The others seemed to be affected in much the same way. From about the stove where the men had collected came the sound of animated talk and of bold, assured, unrestrained laughter, such talk and laughter as were rarely heard in a tenant farmer's house except when whiskey was one of the guests. The language, however, out of deference to the two women present, was somewhat restrained and guarded.
"Mebbe you'll call to mind, Amos," Uncle Sam Whitmarsh was saying, "the day we helped tote Uncle Ezry's bar'l o' whiskey daown into his cellar. I reckon it's a good thirty-five year past; but it seems on'y like yestiddy to me. My haow time goes. There was you an' me, an' there was Ned Tyler that left here an' went over into Indianny an' there was Abner Sykes that's dead an' buried this thirty year. You mind that day, Amos?"
"Yaas, I mind that day, Sam; an' I mind well the heft o' that bar'l o' whiskey." Uncle Amos smiled reminiscently. "We was young men them days, Sam."
"Yaas, we was young, an' Ezry was young, an' he drunk a heap o' whiskey in them days afore he got so old he couldn't hold it no more. It was terbaccer harvest an' we was all there a-helpin' to cut. The bar'l come that mornin'. After dinner Ezry ses: 'Boys,' ses he, 'I wish you'd gimme a hand with this here bar'l afore you go back to field.'
"There stud the bar'l as big as a maounting; an' there stud the cellar steps, steep an' narrer. Ezry never so much as laid hand to it; he jes stud there an' told us what he wanted did. Waal, we four took a holt o' that there bar'l an' we tugged an' pulled an' wrestled an' strained an' sweat till we got her daown them steep narrer stairs. Then Ezry wa'n't satisfied with that; but he had to hev it put way back into the fur corner where it was dark an' cool. After we'd got her there an' blocks set under her to hold her level an' everything all shipshape, Ezry ses: 'Thanks, boys, you kin go naow.' An' we all troops back up the cellar stairs as dry as we come. I kin see the look on Abner Sykes' face to this day. He's dead an' gone, but that look is a-livin' yet. Yaas, he's got a close fist, has Ezry."
Judith, who had heard this story more than once before, felt herself dropping to sleep again and again. She would catch herself napping, straighten up with a sudden start and open her eyes very wide, only to fall into another doze. The sound of a snore roused her from one of these naps, and looking in the direction from which it had come, she saw that Uncle Jonah, sunk into the depths of an old rocking chair, had fallen fast asleep with his chin resting on his breast. The air in the room was close and heavy with Sunday afternoon dullness. Her eyelids kept falling over her eyes of their own weight. She longed with an intense physical craving to throw herself down somewhere—anywhere—and sleep, sleep, sleep.
Gradually the men stopped talking and lost interest in what their companions were saying. More and more they sagged in their chairs, their legs stretched out lazily toward the stove. Chins dropped, and the sound of muffled, fragmentary voices grew faint and far away. At length even these ceased, and only an occasional faint snore stirred the silence.
Judith was aroused by Jerry gently shaking her shoulder.
"Judy, Judy, it's near night an' time we was home. The baby's awake an' cryin'."
She roused herself with an effort and fetched the baby from the inner room where she had laid him on Jabez's bed. The others were all preparing to go, except Uncle Jonah and Aunt Selina, who still slept on peacefully.