She was alone. An ironing board was laid from table to low shelf. He saw her back. A bent old back ... a small round head ... a mass of tousled hair dusted with white. Yet as the bare arm pressed the steaming iron to and fro, he felt with a new poignance how a wind, tropical and fresh, wielded this woman. He tiptoed in, sat down and watched her. The rhythm fleshed.... A naked woman, tall and firm and glowing like red earth. Her hands are above her head. Her hands are flowers with the wind in them. There is a tree above her. And her long, bare feet, with the straight toes, are intertwined to the tree’s roots. Clara moved to the farther side of the board so as to iron and see him. Her shoes were huge misshapen shreds of leather barely holding about her feet, so that but for the glide of her body, her moving might have seemed a shuffle. He saw her smile now over her board at him. He thought of a cloud saturate with sun. “Clara,” he said, “I should be studying. But I’m a good for nothing.” “Yo’ mustn’t say that, Mr. Loer!” As her words came, her arms went to and fro, pressing the steamy steel. Her shoulders spoke in concord. --Nigger woman ... you are all _one_!... What a strange thing to think about a person! “No, Mr. Loer,” she crooned, “yo’ mus’n’t say that! We is all good fo’ som’p’n. We doan know what a heap o’ de time. But we all is--” “How can you be so sure of Heaven?” She rested her elbow on the board. “I done seen it, Mr. Loer. I sees it ... _offen_.” “How do you know you see it?” “How do I know I’se a-seein’ you?” “You could describe me, Clara. Could you describe Heaven?” “Why, ob co’se I could! What I sees I can describe....” She ironed. “It’s a great big place! Mos’ly light ... glorious, golden light! An’ angels in white wings an’ harps a-singin’, a-singin’.... When yo’ plays sometimes, Mr. Loer ... dem waily shatterin’ tones ... dey sings like dat. Dey music ... it starts _away_ down an’ it leaps _away_ up!” She ironed. “Clara, what would you say if I told you that was all a dream--what you saw?” She beamed and ironed. “The wise people, Clara, the wise men who study deep and who write books ... they say all that is nonsense.” Clara beamed. “Dey ain’t wise ef dey say dat, Mr. Loer.” She was bent over her towels, beaming upon her towels. Towel after towel she ironed, folded, laid upon the pile of towels at her side ... her brown face beaming. She stopped. She straightened and looked at Karl. Then she went back to her work.... II