‘Hit’s a mild winter for sure,’ a voice said.

‘It sure is.’

‘I look for a heap of sickness along February.’

‘And the old a-dyen off.’

‘Oh, that’s what I’m a-thinken.’

‘I tell you what I’ve seen in my time. I’ve seen a winter so mild the grass was a-growen and the birds a-singen right along from sunup to sundown.’

‘It’s a dove though really tells when spring’s come.’

They walked quietly on, their feet making uneven rhythms on the road. ‘It’s a dove though really tells when spring’s come’ lingered on as tone refalling on Ellen’s ears, ‘It’s a dove though really tells,’ a phrase from some playing instrument. They passed under low trees for a space and then came out onto an open stretch of road.

‘I vow there’s a heap of stars out tonight.’

‘And them that’s out is a long way off.’

‘How far is it to a star? How far now do you reckon it is to that yon one in the row off north there?’

‘Hit’s a far piece, a right far piece.’

‘It’s a million times as far as from here to the north pole and back, they say.’

‘Now, no!’

‘You can’t think hit. You can’t get your mind on hit, someways you can’t.’

‘You can’t get your mind to think on it.’

‘Ah, gee! ain’t there a heap of ’em!’

‘There’s more every way you look. There might maybe be a million and I’d never know hit.’

‘And they’re up there night in and night out, year in and year out, and how many times do we ever take notice to it?’

‘I heared tell about a man once that followed studyen the stars all his life.’

‘That’s something to do now, if a man had time.’

‘That’s hit, if a man had time.’

Five shapes were thumping the dry road with their feet, stumbling a little, five abreast now and now drifting into forms like those the stars made in the sky. It was here that she felt them become six, herself making part of the forms, herself merged richly with the design.

‘I studied a heap about the stars, since you named it, in my own mind I have. Now I wonder what they’re made outen.’

‘And what they’re for, nohow.’

‘Ah, God Almighty, ain’t we little things a-goen around.’

‘Ah, God Almighty, we are now and that’s a fact.’

‘But of a morning, when you go out to feed and water, how often do you ever remember the stars you saw last night?’

‘I heared about a man once that followed nothing else but to study the stars his whole enduren life.’

They stopped at a small white gate beyond a leafless cherry thicket.

‘Goodnight, Ellen.’

‘Goodnight, Jonas.’

‘Goodnight, Mr Jim.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’

CHAPTER FOUR

The bright-faced little cow bore her calf in March, at the end of a damp snowy week. The heifer was pale brown with darker shadings about the feet and muzzle. The two beasts stood by the gate one morning when Ellen looked out from the upper window onto the dull brown hills that were spotted over with clumps of soft snow. The muddy road and the sop near the pond seemed very black beside the dots of white and splotches of creamy foam on the landscape, and the colour of the cow and the calf stood out brightly. The cow cried now and then with a low rumble or a questioning bleat, very soft and very patient. Ellen put on her clothes quickly, watching the calf and the cow from the window and smiling because the calf was little and tender and appealing. The cow was asking for food and Ellen knew that it was herself that was being petitioned, and the thought, meeting her at the stair, filled her with a slow misery, that a being depended on her, begging for life with slow patience and a low rumbled cry that ran along the ground. She felt very tall and useless, thin and tall and helpless, as she walked across the lower room.