I put my arm around her shoulders, hooked my hand into her armpit, and hauled her to her feet. She muttered protests and slapped weakly at me with one stinking hand. “Lea’ me ’lone. Want to go to slee’.”

“And you will,” I said. “But in your bed, not out here on the porch.”

I led her-stumbling and snoring, one eye shut and the other open in a bleary glare-across the sitting room. Henry’s door opened. He stood in it, his face expressionless and much older than his years. He nodded at me. Just one single dip of the head, but it told me all I needed to know.

I got her on the bed, took off her shoes, and left her there to snore with her legs spread and one hand dangling off the mattress. I went back into the sitting room and found Henry standing beside the radio Arlette had hounded me into buying the year before.

“She can’t say those things about Shannon,” he whispered.

“But she will,” I said. “It’s how she is, how the Lord made her.”

“And she can’t take me away from Shannon.”

“She’ll do that, too,” I said. “If we let her.”

“Couldn’t you… Poppa, couldn’t you get your own lawyer?”

“Do you think any lawyer whose services I could buy with the little bit of money I have in the bank could stand up to the lawyers Farrington would throw at us? They swing weight in Hemingford County; I swing nothing but a sickle when I want to cut hay. They want that 100 acres and she means for them to have it. This is the only way, but you have to help me. Will you?”

For a long time he said nothing. He lowered his head, and I could see tears dropping from his eyes to the hooked rug. Then he whispered, “Yes. But if I have to watch it… I’m not sure I can…”

“There’s a way you can help and still not have to watch. Go into the shed and fetch a burlap sack.”