lose her good opinion. She consulted him in all her little
difficulties. If the leg of the kitchen table got wobbly, she
knew he would put in new screws for her. When she broke a handle
off her rolling pin, he put on another, and he fitted a haft to
her favourite butcher-knife after every one else said it must be
thrown away. These objects, after they had been mended, acquired
a new value in her eyes, and she liked to work with them. When
Claude helped her lift or carry anything, he never avoided
touching her, this she felt deeply. She suspected that Ralph was a
little ashamed of her, and would prefer to have some brisk young
thing about the kitchen.

On days like this, when other people were not about, Mahailey
liked to talk to Claude about the things they did together when
he was little; the Sundays when they used to wander along the
creek, hunting for wild grapes and watching the red squirrels; or
trailed across the high pastures to a wild-plum thicket at the
north end of the Wheeler farm. Claude could remember warm spring
days when the plum bushes were all in blossom and Mahailey used
to lie down under them and sing to herself, as if the honey-heavy
sweetness made her drowsy; songs without words, for the most
part, though he recalled one mountain dirge which said over and
over, "And they laid Jesse James in his grave."



IV

The time was approaching for Claude to go back to the struggling
denominational college on the outskirts of the state capital,