Pete mounted his tired horse and rode homeward. Moodily, with mingled pity and sadness, Joe watched him go. Pete wasn't really to blame. But he felt that he was. He had, however unwittingly, dealt mortal injury to his very good friend and that thought would forever haunt him.
Joe wandered out to his own ravaged fields, and as soon as he was in them he confirmed what he had known anyway. In the oat patch, a few bruised stalks strove valiantly to raise battered heads toward the sun. The corn was ruined and the vegetable garden was gone. What remained was not one twentieth of what was needed.
Joe caught the mules and evaded their striking feet and slicing teeth as he fought them into harness. Having run free for four days, the mules were not inclined to work again. But they had to work, for the man who commanded them was stronger than they. They plunged and reared when the harness was buckled about them, and kicked and squealed when they were once fastened to the plow. That was all they could do.
Joe guided the plow down the first long, straight furrow, and even as he did he assured himself that the second crop of oats would be better than the first for the second would feed on the bodies of the first. Joe reversed his mutinous team to start the second furrow, and when he came to the end it seemed, quite unaccountably, that the day should also be ended. Then he looked at the scarcely risen sun and knew that it had not yet started.
He steered the mules down another furrow, and angered more at himself than at them, jerked hard on the reins. The plow had gone a bit to one side, so that instead of being in rhythm with all the rest, the furrow curved away from them. Joe stopped and passed a hand over his sweating forehead. Twenty years or more ago his father had whipped him unmercifully for plowing a crooked furrow. From then until now he had never plowed one.
Joe turned the mules and straightened the furrow so that it matched the rest. From that time on, in order not to repeat the error, he had to watch himself and that made plowing twice the work. With an exhaustion equal to—maybe greater than—last night's, Joe saw the first long shadows of evening.
For the first time, rather than providing a refuge from problems, his house seemed to admit them with him. There was no peace and none of the calm that paid for a day's work. When dinner was over, the almost electric restlessness that tormented him mounted to supercharged heights.
"Do you know what?" he said fiercely, "I wish we could go to a good hoedown tonight! A real rip-snorter with everything in it!"
"Go down to the store and find out when the next one is and where," Emma urged. "I wouldn't mind going to a party myself."
Joe walked down the path toward the store, and in his mind, as he walked, he tried to create some of the camaraderie he would know when he reached it. He could not.