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shooting birds (he was an excellent shot; so all his boys had been) and he pitied the blood and drooping which followed. But Veronica was like a child—she beamed and giggled like Lucy herself—whenever he proffered wildfowl. Black Naomi had a special blue earthenware dish in which she cooked them. She used wine and onions—
    Coffee and Jem had made great strides with the potatoes. A good two-thirds of the Brimstones were dug, and by noontime the hands would doubtless be ready to start in on the Hayti yams, which they preferred for the table, and which it was easier to raise as fare for the slaves because the Hayti yams were more prolific and they stored well. Common yams were the most prolific of all, but had rather a pumpkinish flavor. Ira couldn’t abide growing them.
    Coffee. Did you dig these?
    Coffee was a long-armed, long-faced fellow with Indian blood apparent. Nossuh, Mastah, I use the hoe. That Jem there—he got the old potato hook. I done told him to look sharp.
    Well, Jem, suppose you try the hoe instead. Potato hook’s a tricky implement. You’ve hurt a few in this hill. Look there. And there, in the next. . . .
    Real sorry, Mastah. They just jump up out of the earth and get themselves tore, fore I know what they’s about.
    Hear me, Jem. Do you use the hoe from now on, and give the hook to Coffee. And slow with the hoe. You’ll need to eat the ones you bruise, and they don’t keep long so. That you know.
    Jem, wide and black and rubbery as to body, stood grinning weakly in an attitude of shame.
    Caution, Jem, use caution. Hear me, now?
    Mastah, I surely take care.
    Gracious, thought Ira, I neglected to look into the pine straw situation. But there’ll be sufficient, over on Little Sweetwater. We fetched none from there last year. . . . He continued to give the slaves detailed instructions. He had decided that they shouldn’t get into the yams today. There was sun, and the crop would have to undergo a good drying for several hours before the piles were started. There were the floors of piles to be built, the trenches to be dug around the floors; then a few days of sustained drying should continue under pine straw only, before the piles were finally earthed up and barked up.
    Ira went on toward the big house (oh Lord, if only he had paint) and stopped a moment at the implement shed, which he unlocked with a key selected from the hefty wad at his belt. He cleaned his budding knife and hung it in its groove. Then, locking up, he walked on around through the narrow carriageway, aiming for the west end of the gallery where he wished to examine some cold frames he’d built. But he was surprised to find a gig under the big oak, with an old black horse tied and eating oak leaves. At first Ira thought that the advent of this horse and rig must have something to do with the surveyors he encountered; they had so few callers these days. Then he recognized the horse as belonging to the Reverend Mr. Cato Dillard of Americus.
    He heard a voice— Poppy, she said, and it was Lucy, rising drunkenly from the top step where she’d been sitting. She is grown suddenly ill, thought Ira. An epidemic, perhaps? Some fever has struck? He limped toward her and held out his arms as the girl came swaying down the steps.
    Oh, Poppy, and she nuzzled deep into his wide-flung coat. Poppy. It’s Badge.
    Lucy— The minister’s horse—
    They wrote to him. A colonel did—and—a surgeon. They wrote to him first. Reckoned it’d be easier on— On us.
    Where’s Mr. Dillard? Where’s your mother, child? He shook her as if he hated her.
    She’s on her bed. They came— It was an hour ago. The letters only reached them last night. Mrs. Dillard is with Mother, and he’s praying up there. He wished me to stay for prayers. I didn’t wish to pray.
    Still holding her in his arms, he waited and waited. Finally he could command his voice and make it do what he wanted. He could make it talk and sound like a human being, not like a