Robert's aged mother came to him, and said she could remain
as long as he wanted her, so that was a comfort to Kate, who took
time to pity him, even in her blackest hour. She had some very
black ones. She could have wailed, and lamented, and relinquished
all she had gained, but she did not. She merely went on with
life, as she always had lived it, to the best of her ability when
she was so numbed with grief she scarcely knew what she was doing.
She kept herself driven about the house, and when she could find
no more to do, took Little Poll in her arms and went out in the
fields to Adam, where she found the baby a safe place, and then
cut and husked corn as usual. Every Sabbath, and often during the
week, her feet carried her to the cemetery, where she sat in the
deep grass and looked at those three long mounds and tried to
understand life; deeper still, to fathom death.
She and her mother had agreed that there was "something." Now
Kate tried as never before to understand what, and where, and why,
that "something" was. Many days she would sit for an hour at a
time, thinking, and at last she arrived at fixed convictions that
settled matters forever with her.
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