The west was fast losing colour, like a bright-hued fabric that has been drenched in water, and a thick, blue mist, shot with fireflies, shrouded the wide common.  A fresh, sharp odour rose from the dew-steeped earth, giving place, as he gained upon the flock, to the smell of moist wool.  As he brushed the heavy, purple tubes of Jamestown weeds long-legged insects flew out and struck against his arm before they fell in a drunken stupor to the grass below.

The boy made his way cautiously, his figure becoming blurred as the mist wrapped him like a blanket.  The darkness was gathering rapidly.  From the far-off horizon clouds of lavender were melting, and the pines had gone gray.

Presently a white patch glimmered in the midst of the pasture, and he began to call softly: 

“Coo-sheep!  Coo-sheep!”

A tremulous bleat answered, but as he neared the flock it scattered swiftly, the errant leaders darting shyly behind the looming outlines of sassafras bushes.  Again he called, and again the plaintive cry responded, growing fainter as several fleeter ewes sped past him to the beech trees beside the little stream.

The space before the boy was suddenly spangled with fireflies, and the mist grew denser.

He broke off a branch of sassafras and started at a brisk run, rounding by some dozen yards the startled ewes.  The scattered white blotches closed together as he ran towards them, and fled, bleating, to the flock where it clustered at the pasture gate.

In a moment he had driven them across the road and behind the bars of the cow-pen.

When he entered the house a little later he found that the family had had supper, a single plate remaining for himself.  His stepmother, looking jaded and nervous, was putting salted herring to soak in an earthenware bowl, while she scolded Sairy Jane, who was patching Jubal’s apron.

“It’s goin’ on ten years sence I’ve stopped to draw breath,” said Marthy Burr, “an’ I’m clean wore out.  ’Tain’t no better than a dog’s life, nohow—­a woman an’ a dog air about the only creeturs as would put up with it, an’ they’re the biggest pair of fools the Lord ever made.  Here I’ve been standin’ at the tub from sunrise to sunset, with my jaw a’most splittin’ from my face, an’ thar’s yo’ pa a-settin’ at his pipe as unconsarned as if I wa’nt his lawful wife—­the more’s the pity!  It’s the lawful wives as have the work to do, an’ the lawfuller the wives the lawfuller the work.  If this here government ain’t got nothin’ better to do than to drive poor women till they drop I reckon we’d as well stop payin’ taxes to keep it goin’.”

Nicholas wiped his heated brow on his shirt-sleeve and hung his hat on the back of a bottomless chair.  Jubal, who was rolling on the floor, gave a gurgle and made a grab at it, to be soundly boxed by his mother as she reseated him at Sairy Jane’s feet.  His gurgle wavered dolorously and rose into a howl.