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in hand. Little Battle tore through the house but didn't stop a minute, except to spank Dabney hard. Mary Lamar Mackey dreamily called, "Where are you all going?"
    "Now get away from Dabney
everybody
, and let her go," said Ellen. "No, Dabney, not Ranny either, this time. You'll dawdle and let him fall off the horse—and Primrose and Jim Allen'11 have to invite you to supper."
    "Will they have spoon bread?" cried India.
    "That's enough, India. You can carry that bucket of molasses if you're going, and I think I'll send a taste more of that blackberry wine—wait till I pour it off."
    "You can wear this, Dabney." On her two forefingers India offered up the leaf hat to her sister, who had on a new dress.
    "Oh, I couldn't! Never mind, you wear it," said Dabney. She herself fixed it on India's hair. Dabney had gotten awfully fixy, said the calm stare in India's eyes at that moment. The little girl set her jaw, Dabney frowned, and one of the rose thorns did scratch.
    "Be sure that sack on the front porch gets to Jim Allen!" called their mother from the back porch. "Oh, where's my wine!"
    "Vi'let! Vi'let!"
    "Take Aunt Primrose my plaid wool and my cape pattern!" called Shelley from right under their feet. She was under the house looking for the key to the clock which she insisted had fallen through the floor. "In Mama's room! Vi'let!"
    Dabney drew her brows together for a moment—Shelley was a year older than she was, and now that Dabney was the one getting married, she seemed to spend her time in the oddest places. She ought to be getting ready for Europe. She had to go in a month. She said she "simply couldn't" go to any of the bridge parties, that they were "just sixty girls from all over the Delta come to giggle in one house." She would hardly go to the dances, some nights. "Shelley, come out!...Mama, do you think they want
all
those hyacinth bulbs?" she called.
    "They're onions! India, did you call Little Uncle to bring up Junie and Rob?"
    "Little Uncle!"
    "Wait a second, India," said Dabney. She caught at her sticking-out skirt. "You look plenty tacky, India—you're just the age where you look tacky and that's all there is to it." She sighed again, and ran lightly down the steps. "You ride with the onions, I'm going to see Troy tonight."
    "Well, my golly," said India.
    "We ought to send them back that candy dish—but can't send it back empty!" called Ellen in a falling voice.
    Little Uncle and Vi'let got them loaded up on the horses and fixed all the buckets and sacks so they weren't very likely to fall open. "I don't know why we didn't take the car," Dabney said dreamily. They rode out the gate.
    India said, "Haven't I got to see Troy, and the whole family got to see Troy, Troy, Troy, every single night the rest of our lives, besides the day? Does Troy hate onions? Does he declare he hates them? Does he hate peaches? Figs? Black-eyed peas?"
    "We'll be further away than that," said Dabney, still dreamily.

    It was a soft day, brimming with the light of afternoon. It was the fifth beautiful week, with only that one threatening day. The gold mass of the distant shade trees seemed to dance, to sway, under the plum-colored sky. On either side of their horses' feet the cotton twinkled like stars. Then a red-pop flew up from her nest in the cotton. Above in an unbroken circle, all around the wheel of the level world, lay silvery-blue clouds whose edges melted and changed into the pink and blue of sky. Girls and horses lifted their heads like swimmers. Here and there and far away the cotton wagons, of handpainted green, stood up to their wheel tops in the white and were loaded with white, like cloud wagons. All along, the Negroes would lift up and smile glaringly and pump their arms—they knew Miss Dabney was going to step off Saturday with Mr. Troy.
    A man on a black horse rode across their path at right angles, down Mound Field. He waved, his arm like a gun against the sky—it was Troy on Isabelle. A long