The horse whinnied at the gate, the calf bleated in its stall and the milch cow answered, the chickens scratched and cackled and the dogs barked with the coming of food and evening. It was good to be hungry and to be fed and the stock was eager with an expectant certainty. The end of winter had been meager; corn short, and hay, and dried cow-peas. But now in April the pastures were green and succulent and even the chickens savored the sprouts of young grass. The dogs had found a nest of young rabbits that evening, and after such tid-bits the scraps from the Baxter supper table were a matter of some indifference. Jody saw old Julia lying under the wagon, worn out from her miles of trotting. He swung open the front paling gate and went to find his father.

Penny Baxter was at the wood-pile. He still wore the coat of the broadcloth suit that he had been married in, that he now wore as badge of his gentility when he went to church, or off trading. The sleeves were too short, not because Penny had grown, but because the years of hanging through the summer dampness, and being pressed with the smoothing iron and pressed again, had somehow shrunk the fabric. Jody saw his father’s hands, big for the rest of him, close around a bundle of wood. He was doing Jody’s work, and in his good coat. Jody ran to him.

“I’ll git it, Pa.”

He hoped his willingness, now, would cover his delinquency. His father straightened his back.

“I near about give you out, son,” he said.

“I went to the Glen.”

“Hit were a mighty purty day to go,” Penny said. “Or to go anywhere. How come you to take out such a fur piece?”

It was as hard to remember why he had gone as though it had been a year ago. He had to think back to the moment when he had laid down his hoe.

“Oh.” He had it now. “I aimed to foller the honey-bees and find a bee-tree.”

“You find it?”

Jody stared blankly.

“Dogged if I ain’t forgot ‘til now to look for it.”

He felt as foolish as a bird-dog caught chasing field mice. He looked at his father sheepishly. His father’s pale blue eyes were twinkling.

“Tell the truth, Jody,” he said, “and shame the devil. Wa’n’t the bee-tree a fine excuse to go a-ramblin’?”

Jody grinned.

“The notion takened me,” he admitted, “afore I studied on the bee-tree.”

“That’s what I figgered. How come me to know, was when I was drivin’ along to Grahamsville, I said to myself, ‘There’s Jody now, and the hoein’ ain’t goin’ to take him too long. What would I do this fine spring day, was I a boy?’ And then I thought, ‘I’d go a-ramblin’.’ Most anywhere, long as it kivered the ground.”

A warmth filled the boy that was not the low golden sun. He nodded.

“That’s the way I figgered,” he said.

“But your Ma, now,” Penny jerked his head toward the house, “don’t hold with ramblin’. Most women-folks cain’t see for their lives, how a man loves so to ramble. I never let on you wasn’t here. She said, ‘Where’s Jody?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I reckon he’s around some’eres.’”

He winked one eye and Jody winked back.

“Men-folks has got to stick together in the name o’ peace. You carry your Ma a good bait o’ wood now.”

Jody filled his arms and hurried to the house. His mother was kneeling at the hearth. The spiced smells that came to his nose made him weak with hunger.

“That ain’t sweet ‘tater pone, is it, Ma?”

“Hit’s sweet ‘tater pone, and don’t you fellers be too long a time now, piddlin’ around and visitin’. Supper’s done and ready.”

He dumped the wood in the box and scurried to the lot. His father was milking Trixie.

“Ma says to git done and come on,” he reported. “Must I feed old Cæsar?”

“I done fed him, son, sich as I had to give the pore feller.” He stood up from the three-legged milking stool. “Carry in the milk and don’t trip and waste it outen the gourd like you done yestiddy.