He would run through the list of his wares again and when the buying was determined he would give some news of the farther valley. Caleb Burns had lost a fine cow, and a fine cow on Burns’s place was a sure-enough fine one. Registered Shorthorns. His dark vigor made a violence about him and his tall strong legs beat on the gravel as he stepped quickly about. His hands were strong on the door of the truck when he slammed it. His nails were untended and he would pluck at his nose with his thumb, remembering his handkerchief afterward. She would go back to the portico, delicately amused, rejecting him pleased with the incident, and he would climb into his vehicle and set it in motion, making a bow toward her in his departure. She wished for some other contact beside Frank, who came now every week or two. She remembered too vividly his face, his gestures, his presence after his departure. She was lying on the ground under the linden tree, seeing the pods of the linden that hung under each leaf by a slender stem of green. Walter and Abe would be cutting the tobacco in the lower field. The wild horses ran roughly up and down their pasture, their hoof-heavy tread thundering, the young stallion stopping to paw the grass until the dust rose from beneath it. She could scarcely divide this year from last year except by some memory of herself lying in the bed above the stairs, counting days to achieve ten unfevered. Now she lay on the rough grass and herbs under the linden tree not far from the pine, not far from the portico. She remembered Frank from time to time, or he welled upward from within her own being, his hands that seemed strong now as set beside no other hands. She remembered his face, his gray eyes, his still brow, his scrutinizing stare, a picture of his throat, his hand on his thigh. “I must have some other people,” she said, stirring as she lay to dispel the too-acute picture. “If I could walk to some other house. Go anywhere....” * * * * * The cow at the tenant house was dry now and there was no milk. “Now let’s see,” she thought, turning her mind again and again to the problem. Miss Doe had grown weary. She leaned all day over the novels, her eyes in a dim trance when she was called. There was milk on the neighboring farms, Theodosia thought, but she had no money. “You’ve got as much to eat as I’ve got,” Miss Doe said. “You’ve got as much milk and eggs as you see me eat.” She was in the back room at the hour of food, waiting. The pones for the dogs baked on the hearth. “Let me help, Aunt Doe,” she said. “Let me help you do something.” “I’ll mind my own house. Just keep your seat whilst I manage my own.”