The smokehouse reeked of ham and pleasant hickory smoke from morning until night. Hams hung in the cellar beside the slabs of bacon, and the small white ears of popcorn. In a dry bin with a wooden floor were hickory nuts and walnuts by the bushel with a few pecks of butternuts and hazel nuts to furnish variety. Apple cider in brown jugs, wild grape juice in tight bottles, with just a gallon or two of blackberry cordial in case of sickness lined the lower shelf of the can cupboard. There were bins of sand for carrots, beets and celery. Pie pumpkins in one corner, hubbard squashes in another. And although Stanley Brailsford longed for more children, wished that Sarah could have better health, and mourned the rift which was slowly arising between himself and Peter, he had much to be thankful for as he said the blessing over his Thanksgiving dinner. Above all he thanked God most devoutly that he was the strongest man in Southern Wisconsin and could provide for and protect his womenfolks and cattle. CHAPTER XI 1 "Stop the team a minute," Peter told Gus. He looked down upon the white-roofed house and barns, the frozen creek, strawstacks like giant mushrooms capped with white, the drifted hedgerows interlaced with rabbit tracks, Lake Koshkonong like a floor of green glass surrounded by its gnarled forests of black, leafless oaks. "What's the matter?" Gus asked. "Had a fight with your girl?" "You wouldn't understand." "Don't trust no woman farther'n you could throw a horse," counseled the hired man. "I told her that if she went off to her Grandmother's in Madison over Christmas she could stay away for good." "And so she went!" "How'd you know?" "Any woman would." "Damn her," said Peter. "No, I don't mean that." He wondered why he was confiding in Gus. No one else to confide in, really. "Just act like she doesn't exist," said Gus. "Go ahead and have a good time without her. She'll come crawling back on her belly." "You don't know this girl." "Maybe not this one," Gus admitted, "but they're all cats out of the same litter." * * * * * "You home, boy?" Stud asked. Early Ann helped Peter off with his coat and chucked him under the chin. "Trailer factory's shut down, Dad. They're losing money." "Shut down for good?" "Start up again the first of the year more'n likely." "What'd you do if the 'Trailer' shut down for good?" "Don't know, Father." "Might you come back to the farm?" "I might," said the boy, averting his eyes. Four days until Christmas. The house was already decorated with holly and red bells. There were frost flowers on the window panes and the base burner glowed brightly. His mother was sitting before the stove in her favorite rocker piecing a quilt. "There's lots of rabbits this year," Sarah said. She thought: I don't want him to kill rabbits. I hate trapping, hunting, and slaughtering. It made me sick the time I saw Stanley castrating the little boars.