It was in this mood that she welcomed one morning the sight of Ellen Hands and Little Liza going past on the road below. "Howdy," called Ellen, as the bride showed a disposition to come down and talk to them. Each woman carried a big, heavy basket woven of white oak splints. Little Liza held up hers and shook it. "We're on our way to pick peas," she shouted. "Don't you want to come and go 'long? Bring yo' basket. They' mighty good eating when they' fresh this-a-way." Callista would have said no, but she remembered the empty cupboard, and turned back seeking a proper receptacle. At home, they considered field-peas poor food, but beggars must not be choosers. She joined the two at the gate in a moment with a sack tucked under her arm. It was a delightful morning after the rain. She was glad she could come. The peas were better than nothing, and she would get one of the girls to show her about cooking them. "Whose field are you going to?" she asked them, carelessly. "Why, yo' gran'-pappy's. Didn't you know it, Callisty?" asked Little Liza in surprise. "He [160] said he was going to plow under next week, and we was welcome to pick what we could." Callista drew back with a burning face. "I--I cain't--" she began faintly. "You-all girls go on. I cain't leave this morning. They's something back home that I have obliged to tend to." She turned and fairly ran from the astonished women. But when her own door was shut behind her, she broke down in tears. A vast, unformulated resentment surged in her heart against her young husband. She would not have forgone anything of that charm in Lance which had tamed her proud heart and fired her cold fancy; but she bitterly resented the lack of any practical virtue a more phlegmatic man might have possessed. She shut herself in her own house, half sullenly. Not from her should anyone know the poor provider her man was. She had said that she would not go home without a gift in her hand, she had bidden mother and grandfather to take dinner with her--and it appeared horrifyingly likely that there might hardly be dinner for themselves, much less that to offer a guest. Well, Lance was to blame; let him look to it. It was a man's place to provide; a woman could only serve what was provided. With that she would set to work and clean all the cabin over in furious zeal--forgetting to cook the scanty supper [161] till it was so late that Lance, coming home, had to help her with it. Things looked their worst when, one morning, little Polly Griever came running up from the gulch, panting out her good news. "Oh, Callisty, don't you-all want to come over to our house? The sawgrum-makers is thar, an' Poppy Cleaverage has got the furnace all finished up, and Sylvane and him was a-haulin' in sawgrum from the field yiste'dy all day." Sorghum-making is a frolic in the southern mountains, somewhat as the making of cider is further north.