A drouth came, hard and brittle in the soil and in the sturdy little pasture herbs, but soft and pliant in the hazes that gathered over the far hills. A hot wind blew out of the southwest and the raincrow would cry his cl-uck, cl-uck, cow, cow, cow, cow. All the people of the farms knew the state of the air and the weather, knew just how the growing things met or resisted the drouth, of the swiftly ripening corn and the blight appearing on the tobacco. They would feel the deep satisfaction of the rain, yearning for it before it came and accepting it afterward as their due – rain at last, it was time. During the dry season Jonas passed often through the farm road, intent upon some errands, for the work on the land was delayed. Sometimes he would stop at Ellen’s gate or linger a little on the porch before the cabin. Then he would offer bits of news about the farms, sitting negligently on the edge of the step or leaning on the fence beside the gate, faintly smiling. Or his voice would fall away after each saying and they would sit quietly together, watching the little brown horse he had ridden paw the turf beside the gate. Sometimes Ellen would bring the horse a stalk of green corn from the garden. In those days she delighted in her own sweetness and kindness, and a smile lay always close behind her eyes, long after Jonas had gone. ‘It’s no matter,’ she said, when Nellie told her she had taken all her money from the teacup to buy a skillet from the peddler, ‘It’s no matter, Mammy.’

Or when Jonas leaned forward and she saw that a button was gone from his overalls and that he had fastened the suspender to the garment with a nail, then a pang of amused compassion flowed over her mind. She knew that he had forgotten the nail and her cruel eyes would keep wandering back to it. Then she would listen to his slow, half-dreaming speech and look out across the pasture and remember his eyes and their smile, and remember his look when he caught her eyes and that he had singled her out to walk beside her or to sit beside her on the stone wall. Or sometimes when he leaned over his cigarette she would look at his shoulders hanging loosely under his coat and a momentary pang would arise within her, a pity for his thin back and his flat-boned shoulders. But he would arise again, lifting his hands from his tobacco, and sit with his wrists crossed between his knees, his head thrown lightly back, and she would know a joy in the fall of his hands, in the droning of his voice, in the quiet of his careless words, in his nearness. With the coming of the rain the work in the field was resumed. The pasture was quickly green again and the tobacco put out new vigour. The labour multiplied, teeming toward the harvest, and Jonas was busy from one week’s close to another, but on Sunday when he found her in the crowd as they walked down the river lane and kept beside her she knew that he had not forgotten her.