But the voice and the swift-moving car did not stir Clara. She tried not
to hear the voice, and fixing her eyes on the soft landscape flowing past
under the moon, tried to think of other times and places. She thought of
nights when she had walked with Kate Chanceller through the streets of
Columbus, and of the silent ride she had taken with Hugh that night they
were married. Her mind went back into her childhood and she remembered the
long days she had spent riding with her father in this same valley, going
from farm to farm to haggle and dicker for the purchase of calves and pigs.
Her father had not talked then but sometimes, when they had driven far and
were homeward bound in the failing light of evening, words did come to him.
She remembered one evening in the summer after her mother died and when
her father often took her with him on his drives. They had stopped for the
evening meal at the house of a farmer and when they got on the road again,
the moon came out. Something present in the spirit of the night stirred
Tom, and he spoke of his life as a boy in the new country and of his
fathers and brothers. "We worked hard, Clara," he said. "The whole country
was new and every acre we planted had to be cleared." The mind of the
prosperous farmer fell into a reminiscent mood and he spoke of little
things concerning his life as a boy and young man; the days of cutting wood
alone in the silent, white forest when winter came and it was time for
getting out firewood and logs for new farm buildings, the log rollings to
which neighboring farmers came, when great piles of logs were made and set
afire that space might be cleared for planting.
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