words. He depended on us,
Doctor."

When the time came to plan definitely for the disposal of the purebred
herd, she went herself to Topeka to arrange details with Baker. She was
constantly thinking: "Now, what would Martin say to this?" or "Would he
approve of that?" And her conclusions were reached accordingly. The
sale itself was an event that was discussed in Fallon County for years
afterwards. The hotel was crowded with out-of-town buyers. Enthused by
the music from two bands, even the local people bid high, and through
it all, Rose, vigilant, remembered everything Martin would have wanted
remembered. She felt that even he would have been satisfied with
the manner in which the whole transaction was handled, and with the
financial results.

She began to take a new pleasure in everything, the nervous pleasure one
takes when going through an experience for what may be the last time.
The threshing--how often she had toiled and sweated over those three
days of dinners and suppers for twenty-two men. Now she recalled,
with an aching tightness about her heart, how delicious had been her
relaxation, when, the dinner dishes washed, the table reset and the
kitchen in scrupulous order with the last fly vanquished, she and Nellie
had luxuriated in that exquisite sense of leisure that only women know
who have passed triumphantly through a heavy morning's work and have
everything ready for the evening. Later there had been the stroll down
to the field in the shade of the waning afternoon, to find out what time
the men would be in for supper; and the sheer delight of breathing
in the pungent smell of the straw as it came flying from the funnel,
looking, with the sinking sun shining through it, like a million bees
swarming from a hive, while the red-brown grain gushed, a lush stream,
into the waiting wagon.

"It always makes me think of a ship sailing into port, Nellie," Rose
had once exclaimed, "the crop coming in. It gives me a queer kind of
giddiness, makes me feel like laughing and crying all at once," to which
her sister-in-law had returned with more than her usual responsiveness:
"Yes, it's the most excitin' time of the year, unless it's Christmas."

More nebulous were the memories of those early mornings when she had
paused in the midst of getting breakfast to sniff in the clover-laden
air and think how wonderful it would be if only she needn't stay in the
hot, stuffy kitchen but could be free to call Bill and go picnic