“How’s Joy?” Bina asked Big Sue politely.
“Joy’s awful nervish since dat tree got struck. I made em stay in bed dis mawnin’.”
“Joy ain’ been well in a good while,” Bina commented.
Big Sue’s eyes snapped. “Joy ever was a delicate child, Bina. You know dat good as me.”
The thick high trees, lapping their branches overhead, sheltered the cabins from a sun that burned down, fierce and bright, drawing a strong steamy stench up from the heated mud flats left naked by the outgone tide.
The fields were all too wet for plowing, and the blacksmith shop was the center for the day’s work. Plowshares needed to be filed and sharpened. Plow-stocks mended. Mules’ feet trimmed. Manes and tails clipped short. A few of the older, thinner beasts had got lousy. The hair must be cut off them and their hides wet with tea made out of china-berry leaves.
The men laughed and talked and chewed tobacco and smoked, as they worked leisurely at their different tasks. A difference of opinion rose as to the best place to twitch a mule to make him stand still for his hair to be cut off. A twine-string could be twisted around an ear, or tied to the upper lip. Uncle Bill preferred the lip. He said mules have pockets inside their ears and a string twisted tight enough to hold the beast quiet, will tear that pocket in two. April objected to the twitch on the lip, for it often caused a painful swelling.
The question was still unsettled when Brudge came running hard as he could, crying out that Joy had been taken with a death-sickness. She was lying on the bed in a trance. She couldn’t speak a word. Brudge almost popped out his eyeballs showing how her eyes were rolled away back in her head. Her hands and feet were cold as clabber. Big Sue said April must hurry or Joy would be gone before he got there!
April did not wait to hear the end of Brudge’s talk, but flew home ahead of them all with Breeze close at his heels. Lamentations and outcries met them as they got nearer. Big Sue’s above all the rest. Joy was dying. Nothing but a death-sickness could strike a young woman down so hard.
Breeze was almost petrified with terror, but he dragged himself on to the cabin, which was already filled with the neighbors. Joy lay on the bed covered over with a quilt, up to her very neck. Her eyes were shut. Her head moved from side to side. Her lips whispered things nobody could hear at all.