Maybe, she thought, the winter’s trapping would be good and they could buy them some land, free and clear; an acre or two from which they could not be driven by wind or circumstance. It would be fine to have Mart own a piece of ground, and a cabin with good doors to it. She lay motionless under the live oak, closing her eyes against the sand gnats. The summer had been so long. It had bothered Mart. She thought uneasily that he was late returning.

He was trading at Cap’n Tack’s store in the village, four miles away. He had a string of perch and catfish he had caught in the lake. They came to sixty-six cents in trade. The storekeeper gave him a chunk of white bacon, five pounds of grits, a sack of meal and a can of Railroad snuff. Mart hesitated in the hot, dark store, odorous of rancid salt pork, of sour tobacco juice, of fish hummed above by swarms of flies. He wanted to ask some questions but the thick heat dulled his brain.

“This be September, eh?” he asked.

The storekeeper nodded.

“The tenth.”

“How long ’til the season gits opened?”

“End o’ November.”

Cap’n Tack had gone over to the law since the loss of his fishing equipment. He hoped to be appointed game warden this year.

“Plenty o’ ducks flyin’ over jest afore dark,” he commented slyly. “Fixin’ to do a leetle shootin’?”

“No,” Mart said, “I done a piece o’ trappin’ a few miles from here, afore I fished for you. I got my trapses yestiddy from the nigger I left ’em with. Jest fixin’ to oil ’em an’ git ’em ready.”

He wanted to reassure Cap’n Tack that he was a man with property and good for his bill.

“I see. Col’ drink afore you goes?”

A thought stirred in the storekeeper’s shrewd brain. He lifted the lid of the ice-box. A wave of cold air washed over Mart’s face. He was tempted.

“Shore would cool my gullet——”

He hated to get in debt another nickel. Cap’n Tack had already given him more than five dollars’ credit. Storekeepers were smart that way. They worked your bill up, when a cold drink would feel so good. You thought, Only a nickel. There flashed across the weariness of his mind old Martha’s chant——

“Fi’ cents in my pocket, ten cents on my bill.

If I don’t git no better, I’se boun’ fo’ Sugar Hill.”

He smiled to himself.

“Reckon not today,” he said.

The ice-box lid dropped down. He thought of asking for a chip of ice to suck, but he hated to. It was a nigger trick. If he was Cap’n Tack, a day like this, he’d lift that lid and just lie in that box, all through the heat of the day. He’d let the ice strike through him until his bones were cold.