She cried a little. "You hadn't ought to speak to me so," she says. "If I go, how'll I earn my living, and the baby's?" she says. I hadn't thought of that. "That's so," I says. "You are tied, ain't you?" I couldn't get her to come with me. She's got the bed made up in the front room up-stairs, and she was going up there that night and lock her door, and leave the kitchen open. "He may not be so bad," she says. "Maybe he'll be so drunk he'll tumble on the bed asleep, or maybe he'll be sick. I always hope for one of them." I went back through the wood-lot. It was so different out there from home and Mis' Bingy's that it felt good. I found a place in a book once that told about the woods. It gave me a nice feeling. I used to get it out of the school library whenever it was in and read the place over, to get the feeling again. Almost always it gave it to me. In the real woods I didn't always get it. They come so close up to me that they bothered me. I always thought I was going to get to something, and I never did. And yet I always liked it in the wood-lot. And it was nice to be away from home and from Mis' Bingy's. I forgot the whole bunch of 'em for a while. It was the night of a moon, and you could see it in the trees, like a big fat face that was friends with you. When a bird did just one note, it felt pleasant. After a while I stopped still, because it seemed as if something was near to me; but I wasn't scared, even if it was quite dark. I thought to myself that I wisht my family and all the folks I knew was still and kept to themselves same as the trees does, instead of rushing at you every minute, out loud. I never knew any folks that acted different from that, though. Luke was just like that, too. I was thinking of this when I see him coming to meet me, down the path. He ain't a big man, Luke. "Hello, Cossy," he says. "That you?" "Hello, Luke," I says. I dunno why it is--with the boys at home I can joke. But Luke, he always makes me feel just plain. I just says "Hello, Luke," and stood still, and waited for him to come up to me. He turned and walked along beside me. "I was afraid I wouldn't meet you," he says. "I was afraid I'd miss you. My, it's a good thing to get you somewheres by yourself." "Why?" I says. "Oh, the boys are always around, or your pa, or somebody. I've got a right to talk to you sometimes by yourself." "Well, go ahead, then. Talk to me." All of a sudden he stopped still in the path. "Do you mean that?" he ask. "Mean what?" I says. I couldn't think what he meant. "That I can talk to you now? My way?" "Oh," I says. I knew then. I guess I should have known before, if I'd stopped to think. But someway I never could put my mind on Luke all the time he was saying anything. "Cossy," he says, "I've tried to talk to you; you always got round it or else somebody else come in. You know what I want."