Ut had helped to raise Joe from a baby; in fact Ut was still trying to raise him. Joe had plenty of sense; he was able, but he wasted his time drinking, gambling, frolicking, singing. Still when Joe had a drink or two his singing was so beautiful that it made Ut's heart open and shut like a book.

Ut often pleaded with Joe to settle down to some kind of steady work; but Joe laughed at the idea. Nobody would ever catch him getting up at dawn to plow a stumpy field. Ut knew nothing about pleasure, and he had never tried loafing or gambling or drinking, or looked at any woman but Harpa. Ut knew Joe pitied him for such ignorance, such stupid ambition and pride. Now Joe's lean black face shone with amusement. His sharp teeth grinned and his black eyes twinkled as he boasted that he was no proudful fellow, thank God. If he could be the richest man in the whole world he would never spend his good days sweating in a piece of new ground, tied to one lone woman. God made his legs too long to walk all day behind a slow-poking mule. They were made to dance and roam after liquor and good-looking women. His fingers itched when they were not picking a box (guitar) or shooting craps. When he got too old for pleasure then he might settle down; but as long as his body was full of good red blood he would never waste himself working. He had too much sense for that.

"How 'bout it, Harpa? Ain' I right?" Joe asked suddenly.

To Ut's astonishment Harpa hesi

sides to everything. Men ought not to forget everything else but work. Once she heard a preacher read out of the Book at church how lilies and grass and beasts never do a single lick of work, yet they have what they need. Joe had clothes and food and pleasure even if he had no land or house or wife.

26

The next morning, Friday, was Harpa's wash-day. After Ut had filled the wash-pots with water and built a fire under them and carried the clothes down the hill for Harpa, he walked around looking at his things-noting how the cotton and corn throve and were clean of grass, how the potato-vines met in their rows, how the peas were bearing. Now he had every right to be proudful. His work was bearing fruit and proving he had not out-reckoned his strength.

Harpa was up and washing by now, he would go tell her how well everything did.

Hurrying down the narrow path to the spring which ran cool and clear out from under the hill, he soon came to Harpa and the washpots and tubs; but instead of Harpa's bending over the washboard fighting the dirt in the clothes with her two hands, or beating it out with the stout oak paddle, she sat on the ground mournful and cheerless.

"Washin' don' agree wid me, Ut. My back is all but broke,' she moaned forlornly.

"Po' li'l gal," he pitied, "it's dem big bed-sheets, dey is too heavy fo' you to rule, Honey. Le's stop havin' bed-sheets. Quilts won' dirty so fast."

"I ain' sad," Harpa declared. "Ut's de one. Ut is sad 'cause he married me when he might'a married Mocky. She could'a worked in de field an' cooked an' washed an' ironed, an' had de chillen an' patched an' sewed an' had plenty o' time to go to prayer-meetin's too."

Ut said no more; he knew that tone of Harpa's; but Joe's plunkplunking grew louder, steadier, until a gay song began twanging clearly. Then Harpa's anger was gone, all of a sudden. She was little more than a child, after all; and Ut tried to have patience, long patience, with her babyish ways.

She had eaten very little these last hot days, and now she looked so slight, so slender in the moonlight; he felt almost afraid for her strength. Little slim sweet Harpa.

If he went now and set a trap in the river, he might catch some fish for breakfast. Harpa liked fish, and she ought to eat more than she did.

Neither Joe nor Harpa noticed when he got up off the step and went inside to mix up some corn-meal and cotton for fish-bait to put in the trap. When he came back and said, "I'm gwine down to de river, but I'll be back in a minute," Joe said, “All right, old socks." But Harpa answered not a word. She was still cross with him, but she would be over that by morning. She never held her mad long. Easy hurt, easy over it. Easy sad, easy glad, that was Harpa's way.

As Ut ran down the shadowy path with old Sounder following close at his heels, a cool night wind sprang up and high pines overhead began moaning. The frogs and crickets

cheeped lonesomely, but the night birds had little to say.

When a falling-star made a bright spark across the sky, Ut stopped to watch it, for that star made a path for somebody's soul. When he reached the sand-bar by the river an owl flopped out from a hollow tree and whoo-whooed a mournful death call. Ut was startled. Two death signs. Two people were going to die. The star and the owl both said so.

He watched the dark bird's shadow float over the swamp on the tops of the moonlit trees, but the wet sand sucked at his feet. It wanted to swallow him up, but he was not so easily caught. He quickly set the trap, then slowly and thoughtfully mounted the path toward home. Not a sound came from the cabin. Everything was silent except a harsh crackle of dry leaves fretted by the wind.

Joe and Harpa must have gotten tired waiting for him and gone to bed. He would go to sleep too and be up early to get the fish for breakfast, for Mocky was coming to finish the ironing, and if the trap had luck it would catch plenty of fish for her too.

22

Dawn barely hid the stars the next morning when Ut eased stealthily out into the yard. He must feed the things and milk the cow, but he must not wake Harpa.

"Eat a plenty and lay," he murmured softly to the hens as he scattered their corn on the ground. "Harpa likes a lot o' eggs in de bread." When he put a great armful of hay and a dozen ears of corn in the mule's trough, he looked at the

beast's huge belly. This was Saturday, the day to go to town for the week's rations. The road was long and the wagon heavy. He would put some extra ears in the trough.

"Take time and chaw, old man. Git some meat on you' ribs. You' Missus hates to ride behind a pack o' bones," he said gently as he patted the mule's bony sides.

The pig grunted impatiently and peeped at him between the cracks of the rail pen. Ut laughed at such greediness, but he chided him in a whisper, "Don' squeal so loud, son; you'll wake Harpa. Eat you' breakfast. Fatten all you can. Make us a whole tub full o'lard by Christmas." Ut was glad for the day. Every sound was good against the stillness-the cock's proudful crowing, the hens' proudful clucking as they woke up the biddies, the moaning of the wind through the pines.

Smoke and sparks were rushing up out of the cabin chimney, for Mocky had come. She had the fish fried, the bread baked, the coffee boiled, the table set and the kettle on the hearth singing and breathing out a cloud of steam over the row of flat-irons heating by the fire's red blaze. But Harpa was not up and dressed yet.

With a pile of sprinkled clothes rolled tight to hold the moisture, on a chair beside her, Mocky bent over the ironing-board, humming a tune and running a hot iron swiftly, deftly, over the starched bosom of Ut's white Sunday shirt. Drops of sweat ran down her shiny fat face and fell with tiny hissing pats on the iron. When she looked up to say good morning to Ut, her thick mouth smiled a little but her eyes

were full of sulky darkness. "Breakfast sho' smells good, Mocky," Ut praised.

"Harpa's de lazies', triflines' woman I ever seen in my life," Mocky answered.

"Oh no, Mocky. Harpa ain' dat. She jus' don' like to wake up soon. Dat's all. You women-folks sho' is hard on one another, enty Joe?" Ut tried to laugh good-naturedly as he said this, although Mocky's brazen talk about Harpa did sting him.

"Le's eat," Joe suggested. "I'm hongry."

"We may as well. Harpa's mos' ready anyhow."

The three of them sat down and had their pans helped when Harpa came came out of the shed-room; but instead of sitting down with them she stood by the chair and shook her head, "I can' stan' de hotness in dis room, Ut. It would cook a egg. Dat fish smells so sickenin', too. I'm gwine to de spring an' git me a cool drink o' water."

Ut got to his feet, with his mouth full of food, "I'll go wid you, Honey," he mumbled. But Joe dropped his spoon with a click in his pan, and pushed back his chair, "You set down, Ut, and finish you' breakfast. I'll go wid Harpa. I ain' in no hurry to eat. You set down."

Joe took an empty water-bucket off the shelf and followed Harpa out into the yard. It was just as well. A walk in the fresh air would do Harpa good, for the room was too hot and steamy for comfort. Ut helped himself to another piece of fish, then passed the pan to Mocky.

"Take another piece, Mocky. Dis fish is sweet as can be," he said.

Mocky's eyes were two hard black beads, and her mouth was twisted into an ugly pout.

"How come you's such a fool dese days, Ut. You used to have good sense."

Ut could scarcely believe his ears. What did Mocky mean?

“I mean you mus' be blind as a bat. Dat's what I mean," she declared bitterly.

All of a sudden Ut knew what Mocky meant. She was intimating an ugly thing about Harpa and Joe. She was jealous of Harpa. She always had been jealous of any girl he liked, and now she wanted him to believe a filthy lie about his wife. Hot blood made a red glow before his eyes, and he seized Mocky's arm in a grip too tight to be loosened. "Listen, Mocky,”-blind fury almost strangled him—“if you crack you' teeth about Harpa, I'll kill you. I ought to choke you' tongue out right dis minute. You mean, You mean, lyin' hussy-"

"Choke! Go on an' choke. Cuss me much as you want to but dat ain' gwine change Harpa none." Mocky shook all over.

“Gal, if you call Harpa's name one more time I'll wring you' neck same as a chicken-" Ut felt his fingers tightening on Mocky's flesh, but she did not move a muscle. She knew him too well not to yield now. She had to shut her mouth.

The cabin was still as a grave except for the crackling fire. Two bright tears hung in Mocky's eyes, and her lips shook with unspoken words. Then the door-step creaked sharply, and two black shadows fell across the floor. There they lay side by side still and stiff as the head

stones of two graves. Joe and Harpa had come back-were listening— they may have heard every word.

Ut's head was dizzy, his heart sick, his blood full of fever. He staggered out past them into the yard, down the path to the river where he fell prone on the moist bank. There he lay, his face downward on his crossed arms, the hot sun beating on his back, while poisoned thoughts raced through his brain.

Mocky was like all the rest of those black Quarter women—mean, jealous, vain; unhappy, unless they were strewing somebody's name about, dragging it in the dirt. None of them had ever liked Harpa; now they'd be glad to spread a filthy tale about her. Certainly Harpa liked Joe, and Joe liked Harpa too, even if he had never praised her once in his life; but if Mocky ever said one ugly word about them again he'd kill her as quickly as he'd kill a poison snake that threatened them. Mocky hated to see him lawfully married to Harpa and living in a decent way, making something of himself. He knew she would have taken him and not cared one bit whether the preacher ever read out of the Book and prayed over them or not. Mocky was black, her ways and her heart were black. She would be glad to tear down all he had worked and striven to build up. He wouldn't let her. He'd go send her home, make her get out of his house, right now.

Before he got half way up the hill, he met Harpa coming to call him to dinner. Her face and dress were wet with sweat, and her narrow brows were drawn together with a black frown.