“I reckon Satan could make it sound that way,” Nancy said, but her niece seemed not to hear her. Nancy stood staring at her, with words bitter beyond saying in her heart; words that rose in her throat and choked her. When she spoke she only said, “Get up, Jane; your father'll be here in a minute.”
“I'm not going to eat anything. I'm going into the woods.” She staggered to her feet, and dashed from the door. The child looked after her with outstretched arms and whimpered pitifully, but she did not mind its call.
“Where's Jane?” her father said, coming in at the back door.
“Gone into the woods,” she said.
“To pray, I reckon.”
He sat down at the table-leaf lifted from the wall, and his sister served him his breakfast. He ate greedily, but his hand trembled so in lifting his cup that the coffee spilled from it.
When he had ended and sat leaning back from the board, she asked him: “What are you going to do?”