"Yes, we had supper early so Fluvanna and Mary Joe could help with the milking, but I'd better go out and see what they are doing. There's a lot to do in the dairy and the darkeys are still a little afraid of the new machinery."
Nathan laughed good-humouredly. "I might as well help you. Dairy work is the sort that won't keep."
"No, it won't wait. The butter has to be packed for the early train."
"That means you'll be up before daybreak?"
She nodded impatiently. "Well, you're used to that. Don't you breakfast by candlelight in winter?"
"Yes, I'm used to it. I'll come out now and help."
"I don't want you. There's plenty of work for you in the fields, but I don't want you meddling in my dairy."
For the first time she understood what work had meant in her mother's life; the flight of the mind from thought into action. To have Nathan hanging round her in the dairy was the last thing, she said to herself, that she had anticipated in marriage.
"Of course, I didn't mean to interfere with you." He fell back into the house, and with a sigh of relief she fled out to the new cow-barn, where the last milkers still lingered and chatted over the wedding. As she passed into the heavy atmosphere and inhaled the pasture-scented breath of the cows, she felt that a soothing vapour had blown over her nerves.
"I declar, Miss Dorindy, you mought jes' ez well not be mah'ed at all," Nimrod remarked dolefully.