“You'll be late gittin' home.”
“I ain't goin' home,” replied the child. “I'm goin' to Uncle Jimmie's,” and he pointed his linger up the valley.
“You can make that by dark.” said the woman, “but you better be movin' along.”
She came out and spread the piece of carpet on the ox. The small boy stepped off the mill porch and went out into the road behind the man, where a flat rock lay in the dust.
He remained a moment squatted down on his bare legs. Then he returned, climbed onto the ox, and set out up the valley, kicking his heels against the patriarch's ancient ribs.
At the bend of the road, the boy stopped and shouted. The man turned about where he was standing. The boy pointed his finger.
“There's somethin' under that rock,” he called.
Then he swung around on his piece of carpet, spoke to the ox, and was swallowed up in the shadows of the valley.
The man stooped down and turned the fiat stone over. There lay the Barlow knife.
The woman, watching the man, suddenly brought her bent palm to her forehead and looked up at the mountain, to see if some stray bit of the setting sun had entered the valley. But there was nothing.