For a minute she seemed young and somebody, like when she was asleep.
"Not when you dish up such pickings as you done this morning," says Pa.
She screamed out something at him, and I ran across the yard toward Mis' Bingy's. They were going on so hard they forgot about me.
The grove was still. I wished he could have seen it. As soon as I got in it, I forgot about home, and the time before come back on me, like some of me singing. That was it—some of me singing. But I see right off the grove was different. It was almost as if he had been in it, and had showed me things about it. I begun looking out at it the way I thought he'd be looking at it. There seemed to be more of the grove than I thought there was. Then I thought how he'd never be there in it, and how I'd prob'ly never see him again, and something in me hurt, and I didn't want to go on. What was the use?... What was the use?... What was the use?...
Mis' Bingy's house lay all still in the sun. The sunflowers and hollyhocks by the back door and the chickens picking around looked all peaceful and like home. I thought Mr. Bingy must be sleeping off his drunk, and her keeping quiet not to disturb him.
The kitchen door was standing open and I stepped up on the porch. And then I heard a terrible cry, from right there in the room.
"Go back—back, Cossy!" Mis' Bingy said. "He'll kill you!"
All in an instant I took it in. She was sitting crouched on the bed, shielding the baby with a pillow. And he set close beside the door, sharpening his hatchet.
He jumped up when he see me. I remember his red eyes and his teeth, and his thin whiskers that showed his chin through. Then he sprang forward, right toward me and on to me, with his hatchet in his hand.