And now the reaper had come to the corner. Unc' Zenas straightened himself and watched anxiously. But his faith in the near horse was justified—the team turned smoothly, Annie lifted the blade and dropped it, and they started again, only half visible now across the tall grain.
Annie's wrists and back ached unbearably, the sweat got in her eyes, but she drove on. She thought a little of Wes, and how he had looked when she picked up that butcher knife. She thought of his heavy hand on her shoulder, and her flesh burned where he had grasped it.
"I'm going to cut this wheat if it kills me." she said over and over to herself in a queer refrain. "I'm going to cut this wheat if it kills me!" She thought probably it would. But she drove on.
She made her second corner successfully, and now the sun was at her back, and that gave her a little ease. This wheat was going to be cut, and hauled to the thresher, and sold in the market, if she did every bit of the work herself. She would show Wes Dean! Let him try to stop her—if he dared!
And there would be money enough for everything the baby might want or might need. Her child should not be born to poverty and skimping. If only the sun didn't beat so hard on the back of her neck! If only her arms didn't ache so!
After countless hours of time she overtook Dolcey and Zenas, and the old woman divined her chief discomfort. She snatched the sunbonnet off her own head and handed it up to her.
"Marster in hebben, ef I only had my stren'th!" muttered Zenas as she went on.
"Angels b'arin' dat chile up wid deir wings," chanted Aunt Dolcey.
Then, descending to more mundane matters, she added a delighted
chuckle: "I knowed she'd rise en shine one dese days. Holler at Marse
Wes she did, name him names, plenty. Yessuh—laid him out!"
"What you s'pose he up to now?" asked Zenas, looking over his shoulder.
"I dunno—but I bet you he plumb da'nted. Zenas, lak I tol' you—man may hab plenty debbilment, rip en t'ar, but he'll stan' back whenas a ooman meks up her min' she stood enough." And Aunt Dolcey had never heard of Rudyard Kipling's famous line.