As she approached the house, the mingled scents of drying apples and boiling tomatoes enveloped her; for her mother was working desperately in an effort to save the ripening fruit and vegetables before the sun spoiled them. Boards covered with sliced apples were spread on crude props and decrepit tables, which had been brought out of doors. Above them a crowd of wasps, hornets, flies, and gnats were whirling madly, and every now and then Mrs. Oakley darted out from beneath the scuppernong grapevine and dispersed the delirious swarms with the branch of a locust tree. Though she insisted that the dry weather had "helped her neuralgia," she was suffering now from a sun headache, and could hope for no relief until evening. Her face, with its look of blended physical pain and spiritual ecstasy, was as parched and ravaged as the drought-stricken landscape. "You got home early to-day, daughter." "Yes, it was too hot to walk, and Jason came by sooner than usual." "How does Rose Emily stand the heat?" "I'm afraid she isn't getting any better," Dorinda's voice trembled. "Jason says she can't last through another bad hæmorrhage." "And all those children," sighed Mrs. Oakley, pressing one hand over her throbbing eyes and waving the locust branch energetically with the other. "Well, the Lord's ways are past understanding. I wonder if they will ever be able to do anything for that baby's clubfoot." "I don't know. Jason would like to operate, but Nathan and Rose Emily won't let him. They are afraid it may make it worse. Poor Rose Emily. I don't see how she can be so cheerful." "It's her faith," said Mrs. Oakley. "She feels she's saved, and she's nothing more to worry about. I'm sorry for Nathan too," she concluded, with the compassion of the redeemed for the heathen. "He's a good man, but he hasn't seen the light like Rose Emily." "Yes, he's a good man," Dorinda assented, "but I never understood how she could marry him." Mrs. Oakley dropped the branch, and then picking it up began a more vigorous attack on the cloud of insects. "I declare, it seems to me sometimes that the bugs are going to eat up this place. Did you see your father as you came by?" "Yes. He was working bareheaded. I told him he would have sunstroke. I wish he would try a different crop next year, but he's so set in his ways." "Well, it's being set in a rut, I reckon, that keeps him going. If he weren't set, he'd have stopped long ago. You've a mighty high colour, Dorinda. Have you been much in the sun?" "I walked across from the woods. When we turned in at the red gate I saw Miss Tabitha Snead going up the road in her buggy. Did she stop by to see you?" "Yes, she brought me a bucket of fresh buttermilk. I've got it in the ice-house with the watermelons, so it will be cold for supper. She told me Geneva Ellgood had gone away for the summer." "Oh, she went the first of July. I saw her at the station."