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IV
As she stepped on the porch, Rambler, an old black and yellow hound, with flapping ears and the expression of a pragmatic philosopher, stole out of the shadows and joined her.
"You'd better come in or Pa will begin to worry about you," she said, and her voice startled her because it did not sound as if it were her own. "I know you've been chasing rabbits again."
She wondered if the suppressed excitement showed also in her face, and if her mother, who noticed everything, would detect it. After she had entered the hall, which smelled of bacon and dried apples, she stopped and tried to rub the bloom of ecstasy off her cheeks. Then, followed sedately by Rambler, she passed the closed door of the parlour, which was opened only for funerals or when the circuit minister was visiting them, and went into the kitchen at the back of the house. The family must have heard the wheels, and it was a mercy, she told herself, that Rufus or Josiah had not come out to meet the buggy.
"Ma, Rose Emily sent you a pat of butter," she said, "and Nathan gave me two pounds of brown sugar."