“Oh yes, I’ve had supper,” I said.
And she carried the milk into the darkness.
In the city, among people having the status indicated by the big red barn and the enormous wind-mill and a most substantial fence, this gleaming woman would have languished in shelter. She would have played at many philanthropies, or gone to many study clubs or have had many lovers. She would have been variously adventurous according to her corner of the town. Here her paramour was Work. He still caressed her, but would some day break her on the wheel.
The old man sent me toward the front porch alone. There was a rolling back of the low gray clouds just then, and the coming of the moon. The moon’s moods are so many. To-night she took the forlornness out of the restless sky. She looked domestic as the lantern.
III
You Ought to be Ashamed of Yourself
I was on the porch, scraping an acquaintance with the grandmother. She held a baby in her lap. They sat in the crossing of the moonlight and the lamplight.
There was no one to explain me. I explained myself. She eyed me angrily. She did not want me to shake hands with the baby. She asked concerning her daughter-in-law.
“And did she say you could stay?”
“She did.”
The grandmother brought a hard fist down on the arm of the chair: “I’d like to break her neck. She’s no more backbone than a rabbit.”