After they had eaten, Peter and Early Ann pulled up the hoops and pegs, gathered the balls and mallets in their arms. They walked down the dusty driveway to the wagon shed carrying the set, and stopped at the milk house for a long cold drink from the pump. They were too quiet, too delightfully tired and calm to wish to talk. Their struggle was forgotten, and there was no upsetting emotion of love or hate to keep them from kicking in comradely fashion through the dust. Then something altogether out of keeping with their mood shattered the evening. The horses in the barn yard whinnied in fright; there were startled hoof-beats; a cow mooed anxiously. "Don't go," Early Ann pleaded, holding to the boy. "It might be...." Gus and Stud came running. "Someone after the stock, you think?" Gus asked. They hurried in a straggling group down to the barnyard gate, saw a shadowy figure jump the far fence and disappear into the dusky brush lot, crashing through the branches. "Tried to get in from the back road," Stud decided, "came up the lane and found himself in the barnyard. Just a tramp, I guess." But Early Ann had her own opinion. 3 There are nights when men and women cannot sleep but lie awake talking until almost dawn, nights when they feel suddenly articulate after long months or even years of silence. These nights are better spent in talking than in sleep or even in love. Stanley and Sarah Brailsford went up to their room with a lamp. A cool wind was blowing from the lake rustling the old lace curtains at the window. Stanley set the lamp with its brightly polished chimney, neatly trimmed wick, and glass base filled with kerosene (in which the lower end of the wick floated like some pale, peculiar fish) upon the jig-sawed walnut bureau with its cracked mirror, and tatted bureau runner. The lamp light emphasized his gigantic proportions, projecting his huge shadow on the walls and ceiling, lighting one half of his strong face and leaving the other in darkness. He took off his number eleven shoes, red and white cotton socks, and coarse blue shirt stained at the arm pits. He yawned enormously. Quickly, with little movements almost shy, Sarah Brailsford unfastened her gray-sprigged percale waist and skirt. She took off her shoes and stockings as though she were ashamed to have Stanley notice that the shoes were cracked, misshapen, and run over at the heel, the black lisle stockings one great mass of careful darns. Before she removed her undergarments she slipped her nightgown on over her head and worked beneath the gown unfastening her patched unmentionables. Sarah wished she could have pretty bloomers like the ones on the Barton line. Stud could afford a new thrashing machine that year but no new clothes for the family. She hung her garments neatly on a chair.