"Wimmin has troubles caows don't never even dream on. You'll find that out afore you're married long," said Hat darkly. From this cryptic prophecy she launched into a description of the pregnant state and went into the subject in all its ramifications. She did not tell Judith how it came that she who had never had a child knew so many intimate details regarding the symptoms of pregnancy. That after all was her own affair.
Judith listened with a mixture of interest and disgust. She wished to know all that she could find out on this as on any other matter that concerned her life. But she was revolted by Hat's whispered undertone and her air of salacious secrecy. She was glad to cut her visit short on the plea that she had work to do at home. When she left, the two men were still standing in the same attitudes by the wagon shed.
As she walked homeward along the top of the ridge, she was glad to look out over the broad expanse of clean earth, to draw in deep breaths of pure, hilltop air and to shake from her the close and fœid atmosphere of Hat's hollow.
CHAPTER XI
She felt less abjectly miserable after she had learned the cause of her distress of body. As time passed, her symptoms became gradually less violent, and at last disappeared altogether. The nausea passed away, and she was able to eat again and enjoy her food. The pictures on the wall took on their old, natural look; and she got out Lizzie May's present from under the sheets and pillow slips in the bureau drawer and found it once more a delight to her eyes.
It was good to feel like herself once more and to be able to get pleasure instead of loathing from the multitudinous small things that make up the major part of life. It was like waking up from some dismal nightmare and finding the earth still a good and pleasant place. The happiness of freedom regained more than equaled the irk of the old bondage. And as Judith stretched and laughed and enjoyed the rain and the sun and ate heartily and loved Jerry more than she had ever loved him before and felt herself overflowing with physical wellbeing and spiritual content, she knew the joy of reacting to perhaps the most powerful stimulant in life, the elixir of sharp contrast.
And now that she was well again there was plenty of work for her to do. The tobacco, which had survived the warm, damp seasons fatal to many a tobacco crop, must be stripped and stripped quickly, so that Jerry could haul it off to market before the price dropped. Jerry had bulked the tobacco early in November, and had been stripping for some time. But it was slow work for one pair of hands. Now that Judith was able to help him, things went faster.
They got up in the dark, chilly winter mornings long before it was day, ate breakfast and did the morning chores by lamplight, and were ready to go out into the slow, gray dawn while the sky was still only faintly alight and the familiar outlines of the barnyard only dimly visible. The last thing that they did before leaving was to scatter food for the hens, which had not yet come from the roosts. Then they climbed the hill to the ridge path that led to the big tobacco barn.