Oh, little Blue Wing is a pretty thing,

All dressed out so fine.

Her hair comes a-tribblen down her back

And the boys can’t beat her time.

She went over a water gap where a little willow grew, swaying down into the heart of the willow tree with a sweep of bent branches. Emerged from that she walked on gravel and rank creek grass and frightened the snake doctors away from a still pool as she pranced quickly by.

‘Not a-goen anywheres, just a-goen…’ She crossed the creek on a sandy bar, murmuring a little to herself as she went. ‘You’re spiderwort. You’re tansy. I know you. I’m as good as you. I’m no trash. I got no lice on me.’

A path lay under her feet, a path cattle took to go to the deeper water holes and she saw the little steps of cattle in the pale soil. The beaten ground made walking easy, and when the way swerved away from the creek she followed although it drifted into an upland, an undulation of pasture where strange cattle grazed, black and white beasts lividly spotted. They made vivid colour against the green of the hill and they drifted in the quivering air, raising a head now and then to see her as she passed. She sang loud in the face of the cattle as they stood on their up-sloping pasture.

Liddy Marget died like it might be today,

Like it might be today, like it might be today,

And he saw the bones of a thousand men.

‘Saw the bones of a thousand men. Saw with his eyes, that is. I thought till just now when I studied about it he sawed the bones with a saw. Sawed the bones of a thousand men. I saw that-there man there a-sawen with a big saw and bone saw-dust a-siften down. I’m a fool for sure.’

In the enclosure beyond the pasture of the black-and-white cows she came to a tobacco field, a struggling crop unevenly growing on worn-out soil. She sat on the fence and marvelled at the ill-conditioned plants, jeering at them.

‘Gosh, what a crop! Durned if I ever see such runty trash a-growen in a field. What you call yourself nohow? Sallet?’

She inspected the tobacco for worms, a habitual action, as she passed down a row. Struggling clover grew between the drills and wild grass inched out from the fencerow.

Beyond the tobacco field she saw that there was a graveyard set beside an old church. She came upon it from the rear, walking down a path through brush tangles, and when she had climbed a high rail fence she stood among the abandoned graves. She parted the growth and twisted her body through the brush snarls until she came to the part that was grassy and well kept, some of the mounds adorned with blossoming flowers. There were no trees and thus the graves and the gravestones were open to the sun and were blown over by the wind. The sun came down more freely here than in the fields for it had the stones to play over, white and shining marble. The wind swayed the grass and the sun vibrated over the white monuments. ‘Erected to the Memory of,’ she read. ‘To the Memory of,’ or some held simply the legend of a family name, as Wakefield, in large stiff letters blocked out of the stone. On one a high winged creature stood holding a lily and a book.