He steered the mules down another furrow, and angered more at himself than at them, jerked hard on the reins. The plow had gone a bit to one side, so that instead of being in rhythm with all the rest, the furrow curved away from them. Joe stopped and passed a hand over his sweating forehead. Twenty years or more ago his father had whipped him unmercifully for plowing a crooked furrow. From then until now he had never plowed one. Joe turned the mules and straightened the furrow so that it matched the rest. From that time on, in order not to repeat the error, he had to watch himself and that made plowing twice the work. With an exhaustion equal to--maybe greater than--last night's, Joe saw the first long shadows of evening. For the first time, rather than providing a refuge from problems, his house seemed to admit them with him. There was no peace and none of the calm that paid for a day's work. When dinner was over, the almost electric restlessness that tormented him mounted to supercharged heights. "Do you know what?" he said fiercely, "I wish we could go to a good hoedown tonight! A real rip-snorter with everything in it!" "Go down to the store and find out when the next one is and where," Emma urged. "I wouldn't mind going to a party myself." Joe walked down the path toward the store, and in his mind, as he walked, he tried to create some of the camaraderie he would know when he reached it. He could not. The sky might as well have been nonexistent, and he was scarcely conscious of the cool night air fanning his cheek. _It was not Elias alone. It was not his ruined crops alone. It was more that he couldn't stretch without bumping someone else's ribs._ Unless a person had enough money to start with, or was exceptionally lucky, he was lost here. It was not the way to live and certainly it was not the way for his family to live. Mechanically Joe strode toward the store and he was on the point of entering when a man moved toward him. "Hi, Joe," Elias Dorrance said. "Hi." "I heard," said the other, "that you lost your crops." Joe waited an interminable moment, until it occurred to him that, by now, everyone must have heard it. Then he said, "That's right." Elias Dorrance asked, "What will you do now?" "Plant more crops." "The frost will get them." "That's a chance I take." "I'm sorry," Elias said. "I'm really sorry, and I know you're worried about me. You don't have to worry. You're a good farmer and a man of your word, and you're honest. I'll take another note until next fall." "On what?" Joe asked. Elias Dorrance's shrug was half seen in the night. "Your mules, your harness, your wagon, your livestock, your household goods. You can cover it." For a moment Joe stood blankly, the offer not even registering. Then a slow anger that mounted by leaps and bounds grew within him.