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face,” Gracie muttered. “Quits.”
    “You ready to go?” Sarah pulled her to her feet and picked the leaves out of her hair.
    “I don’t mess.”
    “Okay.” Sarah tugged a brown plait.
    The road widened out, and a split-rail fence replaced the trees to the north. Beyond the fence lay a field, harvested and plowed under, looking rich with its jeweling of colored leaves. They climbed over the rails and struck out across the plowed ground toward the Ebbitt house and barn, a quarter-mile distant.
    Gracie stumbled and caught her sister’s skirt to steady herself. “Mr. Ebbitt don’t like us walking through the field,” she said peevishly as the clods broke under her small boots, turning her ankles and tripping her. “Mr. Ebbitt says we’re to go around on the road like people, ’stead of traipsing through the field like rabbits.”
    Sarah raised her skirts a little and picked her way daintily over the uneven ground. “Road’s the long way ’round, Gracie.”
    Gracie gave her sister a baleful stare.
    Beyond the barn, Sam, his shirtsleeves rolled down and his collar buttoned to his throat, stood with his back to them. Lifting hispowerful arms over his head, he squeezed the wooden legs of a post-hole digger together before plunging it into the ground.
    “Hey, Mr. Ebbitt,” Gracie called. She waved as he put his beard over his shoulder to see who was hailing him.
    “Afternoon, Gracie, Sarah.” He set the post-hole digger against the rails and mopped the sweat from his eyes with a grayish handkerchief. “How’s your ma and pa?”
    “They’re fine, Mr. Ebbitt; we come to ask you to dinner before the hayride, is all.” Sarah chewed on her underlip. She stopped when she realized he was noticing.
    “Sarah,” Gracie piped, “Mam said I could ask, and now you went and did it!”
    “You ask me too, punkin, and I’ll come sure. How’s that?” Sam leaned down, putting his hands on his knees; his torso was big for a short man.
    “Come on, Gracie, we’d better be getting back.” Sarah squinted at the sun. “It must be after two.”
    “Whyn’t we ride back with Mr. Ebbitt?” Gracie jumped onto the fence and sat on the top rail with her feet curled behind the lower one to steady herself.
    “We ain’t been asked. Besides, we’d best be helping Mam with dinner.” Sarah took her sister’s hand and tugged, but the little girl clung like a monkey.
    Sam pulled his watch out of his pocket and flipped it over in his palm. “It’s near three. You may as well stay put and I’ll run you home when I go over. No sense walking all that way.” Sarah started to protest, but Sam had turned back to his work. “I’ll square it with your ma.” Gracie shot Sarah a triumphant glance before bestowing all of her attention on Sam Ebbitt.
    Sarah leaned against the fence, her face tilted back to catch the sun. The regular chuff-chunk of the post-hole digger biting into the earth was hypnotic and the day was still and dreamy. Sam worked on, lifting and plunging mechanically, a pile of dark earth growing beside the neat round hole. Gracie chattered, sometimes eliciting a grunt in return, but not seeming to mind when she didn’t.
    Bored, Sarah walked along the fenceline back toward the farm buildings. The doors of the barn stood open and a block of sun fell on the mountain of chopped hay stored against the winter. On the back wall, up under the rafters, were row on row of mud-and-straw bubbles the size of a man’s two fists. The swallows had desertedthem for the south but, protected from the rain, the nests stayed on. Sarah threw her arms back and, chin high, ran through the wide doors to fling herself into the hay.
    There was a clanking as a length of chain was let out and Sam’s dog careened around the corner of the house, teeth bared, growling. Sarah sat up abruptly and started to scratch her way up onto the piled hay. The chain ran out when the dog was still twenty yards from the barn, and jerked him off his feet. She