thought, more than July thought. She was no fool.
June always praised the way she managed things. The last time he brought her a piece of cloth and she cut it out and sewed it with strong, tight stitches into a dress, between supper and time to go to bed, June declared that no other woman in the Quarters could have done it. June praised her cooking too. He liked the way she seasoned things. He bragged that she kept the cleanest house in the Quarters, or on the whole plantation for that matter. But July was so taken up with his own life that he had forgotten Mary had any rights at all. He ate the food she cooked for him, slept in the bed she sunned and aired and made up for him, wore the clothes she washed and patched and darned for him, but he seldom noticed they were mended. When she was weary and down-hearted, July took what shegave him then went his way to find some more cheerful woman to go pleasuring with. She had no hat, no decent shoes. She told him so last night. The protracted meeting would begin next week too, but July laughed and said if a woman wanted to save her soul she must mind her husband and treat him right.
She tried to do that. This morning she was up ahead of the morning star, fixing hot coffee
