‘Ploughed all day, a-pushen that-there durned mule of old man Beam’s along. I vum, I’d soon put harness on myself as worry along with that lazy mule, always a-looken for a place to stop and rest in. I bet I cussed that-there blamed mule five hundred times if I cussed once today.’ He would lean against the gate post to retell his grudge.

Ellen milked, training the stream into her cup with a proud free hand, her head high and free. She withdrew from Sebe even while she smiled at his story of the indolent mule, hating his way and his look. She felt homely and degraded when she was with him for he enkindled nothing within her and thus gave her no beauty. From moment to moment she rejected him. ‘His ears are a sight too big,’ she was thinking, she always thought. ‘If I had ears like his’n I’d tie a rag around my head at night, just to train my ears in.’ Then her pity would begin, ‘But he’s right nice though, all tired out and nobody to talk to all day. Fellows like to tell about their troubles. He’s right nice.’ Her thought would float away from him to herself and sink under her pleasure in her own being, in her hand running free with the stream of milk.

‘I allow to take a farm next year, to rent a place,’ he said. ‘I can get some of the Gowan land or maybe I’d rather have a patch of the Dorsey bottom. If prices hold up I think I might maybe be ready to pay on a place year after next. I allow to have a place of my own.’

‘Don’t you think that’s as pretty a calf as ever you see in all your time?’ Ellen turned her heifer into the pasture to let it have its turn at the milk. ‘Mammy says I let her have more’n her share. She’s a caution to eat. Ain’t she plump now! Feel how soft her hide is. She’s no hide-bound starved-out white-trash heifer. Ain’t she got pretty ears now! Look how soft they are, a-reachen out in the air and a-turnen this way and that and up and down, trembly. Feel her horns down under the skin, feel. She don’t know what horns are, and there they are, a-comen on her. I could lift her up at first but I can’t now. Look at her back, how straight it is, and look at her plump little round sides. Feel how soft she is all over, feel.’

‘Huh? What I want to be a-feelen of a calf for? Dum, I seen a calf afore in my time. What I want to be a-feelen of a old calf for? Yes, you’re right, you’re right. Hit’s soft enough. Hit’s a fine calf for sure. Hit’s a premium calf at the fair, I’ll lay a dollar hit is. Which you think’d be better land, the Dorsey bottom or some of the Gowan farm? Which you’d rather have? Which you’d rather live on?’