She discovered a way to bring down the wood and avoid the angers of her parents. She would go to the mouth of the lane and watch the road in the direction of the Bodine house, her body well hidden in the summer growth beside the fence. When she saw Trent go out in the buggy with Emphira she would run to the ravine and drag down wood all afternoon, and she contrived to keep the pile under the locust tree replenished in this way. The plan succeeded very well, and she followed it all summer, but she lost the shaded ravine and the upper creek as a pleasant place to go, and she bathed no more in the water. The white stones and the moss stones of the furthest creek became beautiful in memory. The name, Joe Trent, went out of her being slowly. For weeks the mention of it brought a first flush of warmth to her mind and a gentle flow of momentary joy to all her members. ‘Friend’ lay in thought with the word, ‘Somebody I might know all my life. A body to tell things to.’ But finally the chord was cut. By the time the tobacco was ripe the name no longer caught at her nerves when Artie Pinkston called it in her gossip.

‘Well, Joe Trent he’s gone back to his college. I see Emphira a-driven him to the train today.’

The first of January came with mild thawing weather after a season of freezing and snow. A sense of expectancy and tension lay over the cabin, a tension met by apathy. Henry was going to a new place, to the Al Wakefield farm in another end of the county. Ellen pushed into the new life that was coming to try to make pictures of it, but it was but vaguely seen as drawing back from her tense nerves. A man from Wakefield’s would come for them and their furniture, but the necessity of stirring, of going to a new place by physical efforts, stifled her. She glanced from time to time at her mother’s drawn face as they sat by the log fire during the winter morning. No one made any preparation for the departure; instead they sat close to the fireplace answering each other nervously.

‘It’s a sight richer farm,’ Henry said. ‘And croppen on the shares is a sight better contract and I’ll tell you for why…’

‘Well, put some wood on. I’m plumb cold,’ Ellen wailed, drawing closer to the hearth.

‘Move over, Henry, and let Ellen in. Quit a-spreaden so…’

There would be a stairway up to Ellen’s room and there would be a kitchen with a stove, all set up and ready. They would be furnished with a cow. Henry told and retold the details of his contract, wanting praise.

‘But old Mrs Bodine was a right good neighbourwoman,’ Nellie said, ‘a-senden down a bundle of clothes every now and then.’ At her mother’s words Ellen looked down at her skirt, Emphira’s skirt, dark grey wool, torn a little at the hem. The man came for them when they had sat half the morning staring wretchedly into the flames. He turned the team about briskly and backed the wagon near the door.