"Been over in the pasture," answered Jerome, with quick and yet
rather defiant obedience, as he opened the door.

His mother's face, curiously triangular in outline, like a cat's,
with great hollow black eyes between thin parted curtains of black
false hair, confronted him when he entered the room. She always sat
face to the door and window, and not a soul who passed or entered
escaped her for a minute. "What have you been doing in the pasture?"
said she.

"Sittin'."

"Sittin'?"

"I've been sitting on the warm side of the big rock a little while,"
said Jerome. He looked subdued before his mother's gaze, and yet not
abashed. She always felt sure that there was some hidden reserve of
rebellion in Jerome, coerce him into obedience as she might. She
never really governed him, as she did her daughter Elmira, who stood
washing dishes at the sink. But she loved Jerome better, although she
tried not to, and would not own it to herself.

"Do you know what time it is?" said she, severely.

Jerome glanced at the tall clock in the corner. It was nearly ten. He
glanced and made no reply. He sometimes had a dignified masculine
way, beyond his years, of eschewing all unnecessary words. His mother
saw him look at the time; why should he speak? She did not wait for
him. "'Most ten o'clock," said she, "and a great boy twelve years old
lazing round on a rock in a pasture when all his folks are working.
Here's your mother, feeble as she is, workin' her fingers to the
bone, while you're doing nothing a whole forenoon. I should think
you'd be ashamed of yourself. Now you take the spade and go right out
and go to work in the garden. It's time them beans are in, if they're
going to be. Your father has had to go down to the wood-lot and get a
load of wood for Doctor Prescott, and here 'tis May and the garden
not planted. Go right along." All the time Jerome's mother talked,
her little lean strong fingers flew, twirling bright colored rags in
and out. She was braiding a rug for this same Doctor Prescott's wife.
The bright strips spread and twirled over her like snakes, and the
balls wherein the rags were wound rolled about the floor. Most women
kept their rag balls in a basket when they braided, but Ann Edwards
worked always in a sort of untidy fury.

Jerome went out, little hungry boy with the winter chill again
creeping through his veins, got the spade out of the barn, and set to
work in the garden. The garden lay on the sunny slope