He waved a long arm and was gone at his loping trot down the road toward the village, where the Brinley boys waited in their old Ford. The earth swayed from under her. She dropped trembling on the rickety stoop. She wanted to run after him, to call him back, but numbness held her. Lige had been so good; with her, so gentle. Year after year, with his bean-crops failing him, he had been patient. Yet violence simmered in him. He had been always like a great kettle of cane juice, ready, at a little too much heat, to boil over.

With her, he had been like a wild thing tamed; a ’coon or ’possum or young panther that had come to enjoy captivity. Now, in his prosperity, he had broken out of the cage and was gone, dangling his ropes behind him. For a moment, he did not seem to belong to her. It was as though a stranger had gone galloping down the road to meet the Brinley boys and get drunk.

She rose from the stoop, told the children to stay in the house, and went to the Widow Sellers.

“Yes,” the old woman said before she could speak, “the grand rascal’s been here an’ gone. Th’owed over his job an’ gone to raise him some hell.”

Drenna stiffened. She lifted her chin.

“If he’s took the notion to git drunk, I reckon he’s got the right to do it.”

The widow gaped. When the young woman turned defiantly for home again, she scurried through town telling that Drenna didn’t give a rap whether Lige got drunk or no. The town buzzed with it.

“I ain’t surprised at Lige, but who’d a-figgered Drenna’d turn out plumb shameless!”

No one came near her that evening. The village was busy waiting for news of Lige’s hilarity to come in piece by piece. Drenna sat in her low rocker, holding the baby. The older child played in and out of the house and at last gave up asking questions. Twilight came, and still she sat, rocking and staring. She put the children to bed and went back to her rocker. The kerosene lamps went unlit. She was chilly and wrapped a patchwork quilt around her. A hoot owl startled her in the pine tree by the window. In the hammock, the first whippoorwill gave his yearning cry.

“When the whippoorwill calls, it’s time for the corn to be in the ground.”