they were not the real 'Voices.' You made it."
"Yes, I made it; and I was truly calling that to you. And you replied; you came to me."
"Ah, but that is different from the 'Voices' she heard."
"But if they called the truth to you—what then?"
"Doctah, there is no longer any hope for me. God called me and let me cut off all hope, once. I did it, and now, only death can change it."
"If I believe you, you must believe me. We won't talk of it any more. I'm hungry. Your mother was churning up there; let's go and get some buttermilk, and settle the business of the rent. You've run three good furrows and I'll run three more beside them—my first, remember, in all my life. Then we'll plant that strip to sunflowers. Come, Hoyle, tie the mule and follow us."
So David carried his way. They walked merrily back to the house, chattering of his plans and what he would raise. He knew nothing whatever of the sort of crops to be raised, and she was naïvely gay at his expense, a mood he was overjoyed to awaken in her. He vowed that merely to walk over ploughed ground made a man stronger.
On the porch he sat and drank his buttermilk and, placing his paper on the step, drew up a contract for rent. Then Cassandra went to her weaving, and he and Hoyle returned to the field,