All the signs of the autumn came, the heavy plush-like asters, buck-berries and frost-flowers, everlasting and chicory – all the last tokens of the living year. The mockingbird would sing a few notes, reminiscent of spring after the quiet of the late summer, and on moonlight nights the cocks would crow all night long. Ellen bought a fresh ribbon for her dress and a bit of lace for her throat and blossomed anew with the frostweeds and the last of the chicory that lingered far into October. The abundance of autumn was again in the air, the summary of the growing season. Elmer had ceased to tell her of Dorine or to recount Dorine’s sayings, but his ways toward her were ways of gentle friendliness, sometimes unmindful and detached. She stood in a third place, no longer a medium between them, no longer a current flowing with them, and, alone, she grew into a greater strength when the flow turned back upon herself and pooled deeply within. They brought her gifts, a great basket of nuts, a bucket of fresh cider from MacMurtrie’s press, but they went away together. Leaving her, while she stood alone in the doorway, already forgotten, they would merge as one in the confusion of her thought and share her momentary hate.

In the time of the great autumn moon the people of the Glen met to fish on the river one Saturday afternoon, the Townleys, O’Shays, Prathers, with others to share the feast; for the catches were cooked over open fires, the women cooking while the men tended the lines. After supper a place was scraped clear in the sand and there was dancing in the twilight and later under the risen moon. The older men would sit in groups talking about the corn or about their fattening hogs, or they told boasting stories of other years. The young men scurried the dust here and yon with their measures, and Mr Townley sang the dance figures, beating time with his guitar strings, his voice small and flat before the out-spread river.

Cage the bird and three arms around,

Bird hop out and hoot owl in,

Three arms around and hooten agin,

Right and left and shoo-fly wing…