"Don't raise it, Cottie. It's a sin to let in the light, with him layin' there and dead."
"Darlin', it ain't goin' to hurt him, and the lamp's low. See; there ain't no harm in raisin' it—look how light it's gettin'!"
Off toward the east dawn trembled on the edge of eternity and sent up, as if the earth were lighting the horizon, a pearlish light shotted with pink. A smattering of stars lingered and trembled as though cold. They paled; dawn grew pinker, and the black village, with its naked trees standing darkly against the sky, sent up wispy spirals of smoke. A derrick in the jagged bowl of the quarry moved its giant arms slowly, and a steam-whistle shrieked.
The New York accommodation hallooed to the trembling dawn and tore through Slateville.
The sisters pressed their white faces close to the cold pane and watched it rush into the sunrise. A cock crowed to the dawn, and, from afar, another. A dirt-team rumbled up the road, and the steam-whistle from the quarry blew a second reveille.
"You—you take the accommodation, darlin'. It's cheaper, and you'll be feelin' scary about the flyer for a while. You can catch it down by Terre Haute at five-thirty-one, Monday morning—eh, darlin'?"
"So—so soon, Cottie—only three days after, and him hardly cold."
"Don't let's drag it out, darlin'."
"Oh, Cottie, I'll be waitin' for you! There won't be a day that I won't be waitin' for you. There's nothin' I love like you."
Their faces were close and wet with tears, and the first ray of sun burnished their heads and whitened their white bosoms.