward this time, everything is. I’m downright sick to go out and look how backward it is.’

‘Mine does right well,’ Ellen said. ‘I’m well enough pleased. It’s forward enough to suit me. I’m right proud of my peas, ready to stick by a Tuesday of this week. I’m right proud on account of how early my peas are a-comen on.’

‘Are you?’ said Marthy Shuck. ‘I got peas in bloom. They was stuck two weeks ago, I reckon.’

Ellen would know when she had gone into Marthy Shuck’s trap, and would know that Marthy had set her own low in order to set hers lower, but in spite of this she was pleasant company, always sure to come and sure to sit all afternoon. Hester Shuck was staying long with Marthy, all of a year she had stayed. She had grown taller since Ellen had first seen her and had gathered greater depth in her chest and hips. She gave no heed to the children, and presently Ellen knew that she heeded only Jasper. She would sit loosely in her chair when she came to sit for an evening and her eyes would gather at him.

Once, in the autumn, Marthy, sitting all afternoon, said in blame of Bill Shuck, calling him shiftless:

‘Yes, we go on in the same old rut, year in, year out in the same place. I tell Bill sometimes he ain’t worth shucks. Same old go and come, that’s Bill.’

‘Winter is the time to move,’ Ellen said, ‘on hand soon now. Some will be shiften about, I reckon.’

‘I reckon it was a heap of worry to you when Jasper was in court, now. That was something to upset a body, I lay that-there was.’

‘It was right worrysome whilst it lasted, but it’s all done now and over, I reckon.’

‘I reckon so. I heared it said it was a right close call for Jasper Kent. They said so. Said there was three witnesses, one old man Chesser, that’s your pap, and two men on Wingate’s side, men that was hid in the garden and saw what come. Said these men swore Kent taken the horse to the barn on purpose to burn it up, horse had worked for him all summer in the plough. Said he had no call to take it in. There was a little mist of rain but not enough to bother a work horse used to stand out. Said a horse could go in by itself if it minded to. No, said Kent taken the critter in on purpose to burn it to death. Kent had a close call, they said.’

‘If Jasper taken the horse in I reckon his aim was to hitch it to a buggy,’ Ellen said, speaking angrily. ‘His aim was to go that night, to get Pappy or Pius to drive with him to bring the critter back. He was in his rights to use any nag on the place any time, nohow. But it’s over now,’ she said in a lower tone, knowing that her anger pleased Marthy too well, ‘It’s all over and that’s all there is to that-there.’