She would draw her bed a little aside
from the camp fire and from the low seclusion of a thicket lie watching
the nimble flames at their merry dance, smiling lazily at the grotesque
shadows cast by Jake and his frau as they moved about the blaze. And
she would wake in the morning clear-headed, alert, grateful for the
pleasant woodland smells arising wholesomely from the fecund bosom of
the earth.
Lauer pulled up before his own cabin at mid-afternoon of the fourth
day, unloaded his own stuff, and drove to his neighbor's with the rest.
"I'll walk back after a little," Hazel told him, when he had piled her
goods in one corner of the kitchen.
The rattle of the wagon died away. She was alone--at home. Her eyes
filled as she roved restlessly from kitchen to living-room and on into
the bedroom at the end. Bill had unpacked. The rugs were down, the
books stowed in familiar disarray upon their shelves, the bedding
spread in semi-disorder where he had last slept and gone away without
troubling to smooth it out in housewifely fashion.
She came back to the living-room and seated herself in the big chair.
She had expected to be lonely, very lonely. But she was not.
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