She's got to get used to it, and they'll just hinder her," he said, quite aloud to himself, having in some strange fashion discovered the truth that the human mind must adjust itself to its true balance after the upheaval of sorrow.
After the beans were planted it was only nine o'clock.

Jerome went soberly down the garden-slope, stepping carefully between the planted ridges, then into the house, with a noiseless lift of the latch and glide over the threshold; for Elmira signalled him from the window to be still.
His mother sat in her high-backed rocker, fast asleep, her sharp eyes closed, her thin mouth gaping, an expression of vacuous peace over her whole face, and all her wiry little body relaxed.

Jerome motioned to Elmira, and the two tiptoed out across the little front entry to the parlor.
"How long has she been asleep ?" whispered Jerome.
"'Most an hour.

You don't s'pose mother's goin' to die too, do you, Jerome ?" "Course she ain't." "I never saw her go to sleep in the daytime before.

Mother don't act a mite like herself.