‘Say you won’t do that-there no more!’

‘Triflen brat, to traipse the road and to run away! I’ll skin the hide offen you…’

Her face drew together with pain too keenly remembered, but she laughed. The switch would cut into her legs like fire and she would roll on Nellie’s bed and scream. But she would go. She would see Tessie again and after that she would be glad enough to come back.

She would slip out Sunday night soon after bedtime.

The thought that she really would see Tessie again thrilled her senses and caught at her breath all day Saturday, whenever she dwelt upon it. On Sunday evening soon after the early bedtime of the cabin she took her shoes in her hand and her cloak upon her arm and slipped quietly down the ladder, past her mother’s side of the bed, and out the door. The moon was shining hazily, hanging a little west of the top of the sky. She found it necessary to put on the old cloak, a garment left from the winter before, used in summer for bedding. It smelt of musty straw as she drew it on her arms. Having put on the shoes at the top of the bank above the lane, she walked down to the highroad and turned south, crossing the creek where it came out of the Bodine farm. The large yellow house was very still, on fire with moonlight. She had not been to Rushfield along this way, but she knew that the road would take her there without any turnings. The roadbed was rough and stony with deep uneven ruts, but since she could hear her footfalls echoing against the hill on the right she decided to take off her shoes and carry them so that her footsteps would fall noiselessly. Soon the Bodine land lay behind her and she passed into a strange country, the road winding unevenly among the hills. When she heard a buggy approaching she ran to the hedgerow and lay in the shadow of the roadside growth. A feel of last year was in the road and in the moonlight. All the wagons of last year’s travel might be just around some curve, her father’s wagon in a fence corner or in some roadside waste place. She might be out searching for firewood for the supper fire or out looking for a stray colt. She noted pieces of wood, good burning pieces, as she passed, and she felt a sharp impulse to gather them. An owl sang in a tree by a farm gate, his notes coming in a slow trill. After she left the owl she heard some boys approaching, playing along the road and throwing walnuts about. She grew weary waiting for them to pass, for they move forward very slowly. They sang out in unharmonious chords and one mimicked the owl in derision.

‘Shut up there, Edd. You’ll wake up Old Man Brother Hep Bodine. He needs his rest,’ another said.