not answer, did not even
look at her.

"Do you mean to say you'd be so wicked--such a fool?" she went on.

Now he looked up at her with furious, threatening eyes.

"Shut your mouth and go in!" he said.

She did not move. "If you ain't going to cut it--then I am!"

She turned and started through the house, and he leaped up and
followed her. In the kitchen he overtook her.

"You stay where you are! You don't go out of this house this day!" He
laid a rough, restraining hand on her shoulder.

At that touch--the first harshness she had ever felt from
him--something hot and flaming leaped through her. She whirled away
from him and caught up Aunt Dolcey's big sharp butcher knife lying on
the table; lifted it.

"You put your hands on me like that again and I'll kill you!" Her
voice was not high and shrill now; she did not even raise it. "You and
your getting mad! You and your rotten, filthy temper! You'd waste that
wheat because you haven't got enough sense to see what a big fool you
are."

She dropped the knife and walked past him, out of the kitchen, to the
barn.

"Unc' Zenas," she called, "you hitch up the horses to the reaper. I'm
going to cut that near field to-day myself."

"But, Miss Annie----" began the old man.

"You hitch up that team," she said. "If there ain't any men round this
place, I don't know's it makes so much difference."

She waited while the three big horses were brought out and hitched to
the reaper, and then she mounted grimly to the seat. She did not even
look around to see if Wes might be watching. She did not answer when
Unc' Zenas offered a word of direction.

"Let dat nigh horse swing round de cornahs by hisse'f, Miss Annie. He
knows. An' look--here's how you drop de knife. I'll let down de bars
an' foller you."

Behind her back he made frantic gestures to Dolcey to come to him,
and she ran, shuffling, shaken. Together they followed the little
figure in the blue calico dress, perched high on the rattling,
clacking reaper. Her hair shone in the sun like the wheat.

The near horse knew the game, knew how to lead the others. That was
Annie's salvation. As she swung into the field she had a struggle with
the knife, but it dropped into place, and the first of the golden
harvest fell before it squarely, cleanly; the stubble was even behind
it. She watched the broad backs of her team, a woman in a dream. She
did not know how she drove them; the lines were heavy in her hands,
dragged