As she churned, she thought again of Frank Warner.  This was the limit!  He got so on her nerves, she declared to herself she didn’t care if he never danced with her again.  She wished she had more spunk, like some girls, and could just send him packing.  But she never could think of any sharp things to say to folks, in time.  She was too easy, she knew that, always had been.  Look how long she had put up with Mrs. Hewitt’s snooping around.  And then in the end she had got cold feet and had had to sick ’Gene on to her, to tell her they didn’t want her sitting around all the time and sponging off them at meal-times.

But somehow she didn’t want to ask ’Gene to speak to Frank that way.  She was afraid somehow it would get ’Gene excited.  Mostly he was so still, and then all of a sudden he’d flare up and she never could see a thing to make him then more than any time.  The best thing to do with Gene was to keep him quiet, just as much as she could, not do anything to get him started.  That was why she never went close up to him or put her arms around his neck of her own accord.  She’d like to pet him and make over him, the way she did over the children, but it always seemed to get him so stirred up and everything.  Men were funny, anyhow!  She often had thought how nice it would be if ’Gene could only be another woman.  They could have such good times together.

Why, here was ’Gene himself come in from cultivating corn right in the middle of the morning.  Maybe he wanted a drink.  He came up on the porch, without looking at her and went into the house.  How heavy he walked.  But then he always did.  That was the trouble with his dancing.  You had to step light, to be a good dancer.

There was a crack of thunder again, nearer than the first one.  She heard him ask his mother, “Frank Warner been here?”

And Mother Powers say, “Yes, he come in to ask if we could loan him our compass.  He’s going to go up tomorrow in the Eagle Rock woods to run out the line between the Warner and the Benson woodlots.  The Warners have sold the popple on theirs to the Crittenden mill, and Frank says the blazes are all barked over, they’re so old.”

Oh goody! thought Nelly, there the butter was, come all at once.  The buttermilk was splashing like water.  Yes, even there around the hole you could see the little yellow specks.  Well, she needn’t have got so provoked, after all.  That was fine.  Now she could get at that sprigged dress for Addie, after all, this afternoon.

’Gene came out on the porch again.  She looked at him and smiled.  She felt very happy and relieved that the butter had come so that she could finish working it over before noon.

’Gene glowered at her smiling face and at her hair curling and shining all down her back.  How cross he looked!  Oh bother!  Excited too.  Well, what could the matter be, now?  She should think any man would be satisfied to come in, right in the middle of the morning like that, without any warning, and find his house as spick and span as a pin, and the butter churned and half the day’s work out of the way.  She’d like to know what more he wanted?  Who else could do any better?  Oh bother!  How queer men were!