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went.
    Mother sat alone with the baby. Father stirred soup in the kitchen, and I heard Lark and Zard quarreling there. I uncovered the cobbler, reaching it to Mother. The sweety smell rose in my face. My mouth watered. I spoke loudly, for Mother had plugs of wool in her ears to dim the cry of locusts; I said what the drummer’s woman told me to say. The baby leaned to see. Then we heard Father coming, and Lark and Zard following. Mother whispered quickly, “I’m grateful, and hit’s a pity to waste, yet we can’t trust eating berries. Haste thecobble-pie to the pig pen, and don’t name to the others.” But time was only left to shove the bowl under the bed.
    â€œAll the locusts in Egypt couldn’t make a racket equaling these two,” Father told Mother. “Fussing o’er nothing but who could blow the largest spool bubble. I mixed hope with that soup you’d soon be up and at these young ’uns. I biled enough to last two days.”
    â€œI’ll mend once the plague’s ended,” Mother said. “Any day now the locusts will hush. I long to give these chaps a taste o’ soap and water.”
    â€œFern come into the kitchen,” Father said, “and it tuck a minute to tell be she varmint or vixen. Hit’d worry the mare’s currycomb to thrash the burrs.”
    Zard peeked at the baby and sulled. He was green jealous. He dropped to his knees and crawled toward the bed. He scampered under.
    â€œAnother sight I glimpsed today,” Father went on, “and hit was that drummer’s woman combing a nag’s mane. I never stayed to see if she bowed it with ribbons.” He turned upon me, keeping his face sober. “And I’ve looked up our mare in the books. One more page-leaf to turn before knowing when.”
    â€œOnly would Fern take a lesson,” Mother said uneasily, making a sign. I snatched the bowl, and neither Lark nor Father noticed, for Mother raised the baby’s head. Father chuckled, “See the bubble she’s pucked with her mouth. Beats any you fellers can blow.”
    â€œNo bigger’n a pea,” Lark discounted.
    Father snapped a thumb and forefinger. “Be-jibs, if we hain’t got to get rid o’ this little ’un. Not a kind word’s allowed her.”
    I stole away to the pig pen, uncovered the bowl, and found the berry cobbler half eaten. Zard had gobbled it. I was fearful, believing him poisoned, thinking he might die. I remembered the bottle of medicine. Could I persuade him to swallow a dose? A thought sprung in my head. I’d dose all—the mare, Mother, and Zard. The drummer had vowed itwould straighten out man or beast. They’d take medicine, and not know.
    I hastened to the barn, pouring a knuckle’s depth of the medicine into a scoop of oats. The mare poked her great yellow tongue into the grain; she ground her teeth. She ate the last bit, and licked the trough. She was mighty fat, I recollect.
    On I hied to the house. I tipped inside the kitchen. There was the soup pot boiling on the stove, and I emptied nearly all of the medicine into it. All but one draft went into the soup.
    Suddenly a tick tick sounded behind the stove. I thrust the bottle pocket-deep, and looked. It was Fern, hidden with a comb in her hand.
    â€œHumph,” Fern said, hiding the comb. I could scarcely see her eyes through a brush of hair. She spoke threateningly, “I saw that baldy drummer show you where my playhouse is. If you go there, they’s something will scare yore gizzard.”
    â€œHumph,” I said, mocking.
    The next morning the locusts had hushed. Cast skins clung to trunks and boughs, and it was as quiet as the first day of the world. Ere dew dried I waited in the bottom for the drummer folk to go. So great the stillness was, my breath seemed a thunder in my chest. I saw the drummer and his woman climb into their wagon and drive up-hill to our house; I saw Father