The threshers had come to work in the wheat and the oats, the season being well spent now, and Ellen was to provide food for three of the hands while the others would eat at the farmer’s table. She was carrying water from the spring at the foot of the hill, hurrying to be ready for the heavy meal when the noon hour should come. Hester Shuck was gone from the country now; she and Lena had gone away together to the town, but later, Marthy said, they had gone to the city. Ellen could not find that she felt glad; she could not find that she felt anything. Nannie was glad and so also were the boys, although they did not know why, perhaps, except that Jasper had begun to take them with him to fish in the creek again. When Hester had been gone two weeks or more he said, carelessly, to Joe and Hen, ‘How are the fish poles? Busy season about over, we might fish a little, buddie.’ He would sit quietly on Sundays under the bench by the tree, speaking with latent hilarity to Nannie or the boys, or he would stare with a gentle gaze, turning from one thing to another, as if he looked upon his acts with surprise and forgiveness. Ellen could not find that she cared. The sense of hardness lingered in her body, stiffening her limbs and her mind. It was all one. Hester was gone. She was glad, no doubt; Nannie went with Jasper again to the creek and their song would come up from the hollow as they returned at dusk. Her own body was stiff and tired and she could see that her hands were thin. Except when she went to the spring to get water or when she went to the garden to get the dinner, she kept inside the house now almost all day. ‘We’ll have to feed three thresher hands,’ Jasper had said, standing uncertainly in the doorway. As she returned from the spring she moved dully across the yard, one with the dull load of the water as it drew upon her arm and shoulder. Jasper was coming across the pasture, walking rapidly, as if he came on some mission of great importance, bearing some news.

He sent Dick and Joe outside and closed the kitchen door, turning to Ellen as she set the water pail on the table. He walked near her and said a few low words, accusing and threatening, and when he was gone, she continued to plod dully through her tasks, fitting his words slowly together and making for them a meaning. He had become aware of the unborn child and of the farmer’s liking for her at one time and he had held the two ideas together in his mind. His fist had tightened when he spoke to her. His words had gathered meaning as she cooked the food, piling up force as she turned them over in a mind, but his hate and his threat were immediately seen. She grew more frightened as the hour passed and her knees tottered as she went down the steps to the milk house. After a little the men came for dinner and she walked back and forth, serving their plates over and over. Jasper talked with the threshers during the meal, but afterward he went back to the field without speaking to her. That night she spoke to him in spite of her fear.