She had not been thinking of them as fellows, fellows that should come. The house had grown very flat and still afterward, and objects had sunk into each other. All the rest of the day she had spoken in a stifled voice, scarcely heard. It was expected of her, something undefined and expected, she would think, abashed, something stated boldly through the words of a hard voice. ‘A big girl eighteen and no fellows…’ All day, all week a great still cry had gone out of her. Unjust become just become unjust, confusion and hard hands laid on her throat. She came timidly into the house and went silently about her labours. Henry was loading his crop onto the wagon frame, preparing for the market, and Ellen helped arrange the hands of it in the mounds, working in the cold with quick arms. The crop had been short for Henry was but a slow worker, but it would pay for the food they had eaten and the clothes they had worn, and perhaps there would be a little over. On the dry open days Henry worked at the new plant bed, grubbing out more space on the virgin hill, and soon the light was set to the fagots and Ellen grew bolder again with the spring. One night not long after the coming of the first signs of the new season, into sleep came a beautiful tonk tonk tonk a-tonk of guitar strings out on the pasture road, some man that lived in the glen behind the hills going home. Strong rhythms came beating in the rich harmonies, coming out of the pasture that all day had been sopping mud – tonk tonk a-tonk tonk; quick notes danced under the firm beat of the chords and other quick notes ran lightly down while the mellow chord waited. The tones came very beautifully over her waking body, but they were scarcely recognised until they began to recede into the night, growing less vividly present as consciousness came. They rounded the osage shrubs and moved lightly away toward the west, changing rhythms with inter-playing chords and transitional notes that scurried down flights of tune. Ellen had not known that such a thing could be – full-throated chords falling quick and strong, beautiful, breaking in upon dreams, rising out of the muddy pasture. In the end a voice jerked into song, leaping into the middle of the sweet string tones,

Oh…

Say darlin’ say,

When I’m far away…

It was gone and sleep came back over her languorous mind that was haunted now by the people who moved and lived just beyond her knowledge and acquaintance, apparitions from beyond the hill and from the river glen.