Weeds grew too, tender and succulent from abundant moisture and rapid growth. They were easy to get rid of if they were attacked in time. One stroke of the hoe killed hundreds of them. Lying on the moist, steaming earth in the fierce heat of the sun, they shriveled and dried up in a few hours. But if they were allowed to live, they grew with incredible rapidity into great, tough giants and overtopped the vegetables in no time.
Judith spent all the time that she could spare from the babies and the house working in her garden, chopping out the weeds while they were still young and tender, hilling up the potatoes, hoeing the rows of lusty beets and beans and turnips, training the pole beans to climb on their poles and tying up the tomato vines to stakes. She liked this work. She liked the feel of the hot sun on her back and shoulders, the smell of the damp, warm earth. Some magic healing qualities in sun and earth seemed to give her back health, vigor, and poise. When she had hoed in the garden for an hour or two, she felt tired from her exertions, for her strength had only partly returned after the birth of the baby. Yet, in spite of the ache in her muscles, she was refreshed and in a way invigorated, more able to cope with the washtub and the churn, with the baby when he cried and refused to be pacified and with little Billy when he danced up and down and choked and grew purple in the face with rage.
It was a hard spring and summer for Jerry. He had put in five acres of tobacco; and this year there was no help to be had from Judith. Even if she could have left the children, she was much too weak for field work. So Jerry had to tackle it alone. Five acres of tobacco and ten acres of corn—a good full summer's work for three men, four if they worked union hours. But Jerry did not work union hours. He was determined that this year he was going to provide for his wife and family. The alarm clock was set every morning except Sunday for half past three. By half past four, he and the horses were jingling out of the barnyard. At eleven he came home for dinner; and noon saw him starting away again. That was the hardest wrench of all, to get up after eating and drag his swollen feet and aching muscles out into the hot noonday sun, before him the long broiling afternoon of endless plodding after the plow. It was not so bad after he had been working for an hour or so; he got his second wind and went along tolerably enough. Five o'clock came—quitting time for those who work for others; but it was only a little past the middle of Jerry's afternoon. Six o'clock, and the sun was still quite high in the sky. It was only when the sun dropped below the horizon that he clicked cheerfully to the horses and turned their heads toward home.
It was hard, too, on the horses. They grew gaunt and stringy-necked, their coats bleached by the sun into a dead, lusterless drab. Better, however, that they were thin; for then there was small danger of their dropping dead of the heat, as a fat horse might do. Jerry was a little sorry that he had not bought mules. They stood the strain of heat and hard work better than horses.
In the evening, after he had eaten supper, he rolled into bed in the same shirt that he had worn all day, or if it was very hot in no shirt at all. He was dirty, sweaty, unshaven. Tired in every muscle he fell asleep instantly. Judith had nothing to fear from his excess vitality. She, too, slept the sleep of exhaustion.
The weeds grew with such lustiness and vigor that Jerry had to cultivate his corn and tobacco again and again to keep the plants from being smothered. As soon as one generation was laid low another came to take its place. The earth teemed with the seed of this useless but vigorous and persistent life. By early July, however, Jerry saw the reward of his toil. By then the tobacco had spread its broad leaves and shaded the ground, and the corn had shot up thick and tall and dark green. When it had reached this stage, his crop needed no more cultivation. The weeds might continue to germinate all they liked; they could not grow if they did not see the sun. He took an occasional day off now and an extra hour or so at noon to loaf and play with Billy. If a neighbor happened by, he was willing to stop and chat with him. His vigor and good spirits began to return.
"Bejasus, I've got a good crop this year, Judy," he said, his face beaming with honest, simple satisfaction. "The corn's made. Nothin' can't hurt it. It's same as if it was in the crib. Of course a dozen things cud happen to that there terbaccer yet; but not likely. Everybody says terbaccer's a-goin' high this year. If I kin steer her safe to market, she'll bring us a neat little penny."
On Sundays they usually hooked up and went visiting. Often they went to Lizzie May's for the sake of Billy, who liked to have other children to play with. Jerry and Dan, too, were good friends and enjoyed an all day chat. Lizzie May had two children now: Granville, a year or so older than Billy, a stodgy, round-faced chunk of a child, and Viola, a little girl with yellow curls, her mother in miniature. Motherhood had improved Lizzie May. She had taken on flesh and seemed to have discovered some source of strength and vitality inaccessible to Judith. She beamed with maternal pride and satisfaction on her children. She kept their clothes and her own dresses and aprons washed and starched and fastidiously ironed; and she was always busy scrubbing, dusting, polishing, never tiring apparently of the endless cleaning of things just to have them get dirty again, a species of well doing of which Judith constantly experienced weariness. Her stove was always polished, her kettle shining, her floor scrubbed, her children clean and decent and neatly patched.
In addition to all this, Lizzie May had a "front room," an apartment rarely found in the houses of tenant farmers. It had a bright rag carpet on the floor made of rags all sewn by Lizzie May's own hands. Braided rag rugs were laid over the carpet in places where the wear might come if the room were ever used. There were lace curtains at the window, a bed with a white spread and pillow shams embroidered in red, a little what-not in a corner loaded with knick-knacks, two crayon enlargements on the wall, and a framed motto over the door. In this room the blinds were always drawn and sunlight entered only through chinks. It smelled of new rag carpet and freshly starched pillow shams and a slight mustiness, sweetish, and not altogether unpleasant. It had an air of cool, clean, quiet sanctity. After the children it was Lizzie May's greatest pride.
Judith often wondered why it was that Lizzie May got on so much better than herself. It was not hard to see why she was a better housekeeper. She had always liked housework and taken an interest in it. Besides, she did nothing else, never even venturing as far as the barnyard. Dan did all the outside chores and when he needed help in the field he called on one of his younger brothers.