They seemed so productive and full of intense, regal life.

comprehend the persistent stubbornness of his

On her face centuries were folded into the circles around one eye, while around the other, etched and mapped as if for print, ages more threatened again to live.

askance.

If I could have read Mordecai’s scribble pad I would know exactly what he thought of me. But now I realize he never once offered to show it to me, though he had a chance to read every serious thought I ever had. I’m afraid to know what he thought. I feel crippled, deformed. But if he ever wrote it down, that would make it true.

“How could such pretty brown fingers write such ugly, deep stuff?” Mordecai asks, kissing them.

After that, Mordecai praised me for my intelligence, my sensitivity, the depth of the work he had seen—and naturally I showed him everything I had:

The characters are poor dairy farmers. One morning the husband is too hung over to do the milking. His wife does it and when she has finished the cows are frightened by thunder and stampede, trampling her. She is also hooked severely in one leg. Her husband is asleep and does not hear her cry out. Finally she drags herself home and wakes him up. He