After the tobacco had been allowed to wilt in the field, they hauled it to Hiram Stone's nearest tobacco barn, a big structure built on the top of the ridge about half a mile from Jerry's field.
It was a great relief to Jerry when the last load was hauled in and hung up. So many things can happen to spoil a tobacco crop that he had lived in constant anxiety ever since the plants had been set in the ground. The weather had favored Scott County that year, and the tobacco was heavy and of fine quality.
"Naow, by gollies, if she don't up an' heat in the barn the crop's made," he said to himself.
The outdoor work with the crop was over and the rest was on the knees of the gods. Jerry now had his corn to work with. As he cut the corn and stacked it in shocks, and as he and Judith together shucked out the ears, Jerry watched the weather with an anxious eye. If there came a warm, damp day, he grew uneasy; and a succession of warm, damp days sent him to the tobacco barn to examine anxiously the yellowish-brown bunches and open the doors wider so that the air could circulate more freely.
"If she heats an' spiles now after all our work, won't it be a dirty shame?" he said to Judith one day, when she had accompanied him on one of these visits.
"I wonder if there's anything the matter with the terbaccer, Jerry? It don't somehow seem to smell right to me," said Judith, sniffing the air critically. "I allus did love the smell of terbaccer a-dryin' in the barn. But this kinda makes me feel sick to my stummick."
"Smells all right to me," opined Jerry. "Smells durn good." He sniffed again.
"Must be sumpin wrong with your smeller, Judy."
"I dunno what's wrong," doubted Judith, "but it sholy hain't got a good smell to me."