The two hired men on Barly's farm rose in the dark and crept downstairs. By sun-up, Farmer Barly was after them, in his brown overalls; he came clumping into the barn, dusty with last year's hay, and peered about him in the yellow light. He opened the harness room, and took out harness for the farm wagons; he went to ask if the horses had been watered. The cows were in pasture; in the wagon shed the two men, before a tin basin, plunged their arms into water, flung it on their faces, and puffed and sighed. The shed was cold, and redolent of earth. Outside, the odor of coffee, drifting from the house, mingled in the early morning air with clover and hay, cut in the fields, but not yet stored. Anna Barly, from her room, heard her mother moving in the kitchen, and sat up in bed. The patch-work quilt was fallen on the floor, where it lay as sleepy as its mistress. She tossed her hair back from her face; it spread broad and gold across her shoulders, and the wide sleeves of her nightdress, falling down her arms, bared her round, brown elbows as she caught it up again. In the kitchen, the two hired men, their faces wet and clean, poured sugar over their lettuce, and talked with their mouths full. "I hear tell of a borer, like an ear-worm, spoiling the corn. . . . But there's none in our corn, so far as I can see." "Never been so much rain since I was born." "A bad year." "Well," said Mrs. Barly, "that's no wonder, either, with prices what they are, and you two eating your heads off, for all the work you do." "Now, then," said her husband hastily, "that's all right, too, mother." Anna stood at the sink, and washed the dishes. Her hands floated through the warm, soapy water like lazy fish, curled around plates, swam out of pots; while her thoughts, drowsy, sunny in her head, passed, like her hands, from what was hardly seen to what was hardly felt. "Look after the milk, Anna," said her mother, "while I go for some kindlings." She went out, thin, stooped, her long, lean fingers fumbling with her apron; and she came back more bent than before. She put the wood down with a sigh. "A body's never done," she said. Anna looked after the milk, all in a gentle phlegm. Her mother cooked, cleaned, scrubbed, carried water, fetched wood, set the house to rights; in order to keep Anna fresh and plump until she was married. Anna, plump and wealthy, was a good match for any one: old Mr. Frye used to smile when he saw her. "Smooth and sweet," he used to say: "molasses . . . hm . . ." Now she stood dreaming by the stove, until her mother, climbing from the cellar, woke her with a clatter of coal. "Why, you big, awkward girl," cried Mrs. Barly, "whatever are you dreaming about?" Anna thought to herself: "I was dreaming of a thousand things. But when I went to look at them . . . there was nothing left." "Nothing," she said aloud. "Then," said her mother doubtfully, "you might help me shell peas."