then the cut in the
embankment, then they could see the wrecked car standing on the engine
and lying against a big tree, near the water, while two men and a woman
were carrying a limp form across the meadow toward the house. As their
car stopped, Kate kissed the baby mechanically, handed her to Adam, and
ran into the house where she dragged a couch to the middle of the first
room she entered, found a pillow, and brought a bucket of water and a
towel from the kitchen. They carried Nancy Ellen in and laid her down.
Kate began unfastening clothing and trying to get the broken body in
shape for the doctor to work upon; but she spread the towel over what
had been a face of unusual beauty. Robert came in a few minutes, then
all of them worked under his directions until he suddenly sank to the
floor, burying his face in Nancy Ellen's breast; then they knew. Kate
gathered her sister's feet in her arms and hid her face beside them.
The neighbours silently began taking away things that had been used,
while Mrs. Howe chose her whitest sheet, and laid it on a chair near
Robert.

Two days later they laid Nancy Ellen beside her mother. Then they
began trying to face the problem of life without her. Robert said
nothing. He seemed too stunned to think. Kate wanted to tell him of
her final visit with Nancy Ellen, but she could not at that time.
Robert's aged mother came to him, and said she could remain as long as
he wanted her, so that was a comfort to Kate, who took time to pity
him, even in her blackest hour. She had some very black ones. She
could have wailed, and lamented, and relinquished all she had gained,
but she did not. She merely went on with life, as she always had lived
it, to the best of her ability when she was so numbed with grief she
scarcely knew what she was doing. She kept herself driven about the
house, and when she could find no more to do, took Little Poll in her
arms and went out in the fields to Adam, where she found the baby a
safe place, and then cut and husked corn as usual. Every Sabbath, and
often during the week, her feet carried her to the cemetery, where she
sat in the deep grass and looked at those three long mounds and tried
to understand life; deeper still, to fathom death.

She and her mother had agreed that there was "something." Now Kate
tried as never before to understand what, and where, and why, that
"something" was. Many days she would sit for an hour at a time,
thinking, and