Clara came out, bearing coffeepot, mugs, and a steaming pie plate on a pine board that did as serving tray. Eliot had been much affected by Talmadge’s tale, his imagination supplying pictures to the words. A muddy creek, some tumbledown shack in some hookwormy swamp, a whole family lying dead. Yet, he could not comprehend it, so alien was it to his experiences. Once, when he had a bad cough, his mother summoned Dr. Matthews by phone, just like it said to do in the telephone company advertisements; he was at their door within an hour. Here, it would have taken three days. Such things shouldn’t be, he thought, not in this new century; and yet Talmadge had spoken of them as if they were inevitable.

Nathaniel was thinking more pragmatic thoughts. Eager to repair Double Eagle and make up the lost miles as quickly as possible, he bluntly changed the subject and asked Talmadge if he had seen Mr. Kincaid that afternoon.

“Nope. But I hope to get around to it tomorrow,” Talmadge answered, distantly. “Jeb’s a busy feller. Owns the grocery store and the bait shop besides the sawmill. He’s kinda the big man in Snead’s Landin’, which ain’t sayin’ much.”

He struck a match to relight his pipe, then lit the kerosene lamp on the table. The sun had set, St. Helene Sound stretched away, a pool of pale black hemmed by the deeper black of the woods on the far shore. Crickets chirped, frogs chorused in the marshes beyond the town, and Clara had resumed her silent staring at Will. He could bear it no longer and, with a benign smile, asked, “Why … are … you … looking … at … me … like … that?”

At last, her broad impassive face, sallowed by the lantern, showed some animation. She swallowed hard, made a couple of unintelligible sounds, and turned to Talmadge with a look of appeal.

“Can’t say for sure.… What did y’all say your name was, anyhow?”

“Will,” said Will.

“Think maybe she’s sweet on you. I ain’t clear on exactly how old she is, but the curse come upon her last year, and she’s gettin’ twitchy in that way. Couple months past, she took to starin’ at one of the boys in town, Billy Holcomb. Follered him everywhere like he had a leash on her. Drove him to distractedness.”

Will puffed on a cigarette and nodded to say he understood, though it was plain to the Braithwaites, if not to Talmadge, that he did not relish being the new object of Clara’s affections.

“Don’t mind her, she’s got no manners,” Talmadge advised. Then, to the girl, emphasizing each carefully enunciated word with a wag of his pipe: “Now Clara, I don’t want y’all starin’ at this young man like you done Billy. Understood?”

She did not respond.

“Clara. Cla-ar-a?”